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Title
Porous titanium dioxide nanomaterials for photocatalytic and photovoltaic applications
Creator
Li, Yan (Graduate of Michigan State University)
Date
2016
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
"The huge demand for fossil fuels and the risks of the environmental crisis have spurred an interest in renewable energies. Using the clean and abundant solar energy, semiconductor photocatalysis and photovoltaics have evoked tremendous interest. Titanium dioxide (titania, TiO2) has been the focus of the research trend because of its excellent crystallinity, photoreactivity, chemical and thermal stability, and low cost. The research objective presented in this dissertation is to fabricate...
Show more"The huge demand for fossil fuels and the risks of the environmental crisis have spurred an interest in renewable energies. Using the clean and abundant solar energy, semiconductor photocatalysis and photovoltaics have evoked tremendous interest. Titanium dioxide (titania, TiO2) has been the focus of the research trend because of its excellent crystallinity, photoreactivity, chemical and thermal stability, and low cost. The research objective presented in this dissertation is to fabricate titania nanomaterials with tunable porosities, large surface area, unique morphologies, and enhanced capacities of adsorption, electron transport, diffusion, and then apply them in photocatalysis and photovoltaics. A modified non-hydrolytic sol-gel system with calcium carbonate templating was developed to create macro/micro/nano porous anatase titanium dioxide. The hydrolysis rate was lowered by chelating ligands of valeric acid for slow and sufficient precursor coating. CaCO3 was completely removed via acidification, resulting in titania powders with a surface area ranging from 197 to 239 m2/g. The templated TiO2 with a surface area of 239 m2/g and pore diameters of 6-109 nm showed a promising 27% photocatalytic improvement compared to commercial particles, and a 180% increase compared to template-free TiO2. This increase is attributed to the increased catalyst loading capacity and active photocatalytic sites. From hard templates to soft biodegradable natural templates, the rate-controlled sol-gel method was combined with homogenized micro/nano-fibrillated cellulose (MFCs) with an average diameter below 50 nm. Cellulose was removed completely by thermal treatment, and an in-situ coating technique created thin titania films on substrates with a porous structure. The degradation efficiency of the photocatalytic films was related to film thickness and to the Ti(IV)-to-cellulose ratio. Photocatalyst on film eliminated the post separation treatment related to powder catalyst and simplified the purification process. The sol-gel/MFCs precursor was also coated in-situ as the photoanode for dye-sensitized solar cells. It was found that the thickness of the anode film was a dominant factor to the overall performance and efficiency. The 6-layer cell showed a 400303% increase in solar-to-electricity efficiency (1.75%) compared to commercial paste at the same thickness under a simulated solar light irradiation of 100 mW cm-2 (AM 1.5). From non-hydrolytic to hydrolytic, a modified liquid phase deposition (LPD) approach was combined with MFCs. An optimized solvent composition of isopropanol/water ratio of 4 to 1 was found to yield coatings with uniform spherical TiO2 possessing a chain-like morphology oriented along the axis of the decomposed cellulose fibers. The average rate constant and degradation percentage were 0.72±0.09 min-1, 95% for TiF4-cellulose-4IPA1Water films, which increased by 1.88 times over the film prepared without cellulose templates due to the beneficial surface area, pore size, and the unique morphology. The three-dimensional web structure with pseudo one-dimensional sphere-chain could retard the recombination of photogenerated electron-hole pairs and improve the charge transport."--Pages ii-iii.
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Title
A meditation on loss within games
Creator
Tokarski, Justin C.
Date
2016
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
"Failure is something which we are all familiar with, but when we look at games and the rules which govern them failure takes on a different form. This kind of failure, unique to games, is what I term Loss. To be truly unique to games, Loss must be the result of gamic actions taken by the player, must be constrained by the limitations of the game, and must represent a unique occurrence or state within the game. Taking these constraints into account I propose the following as a definition of...
Show more"Failure is something which we are all familiar with, but when we look at games and the rules which govern them failure takes on a different form. This kind of failure, unique to games, is what I term Loss. To be truly unique to games, Loss must be the result of gamic actions taken by the player, must be constrained by the limitations of the game, and must represent a unique occurrence or state within the game. Taking these constraints into account I propose the following as a definition of Loss. Loss is a player state in a game, entered into when a 'Loss Condition' has been met by the direct actions of the player, wherein something valued by the player within the game is removed. This definition, upon inspection, leads to several different and unique aspects, or dimension, of Loss which provide useful tools for understanding, analyzing, and creating Loss within games. The Digital Dimension of Loss consists of the binary triggers, Loss Conditionals, which lead the game to enter a State of Loss. The Design Dimension of Loss is the method of translating Loss Conditionals into unique game events understandable to the player. The Value Dimension of Loss consists of the gamic measures of effort that are taken away from the player by Loss. Finally, the Experience Dimension of Loss concerns the subjective effects of Loss on the player and methods for predicting what these effects will be. Together, this definition and the 4 aspects of Loss provide us new tools for understanding Loss as unique to games and distinct from failure in non-game contexts."--Page ii.
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Title
Dynamic network analysis with applications to functional neural connectivity
Creator
Golibagh Mahyari, Arash
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
"Contemporary neuroimaging techniques provide neural activity recordings with increasing spatial and temporal resolution yielding rich multichannel datasets that can be exploited for detailed description of anatomical and functional connectivity patterns in the brain. Studies indicate that the changes in functional connectivity patterns across spatial and temporal scales play an important role in a wide range of cognitive and executive processes such as memory and attention as well as in the...
