Recent root items

Earthly Flavor vs. Unrefined Taste: Douyin and Kuaishou’s Rural, Platform, and Speculative Career Environments

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This dissertation examines Tuwei content creation on Chinese short-video platforms as a speculative cultural industry produced through the interaction of platform infrastructures and rural representation. Focusing on Douyin and Kuaishou, it argues that Tuwei is not merely a vulgar aesthetic, a rural subculture, or a symptom of platform exploitation. Rather, it is a mediated labor formation in which platforms, interfaces, algorithms, creator dashboards, livestreaming economies, MCNs, educational infrastructures, successful wanghong figures, aspiring imitators, rural spaces, bodily labor, and viewers collectively organize the possibility of a creator career. The dissertation develops a three-part environmental framework: the platform environment, the rural representation environment, and the speculative industrial environment that emerges from the encounter of the platform and the rural. The first two chapters analyze Douyin’s platform environment through its “hard” logistical...

Contributions of Gray Matter Microstructure to Differences in Fluid Cognition and Episodic Memory Across the Healthy Adult Lifespan

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Cognitive decline, in healthy older adults without cognitive impairment or dementia, has been associated with numerous microstructural alterations in brain tissue using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Prior studies have primarily linked age-related cognitive decline to alterations in white matter tissue, but methodological advances in diffusion-weighted imaging (dMRI) data acquisition and modeling now allow for these analyses to be extended to gray matter tissue. Here, using a sample of 152 healthy adults (18-88 years of age), we used a multicompartment dMRI model to assess (1) age-related differences in gray matter microstructure of functionally defined networks and (2) whether microstructural alterations accounted for age-related differences in episodic memory and speed-dependent fluid cognition. We observed significant age-related alterations in gray matter tissue in the form of nonlinear, age-related increases and decreases in intracellular and dispersed diffusion, respectively,...

Learning Dynamics and Convergence Barriers in Structured Games and Optimization

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This dissertation studies the dynamical complexity of learning Nash equilibria in structured classes of games and related constrained optimization problems. A central goal in algorithmic game theory and multi-agent learning is to understand when natural learning dynamics converge efficiently to equilibrium, and when favorable structure still leaves fundamental quantitative barriers. The dissertation contributes to both sides of this question: it gives an efficient learning algorithm for rank-1 bimatrix games, proves exponential lower bounds for classical learning dynamics in potential games, and shows that follow-the-regularized-leader can fail to converge even asymptotically in constrained optimization.The first part focuses on rank-1 bimatrix games, a natural class that strictly extends zero-sum games while retaining exploitable algebraic structure. Although rank-1 games fall outside the standard monotone frameworks used to analyze first-order methods, I show that one can still...

To bin or not to bin: Does binning in multiplicity reliably suppress unwanted volume fluctuations?

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In this study, we examine the effect of the so-called Centrality Bin Width Correction (CBWC) on the measurement of (net-)proton number cumulants in nucleus-nucleus collisions. We present an analytically tractable model, which includes correlations between multiplicity and proton number similar to those generated by the decay of baryon resonances. Within this model, we analyze the circumstances under which the CBWC method correctly removes the undesired effects of volume or impact parameter fluctuations. Additionally, we explore situations where the method fails and produces misleading results.

On Proactive Activity Management with Demand-Responsive Mobility Systems

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This dissertation investigates the potential of proactive activity management for demand-responsive mobility (DRM) services by incorporating travel-activity patterns (TAPs) into a vehicle routing model, focusing on the temporal flexibility of activities. Based on a literature review on operational strategies, service quality, and evaluation methodologies for DRM systems, Chapter 2 identifies research gaps as well as three research questions, namely, how to consider activities in planning and operating a DRM system, how to manage activities for efficient DRM operation, and how to acquire and use information on activities.To answer the identified questions, Chapter 3 first formulates the activity-based pick-up and drop-off problem (ABPDP) that is sensitive to passengers’ activity durations. It also develops a heuristic solution algorithm to handle inter-route constraints. Computational experiments with simulated TAPs verify the solution algorithm and suggest an activity management...

Computational Studies on the Mechanism of Pericyclic and Pericyclase Reactions

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Pericyclic reactions, defined as reactions in which bond formation and bond breaking occur through a single concerted cyclic transition state, have become a major class in modern organic chemistry. The mechanism of pericyclic reactions has been intensively studied by Woodward and Hoffmann, who then developed the well-known rules for predicting the stereochemical outcome. Given the rapid development of computational hardware (CPU, GPU, etc.) and quantum mechanical theory, quantitative calculations for pericyclic reactions have become feasible in recent decades. This dissertation describes a series of computational and experimental mechanistic investigations on various pericyclic reactions and on enzymes that have evolved to catalyze such reactions, using modern computational chemistry methods combined with experimental work by our collaborators.The first part of this dissertation, chapters 1-4, focuses on the mechanistic studies of non-enzymatic pericyclic reactions. Chapter 1...

Towards Foundation Models for Scientific Simulation

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Scientific simulation is a foundational capability that drives progress across the natural sciences and engineering, from modeling weather and climate to designing novel molecules and materials. Traditional physics-based approaches, while enormously useful, face fundamental bottlenecks in computational cost, representational fidelity, and data efficiency. Deep learning has emerged as a powerful alternative, yet most data-driven methods remain task-specific, generalizing poorly beyond their training distribution. This thesis develops general-purpose deep learning models for scientific simulation along three directions: (1) building data-driven models for weather simulation that surpass physics-based methods while being orders of magnitude faster; (2) developing foundation models for scientific simulation, including weather and climate as well as physical systems governed by partial differential equations, that are pretrained once and adapted to diverse downstream tasks involving...

Chiral superconductivity from a parent Chern band and its non-Abelian generalization

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We propose a minimal model starting from a parent Chern band with quartic dispersion that can describe the spin-valley polarized electrons in rhombohedral tetralayer graphene. The interplay between repulsive and attractive interactions on top of that parent Chern band is studied. We conduct standard self-consistent mean-field calculations, and find a rich phase diagram that consists of metal, quantum anomalous Hall crystal, chiral topological superconductor, as well as trivial gapped Bose-Einstein condensate. In particular, there exists a topological phase transition from the chiral superconductor to the Bose-Einstein condensate at zero temperature. Motivated by the recent experimental and theoretical studies of composite Fermi liquid in rhombohedral stacked multilayer graphene, we further generalize the physical electron model to its composite fermion counterpart based on a field theory analysis. The chiral superconductor phase of the composite fermion becomes the non-abelian...

Habitat and complex life cycles promote morphological diversity in salamander limb bones

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Salamander evolution featured multiple transitions between water and land that promoted distinct adaptations in limb bones for buoyancy control versus increased load-bearing capacities, respectively. Many extant species spend their entire lives either in water or on land, while others undergo water-land transitions within their lifetime. However, exposure to both environments may impose competing demands that restrict adaptive evolution for a particular habitat. Using a 3D morphological dataset of 133 species spanning the phylogenetic and ecological breadth of salamanders, we find that the external and internal morphology of limb bones is evolutionarily decoupled, which increases the evolvability of limb bones in response to diverse mechanical demands. Terrestrial salamanders have stiffer bones with greater resistance to fracture, while aquatic species have denser bones that are hypothesized to aid in buoyancy regulation. We uncover a functional trade-off between stiffness and...

The tt-geometry of permutation filtered modules

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We study the derived category of permutation filtered modules. We focus on the case Db(pfmod(E)) of an elementary abelian group E. Our key insight is to consider for each subgroup N ⩽ E a relative subcategory pfmod(E, N) ⊂ pfmod(E) of permutation filtered modules and a relative category pgmod(E, N) of permutation graded modules. The case N = 1 recovers the original categories. We show that the spectrum Spc Db(pfmod(E, N)) as a set consists of a copy of the spectrum Spc Db(pgmod(E, N)) and a colimit colimL>N UL of open subsets UL ⊂ Spc Db(pfmod(E, L)) coming from smaller relative subcategories. This allows an inductive analysis of Spc Db(pfmod(E)).

Psoriasis and Heart Failure: Literature Review and a Case Challenge

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Psoriasis is a disease characterized by chronic inflammation with a global prevalence of 1-2%. It has a strong genetic component with a systemic immunological response mainly driven by T helper (Th) 1 and 17 lymphocytes. The relationship between HF and psoriasis is not well-described. In this paper we describe 2 cases of concomitant psoriasis and heart failure. Furthermore, we revisit the pathogenesis of those entities and discuss the available evidence on their association, and the proper evaluation of psoriasis in the management of heart failure in patients present with both diseases.

The Busayra Cultural Heritage Project’s 2025 Season

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This manuscript describes the results of the Busayra Cultural Heritage Project's research in the Area A building during Summer, 2025. This manuscript was submitted for publication in the Annual of the Department of Antiquities of Jordan in Summer, 2026.

The QuadMax Task: Parametrically Manipulating Associative Memory Load across the Adult Lifespan

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Adults of all ages are worse at recognizing pairs of items that were previously seen together relative to the individual items, and this paired-associative memory deficit is exacerbated in aging. Less is known about memory for higher associative loads, which place greater demands on binding processes that link items into a cohesive memory trace, among other processes (e.g., working memory, recollection). In this study, adults across the lifespan (n = 250, 18-78 years) completed a novel recognition task in which they studied word pairs, triplets, and quadruplets and were tested on their memory for repeated, recombined, and novel word sets. Associative memory deficits were seen in adults of all ages as fewer correct responses to repeated sets (hits), more incorrect responses to recombined sets (recombined false alarm, FA), and larger differences between these measures (associative memory) at higher set sizes. In addition, older adults had worse associative memory...

Together for Emergency Medicine in the United Arab Emirates!

