Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Weighted Estimates For The Bergman And Szegö Projections, Nathan Andrew Wagner

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a study of various weighted estimates for the Bergman and Szegö projections on domains in several complex variables. The starting point of our analysis is a bounded, pseudoconvex domain D ⊂ Cn. The Bergman and Szegö projections are both orthogonal projections onto spaces of holomorphic functions associated with D. While it is immediate that both of these operators are bounded on L2, it has been a topic of substantial interest to determine their mapping properties on Lp, where the boundary geometry of D plays amajor role. Given a linear operator T acting on measurable functions that is …

Hodge Theoretic Compactification Of Period Maps, Haohua Deng

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this article, we review some aspects regarding Hodge-theoretic completion and boundarybehavior of period maps. First, we recall some classical results on compactification of classical period domains e.g. Baily-Borel, Ash-Mumford-Rapoport-Thai. The works produced by Kato-Usui aims at generalizing Mumford’s toroidal compactification to nonclassical period domain, which depends on construction of a strongly compatible fan. We prove such a fan can not exists universally, but for a single geometric variation of Hodge structure. We proceed such a construction on a 2-parameter geometric variation coming from Hosono-Takagi’s family of Calabi-Yau threefolds of type (1, 2, 2, 1). Moreover, we briefly review the …

Cyclodextrin-Based Supramolecular Drug-Delivery Nanomaterials And Shear-Thinning Hydrogels Using Ring-Opening Metathesis Polymerization, Ruihan Li

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cyclodextrins (CD) are a family of oligosaccharides that can non-covalently and precisely bind small hydrophobic drug molecules, such as antibiotics and anticancer drugs, through well-defined host-guest interactions inside the inner cavity of the macrocycle. Ring-opening metathesis polymerization (ROMP) is a versatile, functional group tolerant method of polymerization that is underexplored in biomedical applications relative to the more common controlled chain-growth polymerizations. In this dissertation, I describe my efforts to combine the supramolecular chemistry of CDs with that of ROMP using specialized functional monomers to synthesize several CD-based polymeric drug delivery nanomaterials. For example, in Chapter 2, a new type of …

Paleo-Environmental Pollution Of The Bronze Production During The Shang Period At Anyang, Henan Province, China, Yi-Ling Lin

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Paleo-environmental pollution is invested in both identifying anthropogenic activities and evaluating the environmental condition and its impact on humans to understand human-environment relationships and the human experience of the past. This project first investigates the environmental and health consequences of bronze production during the Shang period at Anyang. As a contribution to the growing scholarship in paleo-environmental and archaeological studies, this dissertation uses Shang bronze production in Anyang as a case study into how paleo- environmental pollution study can inform us about the on environmental and health conditions of lives in the Bronze Age China. Through geochemical analysis (ICP-MS, ICP-OES) …

Computational Methods For Analysis Of Data For Conformational And Phase Equilibria Of Disordered Proteins, Jared Michael M Lalmansingh

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intrinsically disordered proteins and regions (IDPs / IDRs) are a class of proteins with diverse conformational heterogeneity that do not fold into a tertiary structure due to the lack of a native structural state. Consequently, disordered proteins are remarkably flexible and exhibit multivalent properties that enable them to adopt myriad functional roles within the cell such as: signaling transduction, transcription, enzymatic catalysis, translation, and many more. Due to their multivalency, some IDPs undergo monomeric and heterotypic interactions which can drive phase separation. Such IDPs can form membraneless organelles with specific regulatory roles within the cell which include, but are not …

Petrology, Geochemistry, And Experimental Studies Of Mafic Enclaves And Amphibole At Shiveluch Volcano, Kamchatka, Andrea Elizabeth Goltz

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis connects mineralogical, chemical, and physical observables in quenched mafic inclusions from Shiveluch Volcano in Kamchatka and high pressure and temperature experiments to elucidate the water content of primitive magmas at Shiveluch, the timing of magmatic recharge events relative to eruption, and the petrogenetic history of andesites erupted at Shiveluch. Using the petrology of basaltic andesite mafic inclusions erupted from Shiveluch, in Chapter 2, the water content of primitive magmas at Shiveluch is found to be 8-10 wt%, which is two to three times higher than the global average determined by other methods, and the temperature of primitive magmas …

