Browsing Duke Dissertations by Submit Date
Now showing items 1-20 of 3652
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Complex and Lagrangian Engel Structures
(2018)In this dissertation, we study the geometry of Engel structures, which are 2-plane fields on 4-manifolds satisfying a generic condition, that are compatible with other geometric structures. A \emph{complex} Engel structure ... -
Dynamic Control of Metabolism for Renewable Production of Valuable Chemicals and Novel Biomaterials
(2018)Increasing concerns over the environmental impact and long-term sustainability of human economic activity has motivated a search for less resource-intensive methods for the manufacture of chemicals and generation of energy. ... -
Truth to Power: The Politics of Theological Free Speech in the Cappadocian Fathers and Augustine of Hippo
(2018)This dissertation investigates the political grammars of truth-telling employed by two sets of early Christian authors, the Cappadocian Fathers (Basil of Caesarea, Gregory of Nazianzus, and Gregory of Nyssa), who wrote in ... -
Posthumous Persona(r)e: Machado de Assis, Black Writing, and the African Diaspora Literary Apparatus
(2018)Posthumous Persona(r)e: Machado de Assis, Black Writing, and the African Diaspora Literary Apparatus analyzes the life writings of Machado de Assis (1839-1908) in light of the conditions of his critical reception and ... -
Understanding the Impacts of Agricultural Expansion on Biodiversity and Habitat Loss
(2018)In recent years, the expansion of agricultural lands into areas rich in biodiversity has led to a conservation dilemma between the need for food security for an expanding human population and the goal of conserving species ... -
Essays on Macroeconomics and Labor Markets
(2018)This dissertation consists of three essays. In the first essay, ``The Structural Shift in the Cyclicality of the U.S. Labor Income Share: Empirical Evidence'', I document a structural shift in the cyclicality of the labor ... -
Essays on the Empirics of School Choice
(2018)This dissertation is an empirical study of school choice under various perspectives. Chapter 2 looks at school choice from the application perspective. It focuses on assignment mechanisms used by school districts to allocate ... -
Well-being Across Changing Social Landscapes
(2018)Low subjective well-being arises from differences between experiences and expectations, often identified through social comparisons. Many studies have investigated how individual exposures to a recessive period associates ... -
Vision and Bioluminescence in Cephalopods
(2018)In the deep pelagic ocean, there are no structures to serve as hiding spots, and visual interactions among animals are potentially continuous. The light environment in the midwater habitat is highly structured due to light ... -
Minimum Requirements for Changing and Maintaining Cell Fate in the Arabidopsis Root
(2018)A cell’s trajectory from stem cell to differentiation, while often portrayed as a linear progression, is best described as a network that produces a mature state through several pathways acting together. There are few ... -
Prolonging and Boosting NMR Signals with Long-lived States and Catalytic Polarization Transfer
(2018)Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) are powerful and versatile tools that are being broadly and intensively used. Their application ranges from molecular structure determination to medical ... -
Synthetic Studies toward Analogues of Manassantin A
(2018)In response to oxygen deprivation, tumor cells express a transcription factor, hypoxia inducible factor 1 (HIF-1). HIF-1 regulates the expression of genes involved in erythropoiesis, angiogenesis, and other adaptive responses ... -
Functional Brain Networks Underlying Anticipation in Motivated Behavior
(2018)Anticipation is a state of expectancy for something that will happen, and it allows us to use past learning to prepare for and make predictions about the future. Studies have shown that anticipation influences behavioral ... -
Ecosystem recovery from acid precipitation: Carbon and nitrogen cycling in the soil-stream continuum
(2018)While the problem of acid precipitation has been greatly reduced across the developed world, acid-impaired ecosystems still bear important legacies of historic acid deposition, and these ecosystems are only slowly beginning ... -
Essays in Macroeconomics
(2018)This paper consists of three essays, with a focus on household behavior and decision making. In the first essay, I consider a two asset lifecycle model with transaction costs and show that allowing individuals to learn ... -
Broad Remodeling of the Acetylproteome by SIRT3 Manipulation Fails to Affect Insulin Secretion or β-cell Metabolism in the Absence of Dietary Overnutrition
(2018)SIRT3 is an NAD+-dependent mitochondrial protein deacetylase purported to influence cellular and systemic metabolism through modulation of the mitochondrial acetylproteome. Fuel-stimulated insulin secretion from pancreatic ... -
The Theory and Modeling of Solar Cells Based on Semiconducting Quantum Dots
(2018)Quantum dots (QDs) are promising building block materials for many emerging energy-harvesting applications. We theoretically investigated the influences of the QD-QD (CdTe-CdSe) charge transfer rates and mechanisms on QD ... -
Creation of Versatile Cloning Platforms for Transgene Expression and Epigenome Editing and Their Application to Pancreatic Islet Biology
(2018)Insulin secreting β-cells within the pancreatic islets of Langerhans are vital to maintaining glycemic control. β-cell functional mass is lost during the progression to both Type 1 and Type 2 diabetes mellitus, resulting ... -
The Psychology of Loyalty and its Impact on Harm Perception
(2018)This dissertation examines how people’s loyalty to their groups influences their perception of harm. Specifically, people who are loyal (vs. not loyal) to their ingroup perceive negative actions by an outgroup against their ... -
Piety in Production: Video Filmmaking as Religious Encounter in Bénin
(2018)This dissertation considers the production of video films by Nàgó–Yorùbá creators along Bénin’s southeastern border with Nigeria. There they find themselves at the margins of three better-funded arts industries with ...