Show more"Contemporary neuroimaging techniques provide neural activity recordings with increasing spatial and temporal resolution yielding rich multichannel datasets that can be exploited for detailed description of anatomical and functional connectivity patterns in the brain. Studies indicate that the changes in functional connectivity patterns across spatial and temporal scales play an important role in a wide range of cognitive and executive processes such as memory and attention as well as in the understanding the causes of many neural diseases and psychopathologies such as epilepsy, Alzheimers, Parkinsons and schizophrenia. Early work in the area was limited to the analysis of static brain networks obtained through averaging long-term functional connectivity, thus neglecting possible time-varying connections. There is growing evidence that functional networks dynamically reorganize and coordinate on millisecond scale for the execution of mental processes. Functional networks consist of distinct network states, where each state is defined as a period of time during which the network topology is quasi-stationary. For this reason, there has been an interest in characterizing the dynamics of functional networks using high temporal resolution electroencephalogram recordings. In this thesis, dynamic functional connectivity networks are represented by multiway arrays, tensors, which are able to capture the complete topological structure of the networks. This thesis proposes new methods for both tracking the changes in these dynamic networks and characterizing or summarizing the network states. In order to achieve this goal, a Tucker decomposition based approach is introduced for detecting the change points for task-based electroencephalogram (EEG) functional connectivity networks through calculating the subspace distance between consecutive time steps. This is followed by a tensor-matrix projection based approach for summarizing multiple networks within a time interval. Tensor based summarization approaches do not necessarily result in sparse network and succinct states. Moreover, subspace based summarizations tend to capture the background brain activity more than the low energy sparse activations. For this reason, we propose utilizing the sparse common component and innovations (SCCI) model which simultaneously finds the sparse common component of multiple signals. However, as the number of signals in the model increases, this becomes computationally prohibitive. In this thesis, a hierarchical algorithm to recover the common component in the SCCI model is proposed for large number of signals. The hierarchical recovery of SCCI model solves the time and memory limitations at the expense of a slight decrease in the accuracy. This hierarchical model is used to separate the common and innovation components of functional connectivity networks across time. The innovation components are tracked over time to detect the change points, and the common component of the detected network states are used to obtain the network summarization. SCCI recovery algorithm finds the sparse representation of the common and innovation components of signals with respect to pre-determined dictionaries. However, input signals are not always well-represented by pre-determined dictionaries. In this thesis, a structured dictionary learning algorithm for SCCI model is developed. The proposed method is applied to EEG data collected during a study of error monitoring where two different types of brain responses are elicited in response to the stimulus. The learned dictionaries can discriminate between the response types and extract the error-related potentials (ERP) corresponding to the two responses."--Pages ii-iii.
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Title
Protease-containing membranes for rapid, controlled antibody digestion prior to mass spectrometry analysis
Creator
Pang, Yongle
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
"Monoclonal antibodies are the fastest growing class of therapeutic drugs because of their high specificities to targeQt cells. Facile analysis of therapeutic mAbs and their post-translational modifications (PTMs) is essential for quality control, and mass spectrometry (MS) is the most powerful tool for antibody characterization. Conventional antibody characterization workflows contain an in-solution digestion step, which is labor-intensive and time-consuming. Protease-containing membranes...
Show more"Monoclonal antibodies are the fastest growing class of therapeutic drugs because of their high specificities to targeQt cells. Facile analysis of therapeutic mAbs and their post-translational modifications (PTMs) is essential for quality control, and mass spectrometry (MS) is the most powerful tool for antibody characterization. Conventional antibody characterization workflows contain an in-solution digestion step, which is labor-intensive and time-consuming. Protease-containing membranes are an attractive alternative platform for protein digestion because of their high local enzyme concentrations, short radial diffusion distances, rapid convection in pores, simple fabrication and low cost. Additionally, variation of protein residence time in the membrane gives control over the size of proteolytic peptides. This research focuses on developing workflows for monoclonal antibody characterization using functionalized porous membranes. Sequential adsorption of poly (styrene sulfonate) and pepsin in a porous nylon membrane forms a pepsin membrane reactor. Pepsin is inexpensive and catalyzes proteolysis in acidic solutions, which avoids the need to alkylate cysteine residues and limits antibody deamidation. Variation of the residence times (3 ms to 3 s) of antibody solutions in pepsin-containing membranes yields "bottom-up" (1-2 kDa) to 'middle-down' (5-15 kDa) peptides in less than 10 min. These peptic peptides cover the entire sequences of Herceptin and a WatersTM antibody. Compared with the performance of bottom-up (in-solution tryptic digestion) and top-down (intact protein fragmentation) analysis of an antibody light chain, middle-down (in-membrane peptic digestion) analysis gives the highest bond cleavage (99%). In-membrane digestion also facilitates detection of PTMs such as oxidation, deamidation, N-terminal pyroglutamic acid formation and glycosylation. Recently developed protease-containing spin membranes provide an excellent platform for rapid, membrane-based protein digestion prior to ultrahigh-resolution Orbitrap MS analysis. Centrifugation of 100-200 æL of pretreated protein solutions through the pepsin- or trypsin-containing membranes takes less than 1 min and gives nearly 100% coverage of the protein sequences in subsequent direct infusion MS analysis of digests of apomyoglobin and four commercial monoclonal antibodies (Herceptin, Avastin, Rituxan and Vectibix). MS analysis of peptic and tryptic peptides also reveals mAb PTMs such as N-terminal pyroglutamate formation, C-terminal Lysine clipping and glycosylation. Liquid chromatography coupled to tandem mass spectrometry analysis of tryptic spin digests and subsequent MaxQuant data searching show 100% sequence coverage of all four antibody light chains, and 75.1%-98.4% coverage of the heavy chains. Compared to in-solution tryptic digestion of mAbs, spin digestion yields higher sequence coverage and a larger number of unique peptides. In-membrane digestion also facilitates protein sequence comparison. Rapid peptic in-membrane digestion of two antibodies with direct infusion MS analysis accurately reveals the antibody modification site in less than 1 h. Overall, membrane-based protein digestion uses minimal sample preparation time and yields high peptide and sequence coverages for identification of protein PTMs."--Page ii-iii.