Iron And Manganese Oxidation By Oxyhalogen Species: Implications For Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction On Mars, Kaushik Mitra

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

As the nearest planetary neighbor with potential earlier habitable conditions, Mars is replete with minerals that hold clues to its past chemistry and evolution of the aqueous systems. Oxidized iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) minerals on Mars are geochemical markers of such environments in which they formed and record past pH, redox conditions, and intensity of water-rock interaction. Fe and Mn oxides can therefore be used to reconstruct past Martian environmental conditions from settings where aqueous fluids were active. Various processes that form Fe and Mn oxide minerals on Mars have been previously proposed, including chemical oxidation using molecular oxygen …

Probing New Physics Beyond The Standard Model Via New Neutrino Interactions, Garv Chauhan

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Standard Model (SM) of Particle Physics provides a self-consistent quantum field theoretic framework to explain three of the four known fundamental forces (electromagnetic, weak, strong) along with classifying all known elementary particles. Since its conception in the 1960s, the SM has been one of the most tested theories of physics and has withstood all experimental batterings. In spite of these successes, there are compelling indications, both experimental and theoretical, that require us to expand our understanding of the nature beyond the SM (BSM). Arguably the most glaring indication of BSM physics is the observation of neutrino oscillations, which implies …

A Systematic Study Of Neutron Production In Two Versions Of The Mevion Proton-Therapy System, Nima Tatari

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a study of neutron production in two types of proton-therapy systems: passive scattering Mevion S250, and active scanning Mevion S250i. The scattering system has been operating at Washington University in St. Louis since 2013. The scanning system was installed in the same building in 2020. The scanning system has the advantage of producing fewer neutrons due to a focused scanned beam and the absence of beam scatterers, collimators, and a static brass aperture. A systematic particle transport Monte Carlo analysis using the Geant4 toolkit has been performed to track the neutrons produced in various components of each …

Using Single-Particle Fluorescence Microscopy To Elucidate The Role Of Structural Distortions And Defects In The Chemical Reactivity And Photophysics Of Cesium Lead Halide Perovskite Nanocrystals, Dong Wang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Colloidal cesium lead halide perovskite nanocrystals (CsPbX3, X = Cl, Br or I) are attractive for optoelectronic applications due to their unique chemical and physical properties including high photoluminescence quantum yield, tunable bandgaps, high defect tolerance, and low-cost processibility. A facile method to tune the emission wavelength of perovskite nanocrystals is through anion exchange. For light emission applications, it is desirable to prepare CsPbX3 nanocrystals of uniform size and composition. However, the complex reaction kinetics of this chemical transformation may limit the compositional uniformity and color purity of the CsPbX3 nanocrystals produced by anion exchange when the transformation is scaled …

Potassium Isotope Cosmochemistry, Zhen Tian

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In Chapter 1, I review the geochemical and cosmochemical properties of potassium (K). Classified as a moderately volatile element, K serves as a robust proxy for understanding the key processes during nebular/planetary evaporation events. I review different mechanisms of volatile depletion among various planetary materials: mass-dependent variations in “nebular” processes; mass-independent variations among different nucleosynthetic sources; or planetary-scale volatile depletion processes. Furthermore, I provide an optimized K purification procedure via ion-exchange chromatography and a high-precision K isotope analysis technique using Neptune plus Multiple Collector Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer (MC-ICPMS) in both “cold plasma” and “dry plasma” methods. I also …

Electro-Organic Chemistry: An Alternative Pathway To Handle Redox Organic Reactions, Tiandi Wu

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electrochemistry provides an alternative pathway to handle redox organic reactions, especially for certain chemical process that can be only achieved through electrochemical process. Herein, there research projects are introduced to enrich the whole synthetic community, including an anodic oxidative cyclization studies to develop methodology on heterocyclic ring skeleton constructions, an electroreduction pathway exploration to more effectively obtain hydrazine from nitroso compounds, as well as a study in paired electrolysis process on which both anode and cathode are simultaneously employed to maximize overall atom and energy efficiency. Future directions on these projects are also demonstrated at the end of each chapters..

