VictorJuiz/thesis huggingface dataset:
Aircraft Landing Gear Thermo-tribomechanical Model Development

A transient numerical model for studying the thermo-tribomechanical behavior of an aircraft landing gear is presented. The study reveals the major heat sources and heat sinks that impact the characteristic thermal behavior of the landing gear shock absorber. The severe in-service performance degradation and reported structural damage can be explained as a consequence of the heat generated by the high drag loads induced by rough runways on the bearings, and by the high sliding velocities of the piston. A conclusive model may lead to improved landing gear performance once the transient process of heat generation in a phase-changing grease-lubricated lower bearing is fundamentally understood. A novel tribotopological lubrication theory is derived in order to take into account all distinct physical phases of the non-Newtonian Bingham lubricant. The governing equations are solved using a hybrid numerical solver that is optimized for numerical efficiency and fast convergence. The proposed framework is validated against existing theories and results, and it demonstrates accurate predictions of the thermal performance of the landing gear. Strategies to passively optimize the lower bearing lubrication mechanism are further suggested in order to achieve optimal thermal performance of future aircraft landing gear.

Keywords: Bearing overheating
Bingham grease
Lubrication mechanism
non-Newtonian lubricant
Passive control
Tribotopological theory
Advisor: Liu, Hugh HT
On-chip Generation of Quantum States of Photons

Quantum states of photons such as entangled and single photons are indispensable components for applications in optical quantum information processing. Being able to generate and manipulate quantum states of photons on a chip is a crucial step towards realizing real-world quantum information processing systems such as an optical quantum computer. In this thesis, theoretical and experimental research was carried out for on-chip generation of quantum states of photons via the nonlinear process of spontaneous parametric down-conversion (SPDC), including polarization entangled photons, hyperentangled photons and heralded pure single photons. A majority of the study was based on III-V semiconductor AlGaAs, which could lead to monolithic integration of pump lasers and enable electrically pump sources operating at room temperature. The generation of cross-polarized entangled photons via a type-II SPDC in an AlGaAs Bragg reflection waveguide (BRW) was first investigated. The lack of material birefringence enables the direct generation of wavelength-multiplexed polarization entangled photons with a concurrence of at least 0.77 in a bandwidth of 95 nm. Second, a technique using concurrent type-0 and type-I processes on an AlGaAs chip to generate polarization entangled photon was developed. This technique allows the generation of both co-polarized and cross-polarized entangled photons on the same chip without the need of off-chip compensation, interferometer and bandpass filter. Third, a technique of generating hyperentangled photons on an AlGaAs chip was developed by utilizing spatial modes of different guiding mechanisms. High quality entanglement could be achieved with bandpass filtering of a few nanometers without off-chip phase compensation. Four, a generic technique using nonlinear photonic nanowires to engineer two-photon quantum states was proposed. Via dispersion engineering which controls the group velocity of each mode, maximally entangled polarization entangled photons and pure heralded single photons can be generated on-chip. Design examples were applied to III-V semiconductor and ferroelectric materials. Last, a strategy to enhance the bandwidths of wavelength conversion and SPDC spectrum was developed by tapering the waveguides. Combined with further integration of pump lasers, photonic circuits and detectors, the techniques developed in this thesis provides a viable route to achieve fully integrated generation and manipulations of photonic quantum qubits.

Keywords: entangled photons
integrated optics
nonlinear optics
quantum information
quantum photonics
semiconductor waveguides
Advisor: Helmy, Amr S.
Economic Sovereignty and the Fetters of Finance: The Making of Lebanon's Central Bank

