Carbohydrates as Scaffolds for Bioactive Agents
Year of Dissertation:
2012
ABSTRACT
Aesthetic Autobiography and The Poetics of Despair in Post-War American Literature
Year of Dissertation:
2012
Advisor:
Wayne Koestenbaum
This dissertation repositions "aesthetic" in its ancient Greek context, meaning to apprehend by the senses. The project is framed around my idea of the aesthetic autobiography, a creative work that phenomenologically conveys the embodied experience of its author. I do not use "aesthetic" as a transcendentalist term of critical assessment, as defined by Kant; instead, the term denotes the immanent realm of the senses. This move allows me to connect the aesthetic to affect, whose etymology I trace from the mid 18th Century to contemporary affect theory. I theorize the aesthetic as a dynamic and relational biophysical force. I aim to extend the boundaries of autobiographical "truth" in order to accommodate the feeling body, which exists in excess and often beyond the reach of conceptual language.
Genetically Modified Collagen-like Triple helix Protein as Biomimetic Template to Fabricate Metal/Semiconductor Nanowires
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Various metal and semiconductor nanowires have been developed as building blocks for electronics, optics, and sensors devices. Among these, new nanowires developed on biomolecular templates got more attention since the molecular recognition functions of these biomolecules with specific ligands can be employed to immobilize nanowires onto specific locations to establish desired device geometries. In order for their application in electronics, optics, and sensors device fabrications, after configuring device geometries with nanowires by the biomolecular recognition, we focused upon the biomineralization function of peptides on the nanotemplate sidewall to develop various material coatings such as metals and semiconductors for electronics and sensor applications. It should be noted that the coating morphology such as particle-domain size and inter-particle distance on the nanotemplates could be tuned by peptide sequences and conformations.
The Geometry of Gauss' Composition Law
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Gauss' identification of a composition law for primitive integral binary quadratic forms of given discriminant D--which provides the set FD of SL2(Z) equivalence classes of such forms with a group structure--essentially amounts to the discovery of the class group of an order in a quadratic number field. We consider quadratic extensions of the field of rational functions k(u), where k is an algebraically closed field, and seek an analogue of Gauss composition in this context.
IMPROVING THE TEACHING AND LEARNING OF SCIENCE IN A SUBURBAN JUNIOR HIGH SCHOOL:ACHIEVING PARITY THROUGH COGENERATIVE DIALOGUES
Year of Dissertation:
2010
The research in this dissertation focuses on ways to improve the teaching and learning of science in a suburban junior high school on Long Island, New York. The study is my attempt to find ways to achieve parity in my classroom in terms of success in science. The goal of parity is for all students to have equal opportunity to enjoy a basic education of high quality, achieve at high levels, and enjoy equal benefits from education. I was specifically looking for ways to
Dissecting the role of human PPR motif proteins in mitochondrial gene expression
Author:
Catherine Bangeranye
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Advisor:
Serafin Piñol-Roma
Pentatricopeptide repeat (PPR) motif proteins constitute a growing superfamily of proteins that are broadly defined by the presence of one or more copies of a conserved 35 amino acid sequence, the PPR motif. They are particularly abundant in plants, and those whose function has been characterized have been implicated in several aspects of RNA metabolism in mitochondria and chloroplasts. In humans, PPR motif proteins are fewer in number. They include LRPPRC (Leucine-Rich PPR-motif -Containing protein), an RNA-binding protein that is a component of nuclear ribonucleoprotein (RNP) complexes that contain spliced mRNAs. Most of the LRPPRC, however, localizes predominantly to mitochondria, where it binds polyadenylated RNAs. Mutations in the lrpprc gene cause cytochrome c oxidase deficiency in Leigh Syndrome (LSFC), which is accompanied by a decrease in COXI and COXIII mitochondrial mRNAs. Our hypothesis is that LRPPRC is an essential trans-acting factor in mitochondrial mRNA metabolism. In order to address the function of LRPPRC in mitochondria, we isolated LRPPRC-associated mitochondrial RNP complexes (mtRNPs). Analysis of isolated mtRNPs shows that the mitochondrially-encoded mRNAs associate with LRPPRC. A reduction in LRPPRC levels using RNAi causes a parallel reduction in steady-state levels of mitochondrially-encoded mRNAs, but not of nuclear-encoded mRNAs. Thus, LRPPRC is an important factor for mitochondrial gene expression and is necessary for the accumulation of the mitochondrial mRNAs to which it binds. Using LRPPRC as a paradigm, we sought and analyzed other members of the PPR motif family in humans. Four other human PPR-motif proteins, PTCD1, PTCD2, PTCD3 and PTCD4, also localize in mitochondria. Moreover, some of these proteins also bind RNA and exist in the same complexes as LRPPRC. This indicates that the human PTCD proteins, as is the case with LRPPRC, are also involved in mitochondrial RNA metabolism, pointing to PPR motif proteins in humans as a novel family of trans-acting factors in mitochondrial gene expression. These findings open the way for an expanded and more detailed understanding of human mitochondrial gene expression, and for an exploration of the potential involvement of human PPR motif proteins in mitochondrial diseases, as has already been determined for LRPPRC.