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Title
Dual role of PU.1 in enhancer priming in macrophages
Creator
Tagore, Mohita Malay
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
All multicellular organisms arise from a single-celled zygote by the precise execution of a gene expression program which ensures appropriate cell identity. This process is particularly challenging in eukaryotic cells since eukaryotic DNA is packaged by architectural proteins called histones into chromatin, which might act as a barrier to the transcriptional machinery. Macrophages are cells of the immune system which undergo rapid, large scale changes in gene expression in response to...
Show moreAll multicellular organisms arise from a single-celled zygote by the precise execution of a gene expression program which ensures appropriate cell identity. This process is particularly challenging in eukaryotic cells since eukaryotic DNA is packaged by architectural proteins called histones into chromatin, which might act as a barrier to the transcriptional machinery. Macrophages are cells of the immune system which undergo rapid, large scale changes in gene expression in response to bacterial or viral challenge. This makes macrophages an excellent model for studying cell-type specific as well as inducible gene expression. Studies at the genome-wide level have shown that distal regulatory elements like enhancers play an essential role in determining the macrophage inducible response to microbial challenge. Further, lineage-specific transcription factors like PU.1 and C/EBPβ are known to bind inducible enhancers prior to gene induction in resting macrophages. Earlier studies using genome-wide approaches indicate that PU.1 is able to interact with chromatin, thus functioning as a 'pioneer factor' in macrophages. However, not much is known about the mechanism by which PU.1 keeps enhancers accessible prior to gene induction in resting macrophages. Using bone-marrow derived primary mouse macrophage cells as well as PU.1 deficient cell lines, my work highlights the changes in chromatin associated with PU.1 binding during macrophage differentiation as well as in response to bacterial infection. Using a quantitative nucleosome occupancy assay, we reported that PU.1 binding correlates with low nucleosome occupancy at an inducible enhancer in resting macrophages. Further upon induction with an appropriate stimulus, nucleosomes are stably evicted from the distal enhancer and the corresponding gene can be induced. More importantly, my results suggest that lack of PU.1 binding renders regulatory regions (enhancers and promoters) of inducible genes susceptible to heterochromatin formation and silencing by Polycomb repressive complex 2 (PRC2) in differentiated macrophages. PRC2-mediated silencing is also associated with an increase in nucleosome occupancy at the target regions and the corresponding genes cannot be induced. Results obtained from this research will provide important insights into the role of lineage-specific transcription factors at regulatory elements both during normal development and disease.
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Title
Affective aesthetics and the social politics of Neoliberalism in New Extremism cinema
Creator
Clark, Cameron
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
This thesis investigates the aesthetics of transgression in New Extremism cinema for the ways in which they inform, and are mutually informed by, neoliberal affect and social politics. Although negative affect and spectatorial embodiment are often central to critical discourse on New Extremism, this thesis instead attends to the interlocking aesthetic, narrative, and spatio-temporal expressions of affect as they correlate with neoliberal politics of respectability and reproduction. By...
Show moreThis thesis investigates the aesthetics of transgression in New Extremism cinema for the ways in which they inform, and are mutually informed by, neoliberal affect and social politics. Although negative affect and spectatorial embodiment are often central to critical discourse on New Extremism, this thesis instead attends to the interlocking aesthetic, narrative, and spatio-temporal expressions of affect as they correlate with neoliberal politics of respectability and reproduction. By deploying feminism and queer theory, this thesis locates positive, productive potentials within formal expressions of negative affect that mobilize a political critique of the violences within each film. In so doing, the selected film examples--Fabrice Du Welz's Calvaire (2004), Marina de Van's Dans ma peu (2002), Olivier Assayas's Demonlover (2002), Bruno Dumont's Twentynine Palms (2004), François Ozon's Criminal Lovers (2001), Alain Guiraudie's Stranger by the Lake (2014), to name a few--portray the shifting relations between politics, gender, and sexuality in the neoliberal present and offer critical alternatives for how such developments have impacted and impeded sociality.
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Title
The political determinants of agricultural policy in sub-Saharan Africa
Creator
Lewis, Dominique Helena
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
My thesis investigates the political determinants of agricultural policy in sub-Saharan Africa, but my work also has implications for broader questions of development economics and public policy formation. Agricultural producers are vital engines of economic development in this region of the African continent. For this reason, policies that enhance the stability and growth of agricultural production are among the most crucial to development more generally. Yet across much of sub-Saharan...
Show moreMy thesis investigates the political determinants of agricultural policy in sub-Saharan Africa, but my work also has implications for broader questions of development economics and public policy formation. Agricultural producers are vital engines of economic development in this region of the African continent. For this reason, policies that enhance the stability and growth of agricultural production are among the most crucial to development more generally. Yet across much of sub-Saharan Africa, pricing policies often work to disadvantage agricultural production, while governmental spending on agricultural research and development remains low. Even more puzzling is the fact that rural constituents uniformly support incumbent policy makers at higher rates than their urban counterparts, even in the face of policies that are manifestly antithetical to their interests. The answer to this puzzle lies in the importance of collective action to policy creation and change and, in particular, how institutional constraints and other such barriers to collective action shape representation in the agricultural sector. Utilizing both the cross-country and temporal variation in policy environments and outputs, I show that institutional contexts which facilitate collective action are associated with pro-agricultural policies, including lower taxes on agricultural products and higher national-level spending on agricultural R&D. Such contexts -- which include institutional protections for civil liberties and higher levels of electoral competition -- allow marginalized groups such as the rural poor to mobilize more effectively, which in turn result in policies more favorable to their interests. Such policies are further facilitated by sector-specific features and practices which enhance mobilization, typically by decreasing the associated costs of such actions. My findings underscore the importance of the broader political and institutional forms on agricultural policy. That is to say, my analysis demonstrates that prescriptions and suggestions for reforms that are designed to enhance agricultural development should not and cannot be limited to those with agriculture as their sole and central focus.