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

As I began writing this article, I was stunned realizing that September 2019 marks the anniversary of a ten-year journey for the specialty of emergency medicine (EM) in the United Arab Emirates (UAE). I had returned home to the UAE after 17 years’ acquiring and refining knowledge and skills as well as building experience and expertise abroad. This included medical school studies in Ireland,1 an Emergency Medicine (EM) Residency training in Montreal, Quebec2, a Prehospital Care fellowship in Toronto, Ontario,3 a Disaster Medicine fellowship in Boston, Massachusetts4, and finally a public health graduate degree in Baltimore, Maryland5. Throughout that time spent in nations where EM was well-developed, I was persistently asking myself, “What can I learn from here to allow me to develop EM back home?”. This challenging journey was certainly exciting and beneficial and exposed me to so many different “systems”, to their strengths and weaknesses, to the different approaches used to...

An Atom-Precise Approach to Damp First-Order Phase Transitions and Its Implications for Neuromorphic Signal Processing

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Neuromorphic computing inspired by mammalian intelligence aims to emulate the nonlinear dynamics of biological neurons and synapses to achieve fast, low-energy, and highly efficient information processing. Brain-inspired computing relies on the design and discovery of materials exhibiting nonlinear current-voltage profiles, frequently underpinned by electronic state transitions, to achieve spiking neurons and dynamically tunable synapses. A signature challenge in the design of artificial neurons is controlling the steepness of first-order transitions in active elements, as abrupt transitions are at risk of driving unstable voltage and temperature oscillations, which result in catastrophic device failure. A critical knowledge gap is the lack of structure-function correlations mapping the composition and atomistic structure of crystalline solids to nonlinear dynamical response characteristics. Here, we address the key question of how modification of atomistic structure correlates...

The QuadMax Task: A Novel Parametric Manipulation of Associative Memory Load in Adults Across the Lifespan

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Adults of all ages are worse at remembering which pairs of items were previously seen together relative to memory for the individual items, and this paired-associative memory deficit is exacerbated in aging. Less is known about memory for higher-order associations, including whether they place greater demands on the binding processes that link information into a cohesive memory trace. In this study, adults across the lifespan (Experiment 1: n = 250, 18-78 years) and in extreme age groups (Experiment 2: n = 64, 18-25 and 64-78 years) completed a novel recognition task in which they studied word pairs, triplets, and quadruplets and were later tested on their memory for repeated, recombined, and novel word sets. Associative memory deficits were seen in both experiments as the difference between correct responses to repeated (hits) and incorrect responses to recombined (recombined false alarm, FA) sets that decreased from pairs to quadruplets. In addition, older age groups had...

Connectome-based predictive modeling of grip strength: a marker of physical frailty

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction: Frailty is characterized by a persistent and progressive decline in functional capacity, leading to increased vulnerability to stressors and a heightened risk of adverse health outcomes, both physically and mentally. Despite frailty's prevalence in older adults, there is limited research on its neural substrates. Methods: In this study, we used connectome-based predictive modeling (CPM) to find a linear relationship between task-based connectomes taken from tasks that involved similar handgrip manipulations and a separate measure of physical frailty: the maximum grip strength in older adults. Results: We observed that the task-based connectomes were able to explain individual differences in grip strength, with the Subcortical and Cerebellum network, particularly the caudate nucleus functional connectivity, being the strongest predictor. Discussion: These findings demonstrate that task-based functional connectomes can serve as personalized markers for predicting individual...

Field-driven ion pairing dynamics in concentrated electrolytes

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We investigate ion pairing dynamics in electrolytes driven far from equilibrium using molecular simulations and nonequilibrium rate theory. Focusing on 0.5M LiPF6 in water and acetonitrile under uniform electric fields, we compute transition path theory observables, including reactive fluxes and mean first-passage times of ion pairing. Moreover, we introduce a dynamical proxy of free-ion population, where its field-induced change is strongly correlated with the nonlinear enhancement of conductivity, yielding an increase of 40% at 50 mV/Å in acetonitrile, compared to that of less than 10% in aqueous electrolytes. Further kinetic analysis elucidates that Onsager's classical theory substantially overestimates field-induced enhancement of ion pair dissociation in molecular electrolytes. This discrepancy arises from solvent-mediated dynamical pathways and field-induced dielectric decrement that suppress ion pair dissociation within explicit solvents, highlighting that a faithful...

Descriptive Characteristics of Subarachnoid Hemorrhage in a Lebanese Sample

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction: Subarachnoid hemorrhage (SAH) is a life-threatening condition characterized by bleeding into the subarachnoid space. Most data regarding non-traumatic SAH is from the U.S. and Europe with a paucity of studies from the Middle East. Therefore, this study aims at assessing the characteristics of SAH patients and describing associated factors and outcomes in a sample of SAH patients presenting to an emergency department in a regional tertiary-care medical center in Lebanon. Method: A retrospective medical chart review was conducted on all patients presenting to the emergency department with non-traumatic SAH from September 2009 to September 2016 using hospital discharge diagnosis (ICD-9 code 430); descriptive analyses were carried out to map patients’ characteristics, clinical presentation and potential factors. Results: Within the span of seven years, 94 patients presented with non-traumatic SAH with a mean age of 55 years and a predominance of female gender...

Three Essays on Long-Lived Capital: Replacement Theory, Empirical Implementation, and Housing Capitalization

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This dissertation studies decisions and prices in markets for long-lived capital. Two chapters address the replacement-timing problem for durable assets, first as a theoretical exercise and then as an empirical implementation on water-infrastructure data. The third chapter studies how a local policy shock capitalizes into the prices of the long-lived asset called housing. The shared technical concern is intertemporal: each chapter handles a problem that plays out over horizons of two to five decades, where standard tools either fail at the relevant parameter values or require careful adaptation.Chapter 2 develops the dynamic-horizon (DH) replacement rule for durable assets whose maintenance costs rise with age. The rule compares the cost of operating an incumbent asset from age ? to 2? against the cost of replacing now and operating a new asset from age 0 to ?. Under mild regularity conditions on the maintenance trajectory, the DH condition has a unique solution and a closed form...

Multi‐Decadal Dynamics of Wetland Methane Emissions Revealed by Knowledge‐Guided Machine Learning

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Measurement of methane fluxes (FCH₄) from natural systems, such as wetlands, has lagged far behind carbon dioxide fluxes. Short and fragmented wetland FCH₄ data limit our ability to assess its long-term dynamics and potential climate feedbacks. Extrapolating short-term FCH₄ records to recent decades remains challenging for both process-based models and data-driven machine learning (ML) approaches. Here, we develop a knowledge-guided ML framework that integrates eddy covariance (EC) FCH₄ observations, field warming experiments, and biogeochemical knowledge to reconstruct the long-term FCH₄ budgets and trends. Focusing on the 11 longest EC monitoring sites in the AmeriFlux network, we found considerable variability in multi-decadal trends of wetland FCH₄, with increases up to 14% per decade from 2000 to 2024. We also found that the strength of these increasing trends declines from high to low latitudes, highlighting...

The Mediterranean Journal of Emergency Medicine & Acute Care: Why

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Certainly, we cannot launch a new open access journal such as MedJEM without justifying why we aredoing so and what will be different about it. First, we believe the specialty of emergency medicine (EM) as well as emergency, urgent and acutecare around the Mediterranean basin have reached over the last three decades a level of development,complexity and needs that require the establishment of a regional internationally-driven medical journal.The publication of such a journal constitutes a major milestone in the development of any specialty ingeneral - and of EM and emergency medical services in particular.

Client to Citizen: How Hardware Networks Shape Digital Democracy

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

While scholarly efforts to diagnose the erosion of democratic norms in digital spaces have largely centered on software and algorithmic design, the role of physical hardware in structuring these environments remains underexplored. This dissertation addresses this gap by investigating how the hardware layers of digital networks shape—and constrain—the democratic habits and commitments of their users. Contemporary digital networks predominantly operate on a server-client model that structurally transforms users into "clients" reliant on platform services, rather than "citizens" capable of autonomous digital participation. I adopt a Deweyan framework of democracy to argue that the capture of digital networks by centralized hardware configuration erodes the essential skills and habits required for digital citizenship. I critique the "clientelist relation" in contemporary networks and demonstrate how it habitually and materially undermines the digital agency of users. I synthesize...

Transit Finance at a Precipice:Major Policy Changes Are Needed to Stabilize Public Transit Budgets

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Public transit systems in California sit at a financial crossroads. Ridership has recovered slowly and unevenly since the pandemic, with commuter-focused transit services to and from downtowns continuing to struggle the most. While other sources of transit funding such as sales taxes have recovered, fare revenues have not. As one-time federal relief funding is spent down, some transit agencies in California and across the U.S. sit at the edge of a fiscal cliff. To better understand the scale of this challenge and how agencies are responding, researchers at the UC Institute of Transportation Studies analyzed financial data from transit agencies, examined federal databases, and conducted surveys and interviews with agency staff. This work provides a clearer picture of current conditions and the strategies agencies are considering to stabilize their budgets.

Ionic liquid electrospray propulsion: droplet and ion emission regimes

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Electrospray thrusters are a class of electric propulsion devices that eject charged particles (droplets, ions, or a mixture of both) from the surface of a conducting liquid subjected to an intense electric field. Their inherent scalability, broad thrust and specific impulse range, efficiency, and controllability make them attractive candidates for next-generation spacecraft propulsion, particularly for small satellites. This dissertation presents an experimental and theoretical investigation of ionic liquid electrosprays using tapered fused-silica capillary emitters with tip diameters ranging from 15-50 micrometers and four ionic liquids, spanning the full transition from droplet-dominated to ion-dominated emission. The work is organized around two interconnected themes: how emitter geometry sets the operating envelope, and what fundamental physics governs the transition regime and limits propulsive performance. An unexpected and pronounced dependence of the minimum...

