The motivational and rewarding properties of our immediate environment affect how humans interact with our world in a number of ways. One important aspect in which reward representation shapes behavior is in the development, maintenance and...
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...
Modern distributed systems scatter sensors, storage, and computation throughout the environment. Ideally these devices communicate and share resources, but there is seldom motivation for a device''s owner to yield control to another user. We...
The chemistry of indole can be reversed and redirected by the addition of powerful electron-withdrawing groups. Incorporation of a nitro group at C-2 or C-3 renders the adjacent carbon susceptible to nucleophilic attack. Nitro, cyano, and...
The first chapter of this thesis encompasses progress towards the X-ray structure determination and drug design for the dihydrofolate reductase-thymidylate synthase (DHFR-TS) enzyme from the protozoa Toxoplasma gondii, along with another mutant...
Identifying the determinants of reproductive success in small-scale societies is critical for understanding how natural selection has shaped human evolution and behavior. The available evidence suggests that status-accruing behaviors such as...
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...
From deciding what to eat first or what stock to invest in, the order in which we prefer to experience events and the amount of risk we are willing to undertake are factors that influence our choices. However, the mechanisms underlying order and...
2-D and 3-D woven composites are becoming materials of choice for the forming of structural parts for an ever-increasing range of industries from infrastructure to aerospace. Research has shown that for a wide range of structural composites, in...
Mast cells -- Immunology. Mast cells -- Physiology. Dendritic cells. Immunological tolerance -- Molecular aspects. Medical Term Cell Degranulation.
Mast cells (MC) have until recently been regarded as pro-inflammatory, however this view changed with the observation that the absence of MC impairs the development of transplant tolerance to allografts. However, little is known about whether MC...
Older people -- Medical care -- United States -- Evaluation. Chronically ill -- Medical care -- United States -- Evaluation. Ambulatory medical care -- United States -- Evaluation.
Objective . To examine how continuity is related to quality measures for chronically ill elderly patients; to the specialty and caseload of the physicians they predominantly visit; and to the regional context of where their ambulatory care is...
Perceptual-motor learning -- Physiological aspects. ; Language acquisition -- Physiological aspects. ; Motor ability -- Physiological aspects. ; Knots and splices.
The studies presented in this dissertation explore several points of intersection between action perception and production within the human brain. One's ability to use perceptual information about another individual's actions to guide and inform...
Stigma (Social psychology). Aging -- Psychological aspects. Cognition -- Age factors. Older people -- Attitudes.
Extensive research on aging has demonstrated that normal aging debilitates executive function, a system that is critical for regulating stereotypes. However, there is a paucity of research on whether age-related declines to executive function...
For the most part, research on self-regulation has focused on behavior-control, which is how people self-regulate in the face of immediate urges and temptations (e.g., resisting cookies that are close at hand, or resisting beer that is being freely...
Kynurenic acid (KYNA) is produced and released by astrocytes, and acts as an α7-nicotinic acetylcholine receptor antagonist (at lower, physiological concentrations) and an antagonist of the glycine site of the NMDA receptor (at higher,...
Atlantic salmon -- Growth. Atlantic salmon -- Effect of predation on -- Connecticut River Watershed. Atlantic salmon -- Mortality -- Connecticut River Watershed. Fish populations. Atlantic salmon -- Toxicology -- Connecticut River Watershed. Cottus...
Juvenile, stream-dwelling salmon are a model system for studies of density dependence. However, while salmon exhibit diverse mechanisms and patterns of density dependence, the factors that drive variation in density dependence are not clear. I used...
Humans have a seemingly unique capacity to reflect upon information about the self to form evaluative attitudes that influence their quality of life and predict mental health outcomes. While psychologists have devoted decades of research to the...