My project is a history of the Center for Editions of American Authors, a government-funded, Cold War-era organization tasked with publishing scholarly editions of nineteenth-century American writers from 1963-1976. CEAA editors claimed that their methodology could restore authorial intention to...

Factorization has played an important role in mathematics. For example, 14 = 2 * 7. Here, we could call the numbers 2 and 7 atoms since they cannot be factored further into smaller pieces. Much like in the real world, some atoms behave differently than other atoms. In this thesis, we will...

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a disease in which the body’s immune system attacks the central nervous system, causing progressive disability. We have identified a subset of immune cells (called CD8+ T cells) that is capable of suppressing, preventing and treating disease in animal models. We can even...

Data comes in many different forms. One of those forms is point cloud. In topological data analysis (TDA), we understand data by analyzing the shape of the data (graph). TDA Mapper is an algorithm whose input is point could and whose output is graph. There are two aspects to my research: improving...

Bioadhesive strategies for drug delivery are advantageous compared to current therapies since it has ability to increase the residence time of the drug at the site of application. My research focuses on understanding the effect of bioadhesive drug delivery systems on buccal and esophageal absorption...

My dissertation is a historical examination of how narratives of disability affected the careers and experiences of city teachers between 1930 and 1970. My analysis of archival sources revealed that school and city leaders explicitly linked good teaching with lack of a disability. This research...

Changes in public policies directed at food establishment have the ability to affect the consumption and nutrition of consumers through changes in product prices and quality. My dissertation investigates how food prices and quality change in response to policies such as the minimum wage, sugar...

Cancer immunotherapies are achieving promising results in the clinic, yet further improvements are desired. These most likely will be obtained from approaches that includes enhanced stimulation of tumor-specific T-cells, as well as reducing the immunosuppression caused by the tumor. Our results...

Lying in the intersection of ring theory and linear algebra, this work focuses on "invertible algebras," algebras in which every element can be uniquely written as a sum of invertible elements, and on "I2 algebras," invertible algebras where each element can additionally be written as a sum of the...

This dissertation shows that just as digital games have become more literary, filmic, and dramatic, so too has literature become more game-like, or ludic. I argue that certain works of literary fiction, digital poetry, and interactive theater constitute a kind of hybrid media that rely on the user’s...

My work has been focused on the design and synthesis of novel organic compounds that display interesting bioactivity in human cells. These compounds were developed with regard to their potential to aid in the treatment of a variety of different cancers and infectious diseases, either through direct...

Collective migrations of cells are essential to development and are common during metastasis. However, regulatory mechanisms required for this complex process are poorly understood. Our goal is to determine the role that Prostaglandins, lipid signaling molecules, play in regulating collective cell...

The stigma associated with stuttering is toxic to psychological health outcomes among adults who stutter (AWS). Compared to fluent speakers, AWS are vulnerable to experiencing elevated levels of anxiety. Yet, there is variability in anxiety levels within the population of AWS, and little is known...

Rates of childhood overweight and obesity remain high and novel approaches are needed to address this public health issue. The current proposal aims to investigate the relationship between parental levels of weight stigma (i.e., prejudicial attitudes or discriminatory behavior targeted at...

My research uses photopolymerization to alter polymer morphology by creating different polymeric phases within the polymer network. The multi-phase polymers are formed by using monomers that do not react with each other and their structure depends on photopolymerization conditions as well as the...

Noise induced hearing loss is the most common form of hearing impairment. Exposure to high intensity noise induces minor damages to the auditory neurons, which cannot be diagnosed by conventional audiometric methods. Noise induced damages will accumulate over time and could lead to debilitating...

I examined news coverage of climate change in South Korea, from 1995 to 2015, in the consideration to reveal how those holding neoliberal ideologies have co-opted environmental discourses in Korea that have traditionally been used by more progressive and pro-environmental groups in order to promote...

Patients with Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) display an increased softening of brain tissue as well as an accumulation of amyloid-beta (Aβ) plaques. My research aims to understand the role of this tissue softening in AD pathology by looking at the behavior of neurons when plated on gels with varying...

In politics, most countries in the world have a conflict among different parties. For example, U.S. is well-known with two main political parties: Republican versus Democrat. Recent studies revealed political polarization in the distribution and consumption of political news (e.g. Fox News is...

The overarching goal of my thesis research is to understand how phosphorus ligand structure and design controls the chemical reactivity of metal complexes. My thesis describes findings from two closely related research projects: (1) investigating how ligand modifications give rise to differences in...

Applying data analytics for talent acquisition and retention has been identified as one of the most urgent challenges facing HR leaders around the world. However, it is also one of the challenges that firms are least prepared to tackle. My research strives to narrow such a capability gap between the...

What accounts for the immense variation in genome size and structure is a fundamental biological question. Changes in organismal traits related to genome use and inheritance offer powerful settings to study genome evolution. Sexual reproduction is a hallmark trait for eukaryotes and transitions to...

The perinatal mental health literature had lacked a pregnancy-specific measure of body image until recent publication of the Body Image in Pregnancy Scale (BIPS). Although the BIPS adequately assesses the unique body image attitudes and perceptions of pregnant women, it fails to fully represent...

