UTSA Runner Research Press (Univ. of Texas at San Antonio)
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Design and Implementation of an Ultraviolet Batch Reactor for Simulating Titan's Atmospheric Photochemistry and Investigating the Formation of Organic and Prebiotic Compounds
Get PDFThis thesis presents the design and development of an ultraviolet (UV) photochemical batch reactor, an experimental apparatus that simulates the atmospheric composition of Titan, Saturn’s largest moon, to study the photochemical processes within its thick, nitrogen-rich atmosphere. The reactor is equipped with specialized optical ports which allow optical access for UV light, mimicking solar radiation, and optical ports for infrared lasers to enable laser absorption spectroscopy, facilitating transient measurements of chemical reactions occurring under UV exposure. The apparatus is capable of holding a controlled, simulated Titan atmosphere, allowing the investigation of processes such as photodissociation, organic molecule formation, and other photochemicallyinduced reactions that contribute to the evolution of Titan’s atmospheric chemistry. As a proof of concept, the reactor was used to examine the effects of UV light on various gaseous compounds, providing valuable insights into the complex interactions within Titan’s atmosphere. This thesis also presents laser absorption spectroscopy measurement techniques with high time resolutions for methane and ammonia. This work aims to contribute to the understanding of the fundamental processes occurring on Titan, thereby enhancing our knowledge of extraterrestrial atmospheres and their potential for prebiotic chemistry.Mechanical Engineerin
Optimizing Daylighting in Building Design: A Comparative Study of Metric and Shading Strategies Toward Daylight Optimization
Get PDFDaylighting is a key component of sustainable building design, influencing energy efficiency, occupant well-being, and visual comfort. This study explores the optimization of daylighting performance through parametric modeling, focusing on the Monterey building in San Antonio, Texas. The Monterey building was once part of the University of San Antonio's architecture school before the university relocated to a different site in downtown San Antonio. The current window-to-wall ratio of the building is 20%. The building faced challenges due to varying façade openings and orientations, and the small window-to-wall ratio prevents it from qualifying for LEED certification for views. Using parametric Grasshopper and Galapagos, we analyze the south façade to determine the most effective shading strategy and window-to-wall ratio (WWR). Parametric Simulations in Rhino and Climate Studio evaluate Spatial Daylight Autonomy (sDA), Annual Sunlight Exposure (ASE), Daylight Glare Probability (DGP), and quality of views to identify optimal daylighting conditions.
Results show that 18°tilted overhangs combined with vertical louvers significantly enhance daylight quality by maximizing sDA and quality views while minimizing glare for the south façade of the Monterey building.
Additionally, the integration of a physical prototype of a dynamic façade with daylight sensors allows for adaptive shading, further optimizing daylight autonomy and glare control under varying daylight conditions.
This research highlights the potential of parametric design and intelligent shading systems in improving daylighting efficiency. The findings contribute to sustainable architectural design, demonstrating how dynamic façades can create more energy-efficient and adaptable buildings, enhancing both occupant comfort and environmental performance.
Keywords: daylight optimization, performance simulation, shading, overhang, fins.Architectur
Reasonability-of-force assessments mediate the link between police experience and use-of-force decision making
Get PDFWe examined if experienced officers use less and lower levels of force than less-experienced officers due to differences in reasonability-of-force assessments. Officers observed body-camera videos involving use-of-force, indicated their course of action, and the extent to which several factors were relevant in determining appropriate use-of-force. Experienced officers were more likely to use verbal commands and less-experienced officers were more likely to use less-lethal and lethal force. This was mediated by available force mitigation opportunities, nearby weapons, and the subject’s likelihood of escape. Results inform the skills involved in and training that reinforces expert use-of-force decision making performance.Psycholog
Urban Synthetic Data for Whom? Shifting the Focus from Objects to People
Get PDFUrban synthetic data has emerged as a transformative tool for planning research, yet its full potential remains constrained by an overwhelming focus on physical spaces and object recognition. Current digital twin analysis prioritizes built environments over human interactions, while privacy concerns in social media-based behavioral studies limit reproducibility. This commentary argues for a paradigm shift—one that integrates human vibrancy into urban synthetic data approaches to foster human-centered digital twins. By addressing key challenges of privacy, reproducibility, and technical feasibility, human-centered synthetic data can redefine urban informatics, bridging the gap between digital representations and lived urban experiences
Defensores de la Identidad: Resistencia Puertorriqueña a la Americanización, 1898–1950