Examining iron‐related off‐target binding effects of 18F‐AV1451 PET in the cortex of Aβ+ individuals

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The presence of neurofibrillary tangles containing hyper-phosphorylated tau is a characteristic of Alzheimer's disease (AD) pathology. The positron emission tomography (PET) radioligand sensitive to tau neurofibrillary tangles (¹⁸F-AV1451) also binds with iron. This off-target binding effect may be enhanced in older adults on the AD spectrum, particularly those with amyloid-positive biomarkers. Here, we examined group differences in ¹⁸F-AV1451 PET after controlling for iron-sensitive measures from magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) and its relationships to tissue microstructure and cognition in 40 amyloid beta positive (Aβ+) individuals, 20 amyloid beta negative (Aβ-) with MCI and 31 Aβ- control participants. After controlling for iron, increased ¹⁸F-AV1451 PET uptake was found in the temporal lobe and hippocampus of Aβ+ participants compared to Aβ- MCI and control participants. Within the Aβ+ group, significant correlations were seen between ¹⁸F-AV1451...

A hybrid statistical-engineering approach to enhance the performance of non-routine event detection in building energy savings estimation

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In recent years, advanced measurement and verification (M&V) methods utilizing interval meter data have become increasingly important for quantifying energy savings from building efficiency projects. Driven by policy initiatives such as California’s Assembly Bill 802 and Missouri’s M&V 2.0 guidance, these methods leverage advanced metering infrastructure (AMI) data to assess energy savings through pre- and post-intervention analysis. However, the presence of non-routine events (NREs) poses a significant challenge to accurate energy savings estimation, as these events can obscure the effects of efficiency measures. Traditional NRE detection methods, reliant on manual inspections and expert judgment, hinder scalability and standardization in savings estimation. Recent advancements in automated detection methodologies, including machine learning and statistical techniques, show promise but face challenges related to false positives and data quality. This study builds on previous...

Integrated Physical and Computational Platforms to Monitor 3D Cyst and Organoid Growth

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The morphological progression and dysfunction of tissue governs mechanisms in oncogenesis and organ development. To control and track this process, various physical and digital platforms like fabricated microwell arrays and segmentation algorithms were made. Developing them requires resources with limited accessibility, and both platform types struggle with more complex morphologies and environments. More specifically, irregular microwell topologies reduce image clarity and magnification, while many algorithms are not generalized enough to perform well for challenging image datasets. I integrated various fabrication and imaging strategies to improve on current microarray cell trapping and culture platforms by reducing resource requirements and enhancing confocal image quality. I then identified epithelial disorganization induced by microwell-imposed geometric cues. I also evaluated cutting-edge segmentation algorithms and combined the best performers to tackle less-attempted segmentation...

California Stream Bioassessment Procedure of Phelps Creek, Tributary to Devereux Slough

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The California Stream Bioassessment Procedure is a standardized procedure used to measure the health of wadeable rivers. It helps identify point and non-point source pollutants based on physical, chemical, and biological properties, such as depth, dissolved oxygen, conductivity, and benthic communities. In 2017, a restoration project began on the Devereux Slough in Goleta, Santa Barbara. This project reverted the upper arms of the estuary and its tributaries from their previous use as a golf course back into a natural slough. While the estuary itself has been more heavily monitored, the health of its tributaries has not been equally studied. Therefore, a bioassessment can indicate not only the health of these tributaries, in this case, Phelps Creek, but also the potential impacts on the downstream slough. The preliminary results illustrate that the river's health is marginal. The main sources of concern are the slow flow, high salinity, and lack of benthic diversity.

This...

Characterizing Thumb Proprioception After Stroke: Robotic Assessment, Clinical Relevance, and Translational Technology

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Proprioceptive deficits of the upper extremity affect approximately half of stroke survivors and are associated with poorer upper extremity functional outcomes yet remain one of the most underassessed and undertreated domains in stroke rehabilitation. Existing clinical assessments of proprioception are qualitative, coarse, and insensitive to subtle deficits, limiting their utility for both research and rehabilitation. Thumb proprioception in particular remains poorly understood, despite the thumb's central role in hand function and its oversized somatosensory cortical representation. This dissertation addresses these gaps through three interconnected themes: advancing the quantitative assessment and understanding of thumb proprioception using robotics technology, characterizing the broader clinical and technological context for proprioceptive rehabilitation, and translating a laboratory-based assessment paradigm into a clinically feasible robotic rehabilitation device.The first...

Essays on Religiosity, Public Funding, and Education in Nineteenth Century France

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This dissertation examines how major political and economic shocks affected religious institutions in nineteenth-century France. Using newly collected archival data on clergy supply, I study how the French Revolution reshaped the geographic distribution of religious supply and how clergy presence affected the provision and take-up of primary education during a period of major schooling expansion and reform. I also use survey data to analyze whether long-run state support towards the church generated persistent differences in religious identity and practices. These studies highlight the distinction between the supply side of religious institutions and demand side preferences, providing new evidence on the relationship between institutional change, religiosity, and human capital.Previous literature documents a data gap for measures of religiosity in nineteenth-century France that reflect the broader population. Chapter 1 contributes to closing that gap by introducing a novel dataset...

Reconstruction of the Myogenic Lineage Trajectory from Human Pluripotent Stem Cells

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Defining the cell fate transitions required for lineage commitment often require early transcriptional checkpoints to efficiently guide and improve progenitor derivation and terminal differentiation from human pluripotent stem cells (hPSCs). Skeletal muscle progenitor cells (SMPCs) are often identified by factors expressed by a diverse number of progenitors. Analysis of several myogenic factors in human embryos and early hPSC differentiations found SIX1+PAX3+ co-expression was most indictive of myogenesis. Using dCas9-KRAB hPSCs, we demonstrate that early inhibition of SIX1 alone significantly decreased PAX3 expression, reduced PAX7+ SMPCs, and myotubes later in differentiation. Emergence of SIX1+PAX3+ precursors can be improved by manipulating seeding density, monitoring metabolic secretion and altering the concentration of CHIR99021. To better understand SIX1 expression, we compared directed differentiations to fetal progenitors and adult satellite cells by bulk RNA-seq and...

Contagious Information: Censorship vs. Creativity in a Time of Crisis

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This comic explores how Chinese internet users creatively responded to online censorship during the COVID-19 pandemic. Through emojis, altered characters, hidden texts, and other forms of language play, it shows how information continued to circulate even when direct expression was suppressed.

It is based on the following research article: Xu, Y., & Liang, J. (2024). “Language play as resistance: Navigating digital censorship during the COVID-19 pandemic.” Language & Communication, 99, 302–312. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langcom.2024.10.008

Information and Performance Constraints in Online Language Production

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Language production involves making coordinated, often implicit decisions under the demands of real-time communication. What guides these decisions, and how do they unfold during online language use? This dissertation investigates these questions through the lens of two broad classes of constraints: information constraints, which concern how speakers make use of the information available to them during word-by-word or incremental production, and performance constraints, which concern the demands the production system is responding to in real-time. Across four empirical studies spanning spoken and typed production, I examine how these constraints shape lexical selection, wordform encoding, fluency, and error processing. One line of this research examines production modality as a performance constraint. Through a series of typed Picture-Word Interference (PWI) experiments, I show that core lexical interference effects are preserved across speech and typing, enabling cross-modal...

Sex differences in congenital hereditary endothelial dystrophy (CHED) and Slc4a11^-/- mouse model of CHED.

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Background

Sex differences have been described in several corneal diseases such as Fuchs endothelial corneal dystrophy and keratoconus, with estrogens implicated in the induction of these differences. Here, we report the identification of sex differences in a cohort of 177 individuals with Corneal Hereditary Endothelial Dystrophy (CHED), a rare corneal endothelial dystrophy associated with biallelic SLC4A11 gene mutations, and in a Slc4a11^-/- mouse model of CHED.

Methods

Central corneal thickness (CCT) was measured in individuals with CHED and in Slc4a11^-/- and Slc4a11^+/+ mice to identify a correlation between sex and the degree of corneal edema. To investigate potential causes of such a correlation, RNAseq analysis and mitochondrial superoxide measurement were performed on corneal endothelium from male and female Slc4a11^-/- and Slc4a11^+/+ mice, for which body composition analysis was also performed. Gonadectomy...

Establishing Emergency Medicine in Iran: a Post-implementation Perspective

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

In the 1990s, a comprehensive evaluation of national emergency care (EC) system was performed by the Iranian Ministry of Health and Medical Education (I-MOHME) to identify gaps in timely and proper EC delivery. It was then concluded that a refurbished patient-centered specialty, namely emergency medicine (EM), could reduce or close these gaps.

Majority Mobility - Issue 3

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Majority Mobility - Issue 3

Femicide on Trial: The Logics of Gendered Justice in Colonial Kenya, c. 1920-1965

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Femicide, as a subject, has been largely situated within contemporary interdisciplinary scholarship, with many studies relying on statistical and news media data sources only available from the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. This thesis historicizes femicide within colonial Kenya’s common law courts through an analysis of forty-nine murder cases, tried between 1920 to 1965, collected from the Kenya National Archives. By utilizing this “femicide archive,” this study argues that the administration of justice for women’s murders was conditional upon how motives of the accused were interpreted by the court. Courts administered murder convictions or mitigation based on how these motives for violence were translated into legally intelligible language and whether they aligned with the colonial state’s interests. Through the analytical lens of the “logics of gendered justice,” this study examines how gendered assumptions surrounding masculinity, women’s morality, and...

