Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of Gli3 In Inflammation, Stephan Josef Matissek

Doctoral Dissertations

Inflammation is an important and healthy mechanism that our body uses for wound-healing and fighting off infections by utilizing molecular pathways of immune and non-immune cells. However, when inflammation is persistent or chronic it can have severe consequences that can lead to auto-immune diseases or cancer. Pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), such as Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), present on gramnegative bacteria, or double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), present in RNA-viruses, were shown to be potent inducers of inflammation. These PAMPs are known ligands of Toll like receptor 4 (TLR4), activated by LPS and Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3), activated by dsRNA which are carried on the …

Utilizing Extended Continental Shelf (Ecs) And Ocean Exploration Mapping Data For Standardized Marine Ecological Classification Of The U.S. Atlantic Margin, Derek C. Sowers

Doctoral Dissertations

Accurate maps of ocean bathymetry and seafloor habitats are needed to support effective marine ecosystem-based management (EBM) approaches. The central premise of this thesis was to synthesize geomorphological elements of large regions of the deep ocean seafloor to establish standards of characterization for ecosystem-based classification. The approach was to apply semi-automated characterization techniques on seafloor bathymetric data that were originally collected for other purposes. The purpose of generating these maps is ultimately to apply to informing ecosystem-based management for large marine regions. While seafloor classification techniques for habitat classification have been applied in shallow water and generally over more local …

White Discipline, Black Rebellion: A History Of American Race Riots From Emancipation To The War On Drugs, Jordan C. Burke

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a comparative analysis of American race riots, within and across historical eras, from Emancipation (1863) to the War on Drugs (1972). I argue that changes in the status of African-American citizenship produced different forms of race rioting. Examining riot events across eras reveals how ethical principles at the core of democracy are undermined in specific socio-historical contexts—especially equality of participation in collective self-governance. Congressional testimony, state-sponsored riot investigations, and archival data indicate that riots have been used historically to structure racial inequality in both political institutions and economic relations. While race riots have proven instrumental in maintaining …

Analysis Of The Population Dynamics Of Placida Dendritica And Codium Fragile In The Gulf Of Maine And A Theoretical Discussion Of Invasive Species, Seth Goodnight

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines several aspects of the biology and ecology of Codium fragile and Placida dendritica in the Gulf of Maine. Scientific interest in nonindigenous species was examined to determine if any patterns were evident that might indicate a change in the status of an invasive species. Interest in C. fragile had waned in recent years, the timing of which coincides with the decreased ecological dominance and apparent naturalization of the alga. Laboratory and field studies were combined to quantify the dynamics in the population of C. fragile and in the recruitment dynamics of P. dendritica. Results of laboratory research …

Examining The Overlooked Complexities Of School Lunch: An Investigation Into The Juncture Of Food, Schooling, And The Developing Adolescent, Eleanor Kane

Doctoral Dissertations

School lunch is a universal experience for students everywhere and yet remains largely understudied by educational researchers. This dissertation explores school lunch through the lens of adolescent identity theory, with the purpose of investigating the unarticulated and overlooked complexities inherent in the lunch block, from issues of the developing sense of self, to social and cultural meanings surrounding food, and consequences for social reproduction. I used a combination of ethnographic observations and narrative interviews at a rural New England high school, focusing on participants’ daily habits, food practices, and choices during the lunch block. Through this, I established the normative …

Characterizing Student Engagement In A Post-Secondary Developmental Mathematics Class And Exploring The Reflexivity Between Social And Sociomathematical Norms, David Fifty

Doctoral Dissertations

Traditionally, post-secondary developmental mathematics courses aspire to equip students with mathematical content knowledge needed to succeed in calculus and subsequent STEM courses. The literature shows that this goal alone is insufficient, as the emphasis on content acquisition often comes at the expense of developing higher-order skills such as argumentation, reasoning, and flexibility in mathematics problem solving (Chiaravalloti, 2009; Partanen & Kaasila, 2014; Star et al., 2015). Redesigning curricula with these additional objectives in mind requires providing students with opportunities to engage with mathematics in ways that may contrast with their past experiences or expectations. It requires changing patterns of classroom …

