We formulate an integro-difference model to predict the growth and spatial
spread of a perennial plant population with an age-structured seed bank. We allow
the seeds in the bank to be of any age, producing an infinite system of equations.
The...
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...
My study examines women-centric cinema in India that are in Hindi. In these films women have revolted against the injustice. The content analysis of the movies (parallel and middle) focuses on representation of women-centered issues. The Parallel...
Outerplanar graphs are planar graphs that have a plane embedding in which each vertex lies on the boundary of the exterior region. An outerplanar graph is maximal outerplanar if the graph obtained by adding an edge is not outerplanar. Maximal...
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...
This study examined two questions related to interpersonal change as an outcome of Time-Limited Interpersonal Therapy (TLIPT). The first asked if clients experience both symptom change and interpersonal change when treated with TLIPT. The second...
Intimate partner violence--Psychological aspects; Victims of family violence--Rehabilitation; Victims of violent crimes--Mental health; Creative writing--Therapeutic use; Post-traumatic stress disorder--Treatment
Described as important long-term consequences of trauma exposure, disruptions in emotional processes are regarded as central features of posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD); however, the nature of these posttraumatic emotional disruptions remains...
The Combinatorial Nullstellensatz can be used to solve certain problems in combinatorics. However, one of the major complications in using the Combinatorial Nullstellensatz is ensuring that there exists a nonzero monomial. This dissertation looks...
A k-term quasi-progression of diameter d is a sequence {Xl,... ,xk} for which there exists a positive integer l such that l < Xi-Xi-1 < l+d, for all i = 2, ... ,k. Quasi-progressions may be thought of as arithmetic progressions with a certain...
The number of refugees being uprooted from their homes to seek refuge and resettlement in countries like the United States continues to grow, with large numbers being children. While each refugee group has its own set of challenges when adjusting...
Colon (Anatomy)--Cancer--Genetic aspects; Cancer cells--Mathematical models
Research over the past twenty five years has led to the development of the hypothesis that colorectal cancer is caused by the accumulation of mutations in tumor suppressor genes and proto-oncogenes. The last ten years has also revealed that 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...
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...
Recently our lab has shown that with broadband stimuli (either visual noise or natural scenes), performance for detecting oriented content is worst at horizontal, best at the obliques, and intermediate at vertical orientations--an anisotropy...
This work examines our perception of distance within "action space" (about 2m ~ 30m), an ability that is important for various actions. Two general problems are addressed: what information can be used to judge distance accurately and how...
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...
This dissertation is composed of three essays in which I examine the influence of formal institutions on entrepreneurs and new firms. In the first essay, "The Influence of Institutions on the Likelihood of Self-Employment: A Multilevel...
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...
