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Soil Testing Following Flooding, Overland Flow of Waste Waters and Other Fresh Water Related Disasters
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Texas Clipper Wheel
No full textApprox. 3' acrossOriginal wheel from Texas Clipper I from the Clipper engine room
Identification of Synergistic Flow Characteristics in Microscale Rayleigh-Benard Convection to Enrich Biochemical Processes
No full textComplex flow arising from microscale Rayleigh-B��nard convection can develop favorable physical conditions that can promote biochemical processes. The inherent complexity within small length scales in microchannels, however, remains undetermined requiring complex visualization setups or advanced simulation techniques to gain an in-depth understanding of these systems. Thus, the interplay between the flows and the corresponding biochemical processes that can be achieved in these systems remains unexplored.
Hydrothermal vents across the universe have gained tremendous interest as potential hotspots for prebiotic biochemical processes owing to the inherently rich biochemical environments and favorable physical conditions. Previous studies have shown the formation of protocell-like vesicles using infinite fatty acid precursors in regions mimicking thin cracks (d ��� 200 ��m) in the hydrothermal vents resulting in extreme thermal gradients (100-1000 ��C/mm) [1, 2]. However, these pore sizes do not constitute the predominant volume fraction within hydrothermal vents and the fatty acid precursors studied do not constitute representative cell membrane components. Recent studies have shown that thermally actuated chaotic flows that exhibit complex and seemingly disruptive flow behaviors, although counterintuitive, are capable of accelerated transport and enhanced enrichment within these microenvironments [3]. Therefore, first, we aim to answer an unresolved question in the Origin of Life (OoL) theory by identifying inherent flow characteristics of convective systems, a dominant flow mechanism within hydrothermal vent pore systems, which can drive the assembly of protocell-like vesicles. Using a combination of experiments and simulations, we rationally evaluate and quantify optimally favorable 3-D chaotic flow fields with synergistic mechanisms of localized trapping and chaotic mixing that drive the assembly of micron-sized phosphatidylcholine vesicles, a primary cell membrane component.
Subsequently, we aim to apply our comprehension of three-dimensional convective flows within microchannel systems to enhance our insights into these setups in the context of DNA replication through the polymerase chain reaction (PCR). Recent experimental investigations conducted in our laboratory have revealed a significant breakthrough: the potential to establish a microscale Rayleigh-B��nard convective polymerase chain reaction (PCR) system capable of achieving 100% repeatability. Additionally, these experiments have shed light on the correlation between varying repeatability levels and the GC content variation, highlighting an optimal value at 55% GC���notably higher than conventional suggestions. Therefore, using computational fluid dynamic simulations, we attempt to synchronize the PCR biochemistry with the computationally identified flow field characteristics to identify optimal conditions that achieve 100% repeatability. We also aim to understand the flow characteristics and thermal profiles of this optimal condition in-depth to identify a range of design states where the convective thermocycling functions optimally
Bloom
No full textThe Capital View Cancer Center, a state-of-the-art facility dedicated to the treatment and support of women diagnosed with various types of cancer, including Ts. This project is a theoretical exploration aimed at creating a nurturing and empowering environment that addresses the unique needs���physical, emotional, and psychological���of biologically identified female cancer patients. The design integrates evidence-based architectural principles, cutting-edge technology, and sustainable practices to optimize the healing environment and enhance patient and staff experience. The primary objective of the center is to provide a space that embodies comfort, healing, and empowerment. The center���s layout includes advanced treatment rooms that ensure privacy, efficiency, and comfort, featuring soothing natural views and personalized spaces tailored to patient needs. Supporting facilities such as counseling rooms, meditation areas, group therapy spaces, a food pharmacy, and a community garden are designed to offer comprehensive care. These spaces facilitate emotional support, stress reduction, and communal interaction, which are crucial for the psychological well-being of patients undergoing treatment. The hypothetical clientele includes prestigious institutions like MD Anderson Cancer Center, Dell Medical Center, and Texas A&M School of Agriculture and Life Sciences, underscoring the academic and research-oriented nature of this project. This thesis not only highlights the practical application of architectural theories and practices but also contributes to the broader discourse on healthcare architecture, particularly in the design of women-specific cancer care facilities. Through the Capital View Cancer Center, this study endeavors to set a benchmark for future developments in healthcare environments that are both healing and empowering for women battling cancer. This project is strictly a hypothetical academic exercise for a Master���s in Architecture program at Texas A&M university and does not involve actual client engagements
Travelling Women: Gender, Mobility, Region in Late Nineteenth and Early Twentieth Century American Novels
No full textThis dissertation seeks to intervene in American literary history by investigating the trope of travelling women in the works of three writers, Sarah Orne Jewett, Edith Wharton, and William Faulkner, all of whom are associated with the literary movement of American Regionalism. Drawing upon recent scholarly efforts to expand the concept of regionalism, my study pays attention to the trope of travelling women to provide a better understanding of the role of gender within the genre. Regional fiction is often considered a female genre, because of its portrayal of rural villages as a domestic backwater immune from the chaotic forces of urban life. Binary oppositions between country and city, past and modernity, region and nation, and woman���s stasis and man's mobility clearly operate within this interpretive tradition, which my project challenges by highlighting instances of women���s mobility embedded in the genre and by demonstrating how travelling women characters in the works of Jewett, Wharton, and Faulkner establish complicated relationships with diverse spatial configurations such as region, nation, and cosmopolitanism.
The three writers��� specific ways of employing the trope of travelling women reveal not just their different engagements with the influences of modernity in their regions but also their ways of getting into conversation with various literary influences to define their authorial positions in a changing literary environment in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Jewett, influenced by the New England spiritualism, embraces mobility as a new medium through which women, both in the country and in the city, can establish companionship with each other and maintain a continuity with the declining New England culture after the Civil War. Wharton blends the literary conventions of regionalism with naturalist fiction by examining the costs of women���s mobility in terms of its intersections with female sexuality and consumer culture at the turn of the twentieth century. Faulkner���s South is often constructed as an ahistorical place fixated on the region���s past. However, in Light in August, Faulkner foregrounds the travelling woman to valorize the heterogeneity of talking and to explore possibilities for mitigating racial and sexual conflicts of the Jim Crow South