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...
Cancer accounts for nearly one-quarter of deaths in the United States, exceeded only by heart diseases. Despite the development of various strategies to treat cancer, it remains one of the most deadly diseases worldwide due to the limited effects...
Diabetes--Psychological aspects; Diabetes--Treatment; Diabetics--Mental health
The importance of maximizing self-management and quality of life is well documented in the diabetes literature. Although maintaining self-care is known to be important for individuals with type 2 diabetes, this is often difficult to maintain over...
Dielectrophoresis (DEP) is an electrokinetic force capable of attracting or repelling neutrally charged particles due to a non-uniform electric field [1, 2]. Positive dielectrophoresis attracts particles in the region of the highest electric field...
Nosocomial infections; Catheterization--Complications; Drug resistance in microorganisms
Catheters represent an essential part of the management of critically and chronically ill patients. However, their use is often plagued by catheter related blood stream infections (CRBSIs), which are associated with increased morbidity, hospital...
This dissertation describes research focused on the synthesis, polymerization and
applications of cationic aminooxy lipids. An efficient and convenient method was
developed to stabilize liposomes using 'click chemistry'. The 'click...
Item response theory; Goodness-of-fit tests; Monte Carlo method
Item response theory (IRT) is expanding to diverse research settings, without accompanying access to easily implemented model fit methods. One simple model fit approach involves x2/df ratios. However, its utility is not known across several...
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...
Enzymatic hydrolysis is the most common method of producing fermentable sugars from lignocellulosic biomass. Limitations to this step include the high cost of enzymes, and the time required to process the biomass. To increase the throughput and...
This thesis is based on experimental work on electrochemically mediated charge transfer effects on Single-walled carbon nanotube bundles. The study of these effects are very important towards understanding the sensitivity of gases on nanostructures...
Existing treatment programs and procedures are incapable of addressing the complications encountered with patients who experience spasticity and hypertonia related joint contractures. Current passive therapy procedures and devices are only capable...
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...
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...
Rapid Electrokinetic Patterning (REP) is a relatively new method for collecting and manipulating micrometer-scale particles at an electrode surface. REP is an AC electrokinetic technique that uses induced fluid motion to capture and manipulate...
Understanding of the band structure of the new nano materials is essential to have a deeper insight into their optical and electrical properties. Along with the existing techniques used for characterization of nano-materials, it is also important...
Parasites; Medical parasitology; Parasitic diseases
This thesis investigated infection dynamics of parasitic nematodes at both the population
and individual levels by exploring evolutionary and historical aspects of infection as well
as how host-parasite interactions influence virulence. In...
Ten algal isolates were obtained from soil into axenic culture and placed into defined media containing from 0 to 50 ppm of DDT, 2, 4-D,2,4,5-T, rotenone, or malathion (in two purities, 95 and 99%). For nine of the isolates, growth was measured...
Parents of children with disabilities; Grief; People with mental disabilities--Family relationships
This dissertation is an investigation into the intensity, nature, predictors, and time
course of grief that parents of adult children with a severe mental illness experience. This
is an area of research that has not been fully understood or...
Various vision tasks are usually confronted by appearance variations due to changes of illumination. For instance, in a recognition system, it has been shown that the variability in human face appearance is owed to changes to lighting conditions...
Trees in cities--Kentucky--Louisville; Urban forestry--Kentucky--Louisville; Louisville (Ky.)--Environmental conditions
Trees in urban residential neighborhoods provide valuable ecosystem services. Urban trees also face threats from disturbances, such as storms. In 2008, the Urban Forest Effects model was used to estimate abundance and species composition of...