Lebanon gained formal political independence from France in 1943. Yet, its Central Bank, Banque du Liban, was not founded until 1964. This study is a critical history of the making of Banque du Liban. I trace the Central Bank's formation from its Ottoman origins in the mid-19th century up to its inauguration in 1964 and restructuring a few years later following a major banking crisis. I analyze this history in the context of theoretical questions of state formation and institution-building in a Middle Eastern context. Employing a structural empiricist approach, I argue that Banque du Liban, as an instrument of monetary policy and a set of rules and regulations governing banking operations, was constituted by a complex interaction of war economies, international financial regimes, post-colonial state-building, global currents of technocratic knowledge, and private business interests. I show that despite its representation by Lebanese authorities as a symbol of economic sovereignty and growth, the resultant institution seldom acted as a lever for asserting monetary autonomy or pursuing economic development. It was, to a large extent, an apparatus that reproduced colonial monetary policies and, more significantly, served rather than challenged the interests of the indigenous banking class. My study questions dominant accounts of Lebanon's post-WWII political economy. It eschews a sectarian framework of analysis, challenges the division of Lebanon's post-WWII economic history into a laissez-faire period and a later planned phase, and emphasizes the institutional dimension of how political and economic forces shape the state. The study also aims to illustrate the historical specificity of the process of state building and the limits of economic sovereignty in a neo-colonial setting while simultaneously probing the degree of rupture and continuity in the evolution of financial institutions over time.

Keywords: Central Bank
Institution Building
Intra Bank
Lebanon
Political Economy
State Formation
Advisor: Hanssen, Jens
The Characterization of MADD-3, a Homolog of the Dual Specificity CLK Kinase that is Required for Muscle Arm Extension in Caenorhabditis elegans

Guided cell migration is an essential process in the development of multicellular organisms. In Caenorhabditis elegans, the body wall muscles extend muscle arms in a chemotropic fashion towards the nearest nerve cord to form neuromuscular junctions. The muscle arm extension process has been used successfully by the Roy lab as a model system to uncover novel components and mechanisms necessary for guided cell migration. I continued forward genetic screens for muscle arm development defective (Madd) mutants and uncovered two novel components necessary for muscle arm extension, called madd-3 and madd-4. madd-3, encodes the C. elegans LAMMER kinase ortholog. The LAMMER kinase family is found ubiquitously throughout eukaryotes and members share a highly conserved kinase domain. The most well described roles of LAMMER kinase family members have been in the regulation of alternative splicing and transcription factors; however the roles of cytoplasmic LAMMER kinases are not well studied. madd-3 has several characteristics that distinguish it phenotypically from other Madd genes. MADD-3 is localized exclusively in muscle tissue, while most other Madd genes are expressed in both the nervous system and muscle. Within the muscle MADD-3A is enriched in the cytoplasm. Unlike other Madd genes madd-3 mutants are synthetically lethal with unc-54, which encodes a myosin class II heavy chain. In order to better understand the role of MADD-3 in muscle arm guidance I exploited this synthetic lethality to conduct a madd-3 suppressor screen. The screen recovered several alleles of a p38 MAPK pathway. I found that in addition to suppression of the synthetic lethal phenotype, loss of function mutations in this p38 pathway could suppress the phenotypes of madd-3 mutants including muscle arm extension defects. p38 MAPK pathways have been demonstrated to play roles in endosomal trafficking, and specifically in receptor trafficking. I therefore investigated endosomal compartment markers and guidance receptor display in madd-3 mutant backgrounds, and found both to be disrupted. Our current working model suggests that MADD-3 may negatively regulate a p38 MAPK pathway in muscle. In madd-3 mutants, upregulation of the p38 pathway triggers defects in the endocytic cycle that prevent the guidance receptors UNC-40 and EVA-1 from being displayed properly on the muscle surface. These defects in receptor display likely underlie the muscle arm extension defects of madd-3 mutants. The antagonistic relationship between MADD-3 and a p38 MAPK pathway in C. elegans muscle is the first such connection documented between these two conserved kinase families. MADD-3's roles in endosomal compartment regulation and receptor display are also novel functions for a LAMMER kinase family member. The cytoplasmic roles of LAMMER kinases have not been explored in detail, but my work on the C. elegans LAMMER homolog MADD-3 has uncovered novel functions that could be conserved in this kinase family.

