Browsing Duke Dissertations by Submit Date

Now showing items 21-40 of 1771

Syntax of Phase Transition Peptide Polymers with LCST and UCST Behavior

Garcia Quiroz, Felipe (2013)

"Smart" polymers that sense stimuli in aqueous environments and that respond with a pronounced change in their solvation are of great utility in biotechnology and medicine. Currently, however, only few peptide polymers ...
Effects of Dysregulated Diacylglycerol-Mediated Signaling on T Cell Function

Krishna, Sruti (2013)

Diacylglycerol (DAG), a lipid messenger generated upon T cell receptor (TCR) engagement, mediates signaling through the IKK/NF-κB and Ras/ERK pathways. Further downstream of the Ras/ERK pathway are mammalian target ...
Sentimental Manipulations: Duty and Desire in the Novels of Sophie Cottin

Heitzman, Brenna K. (2013)

"Sentimental Manipulations: Duty and Desire in the Novels of Sophie Cottin" examines four novels by Sophie Cottin, from 1798 until 1806. A forgotten but once-popular novelist, Cottin used the theme of motherhood to ...
Essays on Monetary and Fiscal Policy

Anderson, Emily (2013)

This dissertation consists of two chapters studying monetary and fiscal policy. In the first chapter, I study the welfare benefits and costs of increased central bank transparency in a dynamic model of costly information ...
Quantitative Fourier Domain Optical Coherence Tomography Imaging of the Ocular Anterior Segment

McNabb, Ryan Palmer (2013)

Clinical imaging within ophthalmology has had transformative effects on ocular health over the last century. Imaging has guided clinicians in their pharmaceutical and surgical treatments of macular degeneration, glaucoma, ...
Self-Assembled Resonance Energy Transfer Devices

Thusu, Viresh (2013)

This dissertation hypothesizes,<italic>"It is possible to design a self-assembled, nanoscale, high-speed, resonance energy transfer device exhibiting non-linear gain with a few molecules."</italic>The ...
Sparse Value Function Approximation for Reinforcement Learning

Painter-Wakefield, Christopher Robert (2013)

A key component of many reinforcement learning (RL) algorithms is the approximation of the value function. The design and selection of features for approximation in RL is crucial, and an ongoing area of research. One ...
Genome-wide Analysis of Chromatin Structure across Diverse Human Cell Types

Winter, Deborah R. (2013)

Chromatin structure plays an important role in gene regulation, especially in differentiating the diverse cell types in humans. In this dissertation, we analyze the nucleosome positioning and open chromatin profiles ...
Metal Nanowires: Synthesis, Processing, and Structure-Property Relationships in the Context of Flexible Transparent Conducting Films

Rathmell, Aaron (2013)

The demand for flat-panel televisions, e-readers, smart-phones, and touch-screens has been increasing over the past few years and will continue to increase for the foreseeable future. Each of these devices contains a ...
Three Essays On Protecting Biodiversity In Developing Countries

Miteva, Daniela (2013)

Developing countries often hoard the largest number of species, but also experience very high poverty levels. This dissertation reviews the evidence of the performance common conservation interventions. I find that ...
Essays on Prospect Theory, Dynamic Contracting and Procurement

Ungureanu, Sergiu (2013)

This dissertation collects work concerning the way individuals deal with imperfect information, both related to their knowledge of themselves and of others. The second chapter shows that bounded rationality, in the form ...
Corporeal Resurfacings: Faustin Linyekula, Nick Cave and Thornton Dial

Bradley, Rizvana (2013)

"Corporeal Resurfacings: Faustin Linyekula, Nick Cave and Thornton Dial," examines art and performance works by three contemporary black artists. My dissertation is opened by the analytic of black female flesh provided ...
Marriage Formation and Dissolution in the United States

Staub, Kalina Marie (2013)

This dissertation consists of two essays that examine marital formation and dissolution in the United States. The first chapter highlights the roles that both the availability of men and competition from women within ...
Novel Biophotonic Imaging Techniques for Assessing Women's Reproductive Health

Drake, Tyler Kaine (2013)

Even though women make up over half the population in the United States, medical advancements in areas of women's health have typically lagged behind the rest of the medical field. Specifically, two major threats to ...
Keeping in Touch: Relationships between Parenting Style, Parent-Child Electronic Communication, and the Developing Autonomy and Adjustment of College Students

Golonka, Megan Marie (2013)

Traditionally seen as a time for increasing independence and autonomy, the college experience is often the first major, long-term physical separation from parents (Chickering, 1969; Chickering & Reisser, 1993). For ...
Application and Evaluation of a Chemical Modification- and Mass Spectrometry-Based Thermodynamic Assay for the Study of Protein-Ligand Interactions in Complex Mixtures

Strickland, Erin Catherine (2013)

While a number of different proteomic, genomic, and computational approaches exist for the characterization of drug action, each of the experimental approaches developed to date has both strengths and weaknesses. ...
Gastric Fluid Aspiration-Mediated Pulmonary Allograft Failure

Chang, Jui-Chih (2013)

Since its first success in 1983, lung transplantation has become the treatment of choice for selected patients with end stage lung disease. However, long-term graft survival is relatively low compared to other solid ...
Probing the Bioeffects of Cavitation at the Single-Cell Level

Yuan, Fang (2013)

The primary goal of this dissertation research is to develop an experimental system and associated techniques that can be used to investigate the bioeffects produced by cavitation bubbles at the single cell level. Such ...
DNA Replication of the Male X Chromosome Is Influenced by the Dosage Compensation Complex in Drosophila melanogaster

DeNapoli, Leyna (2013)

AbstractDNA replication is an integral part of the cell cycle. Every time a cell divides, the entire genome has to be copied once and only once in a timely manner. In order to accomplish this, DNA replication ...
Cryptococcus neoformans transcriptional regulation of the host-pathogen interface

O'Meara, Teresa Rodgers (2013)

<italic>Cryptococcus neoformans </italic>is a human fungal pathogen that is also ubiquitous in the environment. To cause disease inside a human host, <italic>C. neoformans</italic> must be able to sense and respond to ...