Toward Efficient and Domain-Specific Retrieval-Augmented Language Models

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) has emerged as a powerful paradigm for grounding large language models in external knowledge and supporting knowledge-intensive applications. Its practical deployment, however, faces two fundamental challenges: scaling efficiently to long retrieved contexts, and providing meaningful support for specialized real-world domains. This thesis advances retrieval-augmented language models along these two complementary axes. To improve efficiency, we introduce BRIEF-PRO, a lightweight context compressor trained on synthetic data that expands short-context seed data into long-context examples and supports user-controllable compression. Experiments on four multi-hop question answering datasets show that BRIEF-PRO achieves a 32× compression rate while improving downstream accuracy and reducing inference cost across small (8B), large (70B), and proprietary reader models. To study domain-specific RAG, we introduce TEMMED-BENCH, the first multi-task...

Discrete Data Dynamics and Panel Quantile Models

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This thesis develops new Bayesian and quasi-likelihood methods for modeling discrete and continuous outcomes in dynamic and panel data settings, with a focus on capturing unobserved heterogeneity, temporal dependence, and distributional flexibility. The first chapter introduces a general Bayesian framework for dynamic time series models with discrete outcomes, allowing lagged dependence to operate through either observed outcomes (state-dependence) or latent continuous variables (latent-dependence), while accommodating autoregressive disturbances. To address the substantial computational challenges arising from high-dimensional latent structures, the chapter proposes efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithms based on a novel blocking strategy combined with exponential minimax tilting for sampling truncated multivariate normal distributions. Simulation results demonstrate accurate parameter recovery, and an application to U.S. business cycle forecasting shows that incorporating...

Locus Coeruleus Engagement Drives Network Connectivity Dynamics In Humans And Rats

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Locus Coeruleus Engagement Drives Network Connectivity Dynamics In Humans And Rats

ED Visits and Admission Profile pre- and during COVID-19 Pandemic

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction: COVID-19 pandemic has had catastrophic effects on the healthcare system. Emergency departments (EDs) are among the most affected areas. The purpose of our study is to explore the pandemic’s effect on patients’ ED visits and admissions. Methods: This was a retrospective study using data from medical record system of King Hamad University Hospital. We examined ED visits and hospital admissions over two 12-month time spans before and during the pandemic. Monthly visits were classified according to several parameters, and ED revisits within 72 hours were also compared between both periods. Results: There was an overall decrease of 11.05% in total ED visits during the pandemic. Disproportionate decrease was seen in visits by pediatric cases under 18 years (49.54%) and patients older than 65 years (1.41%). Conversely, there was a significant increase in visits among adults. Referrals from local health centers to the ED during the pandemic decreased significantly (23.92%),...

Flexible and Efficient Machine Learning Models for Marked Temporal Point Processes

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Neural marked temporal point processes (MTPPs) provide a flexible, generative framework for probabilistic modeling of irregularly observed events in continuous time, across domains in seismology, finance, healthcare, and user behavior modeling. However, real-world data is often noisy and violates modeling assumptions, and existing architectures frequently lack the flexibility and scalability to handle long-range sequences for practical applications. In this dissertation, we present three approaches to enrich the class of MTPP models. We first introduce an extended framework compatible with set-valued events that better accommodates the complexity of real-world data. This enables us to develop a class of importance sampling methods to marginalize over intermediate uncertainties and answer probabilistic queries about future events, where exact computation is generally intractable. Our results demonstrate orders of magnitude efficiency gains over direct trajectory sampling. We then...

Neuroimaging Measures of Iron and Gliosis Explain Memory Performance in Aging

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract Evidence from animal and histological studies have indicated that accumulation of iron in the brain results in reactive gliosis that contributes to cognitive deficits. The current study extends these findings to human cognitive aging and suggests that magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) techniques like quantitative relaxometry can be used to study iron and its effects in vivo . The effects of iron on microstructure and memory performance were examined using a combination of quantitative relaxometry and multi-compartment diffusion imaging in 35 young (21.06 ± 2.18 years) and 28 older (72.58 ± 6.47 years) adults, who also completed a memory task. Replicating past work, results revealed age-related increases in iron content (R 2 *) and diffusion, and decreases in memory performance. Independent of age group, iron content was significantly related to restricted (intracellular) diffusion in regions with low-moderate iron (hippocampus, caudate) and to all diffusion metrics in...

PyHydroGeophysX: An extensible open-source platform for integrating hydrological models with geophysical measurements

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hydrological models and geophysical measurements are widely used tools for understanding subsurface hydrological processes relevant to water resource management, yet they typically remain disconnected due to technical barriers. We present PyHydroGeophysX, an open-source Python platform bridging this gap by providing standardized interfaces between hydrological modeling software (MODFLOW, ParFlow) and geophysical simulation tools (PyGIMLi, SimPEG). The platform implements bidirectional workflows: translating hydrological outputs into simulated geophysical responses through petrophysical models, and extracting hydrological information from geophysical inversions. Key features include bidirectional workflow modules, configurable petrophysical models, time-lapse inversion with temporal regularization, parallel computing, and mesh utilities for property transfer between geophysical and hydrological grids. The modular architecture of PyHydroGeophysX enables researchers to incorporate...

Development of a Preoperative EHR and Waveform model for Postoperative Major Complications

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Importance:Postoperative complications represent the third leading cause of death in the United States. Mortality following their development varies considerably between institutions, suggesting that differences in early recognition and clinical response may be the primary driver of preventable deaths.Objective:To determine whether machine learning approaches utilizing both waveform and EHR data can better identify patients at risk of developing major complications compared to the current standard of care.Participants:A surgery was included if there was both waveform and preoperative EHR data available. This led to a cohort of 9,211 patient encounters for PPG cohorts, and 3,560 patient encounters for ABP cohorts.Design:A postoperative major complication (POMC) was defined as any occurrence of pneumonia, acute renal failure, cardiac arrest, cardiac arrhythmia, hemorrhage, myocardial infarction, pulmonary embolism, sepsis, or ICU reintubation within 96 hours of surgery. Three class-weighted...

Super-GX Scale Grid-flexible Supervisory Control for Multiple Commercial Buildings and EV Charging (poster presented at the CEC EPRI Electrification Summit 2026)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

California has a statewide mandate to double demand response and load shifting capacity to 7,000 MW by 2030. Large commercial buildings have Demand Flexibility potential, but adoption is slow.

The goal of the Super-GX research project is to demonstrate and scale demand flexibility (DF) in large commercial building Distributed Energy Resources (DER).

The objectives are to

1)demonstrate and evaluate a market-ready demand response supervisory control,

2)exhibit coordination of load shedding and shifting among buildings and EV chargers to support the electric grid,

3)validate using open standards, standard semantic tagging and protocols to improve interoperability; contribute novel demand flexible strategies to open libraries, and develop tools/guidelines to encourage adoption; and

4)work with communities to promote value to end-users, provide education and training to building owners, facility managers, building operators, and software...

Neural-Network-Based Computational Framework for the Principle of Minimum Pressure Gradient

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Computational fluid dynamics (CFD) remains the workhorse of industrial flow prediction, yet its core incompressible formulations typically hinge on solving a global Poisson equation for pressure. This pressure–velocity coupling remains a key algorithmic and computational bottleneck for robust high-fidelity simulations, typically consuming 40-90% of the total computational cost.The Principle of Minimum Pressure Gradient (PMPG) offers an alternative viewpoint: incompressible flow evolution can be posed as a variational problem in which Nature selects, among all kinematically admissible motions, the one that minimizes the domain-integrated norm of the pressure gradient. In this framework, the pressure gradient plays the role of a constraint force that enforces the continuity constraint; equivalently, pressure is a Lagrange multiplier rather than an explicitly solved field. The PMPG transforms incompressible fluid mechanics simulation into a minimization problem. Strictly speaking,...

Harnessing the Power of User Interactions

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The vision of the Internet of Things (IoT) and ubiquitous computing imagines a future where everyday objects and environments are intelligently connected and responsive to human needs. Despite decades of progress in sensing, processing, and connectivity, this vision remains largely unrealized. One central barrier is power: deploying and maintaining batteries for billions of small embedded devices at scale remains costly and impractical. This dissertation identifies an overlooked power source embedded in everyday life — the energy generated when people interact with objects. Every time a person opens a door, adjusts a window, or handles a tool, physical energy is produced and typically wasted. This dissertation argues that this interaction energy can serve as a source of electrical power and a carrier of contextual information. Generated as a natural byproduct of human interactions and inherently tied to the context in which they occur, this energy represents a largely untapped...

Brown Recluse Spider in the Mediterranean Region: A Review of the Literature

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Spiders are eight-legged arthropods that belong tothe arachnids class and are found on every continentexcept Antarctica.1 As of 2020, there are over 48000recognized species of spiders with more than 5000in the Mediterranean area. Out of these, only twospiders, the Latrodectus tredecimguttatus and theLoxosceles rufescens are of medical significance in theMediterranean area.1 Although most spider bites arebenign; however, severe reactions and life-threateningenvenomation do occur.

Aging of gray matter microstructure: A brain-wide characterization of, age group differences using NODDI

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This study aimed to provide a complete characterization of age group differences in cortical lobar, hippocampal, and subcortical gray matter microstructure using a multi-compartment diffusion-weighted MRI (DWI) approach with parameters optimized for gray matter (Neurite Orientation Dispersion and Density Imaging, NODDI). 76 younger (undergraduate students) and 64 older (surrounding communities) adults underwent diffusion-, T1-, and susceptibility-weighted MRI. Results revealed eight unique patterns across the 12 regions of interest in the relative direction and magnitude of age effects across NODDI metrics, which were grouped into three prominent patterns: cortical gray matter had predominantly higher free diffusion in older than younger adults, the hippocampus and amygdala had predominantly higher dispersion of diffusion and intracellular diffusion in older than younger adults, and the putamen and globus pallidus had lower dispersion of diffusion in older than younger adults....