Magnetoelastic Excitations In Chiral Magnets, Christopher Libby

Doctoral Dissertations

Emergence of quasiparticles is a central concept in condensed matter physics. As an example, in solids, lattice vibrations lead to quantized phonon excitations, which gives rise to many exotic phenomena, including superconductivity. Things become richer in magnetic systems. Collective fluctuations about a magnetic ground state induce the spin wave excitation, whose quantized quasiparticle is dubbed as the magnon. A fundamental question is how phonon and magnon, as two separate degrees of freedom, can be coupled together. More importantly, certain symmetry, such as spatial inversion symmetry, can be broken in novel magnetic textures. It is interesting to explore whether broken symmetry …

Search For An A' Resonance In The Heavy Photon Search 2.3 Gev Data Set, Samantha Katherine Mccarty

Doctoral Dissertations

The Heavy Photon Search (HPS) experiment is based out of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory in Newport News and is designed to test the potential existence of a new particle, the "heavy photon" or "A'," which has the potential to mediate interactions between dark forces and the Standard Model. HPS is designed to detect the decay of an A' particle into e⁺e⁻ pairs utilizing an electromagnetic calorimeter and a silicon-strip tracking detector. If the theory is correct, the A' could be generated using the Jefferson Lab high-luminosity electron beam incident upon a tungsten target.

In 2016, HPS collected 10.6 …

Computational Studies Of Small Molecule Transport And Binding, Yong Liu

Doctoral Dissertations

In this thesis, I have studied two classes of systems using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations as a primary approach. The first class of systems is responsible for transport of small molecules. Specically, I have investigated diffusion pathways of inhibitory gas CO within the enzyme FeFe-hydrogenase as well as water transport in articial water channels. The second class of systems are biological proteins and their interactions with ligands. I have focused on Regulators of G-protein Signaling (RGS) proteins and their binding to thiadiazolidinone (TDZD) based small-molecule inhibitors as well as phosphosdiesterase 6 (PDE6) binding with cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP).

Specically, I …

Data Analysis For A Balloon Borne Compton Polarimeter, Sambid Kumar Wasti

Doctoral Dissertations

The Gamma RAy Polarimeter Experiment (GRAPE), a balloon borne Compton polarimeter for 50-500 keV gamma rays, was successfully flown for the second time in 2014. GRAPE uses events in which a photon scatters between 2 detector elements to measure the polarization of the measured photons. GRAPE consists of 24 collimated polarimeter modules. Each module is made up of 64 rectangular scintillators elements in a grid of 8 × 8 (36 plastic scintillators surrounded by 28 CsI scintillators). GRAPE was flown from Fort Sumner, New Mexico on the morning of September 26th 2014. The experiment was at float altitude for 14.4 …

Bacterial Genome And Population Dynamics With Implications For Public Health, Cooper John Park

Doctoral Dissertations

Bacterial populations are extraordinarily heterogeneous. Despite growing clonally, these populations are often composed of multiple lineages distinguished by both phenotypic and genetic differences that are caused by both allelic and whole gene variation. Such genomic mosaicism and within-species variation can significantly impact a species’ response to selective pressures from antibiotic use, vaccination, immune responses and host environment. One important process that contributes to this phenomenon is recombination, the exchange of very similar DNA sequences between strains which can result to either the addition or replacement of homologous genes. Current models of microbial recombination incorporate the null expectation that recombination is …

Characterizing Student Engagement In A Post-Secondary Developmental Mathematics Class And Exploring The Reflexivity Between Social And Sociomathematical Norms, David Fifty

Doctoral Dissertations

Traditionally, post-secondary developmental mathematics courses aspire to equip students with mathematical content knowledge needed to succeed in calculus and subsequent STEM courses. The literature shows that this goal alone is insufficient, as the emphasis on content acquisition often comes at the expense of developing higher-order skills such as argumentation, reasoning, and flexibility in mathematics problem solving (Chiaravalloti, 2009; Partanen & Kaasila, 2014; Star et al., 2015). Redesigning curricula with these additional objectives in mind requires providing students with opportunities to engage with mathematics in ways that may contrast with their past experiences or expectations. It requires changing patterns of classroom …

