Over time, Open Source Software (OSS) has become indispensable in the creation and upkeep of software products, serving as the fundamental building block for widely used solutions in our daily lives, including applications that enable communication, entertainment, and productivity. A sustainable OSS ecosystem is one that attracts and retains a...
Mangrove forests store more organic carbon across ecosystem carbon pools than most other coastal and forested ecosystems, and are subject to high global rates of deforestation. For these reasons, they are recognized as prime candidates for inclusion in climate change mitigation strategies. However, the ecological drivers of regional and micro-scale...
Collective robotic systems are biologically-inspired and exhibit behaviors found in spatial swarms (e.g., fish), colonies (e.g., ants), or a combination of both (e.g., bees). Collective robotic system popularity continues to increase due to their apparent global intelligence and emergent behaviors. Many applications can benefit from the incorporation of collectives, including...
Over the last two decades, archaeologists have documented the widespread ancient Maya practice of collecting cave formations (speleothems) from ritually important caves and transporting them to their settlements. Little is known about their specific uses within settlements, but it is hypothesized that these objects convey a degree of sanctity from...
Palm leaves represent one of the most important non-timber forest products in tropical and subtropical regions. Brahea aculeata is an endemic palm of northwest Mexico, whose leaves are intensively exploited for roof thatch and handcrafts. As part of a long-term defoliation experiment, we evaluated the effects of different leaf harvest...
Disaster response robots need to be simultaneously able to survive extreme environment and complete the mission efficiently and robustly. One of the determinants is the performance of the actuators in each joint, which drive the robot to the desired motion accurately. In robotics society, people usually build their robots directly...
This thesis describes the chemical investigation of marine cyanobacteria collected in Madagascar and Panama with an emphasis on the isolation and structure elucidation of medicinally relevant secondary metabolites.
A collection of the marine cyanobacterium Lyngbya majuscula from the Radames Islands, Madagascar yielded two new cyclic depsipeptides, radamamides A and B,...