Arsenic--Physiological effect; Cardiovascular system--Diseases; Liver--Effect of arsenic on; Arsenic--Toxicology
Chronic arsenic exposure is associated with increased cardiovascular disease (CVD). Prenatal arsenic exposure at 49 ppm arsenic accelerates atherosclerosis underlying CVD in ApoE-/- mice, but the mechanism is unknown. This dissertation examines the...
New firms face financial constraints that could hinder firm performance. Yet founders exhibit persistence and resourcefulness in building their new ventures and finding solutions to their financial constraints. The use of financial theories that...
The thesis focuses on improving the flowrate of the Knudsen gas pump. The Knudsen pump uses thermal transpiration as the driving mechanism to pump gas. It is a motionless gas pump as the pump does not require any moving actuators for pumping. The...
Spirituality in literature; Religion in literature; Berry, Wendell, 1934---Criticism and interpretation; McCarthy, Cormac, 1933---Criticism and interpretation
This dissertation provides a reading of characters in the novels and short stories of two important contemporary American writers through the lens of spiritual theology. While spirituality has often been understood as necessitating a flight from...
Because of limitations in randomized controlled trials, medical researchers are often forced to rely upon studies of observational data. Confounding is a major difficulty encountered in such studies that can create considerable bias in estimates of...
Hypoxia is characterized by an inadequate oxygen supply to the tissues in
proportion to their metabolic needs, and is a primary factor in traumatic CNS
injury, strokes, cardiopulmonary diseases, and obstructive sleep apnea. The
cAMP-dependent...
Within the discipline of rhetoric and composition, the notion of coherence possesses the status of sine qua non, yet this notion has been treated unevenly or been taken for granted, much as the process of composing itself was taken for granted for...
The chaperone heat shock protein 90 (Hsp90) regulates physiologically and
pathological cellular processes, by binding and stabilizing kinases involved in basal
cellular functions and in cellular responses to stress, respectively. I hypothesize...
Electronic surveillance; Computer networks--Design and construction; Computer crimes
Peer-to-peer networks have been growing in popularity over the past decade. There have been many new innovations that greatly improve access to a wide variety of content. This expanded capability combined with a strong sense of anonymity has given...
Transcendence (Philosophy) in art; Androgyny (Psychology) in art; Jungian psychology; Art--Psychological aspects
From a Jungian perspective, this thesis investigates the ideal of androgynous transcendence by identifying the Jungian anima-animus archetype within three specific artworks produced by three differing traditions. As a result, this thesis...
Asian Americans--Cultural assimilation; Acculturation--United States; Sports spectators--United States; Consumer behavior--Social aspects--United States
According to the U.S. Census Bureau (2011), ethnic minority populations in the
U.S. constituted over one-third (approximately 126 million) of the total U.S. population
in 2010 (approximately 300.8 million) (U.S. Census Bureau, 2011). With such...
Optical properties of carbon nanotubes have recently attracted considerable amount of attention. Due to there direct band gap material characteristic these and dimension of the order of nano meters they find potential applications in the field of...
For complex classification systems, data is usually gathered from multiple sources of information that have varying degree of reliability. In fact, assuming that the different sources have the same relevance in describing all the data might lead to...
Freshwater zooplankton; Global warming; Nitrogen--Environmental aspects
Aquatic ecosystems face major transformations as humans increasingly alter their environment by introducing exotic species and changing the temperature regime and nutrient availability of freshwater systems. The impacts of such alterations of...
Indians of North America--British Columbia; Literacy--British Columbia--Case studies
This dissertation examines the literacy practices of a group of First Nations women who live in British Columbia and whose jobs entail the production and dissemination of texts which reflect the local, Carrier, culture. In this qualitative study of...
Twenty-six fossil assemblages of land and freshwater molluscs from the Pliocene to the present, were collected from locations near the town of Meade, Kansas, U.S.A. and were analyzed (along with the extant molluscan fauna of Meade County, Kansas)...
Complement, an early recognition system of innate immunity that senses local tissue damage and infection, cross-talks with and regulates other signaling systems, including Toll-like receptor (TLR) pathways. In the context of periodontitis,...
Swarm Intelligence (SI) techniques were inspired by bee swarms, ant colonies, and most
recently, bird flocks. Flock-based Swarm Intelligence (FSI) has several unique features, namely
decentralized control, collaborative learning, high exploration...
The management of power and the optimization of systems generating and using power are critical technologies. A new architecture is developed to advance the current state of the art by providing an intelligent and autonomous solution for power...