My research addresses how humans and pigeons combine information about what to do and what not to do in order to make decisions. Using learning tasks involving hundreds of associations, I pinpoint the boundary conditions that prompt organisms to use positive and/or negative information in familiar...

The auditory system provides us useful information about the surroundings. The sound waves entering our ears are transduced into electrical signals and then sent to destinations in the brain. Although the initial stage of sound processing is well understood, little is known about the role of the...

All organisms interact with the world by using perceptual systems to guide their behaviors. Such behaviors are explained by referring to the information processed by the systems. I show that we need to consider how the information has been used by ancestors of the possessor of a perceptual system to...

Supramolecular chemistry aims to exploit non-covalent interactions and subsequently engineer molecules that self-assembly into specific 3D arrangements. In the solid-state, UV-light can be used to achieve reactivity, through [2+2] photocycloadditions, when reactant molecules meet specific criteria...

Studying individuals with cognitive impairments is critical for advancing knowledge and treatment of diseases that cause cognitive impairments. This research examines how cognitive impairments impact the ability to consent to research participation. Normal healthy adults and patients with specific...

My dissertation contributes to bridging the gap between traditional marketing models and Big Data. Applying traditional marketing models to analyze Big Data can be challenging since many of the traditional models are too complex to be applied to Big Data. In the first essay, I develop a marketing...

Enzymes are essential macro-molecules. They play vital roles in maintenance of life by catalyzing biological reactions. Comprehending the link between enzyme motions (dynamics) and their function is important in designing new therapeutic drugs, inhibitors and engineered enzymes with novel...

Individuals with damage to particular regions of the prefrontal cortex often experience dramatic changes in their decision-making abilities and their personalities. These symptoms have been labeled as acquired sociopathy, but it is unclear how they compare with actual psychopaths. My research...

Currently no drug can cure or effectively mediate symptoms of Alzheimer’s disease. As drug advancements are sought, we must identify complementary interventions to help those living with this disease. I examined the effects of a music therapy intervention on social engagement, affective responses...

In mathematics, a collection of functions on a set can be referenced as a function space. We construct a Hilbert function space by requiring the functions to satisfy certain properties. Knowledge derived from nature dictates infinite-dimensional Hilbert spaces. My research has applications in signal...

Radiation therapy (RT) is often used to treat patients with lung cancer; however, irradiation of the surrounding healthy lung tissues during RT may cause damage to the lung. Functional avoidance RT can be used to reduce radiation-induced lung injury by minimizing dose to high-function lung tissues...

The Populus in Early Medieval Rome argues that the idea of the people of Rome provided socio-religious and political legitimation for the popes in the early Middle Ages. Textual sources from papal biographies to liturgical ordines demonstrate that the participation of the populus was obligatory, and...

Cystic fibrosis (CF) is a lethal disorder caused by mutations in the CFTR gene. CF causes severe and progressive lung disease characterized by persistent bacterial infections and bronchiectasis and affects roughly 1 in 2,000 people of European ancestry. My thesis work aims to identify small...

Despite the expectation and desire of elementary school teachers to be culturally relevant (to be able to respond to their students’ cultural practices and needs in the classroom), little is known about how they are expected to gain the cultural knowledge needed in order to embrace culturally...

I develop Big Data Analytics Techniques to study rare gathering and dispersal patterns in urban setting. I use massive data-sets of vehicle movements to formulate such patterns and develop algorithms that, given the real-time movement of vehicles, predict rare gathering or dispersal patterns...

Standardized foreign language assessments are increasingly used for high-stakes decisions affecting teachers and students alike. Therefore, understanding their influence on instruction, and connecting teachers’ practices to outcomes, is critical to support evidence-based efforts to increase students...

A six-episode serial podcast rather than a traditional monograph, My Gothic Dissertation tells the story of my own educational journey, comparing my experience to the typical plot of the 19th century Female Gothic novel. I argue that humanities graduate educators should reform some of the more...

Clostridium difficile is a bacteria that causes severe gastrointestinal illness in people. It is the most commonly reported hospital acquired infection in the United States. In this dissertation I explore both medical and environmental risk factors for disease. Epidemiological methods are used to...

The advantages of an adaptive test battery include shortening test length or increasing the accuracy of subtest scores. The problem is how to improve subtest score estimation by borrowing information from other subtests for a variable-length adaptive battery under unidimensional and multidimensional...

Optimization methods for solving large-scale problems play a very critical role in machine learning. In recent years, unprecedented growths in scale and dimensionality of data raise big computational challenges for traditional optimization algorithms; thus it becomes very important to develop...

I examine the determinants of executive compensation and corporate investment. First, in the chapter titled “Import Penetration and Executive Compensation”, my findings suggest that import penetration lowers executive compensation. Second, in the chapter titled “Entrenchment, Managerial Shirking...

My dissertation focuses on the biomass gasification technology application in power plant. This dissertation includes two major parts: commercial-scale biomass-based power plant comparison of performance, economic, and environmental indicators; and new system design of biomass-based cooling, heat...

Learning to read Chinese is a labor-intensive process for native English speakers. To understand what makes this process challenging and how native English speakers comprehend Chinese texts, this study uses an exploratory qualitative approach to investigate these questions. Participants read a...