A Continuous Wavelet Representation For Single And Bi-Parameter Calder\'On-Zygmund Operators, Tyler Williams

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis develops a novel approach to the representation of singular integral operators of Calder\'on-Zygmund type in terms of continuous model operators, in both the classical and the bi-parametric setting. The representation is realized as a finite sum of averages of wavelet projections of either cancellative or noncancellative type, which are themselves Calder\'on-Zygmund operators. Both properties are out of reach for the established dyadic-probabilistic technique. Unlike their dyadic counterparts, this new representation reflects the additional kernel smoothness of the operator being analyzed.

These representation formulas lead naturally to a new family of $T(1)$ theorems on weighted Sobolev spaces whose smoothness …

Mass Spectrometry-Based Protein Footprinting: High-Throughput Maldi Platform And Large Protein Complexes Of Baf, Ruidong Jiang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human’s advances in understanding biological processes rely heavily on the breakthroughs in biophysical tools. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based protein footprinting, which interrogates protein structures by measuring protein solvent assessable surface area (SASA), has grown rapidly in the last decade, successful in providing valuable data for numerous protein systems. This thesis focuses mainly on this technology.We set out to push the boundary of MS-based protein footprinting further into the new areas, preparing it for potential future applications including large-scale experiments that require high-throughput analysis the structure of large, complicated protein complexes. This thesis devotes five chapters to the method development of MS-based …

Association Of Structural Variation (Sv) With Cardiometabolic Traits In Finns, Lei Chen

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) are known to be associated with a variety of quantitative risk factors such as cholesterol, metabolites, and insulin. Understanding the genetic basis of these quantitative traits can shed light on the etiology, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment of disease. However most prior trait-mapping studies have focused on single nucleotide variants (SNVs) and Indels, with the contribution of structural variation (SV) remaining unknown. In this thesis, we present the results of a study examining genetic association between SVs and cardiometabolic traits in the Finnish population. In the first chapter, we used sensitive methods to identify and genotype 129,166 high-confidence …

Computational Approaches For Screening Drugs For Bioactivation, Reactive Metabolite Formation, And Toxicity, Noah Flynn

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cytochrome P450 enzymes aid in the elimination of a preponderance of small molecule drugs, but can generate reactive metabolites that may adversely conjugate to protein and DNA, in a process known as bioactivation, and prompt adverse reaction, drug candidate attrition, or market withdrawal. Experimental assays are low-throughput and expensive to perform, so they are often reserved until later stages of the drug development pipeline when the drug candidate pools are already significantly narrowed. Reactive metabolites also elude in vivo detection, as they are transitory and generally do not circulate. In contrast, computational methods are high-throughput and cheap to screen millions …

Modeling Hyperpolarized Nmr Phenomena In Optically Pumped Semiconductors, Michael Eric West

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is a widely-used technique that measures the local environments of nuclei. It is able to detect small differences in energy, making it a highly-valued tool. However, the technique is challenged by inherently low sensitivities, requiring either large sample volumes or long periods of time to overcome this. In semiconductors, optical pumping (OP) can overcome this low sensitivity by creating incredibly large and dynamic nuclear spin polarizations (``hyperpolarization''), which is detectable as a large NMR signal. The combined technique of optically-pumped NMR (OPNMR) is a valuable tool that can explore electronic and nuclear phenomena within semiconductors. In …

Neural Representation In The Primary Visual Cortex Amid High Neural Variability, Ji Xia

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Animals process high-dimensional sensory information constantly. How does neural activityin sensory cortices represent this information? Recent advances in large-scale recordings allow us to monitor activity of hundreds or thousands of neurons simultaneously across a long period of time. Population recordings showed that cortical neuronal responses to repeated sensory stimulation is highly variable from trial to trial. However, how neurons in neocortex represent sensory information amid high neural variability is not well understood. To answer this question, we used two-photon calcium imaging to record from hundreds of excitatory neurons simultaneously from mouse primary visual cortex. We analyzed neural responses to repeated …

Electronic, Optical, And Magnetic Properties Of Novel Two-Dimensional Materials, Xiaobo Lu

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The field of two-dimensional(2D) materials is experiencing rapid growth and attracting tremendous research interests within the condensed matter community due to its ultimate thickness dimension and unique physical properties. The consistently emerging novel 2D materials not only provide extraordinary intrinsic properties of their single layer and multi- layer structures but also exhibit fascinating responses to the tunable external conditions. The fertile contents and boundless possibilities of novel 2D materials make it one of the pivots of modern nanotechnology towards deepening the physics understanding and promising practical applications.