Achenbach Syndrome: Minor Traumatic Injury as a Possible Etiology

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Achenbach syndrome is a rare cause of acute bluish discoloration and swelling of one or more digits, of unknown etiology. The condition is self-limited and benign but is worrisome for both patients and healthcare providers due to its emulation of peripheral ischemia. Familiarity with the clinical features of Achenbach syndrome allows for rapid diagnosis and mitigation of costs and anxiety associated with unnecessary testing and referrals. We report a case of Achenbach syndrome associated with a puncture wound, which supports a traumatic etiology for this condition.

Utility of a Bedside Pocket-Sized Ultrasound Device to Promptly Manage Abdominal Pain in the Emergency Department

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction: Abdominal pain is a frequent reason for Emergency Department (ED) admission; it amounts for around 5–10% of all ED visits. Early assessment should focus on immediately distinguishing cases of acute abdomen that require urgent surgical intervention. The clinical localization of pain is crucial, suggesting an initial evaluation of the origin of the abdominal pain; however, imaging is often required for final diagnosis. Ultrasound (US) represents a rapid imaging modality that is readily available in the ED and does not involve radiation or contrast agent administration. A new generation of portable, battery-powered, low-cost, hand-carried ultrasound devices have become available recently; these devices can provide immediate diagnostic information in patients presenting with abdominal pain in ED.The aim of the study was to demonstrate the diagnostic usefulness of a bedside pocket-sized ultrasound (BPU) device (Vscan from General Electrics) in non-traumatic patients complaining...

The Oakland EcoBlock Phase 2: A Zero Net Energy, Low Water-Use Retrofit Neighborhood Demonstration Project (poster presented at the CEC EPRI Electrification Summit 2026)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This poster describes the EcoBlock pilot project, which proposed block-level energy retrofit, including energy and water efficiency, fuel switching away from fossil fuels to electricity, and rooftop solar PV. The project leverages economies of scale and the neighbor-to-neighbor conversations to address affordability as well as recruiting hard to reach customers.

The poster describe activities, the milestones achieved to date, the challenges, the lessons learned, and the City of Oakland policy lessons for neighborhood-scale decarbonization

Acute management of rape survivors in Lebanon: overview and challenges

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The management of survivors of rape in the Lebanese healthcare setting remains ambiguous. National initiatives have been established to train first-line responders to provide adequate care for these survivors; however, management often remains suboptimal. This article explores current practices and challenges faced in the management of survivors of rape and proposes recommendations for the advancement of care in this setting.

Mimicry of Crematogaster ionia by “dark morph” chameleon ants: First Lebanese record of Colobopsis imitans (Hymenoptera, Formicidae)

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Ant mimicry is a key defensive strategy of Colobopsis ants in the West Palaearctic. The chameleon ant Colobopsis imitans was initially described as a Western Mediterranean species, differing from the widespread sister species Co. truncata by showing morphological and behavioural adaptations to mimic Crematogaster scutellaris instead of Dolichoderus quadripunctatus. Recently, it was discovered to extend its geographic range to the Eastern Mediterranean and to mimic additional species of ants, including D. quadripunctatus and Cr. ionia. Here, we report the presence of Co. imitans in Lebanon for the first time. Lebanese Co. imitans workers were observed living in close association and following the trails of Cr. ionia and belonged to the Cr. ionia-mimicking “dark” colour morph. The Lebanese record represents the first of the species from the Levant, while old Co. truncata...

Impact of Internally Developed Electronic Prescription on Prescribing Errors at Discharge from the Emergency Department

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction: Medication errors are common, with studies reporting at least one error per patient encounter. At hospital discharge, medication errors vary from 15%-38%. However, studies assessing the effect of an internally developed electronic (E)-prescription system at discharge from an emergency department (ED) are comparatively minimal. Additionally, commercially available electronic solutions are cost-prohibitive in many resource-limited settings. We assessed the impact of introducing an internally developed, low-cost E-prescription system, with a list of commonly prescribed medications, on prescription error rates at discharge from the ED, compared to handwritten prescriptions. Methods: We conducted a pre- and post-intervention study comparing error rates in a randomly selected sample of discharge prescriptions (handwritten versus electronic) five months pre and four months post the introduction of the E-prescription. The internally developed, E-prescription system included...

Exploring Sensor Threats and Vulnerabilities in Intelligent Traffic Controllers

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This study highlights that Inductive Loop Detectors (ILDs), sensors embedded into the pavement for traffic control, are concerningly vulnerable to novel cyber and physical attacks.

Farewell to a Friend - with "Love"

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Peter Rosen, MD, FAAEM, one of the main founding fathers and mothers in the field of emergency medicine, passed away in Tucson, Arizona, on the 11th of November 2019 from complications of chronic diseases, with his best friend and wife Ann at his side. He was 84 years old.Dr. Rosen dedicated decades of his life advocating and promoting the field of emergency medicine as a medical discipline and academic specialty, one that stands in parity with all other primary categorical specialties.

Leveraging Geospatial Systems for Disaster Resilience in Healthcare

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Healthcare systems face significant resilience challenges during disasters, as hazards can simultaneously disrupt facilities, transportation networks, utilities, staffing, and resource availability. These challenges are especially acute in senior healthcare, where older adults have heterogeneous medical profiles, mobility limitations, equipment dependencies, and continuity-of-care requirements. This dissertation frames healthcare disaster resilience as a multi-scale geospatial decision-support problem, in which computational models integrate heterogeneous data about people, facilities, hazards, infrastructure, policies, and scarce resources to support efficient, fair, and operationally actionable decisions.This perspective is explored through three connected systems. First, at the facility scale, we develop iFair, a fairness-aware resource allocation framework for senior healthcare facilities. In this work, residents, caregivers, equipment, care tasks, facility layouts, and dynamic...

The Analysis of Experimental Evolution from Design to Results

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Experimental evolution is a field of study with both a long scientific history and a wide spectrum of scientific complexity. Using the model organism Drosophila melanogaster as its focus, this dissertation examines the full scientific pipeline of experimental evolution, spanning multiple segments, from organismal profiling and genomic modeling to the statistical foundations of experimental design. Underlying each segment of this pipeline is a layer of analytical complexity that shapes what the field can and cannot conclude. Chapter 1 explores one such challenge at the organismal level. The microbiome offers a uniquely integrative view of how genomics and phenomics interact because the microbiome can influence phenotypic characteristics while maintaining their own internal genetic structure. Profiling Drosophila melanogaster populations across a gradient of increasing lifespan revealed distinct microbiome profiles tied to host genotype. Particularly striking was the near-complete...

Limb kinematics and morphology improve salamander climbing performance.

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hundreds of plethodontid salamander species can climb vertical structures, despite lacking morphological adaptations typically found in other climbing tetrapods. To compensate, salamanders likely rely more on behavioral modifications to mediate the relationship between their relatively generalist morphologies and climbing performance. Here, we examined four plethodontid species (Aneides aeneus, Aneides lugubris, Aneides hardii, and Plethodon glutinosus) that differ in their habitat preferences, climbing tendencies, and limb morphologies. Using 3D high-speed videography, we compared how these species adjust their gait and limb kinematics while traversing a flat surface inclined at 0°, 45°, 80°, and 90°. We find that all species could climb vertically (or near vertically for A. hardii) using similar gait and kinematic changes that increase stability. For instance, all species used a single-step gait, increased duty factor, reduced stride length, and reduced stride frequency while...

Long-Range Free-Space Optical Communication Testbed

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Free-space optical communication (FSOC) is a promising wireless technology for high-capacity backhaul and x-haul networks because it offers large optical bandwidth, narrow beam divergence, license-free operation, and compatibility with fiber-optic communication components. However, long-distance horizontal terrestrial FSOC links remain challenging because the optical beam propagates through the lower atmosphere over the entire path, where turbulence, beam wander, scintillation, weather attenuation, and pointing error can cause received-power fluctuation, deep fading, and link outage.This dissertation presents the design, deployment, and experimental characterization of long-distance terrestrial FSOC systems using commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) optical-networking components. Additionally, we further investigate spatial and spectral diversity-enabled FSOC architectures for improving robustness under turbulence.The experimental studies include the design and field deployment of...

Backdoor Poisoning in Road-Scene Perception: Occlusion, Natural-Object Transfer, and Weight-Space Activation

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Vision models used in traffic perception can preserve strong clean performance while carrying hidden behaviors that activate under attacker-chosen visual conditions. This thesis studies dirty-label backdoors in cropped-sign classification and scene-level traffic-sign detection using the Tsinghua-Tencent 100K dataset, with emphasis on what the models actually learn from poisoned data rather than attack success under an ideal trigger alone. At classifier scale, the backdoor remained effective under severe occlusion, but this persistence depended on a compact trigger remnant appearing at a learned spatial location, revealing a narrow geometry-specific shortcut rather than general robustness to trigger degradation. Neural Cleanse remained comparatively stable as the trigger was occluded, showing that diagnostic visibility and direct attack activation capture different properties of the poisoned model. At scene level, attacks transferred strongly to synthetic bicycle composites but...

Loosen Up: Bringing Greater Flexibility to Existing Neuroscientific Methods

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Many widely used methods in neuroscience rely on simplifying assumptions that make modeling and inference tractable, but can also limit the types of neural phenomena these methods are able to capture. This dissertation develops several methodological extensions of existing neuroscientific models by relaxing restrictive assumptions in ways that preserve interpretability while increasing flexibility and applicability.The first project revisits the psychophysiological interaction (PPI) model for task-based functional connectivity in fMRI. Classical PPI assumes that its components are constant over time, an assumption that may be unrealistic in settings where background connectivity and stimulus-modulated connectivity evolve dynamically over the course of an experiment. To address this limitation, we propose a Bayesian time-varying PPI model in which the components of the PPI framework are allowed to vary over time. A double-gamma shrinkage prior is placed on the temporal dynamics...

