A yearly breast contrast-MR scan is recommended to high-risk women because of MR's high sensitivity to breast tumors. However, breast contrast-MR yields a high number of false positives that lead to expensive and sometimes unnecessary biopsy...
Radio relics are extended regions of synchrotron radio emission that have been found in the outskirts of a few dozen galaxy clusters. Relics are often associated with clusters undergoing merger activity. They are not associated optically with a...
The purpose of this thesis is to describe methods for detecting hidden crevasses on glaciers in Polar regions. Crevasses form in ice sheets as a result of forces imposed upon the brittle ice. The crevasses are hidden from view by bridges of soft...
Objectives: This dissertation comprises three essays on geographic variations in healthcare, and the association between utilization and health outcomes. I first explore associations between outpatient visits and Medicare beneficiaries'...
Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is the leading cause of acquired disability in children, yet innate repair mechanisms are incompletely understood. A possible innate mechanism to repair injury after insult is neurogenesis - the birth, migration,...
Patients with cystic fibrosis (CF) are susceptible to respiratory tract infections at an early age; with the most frequent initial isolate being the Gram-positive pathogen Staphylococcus aureus. Subsequently, these patients become chronically...
This thesis presents data from ground camera observations of the aurora conducted from Alaska during the winters of 2005 through 2007. In conjunction with these camera observations, conjugate radar observations of the auroral ionosphere were...
The processes affecting gas transport through the firn column are important to understand in order to accurately interpret climate records from ice cores. Historically, density measurements have been used to estimate open and closed porosity in the...
While anthropogenic emissions of the toxic element mercury (Hg) to the atmosphere are currently rising, major uncertainties remain in determining the relative impacts of anthropogenic activity and natural processes on the global Hg cycle. In this...
Leukemia represents a small percentage of human cancer, accounting for about 5% of all cases of cancer in adults, but, interestingly, for about 50% of all cases of cancer in children. The behavior of leukemia is often regulated by the chromosomal...
PDZ protein-protein interaction domains recognize short linear motif (SLiM) sequences typically at the extreme C-terminus of a target protein. These domains often act as scaffolds, connecting target proteins to additional interaction and catalytic...
Studies presented in this dissertation focus on the transcriptional targets and cellular functions of [Delta]Np63[alpha], the predominant TP63 isoform expressed in epithelial stem cell compartments. TP63, a member of the p53 family of...
Ultra-high molecular weight polyethylene (UHMWPE) remains the most common bearing material for total joint arthroplasty. Advances in radiation cross-linking and other post-consolidation treatments have led to a rapid differentiation of polyethylene...
Casimir effect. Zero-point field. Electric conductivity. Quantum electrodynamics.
The Casimir force arises from an alteration of boundary condition in vacuum and is often regarded as a manifestation of quantum zero point energy. Considerable progress has been made in the last decade with an impressive achievement of experimental...
Despite the array of targeted therapeutics that currently exist to combat breast cancer, disease progression leading to metastasis, and tumor recurrence still remains a significant clinical challenge. Efforts to identify novel pathways and...
Liver disease of different etiologies confers significant morbidity and mortality and hence it constitutes a major health concern worldwide. Stemming from a range of causes, such as viral, drug-induced, alcoholic, or autoimmune, the rate of...
Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a virulent opportunistic pathogen that is frequently cultured from infectious sites, and is estimated to cause ~12% of nosocomial infections worldwide [1]. P. aeruginosa infections occur in a majority of adults with the...
The coordination and coupling of the several steps in mRNA biogenesis helps to ensure proper regulation of gene expression. The DEAD-box helicase Dbp5/Rat8 is an essential mRNA export factor that has also been implicated in other steps of mRNA...
Study 1 This systematic review aimed to synthesize the emerging body of work on the impact of employment, with a focus on prospective cohort studies. Researchers identified relevant studies for review via PubMed, expert referral, and reference...
Proteins are ubiquitous in cells and are essential to a wide range of biological processes. Since existing proteins occupy only a small portion of the space of possible amino acid composition, understanding their sequence-structure-function...
We present aligned hierarchies, a novel solution to the dimension reduction problem, representing high-dimensional and noisy sequential data as a low-dimensional object that encodes relevant information. In this thesis, we motivate our presentation...
Molecular imaging of cancer features is a critical part of advancing better tools for oncology management and drug discovery, yet it is still evolving as a useful tool. Diffuse Fluorescence Tomography (FT) is one approach to molecular imaging, used...
Wireless communication systems. Computer network protocols.
We evaluate mobility predictors in wireless networks. Handoff prediction in wireless networks has long been considered as a mechanism to improve the quality of service provided to mobile wireless users. Most prior studies, however, were based on...
A series of conformationally restricted bis(9-amino-acridine) derivatives were designed, synthesized, and then evaluated for their chemical and biological behavior. The novel compounds were prepared by treating selected diamines with a...
Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are the cells that can give rise to all different lineages of differentiated/mature blood cells. HSCs are capable of self-renewal and maintaining the homeostasis of differentiated cells for specific functions. The...
Digital integrated circuits -- Testing. Digital integrated circuits -- Testing -- Mathematical models. Digital integrated circuits -- Design and construction.
The Euler '-function and Carmichael -function are extremely important in modern number theory, and much work has been devoted to studying the distribution and arithmetic properties of the values of each function. One interesting unresolved question...
Acyl-CoA:Cholesterol Acyltransferases (ACATs) are key enzymes in cellular cholesterol metabolism. ACAT converts free cholesterol to cholesterol ester, which makes it more easily storable in lipid droplets. There are two ACAT genes encoding two...