Get PDFIn 1898, the U.S. occupation of Puerto Rico sought to transform the island into a colonial laboratory where American officials reshaped its cultural, political, and economic structures. Viewing Puerto Ricans as racially and socially distinct from themselves, U.S. administrators used institutions such as schools, churches, and legal systems to “Americanize” the population. Historians have studied the impact of the U.S. occupation in Puerto Rico from different angles—primarily regarding economics and politics. Resistance has been a center of debate; however, cultural aspects have long been overlooked. This study argues that social class, geography, gendered relations, power dynamics and spirituality shaped the ways Puerto Ricans resisted Americanization efforts throughout the first half of the twentieth century. Through case studies of figures and communities such as Ana Roqué de Duprey, Luisa Capetillo, José de Diego, and Garona in Maunabo, Puerto Rico, it reveals how individuals and communities contested Americanization efforts through education, labor, politics, and daily practices. Drawing from newspapers, memoirs, legislation, photographs, and oral testimonies, this study situates Puerto Rican cultural resistance within broader structures of U.S. imperial control. It argues that the island’s people redefined autonomy not through secession alone, but through everyday acts that preserved identity despite the absence of sovereignty. Ultimately, this work contributes to the historiography by reframing resistance beyond political nationalism to include the cultural persistence that has enabled Puerto Rico to endure more than a century of colonial domination.En 1898, la ocupación estadounidense de Puerto Rico buscó transformar la isla en un laboratorio colonial donde los funcionarios estadounidenses remodelaron sus estructuras culturales, políticas y económicas. Al considerar a los puertorriqueños como racial y socialmente distintos de ellos, los administradores estadounidenses utilizaron instituciones como escuelas, iglesias y sistemas legales para "americanizar" a la población. Los historiadores han estudiado el impacto de la ocupación estadounidense en Puerto Rico desde diferentes perspectivas, principalmente en lo que respecta a la economía y la política. La resistencia ha sido un tema central de debate; sin embargo, los aspectos culturales han sido ignorados durante mucho tiempo. Este estudio sostiene que la clase social, la geografía, las relaciones de género, las dinámicas de poder y la espiritualidad moldearon las formas en que los puertorriqueños resistieron los esfuerzos de americanización a lo largo de la primera mitad del siglo XX. A través de estudios de caso de figuras y comunidades como Ana Roqué de Duprey, Luisa Capetillo, José de Diego y Garona en Maunabo, Puerto Rico, revela cómo individuos y comunidades se opusieron a los esfuerzos de americanización a través de la educación, el trabajo, la política y las prácticas cotidianas. Basándose en periódicos, memorias, legislación, fotografías y testimonios orales, este estudio sitúa la resistencia cultural puertorriqueña dentro de las estructuras más amplias del control imperial estadounidense. Argumenta que el pueblo de la isla redefinió la autonomía no solo a través de la secesión, sino también a través de actos cotidianos que preservaron la identidad a pesar de la ausencia de soberanía. En última instancia, este trabajo contribuye a la historiografía al replantear la resistencia más allá del nacionalismo político para incluir la persistencia cultural que ha permitido a Puerto Rico soportar más de un siglo de dominación colonial.Histor
A Digital Twin Framework for Monitoring, Modeling, and Forecasting the Performance of Permeable Pavement Systems
Get PDFThis dissertation presents a comprehensive Digital Twin framework for monitoring, modeling, and forecasting permeable pavement performance in urban stormwater management. The research integrates field evaluation, thermal modeling, real-time monitoring infrastructure, and probabilistic forecasting with data assimilation to transform passive permeable pavement systems into actively managed, data-driven infrastructure. Field evaluation of four permeable pavement types (permeable interlocking concrete pavers, plastic grid filled with gravel, permeable asphalt, and permeable concrete) compared with conventional asphalt pavement demonstrated peak flow reductions and significant pollutant removal across 11 monitored rainfall events. A one-dimensional energy balance model successfully predicted surface and infiltrated water temperatures, highlighting material-dependent thermal performance and identifying trade-offs between surface cooling and effluent warming under climate scenarios. A low-cost, open-source real-time monitoring framework was developed using ESP32 microcontrollers, enabling continuous data collection, transmission, and storage. The integration of automated pavement usage detection indicates that conventional pavements exhibit a significant correlation between parking occupancy and suspended solids. In contrast, permeable pavements showed no significant correlation, demonstrating pollutant retention regardless of pavement usage. The Digital Twin framework, integrating a one-dimensional hydrologic model with Particle-Filter data assimilation, reduced forecast errors relative to baseline predictions. This framework establishes a foundation for adaptive management of decentralized low-impact development infrastructure through continuous monitoring and data assimilation to enhance performance prediction.Civil and Environmental Engineerin
Clapped Back Together: Healing Though Queer Eco-Erotic Conocimiento, Puteria Praxis, and Wetty Pedagogy
Get PDFThis autohxstoria-teoría offers a Jotería critique of the anti-erotic neoliberal academy, written from my positionality as a Queer Crip Chicanx doctoral student and educator. Drawing on the elemental cycles of earth, air, fire, and water, I ground queer conocimiento and theorize how rupture, fragmentation, and susto transform into queer resilience and eco-erotic healing. My eco-erotic framework and Wetty pedagogy build on Audre Lorde’s writing on the erotic, bell hooks’ engaged pedagogy, Gloria Anzaldúa’s autohistoria-teoría, and the communal practices of the Wetty Collective. Together, these frameworks illuminate queer survival as both relational and embodied, while this project distinguishes the eco-erotic as an elemental, spiritual, and emotional grounding for conocimiento. Wetty emerges as a queer, crip, Chicanx Rasquache praxis that makes survival, creativity, and reciprocal meaning-making possible.