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Title
The carbon sequestration and soil respiration after land use conversion in biofuel cropping ecosystems
Creator
Su, Yahn-Jauh
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
Global climate change alters Earth's carbon, hydrological and energy cycles from local to global scales, changing our climate patterns and impacting our lifestyles and prosperity. The development of bioenergy may partially mitigate the release of carbon dioxide during the combustion of fossil fuel. However, the carbon emissions from the bioenergy-induced land use change have long been debated and it is not certain whether they really represent a reduction of carbon emission. In this study, I...
Show moreGlobal climate change alters Earth's carbon, hydrological and energy cycles from local to global scales, changing our climate patterns and impacting our lifestyles and prosperity. The development of bioenergy may partially mitigate the release of carbon dioxide during the combustion of fossil fuel. However, the carbon emissions from the bioenergy-induced land use change have long been debated and it is not certain whether they really represent a reduction of carbon emission. In this study, I monitored the components of the net ecosystem exchange (NEE) of CO2, including gross primary production (GPP), ecosystem respiration (Reco), total soil respiration (Rs), autotrophic soil respiration (Ra) and heterotrophic soil respiration (Rh), to understand their responses to climate variability and in particular a severe drought event. I studied three major bioenergy crops (continuous corn, switchgrass and restored multicultural prairie) on fields with two different land use histories (conventional corn-soybean rotation and Conservation Reserve Program brome grass fields). I found that the amplitude, the duration and the seasonality of microclimatic variables (temperature and precipitation) were important for the carbon dynamics in the bioenergy cropping systems. The soil water content affected the annual NEE, GPP and Reco although it did not have strong correlations with these components of carbon fluxes at short-term scale. The short-term (1-2 week) normal summer water deficit may affect annual NEE while long-term (spring-summer) drought may change the community structure and affect the carbon cycling processes in the following years. The temperature sensitivities of soil respiration were shifted within and between years. In addition, crop types and land use histories affect the responses of ecosystem to climate events. The different phenology between annual and perennial crops and the establishment of dense root systems in perennial crops can change the ratio of the components of NEE and change the direction and the amounts of net ecosystem carbon flux. Annual and perennial crops have different strategies responding to different climate scenarios and their combinations. The monitoring of climate patterns at intra-annual scale is required to understand how the ecosystem respond to climate change.
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Title
Expanding the survivor support net : a qualitative evaluation of a flexible funding program for intimate partner violence survivors
Creator
Bomsta, Heather
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
"Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects nearly one in four US women in their lifetime. IPV survivors need access to material and community resources - whether they are leaving their abusers or choosing to stay in the relationship. Previous research has found that women who have experienced IPV are four times as likely to experience housing instability. The current IPV system focuses mainly on providing shelter, support groups, counseling, and legal advocacy, but has fewer financial resources...
Show more"Intimate partner violence (IPV) affects nearly one in four US women in their lifetime. IPV survivors need access to material and community resources - whether they are leaving their abusers or choosing to stay in the relationship. Previous research has found that women who have experienced IPV are four times as likely to experience housing instability. The current IPV system focuses mainly on providing shelter, support groups, counseling, and legal advocacy, but has fewer financial resources. This qualitative study focused on a pilot program in Washington D.C. that offered select survivors financial grants to address whatever the survivor defined as threatening their housing stability. Survivors were interviewed 30-days post-grant to assess their housing status and explore other grant impacts. All survivors in the sample were still housed 30- days post-grant. Survivors described the impact of the grants as extending beyond financial issues, resulting in stress relief, improved parenting, increased ability to focus on work and family and improvements in physical and mental health. The financial aspect of the grant was important, but the role of advocacy also appears crucial to these survivors."--Page ii.
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Title
Mechanisms mediating life history traits in the spotted hyena (Crocuta crocuta
Creator
Lewin, Nora Shannon
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
My dissertation focuses on understanding the mechanisms underpinning growth, reproduction, and survival in the spotted hyena. Following a general introductory chapter, my dissertation is composed of four independent research chapters. I begin with Chapter 2 in which my colleagues and I document a positive linear relationship between social dominance rank and telomere length. We also report significant variability in telomere length of high-ranking females among different social groups,...
Show moreMy dissertation focuses on understanding the mechanisms underpinning growth, reproduction, and survival in the spotted hyena. Following a general introductory chapter, my dissertation is composed of four independent research chapters. I begin with Chapter 2 in which my colleagues and I document a positive linear relationship between social dominance rank and telomere length. We also report significant variability in telomere length of high-ranking females among different social groups, suggesting that both social dominance rank and group membership influence this important biomarker of aging. In Chapter 3, we describe the role of juvenile concentrations of the hormone, insulin-like growth-factor -1 (IGF-1), in predicting trade-offs between early-life growth and later-life reproduction and survival among female hyenas. In Chapter 4, I explore IGF-1 as a potential mechanism of female-biased sexual size dimorphism by documenting sex-biased concentrations, sensitivities, and adaptive values of IGF-1 during the early postnatal period. Finally, in Chapter 5, I describe that age-related improvement and senescence in reproductive performance varies with social dominance rank among female hyenas. Cumulatively, my dissertation is an exploration of how physiological mechanisms may be used to understand social, physiological, and evolutionary forces operating in a free-living social carnivore. My work offers a unique contribution to the field of life-history evolution and furthers our understanding of the mechanisms that give rise to it.