Analysis Of The Population Dynamics Of Placida Dendritica And Codium Fragile In The Gulf Of Maine And A Theoretical Discussion Of Invasive Species, Seth Goodnight

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation examines several aspects of the biology and ecology of Codium fragile and Placida dendritica in the Gulf of Maine. Scientific interest in nonindigenous species was examined to determine if any patterns were evident that might indicate a change in the status of an invasive species. Interest in C. fragile had waned in recent years, the timing of which coincides with the decreased ecological dominance and apparent naturalization of the alga. Laboratory and field studies were combined to quantify the dynamics in the population of C. fragile and in the recruitment dynamics of P. dendritica. Results of laboratory research …

White Discipline, Black Rebellion: A History Of American Race Riots From Emancipation To The War On Drugs, Jordan C. Burke

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a comparative analysis of American race riots, within and across historical eras, from Emancipation (1863) to the War on Drugs (1972). I argue that changes in the status of African-American citizenship produced different forms of race rioting. Examining riot events across eras reveals how ethical principles at the core of democracy are undermined in specific socio-historical contexts—especially equality of participation in collective self-governance. Congressional testimony, state-sponsored riot investigations, and archival data indicate that riots have been used historically to structure racial inequality in both political institutions and economic relations. While race riots have proven instrumental in maintaining …

Bacterial Genome And Population Dynamics With Implications For Public Health, Cooper John Park

Doctoral Dissertations

Bacterial populations are extraordinarily heterogeneous. Despite growing clonally, these populations are often composed of multiple lineages distinguished by both phenotypic and genetic differences that are caused by both allelic and whole gene variation. Such genomic mosaicism and within-species variation can significantly impact a species’ response to selective pressures from antibiotic use, vaccination, immune responses and host environment. One important process that contributes to this phenomenon is recombination, the exchange of very similar DNA sequences between strains which can result to either the addition or replacement of homologous genes. Current models of microbial recombination incorporate the null expectation that recombination is …

Examining The Overlooked Complexities Of School Lunch: An Investigation Into The Juncture Of Food, Schooling, And The Developing Adolescent, Eleanor Kane

Doctoral Dissertations

School lunch is a universal experience for students everywhere and yet remains largely understudied by educational researchers. This dissertation explores school lunch through the lens of adolescent identity theory, with the purpose of investigating the unarticulated and overlooked complexities inherent in the lunch block, from issues of the developing sense of self, to social and cultural meanings surrounding food, and consequences for social reproduction. I used a combination of ethnographic observations and narrative interviews at a rural New England high school, focusing on participants’ daily habits, food practices, and choices during the lunch block. Through this, I established the normative …

Utilizing Extended Continental Shelf (Ecs) And Ocean Exploration Mapping Data For Standardized Marine Ecological Classification Of The U.S. Atlantic Margin, Derek C. Sowers

Doctoral Dissertations

Accurate maps of ocean bathymetry and seafloor habitats are needed to support effective marine ecosystem-based management (EBM) approaches. The central premise of this thesis was to synthesize geomorphological elements of large regions of the deep ocean seafloor to establish standards of characterization for ecosystem-based classification. The approach was to apply semi-automated characterization techniques on seafloor bathymetric data that were originally collected for other purposes. The purpose of generating these maps is ultimately to apply to informing ecosystem-based management for large marine regions. While seafloor classification techniques for habitat classification have been applied in shallow water and generally over more local …

Magnetoelastic Excitations In Chiral Magnets, Christopher Libby

Doctoral Dissertations

Emergence of quasiparticles is a central concept in condensed matter physics. As an example, in solids, lattice vibrations lead to quantized phonon excitations, which gives rise to many exotic phenomena, including superconductivity. Things become richer in magnetic systems. Collective fluctuations about a magnetic ground state induce the spin wave excitation, whose quantized quasiparticle is dubbed as the magnon. A fundamental question is how phonon and magnon, as two separate degrees of freedom, can be coupled together. More importantly, certain symmetry, such as spatial inversion symmetry, can be broken in novel magnetic textures. It is interesting to explore whether broken symmetry …