Advisor: Roy, Peter J
'Reflections From Exile': Exploring Prisoner Writings at the Louisiana State Penitentiary

Research investigating life inside U.S. prisons is on the decline at the precise time when it is arguably most desperately needed. And absent from much of the work that has been done is a consideration of how incarcerated men and women actually cope with, conceive of, and experience their imprisonment. Undertaking the case study of the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola), I analyze over two decades worth of prisoners' writings contained in The Angolite prison newsmagazine in order to further our understanding of the daily lived experiences of incarcerated individuals during the era of mass imprisonment. First, I examine how the correctional instability that characterized the last several decades of the twentieth century played out on-the-ground at Angola, as well as how penological changes shaped the conditions of confinement and impacted prisoners' lives. Next, I explore in-depth one factor with the potential to influence a prisoner's life behind bars: masculinities. Specifically, I investigate how prisoners navigate the hypermasculine prison code in addition to how they conceptualize manhood. And in the third paper I dig deeper into Angola's plantation past. That is, I analyze how administrators narrate the history of the prison to tourists and outsiders as well as if and how the collective memories of slavery and the Jim Crow era inform prisoners' ideas about their incarceration today. Overall, this project actively strives to highlight prisoners' humanity and complexity, document the nuances of prisoners' carceral experiences, and demonstrate the value of incorporating prisoners' knowledges into academic debates.

Keywords: carceral experiences
prisoner writings
sociology of punishment
Advisor: Kruttschnitt, Candace
Investigation of Ring Finger Protein 8 in Mammalian Physiology and Pathogenesis

While genomic stability is often viewed as a cellular shield against malignant transformation, DNA double-strand breaks (DSBs) are probably the most dangerous threat to the maintenance of a stable cellular genome. Mammalian cells have evolved a sophisticated DNA damage response (DDR) network that senses the physical existence of DNA DSBs, followed by signal propagation to repair these genetic lesions. Interestingly, DSBs are not only hazardous, but are also programmed to occur during normal physiological processes such as immunoglobulin heavy chain (IgH) class switch recombination (CSR), an important mechanism for antibody diversification and specification of immunoglobulin effector function during a humoral immune response in mammals. Through catalyzing ubiquitylation of the H2A-type histones flanking DNA DSBs, the E3 ligase Ring finger protein 8 (Rnf8) orchestrates the assembly of components of homologous recombination (HR) and nonhomologous end joining (NHEJ) repair machineries into DSB-induced foci. To examine the in vivo functions of Rnf8 during mammalian development and determine the effects of its deficiency on the development of various diseases, we generated Rnf8 knockout mouse models and elucidated the pleiotropic in vivo functions of Rnf8. Overall, this thesis highlights the physiological significance of Rnf8 in shielding against DNA DSB repair defects, genomic instability, male infertility, immunodeficiency and cancer development at the organism level.

Advisor: Hakem, Razqallah
Translators as Scribes--A Comparison of Scribal Practice and Translation Practice: Exodus 1-14 in the Hebrew Manuscript Tradition and the Old Greek

In this dissertation, I propose and apply a methodology that situates the Septuagint within the broader scribal culture of the ancient world. Drawing on theory from the field of Translation Studies and a comparative analysis of textual and translation data in Exodus 1-14, I argue that the phenomena of translation and textual transmission are fundamentally similar, particularly in the case of the Hebrew Bible and the Septuagint. First, I consider the extent to which textual transmission could be considered translation, using the framework of "intralingual translation" derived from the field of Translation Studies. Second, I argue that the translator held the Hebrew from the source text in short-term memory before translating. This notion suggests that many of the differences between the Septuagint and the Hebrew Bible result from changes to the Hebrew in the translator's mind before any translation has occurred. Third, I present a full investigation of the variants in Exodus 1, in both Hebrew manuscripts and the Septuagint, finding that the types of change are essentially the same in both transmission and translation. Finally, I consider "large-scale" variation in the Ten Plagues narrative, analyzing a much discussed pattern of insertions found in 4QpaleoExodm and the Samaritan Pentateuch. Nothing comparable can be found in the Septuagint, showing that the translator, in this case, was more conservative in the transmission of the text than were some scribes. The conclusions of my dissertation are significant: the process of translation does not, as many assume, introduce an insurmountable barrier between the Greek and the Hebrew text it represents; rather, the Septuagint should be used, though carefully, to reconstruct its source text for use in textual criticism and other studies.