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Title
A global modeling framework for plasma kinetics : development and applications
Creator
Parsey, Guy Morland
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
The modern study of plasmas, and applications thereof, has developed synchronously with com-puter capabilities since the mid-1950s. Complexities inherent to these charged-particle, many-body, systems have resulted in the development of multiple simulation methods (particle-in-cell,fluid, global modeling, etc.) in order to both explain observed phenomena and predict outcomesof plasma applications. Recognizing that different algorithms are chosen to best address specifictopics of interest, this...
Show moreThe modern study of plasmas, and applications thereof, has developed synchronously with com-puter capabilities since the mid-1950s. Complexities inherent to these charged-particle, many-body, systems have resulted in the development of multiple simulation methods (particle-in-cell,fluid, global modeling, etc.) in order to both explain observed phenomena and predict outcomesof plasma applications. Recognizing that different algorithms are chosen to best address specifictopics of interest, this thesis centers around the development of an open-source global model frame-work for the focused study of non-equilibrium plasma kinetics. After verification and validationof the framework, it was used to study two physical phenomena: plasma-assisted combustion andthe recently proposed optically-pumped rare gas metastable laser.Global models permeate chemistry and plasma science, relying on spatial averaging to focusattention on the dynamics of reaction networks. Defined by a set of species continuity and energyconservation equations, the required data and constructed systems are conceptually similar acrossmost applications, providing a light platform for exploratory and result-search parameter scan-ning. Unfortunately, it is common practice for custom code to be developed for each application-an enormous duplication of effort which negatively affects the quality of the software produced.Presented herein, the Python-based Kinetic Global Modeling framework (KGMf) was designed tosupport all modeling phases: collection and analysis of reaction data, construction of an exportablesystem of model ODEs, and a platform for interactive evaluation and post-processing analysis. Asymbolic ODE system is constructed for interactive manipulation and generation of a Jacobian,both of which are compiled as operation-optimized C-code.Plasma-assisted combustion and ignition (PAC/PAI) embody the modernization of burning fuelby opening up new avenues of control and optimization. With applications ranging from engineefficiency and pollution control to stabilized operation of scramjet technology in hypersonic flows,developing an understanding of the underlying plasma chemistry is of the utmost importance.While the use of equilibrium (thermal) plasmas in the combustion process extends back to the ad-vent of the spark-ignition engine, works from the last few decades have demonstrated fundamentaldifferences between PAC and classical combustion theory. The KGMf is applied to nanosecond-discharge systems in order to analyze the effects of electron energy distribution assumptions onreaction kinetics and highlight the usefulness of 0D modeling in systems defined by coupled andcomplex physics.With fundamentally different principles involved, the concept of optically-pumped rare gasmetastable lasing (RGL) presents a novel opportunity for scalable high-powered lasers by takingadvantage of similarities in the electronic structure of elements while traversing the periodic ta-ble. Building from the proven concept of diode-pumped alkali vapor lasers (DPAL), RGL systemsdemonstrate remarkably similar spectral characteristics without problems associated with heatedcaustic vapors. First introduced in 2012, numerical studies on the latent kinetics remain immature.This work couples an analytic model developed for DPAL with KGMf plasma chemistry to bet-ter understand the interaction of a non-equilibrium plasma with the induced laser processes anddetermine if optical pumping could be avoided through careful discharge selection.
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Title
Exploring the possibilities of Teachtown MKE : using local cultural institutions to support novice teachers' access to community resources
Creator
Shattuck, Tamara M.
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
Cultural institutions have the capacity to provide teachers with material resources for curriculum use in the classroom, professional support through connection to professional learning communities, promotion of self-confidence in teaching, and gains in subject content knowledge. There is building evidence that these types of support systems help novice teachers (i.e., teachers in their first three year of teaching), however many teachers do not have access to such support. And while access...
Show moreCultural institutions have the capacity to provide teachers with material resources for curriculum use in the classroom, professional support through connection to professional learning communities, promotion of self-confidence in teaching, and gains in subject content knowledge. There is building evidence that these types of support systems help novice teachers (i.e., teachers in their first three year of teaching), however many teachers do not have access to such support. And while access to resources is important for novice teachers, there is also evidence that access does not guarantee the use of resources. This descriptive study explores the inclusion of cultural institutions as partners in novice teacher support programs though the investigation of Milwaukee, Wisconsin's Key to the City Pass (KCP), which provides new teachers access to over 22 local cultural institutions. I also investigate how novice teachers develop and use the skill of relational agency -the ability to "work fluidly across professional boundaries" (Edwards, 2005a p. 177) and understand the utility of materials for problem solving. I hypothesize building the skill of relational agency helps novice teachers' better access KCP resources for professional use. Thus, four research questions drive this study; 1) How do teachers use KCP benefits? 2) Do teachers who participate in the KCP program incorporate community/cultural institution resources in their teaching practices, and if so how? 3) What barriers exist, and how can the KCP program be made more accessible for teachers? 4) Do participant teachers display the skill of relational agency, does this skill apply to KCP use? I used both quantitative and qualitative methods to analyze data and document teachers' use of the KCP through: (1) a teacher survey, (2) semi-structured focus group interviews, and (3) case study teacher interviews and artifact analysis. The quantitative survey data was analyzed first to gather general patterns of KCP use across participant teachers. I analyzed survey data using descriptive and inferential statistics. The qualitative data was analyzed in a second phase to gather information about how teachers use KCP resources. For the qualitative data analysis, I used deductive coding. Findings indicate that participants were mostly using the KCP program for personal reasons (e.g., trips with friends and family), and that they were able to connect with the local community through these trips. Through personal trips, teachers were also able to assess whether taking field trips to certain cultural institutions was appropriate for their students. Few teachers used the skill of relational agency in connection to the KCP and noted they were more likely to use cultural institution resources if they were clearly connected with state and district standards. Teachers were also more likely to use cultural institution resources if they had the opportunity to collaborate with cultural institution staff. This study enabled me to observe barriers to KCP use before generalizing how such a program might be created in other cities. Which in turn allowed me to understand the steps other cities should take in order to build stronger partnerships. Based on my findings of the barriers to KCP use I suggest cities who wish to form partnership programs: 1) gather input from all constituents, 2) create a strong mission statement, 3) connect to district wide initiatives, and 4) ensure a pathway for clear and continual communication between partners and participants.