A Dermatologic Condition Mimicking Brown Recluse Spider Bite

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Loxosceles genus represents a wide number of species including the brown recluse spider. This spider is known worldwide for causing serious injuries resulting from its bite. The diagnosis of brown recluse spider bite is challenging as the injury clinically resembles other conditions and cannot be confirmed unless the spider was observed. We present a case of a 46-year-old male who presented to the emergency department with sudden onset of two painful punctate lesions. We discuss the clinical presentation, investigation and approach; additionally, we briefly highlight the main points with regards to presentation, diagnosis and management of this condition.

Solvent effects on triplet yields in BODIPY-based photosensitizers

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We employ molecular dynamics simulations and quantum rate theories to elucidate the complex condensed-phase dynamics underpinning triplet-state formation in organic photosensitizers. Using models informed by first-principles calculations complete with a molecular representation of solvents of different polarities, we elucidate the interplay of the internal and environmental interactions underlying triplet yield. We find that triplet yields depend sensitively on the dielectric stabilization of the charge transfer intermediate that facilitates a transition into the triplet manifold. Our results illustrate the importance of molecularly detailed models in understanding the excited-state internal charge-transfer dynamics of photochemically relevant organic molecules.

Age group differences in learning-related activity reflect task stage, not learning stage

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Healthy aging is accompanied by declines in the ability to learn associations between events, even when their relationship cannot be described. Previous functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies have attributed these implicit associative learning (IAL) deficits to differential engagement of the hippocampus and basal ganglia in older relative to younger adults in early and late stages of the task, respectively. However, these task stages have been confounded with age group differences in learning performance that emerge later and to a lesser degree in older adults. To disentangle the effects of task stage from learning stage (i.e., when there is significant evidence of learning) on age group differences in the neural substrates of IAL, we acquired fMRI data while 28 younger (20.8 ± 2.3 years) and 22 older (73.6 ± 6.8 years) healthy adults completed the Triplets Learning Task, in which the location of two cues predicted the location of a target with high (HF) or low...

Associations between iron and mean kurtosis in iron-rich grey matter nuclei in aging.

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

OBJECTIVE: Elevated kurtosis values have been observed in subcortical grey matter structures of patients with neurodegenerative diseases. Here, we examined relationships between iron measures and kurtosis in iron-rich subcortical grey matter structures.Please check and confirm the affiliation 4 for the author "Xiaoping P. Hu".Affiliation 4 for Xiaoping P. Hu was incorrect since he is not associated with that department. We have removed this affiliation. Thanks! MATERIALS AND METHODS: Multi-shell diffusion and multi-echo gradient echo acquisitions were used to derive mean kurtosis and iron measures (R₂* and magnetic susceptibility), respectively, in subcortical grey matter nuclei and white matter tracts in a discovery cohort (110 healthy older and 63 younger adults) and replication cohort (72 healthy older adults).Please confirm if the author names are presented accurately and in the correct sequence (Ilana J. Bennett and Xiaoping P. Hu). Also, kindly confirm the...

Estimating Price Elasticities in Retail Markets: A Causal Machine Learning Approach

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This thesis estimates price elasticities of demand across four retail product categories using the Dominick’s Finer Foods scanner dataset, a panel of weekly store-level transactions from the Chicago metropolitan area from 1989 to 1997. Prices in observational retail data are endogenous, confounders are high-dimensional, and price sensitivity varies across demographics and products. Three estimation approaches are compared: two-way fixed effects regression, Double Machine Learning, and causal forests, all estimated on a common training sample and evaluated on a held-out period of 52 weeks. Fixed effects and DML yield broadly consistent average elasticities, with DML producing larger magnitudes attributable to flexible nonlinear control of promotions and demographics. Causal forests reveal store-level heterogeneity in price sensitivity driven by category-specific demographic factors, and attain the lowest out-of-sample prediction error in all four categories. Across all...

Eco-Evolutionary Dynamics of Microbial Diversification and Flagellar Loss in Synthetic

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Microbial communities are incredibly diverse, yet the eco-evolutionary processes that originate and maintain this diversity remain poorly understood. Cross-feeding interactions, in which one species consumes metabolites produced by another, are pervasive in microbial communities and have the potential to shape evolutionary trajectories. This dissertation investigates how cross-feeding interactions between Acinetobacter johnsonii C6 and Pseudomonas putida KT2440 influence patterns of diversification, adaptive evolution, and trait loss. In Chapter 1, we experimentally evolved P. putida in monoculture and co-culture with A. johnsonii for 200 generations. We observed that P. putida diversified into two morphotypes, and this diversification persisted only in co-culture. Whole-genome sequencing revealed that putative adaptive mutations in the fleQ gene, encoding the master regulator of flagella and biofilm formation, swept to fixation in monocultures but not in co-cultures. A replay...

Handgrip strength relates to corticospinal tract microstructure in older adults

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Handgrip strength relates to corticospinal tract microstructure in older adults

Iron content affects age group differences in associative learning-related fMRI activity

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Brain regions accumulate different amounts of iron with age, with older adults having higher iron in the basal ganglia (globus pallidus, putamen, caudate) relative to the hippocampus. This has important implications for functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) studies in aging as the presence of iron may influence both neuronal functioning as well as the measured fMRI (BOLD) signal, and these effects will vary across age groups and brain regions. To test this hypothesis, the current study examined the effect of iron on age group differences in task-related activity within each basal nuclei and the hippocampus. Twenty-eight younger and 22 older adults completed an associative learning task during fMRI acquisition. Iron content (QSM, R₂*) was estimated from a multi-echo gradient echo sequence. As previously reported, older adults learned significantly less than younger adults and age group differences in iron content were largest in the basal ganglia (putamen, caudate)....

Collaborative Learning under Communication Constraints

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This dissertation studies collaborative learning when communication is limited. The challenge is: data are spread across many devices, but the model should improve as if the network were working together. Moreover, the devices may be connected by a network with limited bandwidth, and links may be delayed or unavailable. The algorithms in this dissertation are designed to address these issues.The first part considers online kernel learning over a graph. We extend distributed online multi-kernel learning beyond complete graphs by combining gossip with a hidden-state quantization scheme, and we prove sublinear regret with finite-bit messages.We then study asynchronous federated learning with bidirectional quantization. The resulting algorithm uses a shared hidden state to prevent quantization errors from accumulating between the server and clients, and it retains the standard ergodic convergence rate for non-convex stochastic optimization.The next part focuses on compression in distributed...

Natural Language for Asset Pricing

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Financial forecasting has often incorporated text only after reducing it to compact variables such as sentiment scores, event labels, topic weights, or other hand-engineered features. Recent long-context language models relax this constraint by making it possible to condition directly on news articles, press releases, and other unstructured financial documents. This thesis studies direct text-conditioned forecasting for small-cap equities using SC454k, a dataset of financial news articles and press releases paired with market data, and introduces ADAPT-0.7B, a 693M-parameter sparse Mixture-of-Experts transformer trained to predict stock prices 30 days after publication.The central empirical finding is that long-context financial forecasting is not solved by simply adding more text. In the evaluated checkpoint, recent price information explains much of the observed forecasting signal, and removing article bodies improves price-space error relative to full-news prompts. This does...

Four Fairies for Four Harps

Thu, 11 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Four Fairies for Four Harps is a chamber work for Harp Quartet that I created as an exploration of the instrument’s mechanics and possibilities. Since the harp is commonly pigeonholed into the same characters and sounds in the classical repertoire, I sought to make a piece that finds entirely new uses for the instrument, particularly by utilizing the instrument’s percussive side and expanding its sonic palette through various extended techniques. The harp is well known as an instrument that plays angelic music exceptionally well, but I believe that it can be capable of so much more expression, especially in a chamber music setting. This work is the culmination of six months of research, and it would not have been possible without the help of my harp-playing colleague Jillian Risigari-Gai, professor of harp at the University of Redlands, as well as harpists Brian Molina, Alaina Stark, and Nina Zipnick. I would like to thank Professors Kay Rhie and David S. Lefkowitz for their...

Evaluating Domain-Adapted Embeddings for Automotive Technical Language

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Embedding models play an important role in modern semantic retrieval systems, but their performance often degrades when applied to highly specialized technical domains. In the automotive repair business, technical manuals contain complex terminology, repetitive procedures, and vehicle-specific variations that are difficult for general-purpose embedding models to represent accurately. This study investigates whether lightweight domain adaptation can improve embedding quality for automotive technical language without requiring large labeled datasets or expensive full-model fine-tuning. To address this problem, we adapt a pretrained sentence embedding model using unsupervised training on automotive repair manuals and technical service documents. The study evaluates how domain adaptation changes the embedding space, improves discrimination between highly similar repair procedures, and affects downstream retrieval performance under realistic technician search scenarios. Experimental...

On Presence: Intersubjectivity and Legibility in Clinical Pastoral Education Programs

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Hospital chaplains work as translators between spiritual and medical worlds, supporting people in multilayered ways within the constraints of a biomedical institution. Spiritual care is ambiguous and difficult to adjudicate as “effective,” a marked contrast to the technocratic focus on efficacy and metrics present in mainstream clinical medicine. This thesis focuses on the primary formal mode of chaplain training, CPE, in order to understand how chaplains situate themselves within the broader hospital ecosystem. I draw from chaplain’s characterizations of their work as the work of “presence,” using phenomenological understandings of attunement, morality, and empathy to highlight the intersubjective and experiential elements of spiritual care. I argue that chaplains contend with the “problem of presence” in two distinct ways: first, as a problem of visibility and legibility within the hospital, and second as a problem of intersubjective attunement at the bedside. This speaks to...

A dual membrane-adsorption evaporator for solar-powered lithium extraction from complex brines.