In the first part of the thesis, we reveal the distinct Stark effects …

Enantioselective Synthesis Of Β-Amino Acid Derivatives Using Amidine-Based And Bifunctional Organocatalysts, Matthew Robert Straub

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Two new enantioselective methodologies have been developed that have important implications for the asymmetric synthesis of β-amino acids and their derivatives. First, chiral amidine-based catalyst (ABC) HBTM-2 catalyzed an asymmetric cyclocondensation between in situ activated fluoroacetic acid and N-sulfonyl aldimines to give α-fluoro-β-lactams in highly enantioenriched form, achieving modest to excellent diastereoselectivities. These reactive lactams can then be quenched with various alcohols and amines to deliver the α-fluoro-β-amino acid derivatives in moderate isolated yields. Secondly, bifunctional double hydrogen bond donor-amine organocatalysts enable the catalytic alcoholysis of various racemic N-carbalkoxy-3-substituted isoxazolidin-5-ones, resulting in their kinetic resolution. The enantioenriched unreacted isoxazolidinone and …

Market Making In A Limit Order Book: Classical Optimal Control And Reinforcement Learning Approaches, Chuyi Yu

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Since the last decade, algorithmic trading has become one of the most significant developments in electronic security markets. Several types of problems and practices have been studied such as optimal execution, market making, statistical arbitrage, latency arbitrage, and so on. Among these, high-frequency market making plays a crucial role since it provides large liquidity to the market, which makes trading and investing cheaper for other market participants, and also creates sizable profits for high-frequency market makers (HFM) from the large quantity of round-trip executions involved in such practices. In this thesis, we discuss two approaches to solve the high-frequency market …

Smooth Ica Under Time Pattern Assumptions, Jiayi Fu

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Independent component analysis (ICA) is wildly used in differently areas. As traditional ICA models make no assumptions on time pattern, they do not take time domain information into consideration. In this thesis, we introduced new assumptions that allow local dependence over time, and we built smooth ICA models to utilize the smoothness information for sources signals. Based on the local dependence assumptions, constrained optimization problems with smoothing penalty were discussed. Then we introduced smooth ICA estimators and estimating equations. Under local dependence assumptions, we gave proofs about the consistency and asymptotic normality of these estimators. We derived the Newton iterative …

Method Development For Enhancing Sensitivity Of Dynamic Nuclear Polarization Nuclear Magnetic Resonance Spectroscopy For Structural Studies Of Pkc-Drug Interactions, Patrick Terrence Judge

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

To perform the most relevant structural studies on biological systems, experiments need to be carried out when the target proteins are in their endogenous cellular environment. Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) is well-suited to probe the structure and dynamics of a wide variety of systems, including biologically relevant proteins. However, NMR suffers from an inherent lack of sensitivity. Dynamic nuclear polarization (DNP) NMR is a powerful technique that is used to enhance NMR sensitivity by transferring the greater polarization of exogenously doped electron spins to nuclear spins of interest though the use of a high-power microwave source. Solid effect radicals offer …

Synthesis, Self-Assembly, And Material Applications Of Unimolecular Polyviologens, Abigail Delawder

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Intellectual Gaps: Synthesis of high molecular weight, unimolecular, and sequence-defined polyviologens; spatiotemporal control over mechanical properties of materials using visible and near-IR light; on-demand, post hoc manipulation of materials

Intellectual Merit: Robust method for synthesizing higher-order polyviologens of distinct molecular weight; control the change in the mechanical properties of polymer-based, crosslinked materials using a wide range of wavelengths of light; degradation of viologen-crosslinked hydrogels

To understand fundamentally how viologens behave within a polymer chain, we needed a better and more efficient way of synthesizing these long chains of polyviologens. As simple as this process looks on paper, the synthesis is …