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Title
Social-ecological systems, values, and the science of "people management"
Creator
Piso, Zachary Amedeo
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
This dissertation interrogates a shift in environmental science, policy, and management toward conceptualizing the environment as a social-ecological system. Social-ecological systems science reflects an interdisciplinary effort to understand how individuals and communities achieve their environmental goals through the institutions that they maintain. Though the paradigmatic institutions concern economic behavior (e.g. property rights institutions), the field embraces the social sciences...
Show moreThis dissertation interrogates a shift in environmental science, policy, and management toward conceptualizing the environment as a social-ecological system. Social-ecological systems science reflects an interdisciplinary effort to understand how individuals and communities achieve their environmental goals through the institutions that they maintain. Though the paradigmatic institutions concern economic behavior (e.g. property rights institutions), the field embraces the social sciences broadly, with contributions from sociology, anthropology, geography, political science, and so on. That said, social science is fairly narrowly conceived; leaders in the field stress that they are studying social mechanisms in order to predict and manage social behavior. In a popular textbook on the subject, Fikret Berkes and Carl Folke stress that "resource management is people management" and call for a social science of this management.Social-ecological systems scientists have generally neglected the ethics of people management-for the most part they subscribe to a fairly typical fact/value dichotomy according to which scientists describe social-ecological systems while managers and policymakers prescribe actions in light of these descriptions. Following several philosophical traditions (in particular pragmatist philosophy of science), I call attention to the ways that social-ecological systems science is value-laden. I take environmental pragmatism to provide a roadmap for conducting social-ecological systems science ethically. Environmental pragmatists stress that science is always embedded in practical problem-solving activities that presuppose particular goals for, and side constraints to, inquiry. Many traditions in the philosophy of environmental science embrace social science for the specific role of facilitating this deliberation, but these traditions do not seem to anticipate the explanatory ambitions of social sciences. This leaves unaddressed several pertinent questions about how social explanations work (i.e. how functional distinction structure inquiry), which have very practical implications for which social science disciplines should be included in a collaboration and how social and ecological knowledge should be integrated. For example, most social situations are characterized by property rights institutions, cultural traditions, political alliances, and other social institutions within the purview of particular social science disciplines, but researchers are not reflexive about whether to explain environmental change according to one set of practices or another.The dissertation traverses the following terrain: the first chapter more carefully motivates the questions above regarding the need for ethics and the promise, but present inadequacy, of environmental pragmatism to meet this need. Chapter two attends to Dewey's theory of inquiry, in particular the dialogical dimension of inquiry that authorizes warranted assertions. Through reflection on Daniel Bromley's volitional pragmatism and a debate between Richard Rorty and hermeneutic social scientists, chapter three attends to the way that social science structures inquiry in order to intervene in the normative practices of a community. Chapter four analyzes social-ecological explanations in order to locate normative and evaluative assumptions that should be accountable to democratic deliberation. Finally, chapter five redescribes interdisciplinary integration as an ethical project where decisions about the centering and decentering of different sciences is as much ethical as epistemological.
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Title
Ultrafast transient states in nonequilibrium quantum systems
Creator
Hwang, Bin
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
Photo-induced phase transitions (PIPT) in quantum systems are the epitome of challenging non-equilibrium many-body phenomena, that also have a wide range of potential applications. Recently interest in light-matter coupled states with an energy gap have yielded evidence for Floquet topological states. In this study we demonstrate nonequilibrium Floquet band formation under ultrafast optical excitation using a one-dimensional topological insulator. As an example, the effects are illustrated...
Show morePhoto-induced phase transitions (PIPT) in quantum systems are the epitome of challenging non-equilibrium many-body phenomena, that also have a wide range of potential applications. Recently interest in light-matter coupled states with an energy gap have yielded evidence for Floquet topological states. In this study we demonstrate nonequilibrium Floquet band formation under ultrafast optical excitation using a one-dimensional topological insulator. As an example, the effects are illustrated using a new Zig-Zag Su-Schrieffer-Heeger model of polyacetylene, which is a paradigmatic Hamiltonian exhibiting nontrivial edge states. Our results indicate short optical pulses feasible in experiments can induce novel topological states, local spectral selection and novel pseudospin textures in polyacetylene. Pump-probe photoemission spectroscopy is able to study these states by measuring Floquet band formation and sizeable energy gaps on femtosecond time scales. We find that optically activated nontrivial variations of sublattice mixing could lead to novel topological phenomenon.The rich variety of states induced by lasers have a wide range of potential applications so that control of these states has become a key objective. We present a computational approach to finding optimal ultrafast laser pulse shapes to induce target states and population inversion in pump-probe PIPT experiments. The Krotov approach for Quantum optimal control theory (QOCT) is combined with a Keldysh Green’s function calculation to describe experimental outcomes such as photoemission, transient single particle density of states and optical responses. Results for a simple model charge density wave (CDW) system are presented, including generation of almost complete population inversion and negative temperature states.