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A reliable supply of lithium is required to meet the increased demand for batteries over the coming decades. In this work, we demonstrated the potential to effectively extract lithium from brines by coupling solar-powered evaporation, adsorption, and membrane technologies together. We first synthesized a three-dimensional adsorptive evaporator by coating a lithium manganese oxide material onto a cotton stick using an easily scalable, one-step method. An osmotic membrane was then installed at the root of the evaporator to enhance the lithium to magnesium selectivity, prevent scaling caused by divalent cations, and thus further increase the water evaporation flux. The operation of the dual membrane-adsorption evaporator is entirely driven by osmosis and capillary force, demanding no extra energy input. The integration of the osmotic membrane was found to increase the lithium to magnesium selectivity over 10-fold to higher than 40. The dual process also produced high lithium to calcium...

Behind the Screens: News Selectivity in Algorithmic Digital Environments

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This dissertation argues that dominant narratives of digital media fragmentation— echo chambers and filter bubbles—present a picture that is considerably more complicated than commonly assumed. The discrepant findings in the selective exposure literature reflect three recurring analytical tendencies: (a) measuring expressed preferences in place of actual behavior; (b) treating news engagement as a single undifferentiated act rather than a layered sequence of distinct behavioral stages; and (c) insufficient attention to disentangling what algorithmic systems make available from what users themselves choose to engage with. The three studies in this dissertation address each of these tendencies in turn, drawing on con-trolled experiments and large-scale digital trace data to examine political news engagement. What emerges is not a refutation of selective exposure, but a more precise and nuanced account of when, how, and why it occurs—and what it means for democratic politics in the...

Speed to Power: Solutions for Accelerating Large Load Connections

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Rapid growth in demand from data centers and other large loads is creating a range of new challenges for electricity planners, investors, system operators, and regulators, leading to bottlenecks that have slowed connection of large loads to the electric grid. In response, innovative solutions for accelerating large load connections are beginning to emerge across the U.S. Drawing on an extensive document and literature review, this report identifies more than 40 potential solutions for accelerating large load connections, organized into five functional areas: load forecasting, interconnection, resource planning and procurement, markets and operations, and cost allocation and ratemaking. The five functional areas provide a framework for organizing challenges and solutions to large load connection bottlenecks.

From Comrades to Strangers: The Great Leap Forward and the Unraveling of China–GDR Relations

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The deterioration of the relationship between China and East Germany was critical and has been under-researched. Many scholars have emphasized the importance of diplomatic events in contributing to such a deterioration. Yet, less focus was paid to Chinese internal policies, specifically the Great Leap Forward. Though implemented nationally, the Great Leap Forward had an international influence on the GDR's national situation and its relationship with China. This paper will argue that the Chinese Great Leap Forward was instrumental to the collapse of the Sino-East German relationship in 1961, specifically analyzing how the Great Leap Forward contributed to this relationship shift within the context of the Sino-Soviet Split. In terms of the primary sources, while most of them will be archival government documents, interviews from native Chinese people who experienced the event will also be taken into account as oral history.

Engineering Resolution: Novel Methodological Frameworks for Interrogating Bacteriophage Dynamics, PCOS Inflammation, and Human Th17 Pathogenicity

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Scientific progress in biology is frequently limited not by a lack of insight, but by a lack of tools capable of resolving the questions at hand. This dissertation presents three methodological innovations, each developed to bridge a specific technical gap and enable discoveries that existing approaches could not produce. First, a spectral flow virometry platform was established to detect and longitudinally track fluorescently labeled bacteriophage particles, capturing lytic replication dynamics under antibiotic-induced stress and revealing how commonly prescribed antibiotics may trigger prophage induction in the human gut. Second, applying a letrozole-induced PCOS model across 22 genetically diverse inbred mouse strains identified TNF-β as a strain-independent, treatment-driven mediator of PCOS, and a flow cytometry-based androgen receptor nuclear translocation assay demonstrated that TNF-β activates androgen receptor signaling in pituitary gonadotropes independently of androgen...

thornado+FLASH-X: A Hybrid Discontinuous Galerkin–Implicit-explicit and Finite-volume Framework for Neutrino-radiation Hydrodynamics in Core-collapse Supernovae

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

We present neutrino-transport algorithms implemented in the toolkit for high-order neutrino-radiation hydrodynamics (thornado) and their coupling to self-gravitating hydrodynamics within the adaptive mesh refinement–based multiphysics simulation framework FLASH-X. thornado, developed primarily for simulations of core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe), employs a spectral, six-species two-moment formulation with algebraic closure and special-relativistic observer corrections accurate to O(v/c) , and uses discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods for phase-space discretization combined with implicit-explicit time stepping. A key development is a nonlinear neutrino–matter coupling algorithm based on nested fixed-point iteration with Anderson acceleration, enabling fully implicit treatment of collisional processes, including energy-coupling interactions such as neutrino–electron scattering and pair production. Coupling to finite-volume (FV) hydrodynamics is achieved through a hybrid DG-FV representation...

A Khowar-English glossary [HL Archive 12]

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This is a roman-based Khowar-English vocabulary/glossary/dictionary which I have chosen to call "glossary" since it makes no claim to completeness. It includes contextual and cultural notes when such information was supplied by the people who contributed to it. Each entry consists of a headword, English gloss or definition, and sources. Many entries include example sentences with English translations, derivational notes, or etymological notes. Sources for each entry (the persons who have contributed the item) are given for each entry. The two main target audiences for this work are speakers of Khowar and all kinds of linguists.

Measurement report: Role of organic coating and chemical composition on ice nucleation potential of atmospheric particles in European Arctic

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Abstract. Understanding the ice nucleation (IN) potential of Arctic aerosols is critical for predicting their influence on cloud formation and water cycles in this vulnerable region. This study investigates the role of particle composition, organic coatings, and aerosol sources in modulating ice nucleating particle (INPs) abundance across five aerosol samples collected at the Gruvebadet Observatory Station in Ny-Ålesund, Svalbard. The IN potential of Arctic aerosol particles was studied by investigating chemical, morphological, and INP abundance measurements. Single-particle analyses revealed distinct differences in mixing state, organic volume fraction (OVF), and organic coating morphology across samples. OVF distributions were linked to particle origin, with marine-influenced Na-rich particles often exhibiting thin organic coatings, while long-range transported particles showed thicker organic coatings. Biogenic contributions, though variable, were linked to heat-sensitive INPs,...

Five folktales of Bragkhoglung Tibetan of Cone [HL Archive 11]

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article provides five stories of Bragkhoglung Tibetan, a lesser-known Tibetic variety spoken in Zhagulu Town, Cone County, Gannan Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture, Gansu Province, China. The five folktales are entitled: ‘The Hare and the Lion’, ‘Hare’s Wisdom’, ‘The Hare and the Tiger’, ‘The Ewe and the Wolf’, and ‘Norbu Zangbo, the Business Loser’. These contain 296 lines (sentences) in total. A brief grammatical sketch, principally based on the materials from the stories, is also provided. Each of the five texts contains a full text in phonetic symbols, interlinear linguistic analysis consisting of phonological description, Tibetan transcription, and glossing as well as English sentence translation, full English translation of the story, and full Tibetan transcription based on the spoken language (Bragkhoglung Tibetatn). Each sentence is enumerated consistently within each story. The objective of the article is primarily as materials of linguistic research on Bragkhoglung...

Effects of sex education on sexual function and sexual assertiveness in South Asian women: A quality improvement project

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Introduction: Orgasm is a significant indicator of fulfillment or the centerpiece of sex. Even though women are physiologically capable of experiencing multiple orgasms due to no refractory period, research has repeatedly shown that, in heterosexual sexual interactions, men experience orgasms more frequently than women. In many cultures, the talk of sex, orgasms, masturbation, self-exploration, or sexual pleasure is still outlawed or frowned upon. Sexual pleasure and satisfaction are inherent components of the human sexual experience; nevertheless, these fundamental aspects of sexuality are rarely highlighted in sexual education programs. Consequently, sexual dysfunction and sexual health are not addressed in clinical, educational, social, cultural, or personal settings. Aim: The purpose of this project was to create orgasm awareness and to improve female sexual function and sexual assertiveness in women of reproductive, premenopausal, and menopausal age within a South-Asian women's...

The Interdependence of Mapping and Planning in Minds and Machines

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Exploring novel environments and constructing mental representations is a crucial part of navigation in humans and other animals. However, the effects of how exploration shapes the cognitive map are an understudied aspect of biological navigation literature. In robotics, algorithms for Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) treat mapping as a passive function of existing trajectory planning. This thesis investigates how mapping and planning shape one another for both biology and machines. It describes four studies that include a spiking neural network deployed on a physical robot, computational models of memory replay and directionally-tuned place cells, and behavioral analysis of human spatial navigation.First we present a model for continuous mapping and path planning using the Spiking Wavefront Planner (SWP) and E-prop, a spiking neural network version of the wavefront planning algorithm and a biologically-inspired learning rule. When deployed on a ground robot in rugged...

Notes on Kusunda Grammar: A language isolate of Nepal [HL Archive 3]

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

The Kusundas, also known as Ban Rajas "Kings of the Forest", first came to the attention of the Western world in 1848 when Brian Hodgson, the British Resident to the Court of Nepal, introduced them in an article in the "Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal", On the Chepang and Kusunda tribes of Nepal. The assumed affinity between Kusunda and Chepang was based on their similar lifestyles -- both were hunter-gatherer groups -- and the error has persisted to the present day. In fact, Kusunda is a linguistic isolate, very likely the sole survivor of an ancient aboriginal population once inhabiting the sub-Himalayan regions before the arrival of Tibeto-Burman and Indo-Aryan speaking peoples. Though reported in the Ethnologue and other sources as extinct since 1985, three speakers were discovered in 2004, and the present grammar is based on almost three months of intensive research with them. This is the first comprehensive grammatical treatment of the language.

