Rising environmental concerns due to our rising population ad energy demand along with our excessive dependence on fossil fuels has created an urgent need to find clean, renewable and carbon free source of energy. Photoelectrochemical (PEC) water...
Several technical and economic obstacles currently hamper the industrial development of ethanol from biomass. One of the key bottlenecks is the slow kinetics of the enzymatic hydrolysis of cellulose, and the subsequent rate reduction as the...
More than 50% of the total energy produced is typically rejected in the form of waste heat from various processes. The grand challenge is that most of this waste heat is released at temperatures much lower than 1000 C, which makes it difficult to...
Enzymatic hydrolysis is an important, but time limiting step in the process of converting biomass into ethanol. High solids concentrations are desired in order to minimize reactor size and achieve a higher concentration of glucose in the end...
Rising concerns about dependency on fossil fuels in the 21st century has sparked a growth in research for renewable energy sources. One renewable energy production process of interest is the reduction of cellulose into fermentable sugars by means...
Exocytosis of intracellular granules is critical for conversion of inactive, circulating neutrophils to fully activated cells. The p38 MAPK pathway plays a central role in neutrophil exocytosis, although its mechanism of action is unknown. We used...
Human arylamine N-acetyltransferase (NAT) is a phase II cytosolic enzyme that occurs as two isozymes, NAT1 and NAT2. This family of polymorphic enzymes catalyzes the detoxification and/or activation of many aromatic and heterocyclic amine drugs and...
Energy independence requires that the nation reduce its dependence on foreign oil imports. This can be achieved through electrification of transportation vehicles if proper battery technology can be developed. In addition, the renewable energy...
Assessing the functionality of the endothelium can provide insight into the initiation and formation of arterial diseases. One of the most important functions of the endothelial layer is its permeability. The integrity of the cell monolayer and its...
Characterization of the optical and electrical properties of organic solar cell materials is of prime importance to organic solar cell design. This thesis describes the use of capacitive photocurrent measurements to study the exciton generation and...
The use of fiber reinforced polymer materials (composite FRP materials) to
strengthen existing concrete structures continues to expand as our current infrastructure
ages. However, one of the concerns when using FRP systems in this manner is...
Neuropsychology; Motor ability; Eye-hand coordination
Two major theoretical models, Direct Mapping and Functional Equivalence, suggest that the observation of action and imagery of action, respectively, involve activation of similar motor related areas. Despite the wealth of evidence that supports...
The discovery of carbon nanotubes and subsequently graphene has led to an interest in carbon materials as sensing elements due to their unique properties. Graphene is a 2-dimensional material that has a large surface area that can be exposed to...
Our research activities are based on the catalytic systems that provide resource-saving synthetic methodologies through gold-catalyzed reactions of alkynes and alkenes. We have worked on three applications: i) an effective and straightforward...
Vascular injury and chronic arterial diseases such as atherosclerosis and restenosis result in exposure of vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) to increased concentrations of growth factors triggering a change from a contractile to a synthetic...
The oxidation of metallothiolates is complicated by "non-innocence" or potential
redox activity of sulfur to yield thiyl (RS•) radicals. In some instances, the one-electron
oxidation of metal thiolates yields a product with the unpaired...
Protective coatings; Microelectromechanical systems
PARYLENE (poly-para-xylylene) is mostly used as a conformal protective polymer pin-hole free coating material to uniformly protect any component configuration on diverse substrates. This thesis describes in detail how the unique properties of...
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...