Keywords: Exodus
Hebrew Bible
Scribalism
Septuagint
Textual Criticism
Translation
Advisor: Metso, Sarianna
Modification and Translocation of the Biofilm Exopolysaccharide Poly-β(1,6)-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine

Bacteria embedded within a biofilm are more resistant to antibiotics and host defenses than those in a planktonic state. Extracellular polysaccharides are a main component of biofilms and have been shown to play an important role in bacterial aggregation, surface attachment, and serve as a protective barrier against antibiotics and host defenses. A key exopolysaccharide required for biofilm formation by a number of pathogenic bacteria is poly-beta(1,6)-N-acetyl-D-glucosamine (PNAG). The modification of PNAG through deacetylation and/or hydrolysis by PgaB, BpsB, and IcaB is required for biofilm formation by Escherichia coli, Bordetella bronchiseptica, and Staphylococcus epidermidis, respectively. E. coli PgaB is a two-domain outer membrane lipoprotein that continually associates with PNAG throughout periplasmic translocation. Studies described herein suggest that PgaB binds and deacetylates PNAG along the cleft between the N- and C-terminal domains in a processive-like mechanism. The deacetylated PNAG polymer then wraps around PgaB to the C-terminal domain where it binds in a screw-like fashion, where it may get cleaved before being handed off to the outer membrane porin PgaA for export. BpsB is similar in structure and function to PgaB, but exhibits three mechanistic differences. First, BpsB does not require the C-terminal domain for deacetylation. Second, BpsB is not required for the export of PNAG, but is required for biofilm formation and its complex three-dimensional architecture in B. bronchiseptica. Third, the C-terminal domain displays significantly higher dPNAG hydrolase activity than PgaB, and we have identified key residues required for catalysis. The production, export, and modification machinery for PNAG biosynthesis differs in Gram-positive bacteria. Structural, functional, and mutagenesis data presented in this body of work for IcaB reveals a possible mechanism for its association with the membrane, the basis for deacetylation in Gram-positive bacteria by a single domain protein, and suggests that catalysis occurs through an altered enzymatic mechanism to known family 4 carbohydrate esterases. The structural and mechanistic data presented herein furthers our understanding of the critical modifications that occur to PNAG during biosynthesis. This work will be instrumental in developing strategies to prevent or remove PNAG-dependent biofilms for the treatment of biofilm-related infections.

Keywords: biofilm
crystallography
deacetylation
exopolysaccharide
glycobiology
glycoside hydrolase
Advisor: Howell, Patricia L
Immunotherapy of Leukemic Stem Cells using Natural Killer Cell Lines

The field of cancer immunobiology has focused on the interaction of bulk tumour cells with the immune system. The discovery of stem cells in a number of cancers including leukemia has raised new questions about the how the immune system interacts with these cancer stem cells and has implications for immune based therapies. Here the natural killer cell lines NK-92 and KHYG-1 are tested against primary acute myeloid leukemia and cell lines utilizing techniques to address the impact on bulk and leukemic stem cells. NK-92 and KHYG-1 are both shown to preferentially target leukemic stem cells in primary AML and cell lines using a novel clonogenic cytotoxicity assay. Further, both cell lines can prolong survival in AML xenograft models using primary AML and cell lines. NK-92 gene modified to express CD16 can mediate ADCC against leukemic stem cells in vitro and in vivo. KHYG-1 can have significant enhancement against leukemia when pretreated with anti-NKp30 and NKp44 monoclonal antibodies via reverse ADCC, overcoming resistance of leukemic cell lines and primary AML samples. These data support the notion that cell therapy agents can target leukemic stem cells, be enhanced by antibodies, and lead to enhanced survival, providing a rationale for clinical trials testing this approach in AML patients with minimal residual disease lacking a suitable allogeneic transplant donor.

