When I was about to defend I asked myself if I answered my thesis question, and I started remembering everything that I did all along the process. Did I design out of tales? Did I find the conjunction between tales an...
When I was about to defend I asked myself if I answered my thesis question, and I started remembering everything that I did all along the process. Did I design out of tales? Did I find the conjunction between tales and spaces? Why did I use fiction and fantasy? Why do we need fiction? Why do we need fantasy? I don't think I "designed out of tales" but I think that I rather learnt from those tales and from all those writers, how to use tools such as fantasy and imagination to open the doors of a more beautiful reality. As I mentioned earlier, I believe I became a writer myself and the tower is my own fantastic tale. I used fantasy as a way to explore and enrich reality, as a way to serve reality. My building is a product of the fantastic itself. Regarding fiction, fiction is dreaming. Everything that has been invented in this world comes from a fiction, comes from someone's dream. That's why fiction is important, because we need to keep on dreaming. I started my book with a quote from Marco Frascari; he said that in order for magic to exist, someone has to tell a tale. Now, in November of 201 4, my tale has been told, magic existes. I'm waking up from the dream of my tower and I'm leaving the WAAC, not only being a better architect, but also, being a storyteller.
Genealogy, the study of family history and lineage, has seen tremendous growth over the past decade, fueled by technological advances such as home DNA testing and mass digitization of historical records. However, HCI ...
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Cellular materials widely exist in natural biological systems such as honeycombs, bones, and wood. Recent advances in additive manufacturing have enabled us to fabricate these materials with high precision. Inspired b...
Cellular materials widely exist in natural biological systems such as honeycombs, bones, and wood. Recent advances in additive manufacturing have enabled us to fabricate these materials with high precision. Inspired by architectures in nature, cellular mechanical metamaterials (CMMs) have been introduced recently as a new class of architected systems. The materials are formed by hierarchical microstructural topologies, which have a decisive influence on the structural performance at the macro-scale. Therefore, the design of these materials primarily focuses on the geometric arrangement of their microstructures rather than the chemical composition of their base material. Tailoring the microstructures of these materials can lead to several outstanding features, such as high stiffness and strength, low density, and high energy absorption. However, it is challenging to design microstructures that satisfy user-defined requirements for properties and material costs. This is mainly due to the trade-off between the accuracy and computing times of the optimization process. In the first part of this study (Ch. 3), a design framework is proposed to overcome this issue. The framework employs a global search algorithm called the genetic algorithm (GA). With a newly designed search algorithm, the framework reduces errors between target and optimized material properties while improving computational efficiency. Inspired by the algorithm behind the GA, the second part of the study (Ch. 4) employs a similar algorithm to identify a material property chart demonstrating all possible combinations of mechanical properties of CMMs. Each axis of the material property chart corresponds to a selected mechanical property, such as Young's modulus or Poisson's ratio, along different directions. The boundary of the property space helps designers understand material performance limitations and make informed decisions in engineering practices. In the fabrication process, unexpected material prope
Fleshy fruits exhibit a remarkable chemical complexity. Fruit pulp is not only rich in essential nutrients (sugars, proteins, and lipids) but also contains a diverse array of other chemicals collectively known as seco...
Fleshy fruits exhibit a remarkable chemical complexity. Fruit pulp is not only rich in essential nutrients (sugars, proteins, and lipids) but also contains a diverse array of other chemicals collectively known as secondary metabolites. These metabolites shape ecological interactions between fruits and frugivores. This dissertation focuses on understanding the ecological and physiological effects of fruit chemistry on frugivores. The studies were conducted at La Selva Biological Station in northeastern Costa Rica, focusing on fruit bats and pepper plants. Chapter two examines the relationships and variation between nutrients and toxins within ripe fruits of pepper plants (Piper sancti-felicis), finding that the chemical variation within a single plant can exceed the differences between separate plants. Also, depending on the scale studied, toxins and nutrients can be positively or negatively associated. Chapters Three and Four describe the preferences of a fruit bat (Carollia perspicillata) for nutrients and toxins, showing that nutrients are the primary driving force behind food choices and demonstrating that certain fruit toxins alter the ability of bats to absorb nutrients, including different sugars, proteins, and lipids. Chapter Five demonstrates the potential of synthetic chemical lures to attract fruit bats and enhance seed dispersal, offering a promising strategy to promote forest regeneration in degraded areas. Overall, this research demonstrates how fruit chemicals can significantly impact fruit bats, which play a crucial role in dispersing seeds and maintaining forest diversity.
Equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) is a common neurologic disease in horses in North and South America caused predominantly by the parasite Sarcocystis neurona. This disease is carried by the North American opos...
Equine protozoal myeloencephalitis (EPM) is a common neurologic disease in horses in North and South America caused predominantly by the parasite Sarcocystis neurona. This disease is carried by the North American opossum (Didelphis virginiana), and horses encounter S. neurona when eating or drinking food or water contaminated with opossum feces. Not all horses who encounter the parasite develop disease and can clear the parasite before disease occurs. One study in this dissertation found that the immunohistochemistry (IHC) test was significantly better at detecting S. neurona than polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Additionally, horses with EPM were broken into two groups: acutely affected horses with neurologic signs <6 months and chronically affected horses with neurologic signs >6 months. The study found that horses chronically afflicted with EPM had more degenerative changes compared to acutely affected horses. In addition, four horses who had previously been treated for EPM had S. neurona in their central nervous system (CNS), suggesting the ability of the parasite to persist after EPM treatment and that persistence of S. neurona may cause greater degenerative changes in horses with long-term neurological signs. The final study in this dissertation examined the potential for an assay to be used to help differentiate EPM from other neurologic diseases such as cervical vertebral stenotic myelopathy (CVSM). By measuring sCD14 concentration in the serum and cerebral spinal fluid (CSF) of control, EPM horses, CVSM horses, and EPM+CVSM horses, significant differences were found between control and EPM horses, and EPM and CVSM horses. This finding indicates the potential for sCD14 to be used to help differentiate between these two devastating neurologic diseases. The future directions include preliminary data that could lead for a potential protein vaccine capable of protecting horses from EPM disease. Overall, the results of these studies improve our knowledge of EPM a
Population dynamics models describe how the number of individuals of interacting species changes over time. This is used to understand the ultimate fate of ecological systems. An ecological system can exhibit long-tim...
Population dynamics models describe how the number of individuals of interacting species changes over time. This is used to understand the ultimate fate of ecological systems. An ecological system can exhibit long-time multi-species coexistence, the fixation of just one species (all other species go extinct), or total extinction of the system. Understanding the dynamics of the system can help predict the final state of the system from early observations, also, it can inform possible ways to steer the system into a desirable outcome. However, it is very difficult to model such systems due to their complexity. While great progress has been made in understanding well-mixed populations in constant environments, there is still much to learn about ecological systems under spatial and environmental variability. A complete understanding of ecological dynamics and how they couple to evolutionary dynamics requires models of populations that are random, and that take into account how different species might be more or less dominant in different environments. We contribute to investigating these models in the following way: Seasonal variations in temperature leads to a change in the availability of different crops. This affects the resources available for animal species to consume in one season compared to another season (e. g. summer and winter). We study a predator-prey model wherein the resource abundance available to the prey vary between two seasons. We showcase how this affects the system's coexistence regime, and spatial patterns. Cyclic models of predation are models where the food chain is cyclic, meaning that there is no "food chain" but rather a "food circle". We utilize theoretical tools to gain a better understanding of the spontaneous formation of well-known spatial patterns in cyclic predation models. The aim of population dynamics is to write a simple set of equations or models that can accurately capture the behavior of natural ecologies. This is rarely an easy
New plus one schools are continuing to be built regularly within the United states to address student enrollment increases in existing schools with limited capacity, yet there is no set of instructions to guide a plan...
New plus one schools are continuing to be built regularly within the United states to address student enrollment increases in existing schools with limited capacity, yet there is no set of instructions to guide a planning principal. With new school construction still needed to address increasing student enrollment in local school districts, the perceptions of the initial steps planning principals take to open a new plus one elementary school are valuable. This qualitative study interviewed four planning principals from the Mid-Atlantic region of the United states that served as a planning principal within the past five years of a public K-5 elementary school, had at least three years of experience as a school administrator, and opened a new plus one school versus a rebuild. The interview questions sought the actions planning principals take to start new plus one elementary schools. All four planning principals indicated that they had no playbook or guide, were self-directed and initiated support when needed, and exercised a high level of autonomy with decision making, specifically with staffing, developing a school vision, and determining the school mascot and school colors. Implications for practitioners were identified including the need for a guide or handbook, a structure of support, and training or professional development. The outcome of the study provided opportunities for future planning principals to identify the key responsibilities, experiences, and guidance recommended for opening new plus one elementary schools. A suggestion for future research would be to expand the sample to secondary planning principals to compare and contrast responsibilities with elementary planning principals.