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Title
The limits of sympathy : professional philanthropy and detachment in narrative, 1869-1914
Creator
Beard, Erin Elizabeth
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
The Limits of Sympathy intervenes in the scholarly conversation surrounding the relationship between philanthropic reform and the novel as well as the role of women in philanthropic work during late Victorian England. Importantly, this project brings archival texts, such as the philanthropic case reports of the Charity Organisation Society, into the conversation in order to demonstrate how the professionalization of philanthropy eliminated the role of sympathy in philanthropic work and...
Show moreThe Limits of Sympathy intervenes in the scholarly conversation surrounding the relationship between philanthropic reform and the novel as well as the role of women in philanthropic work during late Victorian England. Importantly, this project brings archival texts, such as the philanthropic case reports of the Charity Organisation Society, into the conversation in order to demonstrate how the professionalization of philanthropy eliminated the role of sympathy in philanthropic work and narrative. Where philanthropic texts created new narrative forms to grapple with the New Poor Laws and the changing urban environment of late Victorian London, novels by George Eliot, Walter Besant, H. G. Wells, Edith Johnstone, and Isabella Ford considered how the adoption of professionalized, distanced discourse affected women's perception of and participation in philanthropic work. These novels demonstrate how our current critical reliance on sympathy as a way to mediate the relationship between philanthropic and poor characters, as well as between reader and novel, no longer works within the context of professionalized philanthropy. -- Abstract.
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Title
Accusing Muslims of terrorism : Islam, secularism, and religious violence in the United States
Creator
Sadequee, Sharmin
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
This dissertation describes the ways in which the securitized secular laws of the state act to regulate and control Muslims and the practices of Islam through "terrorism" prosecutions in the United States. In order to eliminate terrorism violence, the security state has created an exception to regular legal norms by establishing a court within a court and a prison within a prison, where normal legal procedures are not followed for those Muslim immigrants and American Muslim citizens accused...
Show moreThis dissertation describes the ways in which the securitized secular laws of the state act to regulate and control Muslims and the practices of Islam through "terrorism" prosecutions in the United States. In order to eliminate terrorism violence, the security state has created an exception to regular legal norms by establishing a court within a court and a prison within a prison, where normal legal procedures are not followed for those Muslim immigrants and American Muslim citizens accused of "terrorism" related offenses. I address the ways in which Muslims have been conditioned and affected by the securitized secular laws that are applied in "terrorism" cases, and I also discuss how human-rights advocacy around the accused challenge and resist these discriminatory practices. Based on 24 months of ethnographic fieldwork; observations of federal terrorism trials; a review of prison writings; and interviews with families of the accused, activists, lawyers, and human-rights advocates, I address the legal practices of securitized laws concerned with preventing "terrorism," their impact both inside and outside of judicial institutions, and the power of these practices on the lived experiences of Muslim Americans. While some authorities claim that preventive "terrorism" prosecutions are necessary to eradicate violence, I suggest that the main concerns of the security state are really about eradicating religious thought and practices that contradict the secular definition of acceptable religion. -- Abstract.
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Title
A practical approach for ultra high performance concrete construction
Creator
Chen, Yang (Graduate of Michigan State University in civil engineering)
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
"Ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) with compressive strengths in excess of 150 MPa promise to enhance the structural efficiency and durability of concrete-based infrastructure systems. In order to transition UHPC materials into mainstream construction practices, there are needs to develop refined mix design procedures that enable production of UHPC using primarily locally available materials, resolves the problems with production of homogeneous UHPC mixtures using commonly available...
Show more"Ultra-high-performance concrete (UHPC) with compressive strengths in excess of 150 MPa promise to enhance the structural efficiency and durability of concrete-based infrastructure systems. In order to transition UHPC materials into mainstream construction practices, there are needs to develop refined mix design procedures that enable production of UHPC using primarily locally available materials, resolves the problems with production of homogeneous UHPC mixtures using commonly available concrete mixers, develop convenient fresh mix workability test methods that consider the peculiar rheology of fresh UHPC mixtures, and quantify some aspects of the UHPC material properties that have not been fully characterized. The UHPC materials were tested for fresh mix flow and hardened concrete compressive strength. The trends in the effects of packing density, water film thickness and excess paste film thickness on compressive strength and fresh mix flow were investigated. The results were used to identify viable ranges of these defining characteristics of UHPC mixtures. Response surface analysis of the fresh mix flow and the hardened concrete compressive strength test results led to identification of the optimum values of mix design parameters. The optimum mix was prepared, and was found to produce a highly desired balance of fresh mix flow and hardened concrete compressive strength, which occurred within the ranges predicted by response surface analysis of experimental results."--Page ii.
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Title
Managing carrot foliar diseases in commercial production fields in Michigan
Creator
Donne, Irene Mariel
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
"Fungal foliar diseases caused by Alternaria dauci and Cercospora carotae occur annually on carrots. Our goal was to update the disease management tactics by: 1) Testing OMRI-approved and conventional fungicides and 2) Evaluating TOM-CAST. Trials were conducted in 2015 and 2016. Disease severity was visually assessed weekly using the Horsfall-Barratt scale and a petiole health scale; the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC) was calculated for these parameters. Root yield was...