Data Analysis For A Balloon Borne Compton Polarimeter, Sambid Kumar Wasti

Doctoral Dissertations

The Gamma RAy Polarimeter Experiment (GRAPE), a balloon borne Compton polarimeter for 50-500 keV gamma rays, was successfully flown for the second time in 2014. GRAPE uses events in which a photon scatters between 2 detector elements to measure the polarization of the measured photons. GRAPE consists of 24 collimated polarimeter modules. Each module is made up of 64 rectangular scintillators elements in a grid of 8 × 8 (36 plastic scintillators surrounded by 28 CsI scintillators). GRAPE was flown from Fort Sumner, New Mexico on the morning of September 26th 2014. The experiment was at float altitude for 14.4 …

Computational Studies Of Small Molecule Transport And Binding, Yong Liu

Doctoral Dissertations

In this thesis, I have studied two classes of systems using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations as a primary approach. The first class of systems is responsible for transport of small molecules. Specically, I have investigated diffusion pathways of inhibitory gas CO within the enzyme FeFe-hydrogenase as well as water transport in articial water channels. The second class of systems are biological proteins and their interactions with ligands. I have focused on Regulators of G-protein Signaling (RGS) proteins and their binding to thiadiazolidinone (TDZD) based small-molecule inhibitors as well as phosphosdiesterase 6 (PDE6) binding with cyclic guanosine monophosphate (cGMP).

Specically, I …

The Role Of Gli3 In Inflammation, Stephan Josef Matissek

Doctoral Dissertations

Inflammation is an important and healthy mechanism that our body uses for wound-healing and fighting off infections by utilizing molecular pathways of immune and non-immune cells. However, when inflammation is persistent or chronic it can have severe consequences that can lead to auto-immune diseases or cancer. Pathogen-associated molecular patterns (PAMPs), such as Lipopolysaccharide (LPS), present on gramnegative bacteria, or double-stranded RNA (dsRNA), present in RNA-viruses, were shown to be potent inducers of inflammation. These PAMPs are known ligands of Toll like receptor 4 (TLR4), activated by LPS and Toll-like receptor 3 (TLR3), activated by dsRNA which are carried on the …

Search For An A' Resonance In The Heavy Photon Search 2.3 Gev Data Set, Samantha Katherine Mccarty

Doctoral Dissertations

The Heavy Photon Search (HPS) experiment is based out of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Laboratory in Newport News and is designed to test the potential existence of a new particle, the "heavy photon" or "A'," which has the potential to mediate interactions between dark forces and the Standard Model. HPS is designed to detect the decay of an A' particle into e⁺e⁻ pairs utilizing an electromagnetic calorimeter and a silicon-strip tracking detector. If the theory is correct, the A' could be generated using the Jefferson Lab high-luminosity electron beam incident upon a tungsten target.

In 2016, HPS collected 10.6 …

Demography Of A Recovery: Tracking The Rebound Of Little Brown Bat (Myotis Lucifugus) Populations, Katherine Ineson

Doctoral Dissertations

As the emergence of novel diseases in wildlife becomes more common, a better understanding of the impact of disease on populations and their demographic rates will be critical for their conservation. Populations naturally fluctuate over time as a function of the rates of birth, death, immigration, and emigration, while at the individual level the chances of mortality and reproduction may be influenced by age and physiological condition. Diseases, particularly emerging infectious diseases, can cause immediate and severe changes in demographic rates. While some populations and species may go extinct due to high mortality rates, others may persist in smaller, but …

The Intersection Of History And Trade: Essays In Trade And Trade Policy, David Travis Freidman

Doctoral Dissertations

In this research I examine the effects that past institutions have on current day economics. In chapters one and two I focus on empirically measuring the impact of past historical trade institutions on current day trade flows. In chapter three I turn my focus to understanding how implicit institutions impact the economic discipline.