Computational Design Of Two-Dimensional Transition Metal Dichalcogenide Alloys And Their Applications, John Douglas Cavin

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The discovery of bronze as an alloy of copper and tin is arguably the earliest form of material design, dating back thousands of years. In contrast, two-dimensional materials are new to the 21st century. The research presented in this dissertation is at the intersection of alloying and two-dimensional materials. I specifically study a class of two-dimensional materials known as transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs). Because of the large number of transition metals, there are many combinations of TMDCs that can be alloyed, making experimental exploration of the phase space of possible alloys unwieldly. Instead, I have applied first-principles methods to study …

Deep Learning Deleterious Small Molecule Biochemistry From The Lab To The Clinic, Matthew Matlock

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Small molecules are key tools in biology and medicine. In biology, small molecules are used to probe biological systems and gain insight into their structure and function. In medicine, this role is further refined to reverse the biological conditions that contribute to human disease. Developing new small molecules into biological probes or drugs can be a daunting scientific task. These projects often begin with many thousands of potential candidates, which are progressively screened and eliminated from consideration by high-throughput experimental assays. Those molecules that emerge from this process as candidate drugs are also subject to extensive in vitro, in vivo, …

Weighted Inequalities On Spaces Of Homogeneous Type, Naga Manasa Vempati

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Let $(X,d,\mu )$ be a space of homogeneous type in the sense of Coifman andWeiss, i.e. $d$ is a quasi metric on $X$ and $\mu $ is a nonzero measure satisfying the doubling condition. Suppose that $u$ and $v$ are two locally finite positive Borel measures on $(X,d,\mu )$, the two weight inequality for the Calder\'on-Zygmund operator is of the form \begin{align*} & \|T(f\cdot u)\|_{L^2(v)}\lesssim \|f\|_{L^2(u)}. \end{align*} Subject to the pair of weights satisfying a side condition, we have given a characterization of the boundedness of a Calder\'{o}n-Zygmund operator $T$ from $L^{2}(u)$ to $L^{2}(v)$ in terms of the $A_{2}$ condition …

Interpolating Matrices, Alberto Dayan

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This Thesis work aims to extend the notion of interpolating sequences to objects having a non-trivial algebraic structure, such as a sequence of square matrices A (of eventually unbounded dimensions). First, we will consider the case in which the spectra of A lie in the unit disc, a necessary assumption if we want to apply to each matrix of the sequence a bounded holomorphic function on the unit disc. Since analytic functions preserve algebraic properties of square matrices, such as their eigenspaces, we can't extend the definition of interpolating sequences to matrices by just considering targets which are bounded in …

Modeling Small Molecule Metabolism In Human Liver Microsome To Better Predict Toxicity Risk, Na Le Dang

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Adverse drug reactions (ADRs) are a serious problem with increasing morbidity, mortality, and health care costs worldwide. In the U.S., ADRs are responsible for more than 50% of acute liver failure cases and are the fourth most common cause of death, costing 100,000 lives annually.Idiosyncratic adverse drug reactions (IADRs) are immune-mediated hypersensitivity ADRs that are difficult to foresee during drug development. IADRs are often caused by reactive metabolites produced during drug metabolism. These reactive metabolites covalently attach to cellular components, and the resulting conjugates may provoke toxic immune response. Because reactive metabolites are short-lived, they can be difficult to detect. …

Integrated Mass Spectrometry-Based Method In Protein Chemistry: Metal-Binding Protein And Integral Membrane Protein, Chunyang Guo

Arts & Sciences Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Most biological processes are associated with protein catalysis. Characterizing protein structure, therefore, is crucial for understanding biological function. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based methods have emerged as a pivotal biophysical tool to interrogate protein structures; they can characterize protein-ligand/protein complexes that are refractory to conventional high-resolution means such as X-ray crystallography, Cryo-EM, and nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy, in part owing to high molecular weight and significant flexibility. The integrated MS-based platform will provide topology and structural information of proteins from sketch to detail; native MS identifies protein complexes’ composition and stoichiometry; hydrogen-deuterium exchange MS (HDX-MS) detects the protein complexes’ dynamic change …