Digital Commons Network^™

Target Based Design And Synthesis Of Heterocycles In The Potential Treatment Of Cancer And Opportunistic Infection, Shruti Choudhary

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dose limiting toxicity and development of multidrug resistance by the tumors are the major limitations of current cancer chemotherapy. Microtubule targeting agents (MTAs) are a structurally diverse set of compounds that disrupt microtubule dynamics and exert their anticancer effect. Among the various classes of such agents, the colchicine site binding agents are particularly important as they circumvent the Pgp and β-III tubulin mediated clinical resistance. These resistance mechanisms, when manifested, are a major reason for the failure of clinically used agents such as taxanes and vinca alkaloids. A series of monocyclic pyrimidine analogs were designed and synthesized as colchicine site …

The Decline And Recovery Of Thermal Oxidative Stability Of Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel Blends, Abigail Schoor Cohen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dissertation supervised by Professor Bruce D. Beaver

The oxidative stability of ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) has generally been expected to continuously decline over time. However, recent studies have suggested that it may fluctuate.^1-2 In this study, the oxidative stability of stored commercially purchased ULSD was monitored with a methanol extraction method.³ In this methodology, proposed by Hardy and Wechter, fuel blends are extracted with methanol before and after thermal stressing.⁴ The methanol-soluble layer contains the oxygenated and oxidizable components of the fuel (SMORS) and the change in this mass upon stressing thus represents the oxidative stability of …

Nitric Oxide Release From Poly(Lactic-Co-Glycolic Acid) Nanoparticles And Titanium Alloy, Nina A. Reger

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Current methods for the treatment of bacterial infection involve the use of systemic antibiotics, which are high concentrations of antibiotics delivered over a long period time. Unfortunately, the use of systemic antibiotics can cause harmful side effects to the patient and increases the possibility for antibiotic resistance. The delivery of antibiotics or alternative antimicrobial compounds, such as nitric oxide, directly to the site of infection would decrease the amount of antibiotic necessary to treat a bacterial infection.

Poly (lactic-co-glycolic acid)/polyvinyl alcohol nanoparticles and a titanium- aluminum-vanadium metal oxide alloy implant were surface functionalized to deliver nitric oxide. Polymer nanoparticles can …

Rationalizing The Band Gap Tunability Of Semiconductors Via Electronic Structure Calculations, Matthew N. Srnec

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The polymorphs of titanium dioxide and various diamond-like semiconductor materials are promising candidates in photovoltaic solar cell applications. Several of these polymorphs have been studied with experimental and computational methods, which often aim at tuning the electronic structure, particularly the band gap value of the crystalline solid. Prior studies report that the addition of a substituent into the structure of titanium dioxide decreases its band gap value, but the reasons for this are unknown. Possible explanations for the change in band gap involve the substituent atom's crystal radius, electronegativity, and ionization energy. Understanding the cause of these changes will provide …