Show more"Fungal foliar diseases caused by Alternaria dauci and Cercospora carotae occur annually on carrots. Our goal was to update the disease management tactics by: 1) Testing OMRI-approved and conventional fungicides and 2) Evaluating TOM-CAST. Trials were conducted in 2015 and 2016. Disease severity was visually assessed weekly using the Horsfall-Barratt scale and a petiole health scale; the area under the disease progress curve (AUDPC) was calculated for these parameters. Root yield was determined at harvest. Based on AUDPC results obtained in 2015 and 2016, the copperbased fungicides (copper hydroxide and copper hydroxide + copper oxychloride) were the only OMRI-approved products that significantly and consistently limited foliar blight. On the final assessment dates in both years, all conventional fungicides limited foliar and petiole blighting compared to the control with one exception; the propiconazole treatment in 2016 was similar to the control for petiole health. Yields differed significantly among the conventional treatments in 2016 but not in 2015. All treatments yielded significantly higher than the control except for iprodione. Treatments of pyraclostrobin + boscalid, fluxapyroxad + pyraclostrobin, and boscalid had statistically higher yields than penthiopyrad, iprodione, and propiconazole. TOM-CAST 15 and 25 DSV fungicide application schedules effectively reduced foliar blighting in 2015 under relatively light disease pressure. However, the TOM-CAST 25 DSV schedule did not adequately limit disease in 2016 when disease pressure was increased. Recently registered fungicides such as penthiopyrad and fluxapyroxad + pyraclostrobin and using TOM-CAST at the more conservative spray threshold of 15 DSV can help growers limit fungal foliar blight in years with higher disease pressure."--Page ii.
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Title
Freshwater resources : an evaluation of Michigan residents' perception of wetland ecosystem services
Creator
Walkowiak, Toni Anne
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
"Thus, this research serves two purposes: (1), to gather information about Michigan residents' overall knowledge of wetlands ecosystems; (2), to establish whether residents can accurately distinguish between wetland functions and values. Two activities: semi-structured focus group interviews and online digital card sorts were conducted within Chippewa, Huron, and Macomb Counties of Michigan, to evaluate individuals' environmental perceptions of wetland ecosystems." -- Abstract.
Title
Solid-state nuclear magnetic resonance studies of the structures, membrane locations, cholesterol contact, and membrane motions of membrane-associated HIV Fusion Peptide (HFP
Creator
Jia, Lihui (Scientist)
Date
2017
Collection
Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description
Membrane fusion is the key step during HIV viral entry to cells, and the process is catalyzed by HIV membrane fusion protein gp41. HFP is the ~25-residue N-terminal domain of gp41 and is required for membrane fusion with significant decreases in fusion activity with point mutations. Both viral and host cell membrane contain ~30mol % cholesterol (CHOL), and HFP induced fusion is faster in membrane with CHOL. However, how HFP interacts with membrane lipids and CHOL is unknown. In this thesis,...
Show moreMembrane fusion is the key step during HIV viral entry to cells, and the process is catalyzed by HIV membrane fusion protein gp41. HFP is the ~25-residue N-terminal domain of gp41 and is required for membrane fusion with significant decreases in fusion activity with point mutations. Both viral and host cell membrane contain ~30mol % cholesterol (CHOL), and HFP induced fusion is faster in membrane with CHOL. However, how HFP interacts with membrane lipids and CHOL is unknown. In this thesis, we used the newly developed 13C-2H Rotational Echo Double Resonance (REDOR) solid-state NMR method to study the membrane location of HFP in chemically-native membrane environment. HFP is 13CO labeled at specific residue, and the membrane is deuterated at specific regions of the membrane using selective regions deuterated phosphatidylcholine (PC) and CHOL. We study HFP wild type, HFP_V2E and L9R mutants because these two mutants eliminate and decrease fusion respectively. HFP is predominantly β sheet structure in bilayer membrane for both HFP wild type and HFP_V2E mutant, HFP_L9R has a different structure and is likely helical. Both HFP and HFP_V2E mutant have major deeply-inserted membrane location contacting membrane center and minor shallowly-inserted membrane location contacting half way of one membrane leaflet. The HFP_V2E mutant has bigger fraction of molecules with shallower membrane location, which is consistent with the strong correlation between membrane location insertion depth and the peptide fusogenicity. HFP_L9R mutant has majorly deeply inserted into membrane.By comparing the HFP- PC and HFP- CHOL contact, there is preferential contact between HFP and CHOL vs PC at several residues including G5, G10 and G16. The free energy difference for contacting PC vs CHOL is ~ 0.57(5) kcal.mol-1 for T= 300K. HFP- CHOL contact geometry is successfully modeled by Swiss Dock and YASARA energy minimization with two strands antiparallel HFP (1→16/16→1 registry). There are two energetically favorable binding models between HFP and CHOL, from docking, energy minimization and consistency with REDOR results. The contact models reveal tilted and curved-up tail orientation of Chol_d7. Fusion may be catalyzed by matching the curvature of lipids contacting HFPs with the membrane curvature during the fusion intermediates like the stalk. Membrane motion perturbation by HFP is studied by static deuterium NMR from deuterium powder pattern spectrum, order parameter profile and T2 relaxation time. The DMPC-d54 spectrum becomes ~10% narrower in membrane without CHOL with 4% HFP and in membrane with 33% CHOL with 1% HFP. Accordingly, the order parameter of lipid acyl chain becomes ~ 1-10% disordered by HFP. However, the spectrum becomes 20% broader in membrane with 33% CHOL with 4% HFP, and the order parameter of lipid acyl chain becomes ~ 20- 30% ordered by HFP. With HFP at 37 °C, DMPC-d54 T2 decreases ~ 70 %, and the CHOL T2 decreases ~ 30%. T2 reduction is probably associated with increased membrane curvature induced by HFP. With greater membrane curvature, the C-D bond will experience more orientation diversity relative to the external magnetic field. Thus, the quadrupolar field will have greater change, leading to faster relaxation and shorter T2. Gp41_V2E mutant eliminates cell-cell fusion. Our CD spectroscopy studies show that the FPHM_V2E mutant is helical and the melting temperature is above 90 °C in 10mM Tris buffer + 0.2 % SDS at pH 7.4. Protein is trimer and induces no lipid mixing in PC: CHOL= 2:1 vesicles.
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