Smoldering combustion in wildland fires is difficult to extinguish, can transition to flaming combustion, and produces a significant amount of pollutants. It is necessary to understand parameters controlling smoldering in order to help predict the smoldering behavior and potentially mitigate these hazards. The wide variety of natural fuels that occur...
The field of toxicology is challenged with a vast number of environmental chemicals and mixtures to which humans and ecosystems are exposed with limited toxicity data available. Chemical hazard assessment traditionally utilizes mammalian models and can be both cost- and time-limiting and may pose ethical concerns. To rapidly tackle this...
Throughout their lifetime individuals are exposed to complex mixtures of chemicals. The study of chemical mixtures is an internationally recognized research priority, but seemingly complex challenge. To reduce the intricacy of studying mixtures, researchers have identified different prioritization methods based on exposure or the toxicity of chemicals. However, understanding the...
Global environmental change is causing local extinctions of species. When species depend on one another, as in the mutualistic relationship between plants and pollinators, loss of one interaction partner may cause cascading effects within the community – such as additional extinctions and reduced pollination services. Network theory provides a way...
Prior research has demonstrated that unique and salient objects in a visual display may capture an individual’s attention. However, researchers have shown that some individuals, such as those with video game experience, are better at resisting salient-driven capture compared to others (Chisholm et al., 2010). The first manuscript presented in...
The majority of people suffer from back pain at some point in their lives. Back pain is the leading cause of disability globally, ahead of 290 other conditions1. Over one million people in the United States receive spine surgery annually2. This thesis looked at five standard surgical procedures performed on...
Magmatic-hydrothermal ore deposits are giant geochemical anomalies in the earth’s crust most often generated by normal magmatic terrestrial processes. They are often associated with oxidized and hydrous intermediate to highly evolved magmas that have concentrated metals and have the necessary components to efficiently extract and transport them as ascending magmatic-hydrothermal...
Melanocytes are dendritic, pigment-producing cells located in the skin and are responsible for its protection against the deleterious effects of solar ultraviolet radiation (UVR), which include DNA damage and elevated reactive oxygen species (ROS). They do so by synthesizing photoprotective melanin pigments and distributing them to adjacent skin cells (e.g.,...
In this dissertation, the structural properties, thermodynamics and defect behavior of amorphous metal oxides and polyoxometalates are studied. Amorphous metal oxides have many applications, most notably as a semiconducting material used as the active matrix of thin film transistors. Alas, the amorphous nature of these materials makes studying them rather...