Keywords: Acute Myeloid Leukemia
Immunotherapy
Leukemic stem cell
NK cell
Advisor: Keating, Armand
Monoamine Oxidase-A in Borderline Personality Disorder and Antisocial Personality Disorder

Monoamine oxidase A (MAO-A) is a brain enzyme that serves several physiologic functions, including metabolism of monoamine neurotransmitters and induction of pro-apoptotic signaling pathways. Increased brain MAO-A level is present in clinical disorders characterized by low mood states, whereas decreased brain MAO-A level is associated with higher trait impulsivity and aggression in healthy volunteers. Borderline personality disorder (BPD) and antisocial personality disorder (ASPD) are common psychiatric conditions that exact a high healthcare and societal burden. BPD is associated with acute episodes of severe dysphoria, and ASPD presents high levels of impulsivity and aggression. The overall aim of the thesis was to investigate MAO-A brain level in BPD and ASPD. The first experiment used [11C] harmine positron emission tomography (PET) to assess MAO-A total distribution volume (MAO-A VT), an index of MAO-A density, in females with BPD. Our results showed that MAO-A VT was elevated in the prefrontal cortex (PFC) and anterior cingulate cortex (ACC) of severe BPD compared to control groups. Greater PFC and ACC MAO-A VT was additionally associated with more severe mood symptoms and suicidality in BPD. The second experiment applied [11C] harmine PET to examine MAO-A VT in impulsive, violent male offenders with ASPD. We found that orbitofrontal cortex and ventral striatum (VS) MAO-A VT were lower in ASPD compared to controls. Behavioral, self-report, and clinician-rated measures of impulsivity were also negatively correlated with VS MAO-A VT. The third experiment employed functional magnetic resonance imaging to measure VS resting state functional connectivity (FC) in ASPD. Our results demonstrated functional coupling between superior VS and bilateral dorsomedial prefrontal cortex that was correlated with VS MAO-A VT, and functional coupling between inferior VS and right hippocampus that was anti-correlated with VS MAO-A VT. The observed FC patterns were additionally associated with measures of impulsivity. Taken together, this body of research implicates abnormal brain MAO-A level in the pathophysiology of two related yet distinct personality disorders and their symptom clusters. Novel interventions targeting abnormal brain MAO-A level could emerge as potential new therapeutics for these disorders.

Keywords: aggression
antisocial personality disorder
borderline personality disorder
functional magnetic resonance imaging
monoamine oxidase-A
positron emission tomography
Advisor: Meyer, Jeffrey H
Modes of Reading Texts, Objects, and Images: Late Poetry of Tadeusz Rozewicz

This dissertation explores the late oeuvre of Tadeusz Ró¿ewicz (1921-2014), a world- renowned Polish poet, dramatist, and prose writer. It focuses primarily on three poetic and multi-genre volumes published after the political turn of 1989, namely: Mother Departs (Matka odchodzi) (1999), professor's knife (no¿yk profesora) (2001), and Buy a Pig in a Poke: work in progress (Kup kota w worku: work in progress) (2008). The abovementioned works are chosen as exemplars of the writer's authorial strategies / modes of reading praxis, prescribed by Ró¿ewicz for his ideal audience. These strategies simultaneously reveal the poet himself as a reader (of his own texts and the works of other authors). This study defines the author's late style as a response to the cognitive and aesthetic evaluation of one's life's work, artistic legacy, and metaphysical angst of mortality. Ró¿ewicz's late works are characterized by a tension between recognition and reconciliation to closure, and difficulty with it and/or opposition to it. Authorial construction of lyrical subjectivity as a reader, and modes of textual construction are the central questions under analysis. This study examines both, Tadeusz Ró¿ewicz as a reader, and the authorial strategies/ modes he creates to guide the reading praxis of the authorial audience. It argues that authorial self-consciousness and re-reading is a distinctive trait of Ró¿ewicz's late style. More importantly, a key recurring motif in this author's works is a conscious design of his ideal audience's reading praxis via specific strategies of building readerly response. Reading texts, objects, and images, under the guise of multiplicity of voices and tones, Ró¿ewicz anxiously fights for his authorial voice and artistic legacy, but also for an ethical and engaged readerly response

Keywords: 20th century
late style
poetry
Tadeusz Rozewicz
Advisor: Trojanowska, Tamara