Subduction zones are capable of producing great (>Mw 8.5) earthquakes with accompanying tsunamis that can impact nearby coastlines with devastating force. Great earthquakes occur over long timescales (thousands of ...
Subduction zones are capable of producing great (>Mw 8.5) earthquakes with accompanying tsunamis that can impact nearby coastlines with devastating force. Great earthquakes occur over long timescales (thousands of years) and are often not captured in short historical records, leaving questions about the recurrence, behavior, and range of potential future earthquakes along these boundaries. Paleoseismology, the study of earthquake history, employs methods that use the earthquake-induced environmental changes along subduction zone coastlines to provide long-term records of earthquake occurrence. Diatoms, a type of siliceous microalgae entrained in coastal sediments, react to changes in pH, salinity, water depth, and sediment type, and are important indicators of environmental change that can be used to expand our understanding of earthquake behavior. This dissertation uses diatoms in two projects that explore the earthquake history along the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone and the Cascadia subduction zone. First, we determine that secondary faults, called splay faults, in Prince William Sound are likely triggered only by slip along the Alaska-Aleutian subduction zone, suggesting that combined slip has occurred during four of the eight total megathrust earthquakes in the last ~4,200 years. Second, we investigate the sediment origins of the youngest six deposits (turbidites) in Ozette Lake, linking them to diatoms located on the subaqueous delta and shallow lake surfaces, leading us to infer the source is likely earthquake-induced slope failure. Both projects help to expand our understanding of subduction zone earthquake behavior, and will help inform future hazards assessments for coastal communities.
Interface problems appear naturally in many physics and Engineering applications where a physical quantity is considered across materials of different physical properties, such as heat transfer or sound propagation th...
Interface problems appear naturally in many physics and Engineering applications where a physical quantity is considered across materials of different physical properties, such as heat transfer or sound propagation through different materials. Typically, these physical phenomena are modelled by partial differential equations with discontinuous coefficients representing the material properties. The main topics of this dissertation are about the development and analysis of immersed finite element methods for interface problems. The IFE method can use interface independent meshes, and employs approximating functions that capture the features of the solution at the interface. Specifically, we provide a unified framework for analyzing one-dimensional IFE problems, and we design a new framework to construct geometry conforming IFE spaces in two dimensions, with applications to the elliptic interface problem and the hyperbolic interface problem.
Title IX is a federal non-discrimination law that requires educational institutions receiving financial assistance from the federal government, often in the form of student loans and research grants, to ensure that th...
Title IX is a federal non-discrimination law that requires educational institutions receiving financial assistance from the federal government, often in the form of student loans and research grants, to ensure that their educational programs and activities are free from gender-based discrimination. Sexual assault on college campuses is viewed as an issue of gender-based discrimination because it can create an environment where individuals, regardless of their gender and gender-identity, are victims of sexual harassment in violation of Title IX. Through a series of guidance documents and federal rules, institutions are now required to have a Title IX Coordinator, a person who is in charge of ensuring compliance with Title IX. While still a relatively new role on college campuses, little research has been conducted about Title IX Coordinators, their roles, what types of skills they need, and how they approach their work. Seven Title IX Coordinators at four-year institutions in the United states were interviewed for this study. Analysis of these interviews found that Title IX Coordinators bring what they have learned from prior work and personal experiences to their work in Title IX and believe that their jobs primarily exist to ensure that their institutions are not sued for violating Title IX. Because participants believe that ensuring institutional compliance is expected to be their highest priority, they do not think that the current Title IX rules allow either people who are victims of gender-based discrimination, or those accused of engaging in gender-based discrimination, to receive any form of justice. This duty to serve and protect, in the face of a system that does not provide justice, leads to the conclusion that, as currently constructed, achieving the goals of Title IX on college campuses is impossible because the Title IX Coordinator is stuck in a system that does not achieve its ultimate goal: to eliminate, or at least reduce, gender-based discrimination
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