Point defects in semiconductors: Friends and foes for quantum technologies

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Point defects in semiconductors are both a curse and a blessing in microelectronics: they enable the control of electrical conductivity through doping, yet can also act as trapping and recombination centers that degrade device performance. In quantum information science, defects play a similarly dual role. They can be harnessed as spin–photon interfaces enabling the coupling of electronic and nuclear spins to light and the creation of distributed entanglement for quantum networks or used as atomistic scale sensors for quantum sensing. At the same time, defects are a major source of decoherence for superconducting qubits, one of the leading quantum computing platforms. This article discusses how a deeper materials-level understanding of defects can guide the design of improved quantum devices for communication, sensing, and computation.Graphic Abstract

A Sketch of the Sampang Language [HL Archive 15]

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

This article is a sketch of the Sampang language, an underdocumented Kiranti language of the Central-Eastern branch. It is the first published work to cover all aspects of grammar, including phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon.

“We’re more American than they’ll ever be”: Race, Citizenship, Patriotism Among San Diego Fil-Ams

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

While notable research has been done into the history of Filipina/o/x American (Fil-Am) communities in Southern California (Espiritu, 2003; Bonus, 1997), many of these analyses fail to take into account the unique construction of San Diego’s Fil-Am community as a result of two primary factors: enlistment into the U.S. Navy as a dominant avenue for Filipino immigration to San Diego and San Diego’s physical proximity to the U.S.-Mexico border during an anti-immigrant political climate. This particular historical and geographic context has positioned enlistment into the U.S. Navy as a “common sense” mode of being Fil-Am in San Diego through the perception of military service as a means of becoming an ideal immigrant-citizen (in stark contrast to the image of an “illegal alien”). Through analyzing the historical conditions of Filipina/o/x American immigrants, veterans, and military-affiliated communities from the beginning of the 20th century to the present day, this paper...

The Alien Enemies Act of 1798: Understanding 1941 and 2025

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Immediately after the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt invoked the Alien Enemies Act (AEA) of 1798, leading to the arrest of thousands of West Coast Issei men and their wartime detention in Army and INS facilities in an internment process that was distinct from the incarceration of nearly 127,000 persons of Japanese ancestry under Executive Order 9066. In the spring of 2025, President Donald J. Trump invoked this act against alleged Tren de Aragua members on the basis that this Venezuelan gang has “invaded” the United States, spawning a blizzard of litigation over this Trump administration’s assertion of authority in immigration policy and practices.

This panel, which took place on October 9, 2025, discussed how this act was applied to and impacted the Japanese American wartime community, ramifications of the current administration’s approaches, the status of the court cases challenging the administration’s...

A Prodrug Strategy to Conditionally Trap Therapeutic Payloads for Improved Tumor Retention

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Altered extracellular proteolysis has been exploited to selectively activate therapeutics in diseases such as cancer; however, once activated, extracellular drugs can diffuse away, limiting efficacy. We address this challenge by coupling proteolytic activation with membrane tethering to retain drugs within diseased tissue. To accomplish this, we developed “restricted interaction peptides” (RIPs), a delivery platform that leverages elevated proteolytic activity to activate membrane-interacting peptides, localizing cargos near the site of proteolysis. We demonstrate that RIPs can deliver diverse therapeutic cargos, including cytotoxins and radioisotopes. As proof of concept, we engineered “FRIP,” a RIP designed for cleavage by fibroblast activation protein (FAP), an endoprotease upregulated in solid tumors and fibrosis. Efficient P4–P4’ substrate sequences were identified and incorporated into FRIPs. Cell-based studies showed that, upon activation, the peptide adhered to membranes...

Radiative Electronic Bound States in the Continuum from Defects in Semiconductors

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Continuum-buried defect states in semiconductors are generally expected to be optically inactive because of their strong coupling to continuum bands. Here, we show that such defects can instead host radiative electronic bound states in the continuum (BICs) using the silicon G center as a prototypical example. Hybrid functional first-principles calculations with a Hubbard U correction reveal that a localized defect state, initially buried below the valence band maximum (VBM) in the ground state, undergoes exchange-driven energy-level reordering under optical excitation and shifts above the VBM. This exchange-induced transition suppresses nonradiative decay and enables a robust radiative emission. By computing temperature-dependent nonradiative lifetimes and comparing them to experimental photoluminescence (PL) lifetimes, we quantitatively reproduce the observed temperature dependence of the emission. These results uncover a stabilization mechanism for continuum-embedded...

Interface Engineering for Aqueous Zinc Ion Battery Electrodes and Machine Learning Applications to Predict Lithium Plating

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Aqueous zinc ion batteries suffer from poor calendar aging performance and lose substantial amounts of active material during storage. Performing interface engineering by introducing seed layers on the electrode can bind the zinc to the substrate surface more effectively and reduce CE losses during calendar aging. Here, tin, titanium, and silver are tested as seed layer materials with copper foil as the substrate. At a thickness of 50 µm, the seed layers are shown to reduce the second cycle CE loss by 2%, 12%, and 7% respectively after aging for 24 hours.Machine learning models are also explored in this thesis. Specifically, models to predict anode voltage and pressure are created for the purpose of predicting lithium metal plating, which is a critical degradation mechanism that can lead to cell failure. While directly measuring these features is possible, it requires specific equipment, such as extra electrodes or physical pressure sensors that can take up extra space and resources....

Forest aboveground biomass estimation through integration of sentinel-2 and PALSAR-2 time series: assessing models trained on GEDI and field inventory benchmarks

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Accurate and spatially explicit forest Aboveground Biomass (AGB) mapping through remote sensing is critical for quantifying terrestrial carbon stocks and informing effective forest management strategies. However, AGB estimation in dense forests with complex terrain remains challenging due to satellite sensor signal saturation problem (saturation issue occurs in high biomass forests), structural complexity, and limited ground truth for calibration. This study presents a novel framework that integrates multi-temporal Sentinel-2 optical imagery, ALOS PALSAR-2 Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data, and topographic variables with explainable Machine Learning to map AGB across mountainous forests within subtropical and temperate oceanic climate zones of Mexico. We evaluate the effects of temporal granularity and sensor synergy by comparing multiple temporal inputs and sensor configurations (Sentinel-2, PALSAR-2, and their fusion), and assess model performance using two reference datasets:...

To Will or Not To Will: East Asian Americans and Their Legal Challenges When Planning for Their Estates Within the United States Probate System

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Asian Americans historically have been underrepresented in the estate planning community, partially due to the decision of Asian Americans to forgo will execution. This Article focuses specifically on the estate planning experiences of East Asian Americans, mainly from South Korea, Japan, and China. This Article begins by examining some of the reasons which motivate East Asian Americans to forgo estate planning, including the cultural sensitivities that may not be accounted for by the current composition of estate planning attorneys, in which East Asian Americans are underrepresented. Next, this Article examines case law to demonstrate that East Asian Americans have had their estate planning documents challenged, mainly through accusations that due execution was not achieved because the documents were written in a different language than spoken by the testator or party to the agreement (if not a will). Subsequently, this...

Trends in the association between cannabis use disorder and suicidal ideation in the United States, 2014–2023

Wed, 10 Jun 2026 00:00:00 +0000

Objective Amid rising cannabis use, declining perceived harm, and policy liberalization over the past 15 years, we examined whether the association between cannabis use disorder (CUD) and past-year suicidal ideation among U.S. adults changed from 2014–2023 and varied by sex, age, and race/ethnicity. Method Using data from 415,861 adults in the 2014–2023 National Surveys on Drug Use and Health, we examined temporal association change between past-year suicidal ideation and CUD (≥2 of 9 harmonized DSM-5 criteria). Logistic regression models, adjusted for demographic, social, clinical, and geographic covariates, tested whether survey year moderated the CUD–suicidal ideation association overall and in strata by sex, age, and race/ethnicity. Results Adults with cannabis use disorder had 57% higher odds of past-year suicidal ideation than those without (OR, 1.57; 95% CI, 1.44–1.72) across years. Joint Wald tests showed no evidence that the association changed over time overall (p =...

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Contributions of Gray Matter Microstructure to Differences in Fluid Cognition and Episodic Memory Across the Healthy Adult Lifespan

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To bin or not to bin: Does binning in multiplicity reliably suppress unwanted volume fluctuations?

On Proactive Activity Management with Demand-Responsive Mobility Systems

Computational Studies on the Mechanism of Pericyclic and Pericyclase Reactions

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Three Essays on Long-Lived Capital: Replacement Theory, Empirical Implementation, and Housing Capitalization

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Background

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Establishing Emergency Medicine in Iran: a Post-implementation Perspective

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Femicide on Trial: The Logics of Gendered Justice in Colonial Kenya, c. 1920-1965

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Development of a Preoperative EHR and Waveform model for Postoperative Major Complications

Super-GX Scale Grid-flexible Supervisory Control for Multiple Commercial Buildings and EV Charging (poster presented at the CEC EPRI Electrification Summit 2026)

Neural-Network-Based Computational Framework for the Principle of Minimum Pressure Gradient

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Brown Recluse Spider in the Mediterranean Region: A Review of the Literature

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Achenbach Syndrome: Minor Traumatic Injury as a Possible Etiology

Utility of a Bedside Pocket-Sized Ultrasound Device to Promptly Manage Abdominal Pain in the Emergency Department

The Oakland EcoBlock Phase 2: A Zero Net Energy, Low Water-Use Retrofit Neighborhood Demonstration Project (poster presented at the CEC EPRI Electrification Summit 2026)

Acute management of rape survivors in Lebanon: overview and challenges

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Sex differences in congenital hereditary endothelial dystrophy (CHED) and Slc4a11^-/- mouse model of CHED.