Continuum and Molecular Dynamics Simulations of the Growth of a Vapor Bubble on a Heating Surface: Exploring the Mechanism of Nucleate Boiling Heat Transfer
Year of Dissertation:
2011
Advisor:
David Rumschitzki
Starting with a completely rewritten code for the conductively-driven quasi-static vapor bubble growth in an axisymmetric, cylindrical cell comprised of solid and liquid phase of finite thicknesses under small Reynolds, Peclet, Capillary and Bond numbers to verify L. Huang's (our prior Ph.D. student) earlier results, we couple the solution of the quasi-static problem with three simple, somewhat ad hoc models of contact line motion and relax the assumption of small Bond number to simulate the growth of an incipient bubble until gravity begins to slowly deform the vapor bubble and then to detach it from the solid heater surface. A simple physical theory is developed to explain that when the bubble density is not too high, the bubble volume vs time approaches a 3/2 power before gravity begins to deform its shape, independent of contact line motion models and system parameters such as the conductivity ratio of the liquid to solid and degree of wall superheat.
Neocontradictions: The Politics and Ideology of American Welfare State Decline
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Advisor:
Stanley Aronowitz
This study historically investigates the circumstances - economic, political, and ideological - out of which the American political culture would shift to the right and become hostile to welfare. It is in part a genealogy of contemporary welfare reform discourse, which is comprised by the synthesis of varied and contradictory components of conservative philosophy about family, work, responsibility, and the role of government. This study also contextualizes that discourse within the development of a conservative politico-ideological apparatus. Today's conservative movement in the United States is the fusion of other sub-strands of conservatism and has successfully defined the parameters of acceptable discourse around the issue of welfare. It has developed a large pool of resources, become adept in the arena of activist and electoral politics, built a vast infrastructure for the production and deployment of ideas, and established a resilient presence in the everyday lives of Americans. Therefore a study of the erosion of the American welfare state must trace the development of these ideas and the means by which they became policy orthodoxy.
An Examination of Predictive Variables of Success in Mental Health Diversion Programs.
Author:
Virginia Barber Rioja
Year of Dissertation:
2009
Diversion programs were developed to ease the overrepresentation of individuals with psychiatric disorders in the criminal justice system. These programs divert individuals with mental illnesses out of jails into community treatment. Despite the increased popularity of these programs, little is known about the psychosocial, psychiatric and psychological characteristics of the diverted individuals. In addition, despite the importance of using standardized assessment instruments pre-diversion, no published study has attempted to evaluate the utility of risk assessment instruments or measures of malingering, personality or psychopathology in diverted offenders. This investigation attempted to address this gap in the literature through three different studies that (1) described a sample of 61 defendants released from jail in terms of demographical, clinical, and criminological characteristics; (2) determined the utility of the HCR-20 violence risk assessment scheme and the Psychopathy Checklist: Screening Version (PCL: SV) in the prediction of diversion non-compliance, and recidivism in a sample of 120 defendants, and (3) identified alternative factors that help defendants succeed in diversion through a multiple case-study design. Results revealed that this sample consisted primarily of minority male defendants with extensive histories of prior arrests, significant histories of physical abuse, homelessness and suicidality, and co-morbid substance abuse and psychiatric disorders. The findings provided preliminary validation of the predictive validity of the HCR-20 and PCL: SV with defendants diverted to community treatment. The HCR-20 was found to be superior to the PCL: SV in predicting both non-compliance and recidivism, and the PCL: SV proved to be more useful in predicting recidivism than non-compliance. Results of multiple case-studies found a pattern of characteristics shared by participants who failed diversion regardless of HCR-20 results. These variables included history of physical abuse, family history of substance abuse or criminal behavior, levels of social support, and level of responsibility taken for the instant offence.
El modernismo desde dentro: Discurso de la "gente nueva" y campo literario en la prensa modernista madrileña (1897-1907)
Author:
MARIA SUSANA BARDAVIO ESTEVAN
Year of Dissertation:
2010
Program:
Hispanic & Luso Brazilian Literatures & Languages
This dissertation examines the trajectory of modernist discourse between 1897 and 1907 and its impact on the process toward autonomy of Madrid's literary field. In the late nineteenth century, the failure of the liberal project and of positivism plunged European thought into what has been called the fin de siècle crisis. Spain participated fully in this process, generating a series of protest discourses that rejected the prevailing system. In the arts and literature in particular, this led to a number of trends aesthetically or ideologically opposed to the political system of the Restoration, to bourgeois values, to radical positivism and to realist aesthetics. The material and social conditioning factors greatly hindered the development of the new aesthetics. This caused the young writers to come together as a community of discourse conjoining the plurality of perspectives that characterized them under two basic principles: the defense of literary renewal and the rejection of the established powers. The constant struggle for these two assumptions laid the foundations for a symbolic revolution in the literary field.