Browsing FAS Theses and Dissertations by FAS Department "Engineering and Applied Sciences"
Now showing items 1-20 of 164
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Accelerated Cardiovascular Magnetic Resonance Imaging Using Radial Acquisition with Compressed Sensing
(2012-12-13)Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a medical imaging technique that can visualize internal organs for examination and diagnosis. It is non-invasive and ionizing radiation-free, and provides good contrast between different ... -
Accelerating Markov chain Monte Carlo via parallel predictive prefetching
(2014-10-21)We present a general framework for accelerating a large class of widely used Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) algorithms. This dissertation demonstrates that MCMC inference can be accelerated in a model of parallel computation ... -
Airborne Disease Transmission via Bioaerosols: Formation Mechanisms and the Influence of Viscoelasticity
(2013-03-18)Airborne disease transmission is a prominent problem facing an increasingly mobilized world. It involves small droplets (bioaerosols) containing pathogens which form in the lungs and are expelled to the environment, where ... -
Antigen-specific immune modulation using an injectable biomaterial
(2014-06-06)The field of immunology has advanced tremendously over the last 40 years, with seminal findings that have guided the development of powerful new therapies. However, the ability to induce safe and long-lasting antigen-specific ... -
Aqueous Solution Synthesis of ZnO for Application in Optoelectronics
(2013-09-23)Recently, ZnO has garnered widespread attention in the semiconductor community for its large set of useful properties, which include a wide bandgap and its resulting optical transparency, a large exciton binding energy, a ... -
Bioinspired, Dynamic, Structured Surfaces for Biofilm Prevention
(2012-11-14)Bacteria primarily exist in robust, surface-associated communities known as biofilms, ubiquitous in both natural and anthropogenic environments. Mature biofilms resist a wide range of biocidal treatments and pose persistent ... -
Biomimetic Engineering of Patterned Surfaces to Control Crystallization: From Colloids to Ice
(2013-02-13)Numerous natural organisms use chemical and structural patterning to manipulate complex crystal growth and control their aqueous environment. Structural templates such as vesicles and cell walls aid in the growth of nano- ... -
Bringing bioelectricity to light: all-optical electrophysiology using microbial rhodopsins
(2014-10-21)My work has focused on the development and application of fluorescent voltage-sensitive proteins based on microbial rhodopsins. These probes led to the discovery of electrical activity in the bacterium Escherichia coli, ... -
Bromine Chemistry in the Present-Day and Pre-Industrial Troposphere: Implications from Modeling and Satellite Observations
(2013-02-12)This dissertation investigates the impact of bromine on tropospheric ozone, OH, and mercury in the preindustrial and present-day atmosphere through use of modeling and observations from satellite. We developed bromine ... -
Carbon Nanotubes for the Generation and Imaging of Interacting 1D States of Matter
(2014-06-06)Low-dimensional systems in condensed matter physics exhibit a rich array of correlated electronic phases. One-dimensional systems stand out in this regard. Electrons cannot avoid each other in 1D, enhancing the effects of ... -
Chemical Vapor Deposition of Cobalt-based Thin Films for Microelectronics
(2014-02-25)In microelectronics, the device size continues to shrink to improve the performance and functionality, which sets technical challenges for the integrated circuit (IC) fabrication. Novel materials and processing techniques ... -
A Climate-friendly Energy Future: Prospects for Wind
(2014-06-06)The objective of this thesis is to evaluate the potential for wind as an alternative energy source to replace fossil fuels and reduce global CO2 emissions. From 1995 to 2007, fossil fuels as the major energy source accounted ... -
Coding-Based System Primitives for Airborne Cloud Computing
(2013-02-25)The recent proliferation of sensors in inhospitable environments such as disaster or battle zones has not been matched by in situ data processing capabilities due to a lack of computing infrastructure in the field. We ... -
Collective Construction by Termite-Inspired Robots
(2014-10-21)Construction usually involves careful preplanning and direct human operation of tools and material. Bringing automation to construction has the potential to improve its speed and efficiency, and to enable building in ... -
Colloidal Quantum Dots and J-Aggregating Cyanine Dyes for Infrared Photodetection
(2012-12-13)The emergence of nanostructured semiconducting materials enables new approaches toward the realization of photodetectors that operate in the technologically important near- and short-wave infrared (NIR and SWIR) spectral ... -
Computational Environment Design
(2012-10-26)The Internet has evolved into a platform on which large numbers of individuals take action and join in collaborations via crowdsourcing, social media, and electronic commerce. When designing social and economic systems on ... -
Computational Questions in Evolution
(2012-10-23)Darwin's theory (1859) proposes that evolution progresses by the survival of those individuals in the population that have greater fitness. Modern understanding of Darwinian evolution is that variation in phenotype, or ... -
Computations and Algorithms in Physical and Biological Problems
(2014-06-06)This dissertation presents the applications of state-of-the-art computation techniques and data analysis algorithms in three physical and biological problems: assembling DNA pieces, optimizing self-assembly yield, and ... -
A Configurable Terasample-per-second Imaging System for Optical SETI
(2013-10-08)A new instrument for conducting astronomical searches for nanosecond-scale optical pulses has been designed, built, and is now operating at Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, MA. The Advanced All-sky Camera, based on the ... -
The Connection between Microphysical Morphology and Atmospheric Particle Phase Transitions
(2013-02-11)The phase of atmospheric particles can influence heterogeneous chemistry, cloud formation, and radiative forcing. Sulfate particles ranging from sulfuric acid to ammonium sulfate are the largest contributor arising from ...