I introduce the Tlazoltéotl Cycle as a queer eco-erotic process of filth, digestion, and transformation that reimagines shame, rupture, and sacred mess as generative sites of rebirth and queer conocimiento. I argue that Putería is a Rasquache mode of resistance that challenges disposability, academic extraction, and the sanitizing tendencies of the neoliberal academy. Reframing wetness as queer conocimiento, I conceptualize it as an embodied, life-affirming force that sustains political intimacy and community care within terrains marked by colonial dryness, conservatism, and institutional neglect.
Through elemental storytelling, Putería praxis, and Wetty pedagogy, I analyze my teaching and community work as embodied archives of wetness, dryness, and sacred filth. These written and visual testimonios operate as altars and afterlife work that reveal wounds of tokenism, fetishization, and exploitation while illuminating the creative and relational possibilities that repair relational bonds and sustain queer survival.Bicultural-Bilingual Studie
Silos and Bridges: Differential Identification of University Students in Identity-Based Student Organizations
Get PDFAs large organizations, universities benefit when students identify with the dominant culture and identity of the university. Many U.S. universities have a traditional culture and identity based in predominately white, middle to upper-class American culture. Students from other identity groups may have difficulty identifying with the culture at their university. Students can join identity-based student organizations to find support and community with other students who share their perspectives and struggles in the university environment. Some research has shown that these groups encourage separation, hindering student identification and success in college (Eimers & Pike, 1997; Sidanius et al., 2004), while others have argued that identity organizations allow students a strong foundation from which to explore their identification with the university (Rendon et al., 2000; Museus, 2008). This study explores this debate through how students themselves perceive their identification with both the identity-based student groups they belong to and their universities. A mixed-methods approach was used to gather both broad data on student’s perceptions as well as a deeper understanding of how students understand their identifications. First, students at a small, midwestern university who participate in a registered identity-based student organization were invited to participate in a survey measuring identification. After the survey, a small sample of participants engaged in semi-structured interviews to explore their perceptions of their identifications. Analysis of the quantitative and qualitative data revealed that there is no consensus among students regarding their identification with the university. Rather, they experience a differential identification in which their personal identities and experiences affect if and when they begin to identify with the university.Communicatio
Occupying the Republic: The U.S. Army, Counterinsurgency, and the Unfinished Work of Reconstruction
Get PDFThis thesis examines how the United States Army confronted the intertwined challenges of occupation, insurgency, and legitimacy during Reconstruction (1865-1877). In the decade following the Civil War, federal troops became the principal agents of national authority in a region where the meaning of Union victory remained contested. Through a comparative analysis of three case studies—the Army’s improvised governance during early Reconstruction (1865-1867), its coordinated campaign against the Ku Klux Klan in South Carolina (1871-1872), and its constrained response to the Colfax Massacre in Louisiana (1873)—this study argues that the U.S. Army’s Reconstruction experience represents an early and revealing case of domestic counterinsurgency. Drawing upon official correspondence, War Department records, congressional investigations, and contemporary newspapers, it traces how soldiers adapted their operational and civil–military practices to suppress irregular violence and enforce federal law amid deep political division. By situating these campaigns within the frameworks of counterinsurgency and civil-military relations, this thesis illuminates both the possibilities and limitations of using armed force to secure democratic transformation. The Reconstruction Army’s experience stands as the nation’s first sustained attempt to rebuild domestic political order through military means—and a cautionary precedent for the enduring tension between coercion, legitimacy, and citizenship in American history.Histor
Selective Functionalization of Biologically Relevant Steroids Through Organic Synthesis and the Application of Natural Product Chemistry in Education
Get PDFSteroids and natural products possess diverse biological activities that make them valuable targets in medicinal chemistry and chemical education. This dissertation presents the development of regioselective functionalization strategies to access biologically relevant steroidal scaffolds and explores the educational integration of natural product chemistry. The first part focuses on the synthesis and differentiation of bile acids, particularly hyocholic acid, an emerging biomarker in metabolic health. A Rubottom oxidation approach was employed to introduce the 6a-hydroxy group into chenodeoxycholic acid, enabling the laboratory synthesis of hyocholic acid. A selective NaIO4-mediated cleavage method was developed to distinguish hyocholic acid from cholic acid, supporting its potential identification in bile acid mixtures. The second part describes the design and synthesis of nitrogen-containing steroids as potential inhibitors of cytochrome P450 8B1, an enzyme involved in bile acid biosynthesis. A second-generation inhibitor incorporating a pyridine ring fused at the C11–C12 position was synthesized to overcome the steric limitation of earlier analogs and achieve improved fit within the enzyme active site. Building on this framework, a third-generation analog was prepared in which a heterocycle was attached at C11 through a single σ-bond, providing greater conformational flexibility and facilitating future binding studies. The third part reports the regioselective C14b-hydroxylation to access pergularin and the related natural product hoodigogenin A, known for appetite-suppressing properties. Finally, this work demonstrates how natural product-based experiments can be integrated into laboratory instruction to enhance student training in multi-step synthesis and structure elucidation.Chemistr