My first chapter begins with examining the historical legacy of trading institutions of membership in the ex-Soviet Union and Comecon on current day Russia's bilateral trade flows. The use of long-term data from 1998 to 2016 allows for examination of changes in the legacy effects over time, …

Distributed Cooperative Control Of Multi-Agent Systems Under Detectability And Communication Constraints, Himadri Basu

Doctoral Dissertations

Cooperative control of multi-agent systems has recently gained widespread attention from the scientific communities due to numerous applications in areas such as the formation control in unmanned vehicles, cooperative attitude control of spacecrafts, clustering of micro-satellites, environmental monitoring and exploration by mobile sensor networks, etc. The primary goal of a cooperative control problem for multi-agent systems is to design a decentralized control algorithm for each agent, relying on the local coordination of their actions to exhibit a collective behavior. Common challenges encountered in the study of cooperative control problems are unavailable group-level information, and limited bandwidth of the shared communication. …

The Trophic Ecology Of Coral Reef Sponges In Caribbean Mesophotic Ecosystems, Keir John Macartney

Doctoral Dissertations

Emergent sponges are crucial to the functional ecology of coral reef ecosystems, playing key roles in benthic-pelagic coupling, biogeochemical cycling of key nutrients, and provision of food and habitat to a variety of coral reef fauna. In mesophotic coral reef ecosystems (MCEs), sponges show a repeatable pattern of increasing abundance and diversity with increasing depth. Mesophotic coral reef ecosystems are typically found between 30 – 150 m and are characterized by depth-dependent gradients in photosynthetically active radiation (PAR), and trophic resources such as increases in particulate organic matter (POM) and decreases in dissolved organic matter (DOM). Increased concentrations of POM …

Experiments And Modeling Of Plastic Anisotropy And Ductile Fracture Under Multiaxial Loading, Madhav Baral

Doctoral Dissertations

The implementation of new materials for light-weighting purposes in the automotive industry has often been hindered due to the low ductility of these materials, as well as inadequate empirical knowledge about their fracture behavior and inadequate material modeling techniques. This thesis addresses these issues through extensive experimental and numerical study of plastic anisotropy and ductile fracture of several aluminum alloys and a stainless-steel. The test materials used for this study include AA365 die-casting, AA6013 and AA6111 aluminum sheets, AA6260 aluminum tube and SS304L stainless-steel microtube. The plastic anisotropy is assessed using uniaxial tension, plane-strain tension and disc compression experiments for …

Essays On Macroeconomic Uncertainty: New Evidence From China, Meng Yan

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation is a collection of three essays about uncertainty and conducts a country-specific study based on China.

In Chapter 1, I investigate the impact of US uncertainty shocks on China's macroeconomy with a focus on the dynamic response of investment. Using a structural vector autoregression model, I find that the wait-and-see mechanism of aggregate investment in the face of heightened US uncertainty disappears in China. Robust evidence confirms that the increase in state-owned enterprises' investment in response to heightened uncertainty explains this puzzle, while private-owned enterprises' investment decreases as expected. I apply regime-dependent local projections to link uncertainty shocks …

Reducing Dropout Rates Of New Hampshire High School Students By Increasing The Compelled Years Of Attendance: An Analysis Of Local Administrator Perceptions Of And Responses To State Law 193:1, Andrew K. Korman

Doctoral Dissertations

In 2007 New Hampshire passed a law, RSA 193:1, that changed the compulsory age of education for all public school students from age 16 to age 18. The purpose of this research is to explore the effect of RSA 193:1 on dropout rates in New Hampshire’s public high schools and to examine the perception of the high school principal in understanding the effect of the law and any differential effects of the law on students. Through an examination of five years of dropout data combined with a survey to current high school principals, findings indicate that there is strong support …

Effects Of Nearshore Processes On Carbonate Chemistry Dynamics And Ocean Acidification, Melissa Melendez

Doctoral Dissertations

Time series from open ocean fixed stations have robustly documented secular changes in carbonate chemistry and long-term ocean acidification (OA) trends as a direct response to increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2). However, few high-frequency coastal carbon time series are available in reef systems, where most affected tropical marine organisms reside. Seasonal variations in carbonate chemistry at Cheeca Rocks (CR), Florida, and La Parguera (LP), Puerto Rico, are presented based on 8 and 10 years of continuous, high-quality measurements, respectively. This dissertation synthesizes autonomous and bottle observations to model carbonate chemistry and to understand how physical and biological processes affect …