The goal of this work is to develop a portable and accurate colorblind test that has advantages over the HRR and Ishihara plate tests, including that it is easier and faster to perform, does not require the subject to identify alphanumeric characters or geometric shapes, provides unambiguous results to the provider without interpretation, and is at least 8 times faster. The advantage over prior anomaloscopes is that it can be made in a hand-held version, uses binary matching choices rather than having the subject match colors with a tuning knob, and uses optimal reference color choices determined from established knowledge of human color perception. To successfully achieve this, cone spectral sensitivity curves and all subsets of four LEDs from a set of eight spanning the visible spectrum, the 1x4 metamer solution for a reference color for normal vision, deuteranomaly, and protanomaly are calculated. From these solutions, the optimized set of 4 LEDS was determined by maximizing the average angle between the normal, deuteranomaly, and protanomaly metamer solution vectors in the XYZ color space. To perform the test, the subject is asked to determine the best match for color and brightness in side-by-side display panels illuminated with distinctly different reference metamer color pairs for normal, deuteranomaly, and protanomaly vision. This allows the operator to directly and unambiguously determine the subject’s color vision type. The average duration to perform the tests are 30, 253, and 281 seconds for the anomaloscope, Ishihara 38 plate test, and HRR 24 plate test, respectively. When determining whether the subject has normal vision or is colorblind, the anomaloscope and HRR test results agreed for all 102 subjects. Because this rendition of the anomaloscope was designed to only distinguish between normal, deuteranomalous, and protanomalous vision, the 7 subjects that the HRR determined to be tritanomalous were not included in the results presented hereafter. The HRR 24 plate test and the anomaloscope agreed in their diagnosis 91/95 = 96% of the time, the Ishihara 38 plate test and the anomaloscope agreed in their diagnosis 94/101 = 93% of the time, and the HRR and the Ishihara agreed in their diagnosis 89/95 = 94% of the time. The approach described here can be extended to other types of color blindness.

This creative project develops an environment in which three species inhabit a shared land and models the movement of the creatures to determine the survival rates over time in specific conditions. The three species modelled include a predator and a prey species with movement capabilities as well as a stagnant fruit species. There are a variety of configurable variables that can be used to modify and control the simulation to observe how the resulting population charts change. The big difference between this project and a normal approach to simulating a predation relationship is that actual creatures themselves are being created and their movement is simulated in this virtual environment which then leads to population counts, rather than integrating differential equations relating the population sizes of both species and purely tracking the populations but not the creatures themselves. Because of this difference, my simulation is not meant to handle all the complexities of life that come in the real-world but instead is intended as a simplified approach to simulating creatures' lives with the purpose of conveying the idea of a real predation relationship. Thus, the main objective of my simulation is to produce data representative of real-world predator-prey relationships, with the overall cyclical pattern that is observed in natural achieved through simulating creature movement and life itself rather than estimating population size change.

In this project, we aim to fabricate PIN structure-like diodes for radiation detectors using Boron Nitride (BN). This fabrication is done by performing lithography and metal deposition processes on a Cubic Boron Nitride (cBN) of around 200 nm in thickness layer on top of a boron doped diamond substrate. The main goal is to create the most efficient and affordable alpha particle—and ideally neutron—detector in a radiation setting. Thus, making more accessible radiation detectors that can be more easily produced and disposed of, as well as minimizing the size of conventional detectors.

Advances in photoinjector technology have given rise to applications such as XFELs, UED, and UEM. Brighter electron beams from the source increase pulse energies and photon lasing energies for XFELs, as well as an increase in coherence lengths at femtosecond timescales on the Ultrafast Electron technologies. Deeper investigations of the photoemission process have placed stringent requirements on electron sources for next generation electron accelerator technology, and certain novel photocathode sources have been identified as candidates to satisfy these required specifications. At Arizona State University, a cryogenically cooled 200 kV DC electron gun and accompanying photocathode diagnostics beamline was developed and conditioned specifically to implement these novel photocathodes and provide diagnostics for their performance.

The self-assembly of strongly-coupled nanocrystal superlattices, as a convenient bottom-up synthesis technique featuring a wide parameter space, is at the forefront of next-generation material design. To realize the full potential of such tunable, functional materials, a more complete understanding of the self-assembly process and the artificial crystals it produces is required. In this work, we discuss the results of a hard coherent X-ray scattering experiment at the Linac Coherent Light Source, observing superlattices long after their initial nucleation. The resulting scattering intensity correlation functions have dispersion suggestive of a disordered crystalline structure and indicate the occurrence of rapid, strain-relieving events therein. We also present real space reconstructions of individual superlattices obtained via coherent diffractive imaging. Through this analysis we thus obtain high-resolution structural and dynamical information of self-assembled superlattices in their native liquid environment.

Studying the so-called ”hidden” phases of quantum materials—phases that do not exist under equilibrium conditions, but can be accessed with light—reveals new insights into the broader field of structural phase transitions. Using terahertz irradiation as well as hard x-ray probes made available by x-ray free electron lasers (XFELs) provides unique capabilities to study phonon dispersion in these materials. Here, we study the cubic peak of the quantum paraelectric strontium titanate (SrTiO3, STO) below the 110 K cubic-to-tetragonal tran- sition. Our results reveal a temperature and field strength dependence of the transverse acoustic mode in agreement with previous work on the avoided crossing occurring at finite wavevector, as well as evidence of anharmonic coupling between transverse optical phonons and a fully symmetric A1g phonon. These results elucidate previous optical studies on STO and hold promise for future studies on the hidden metastable phases of quantum materials.

Hepatocellular Carcinoma (HCC) is one of the main types of liver cancer accounting for 75% of cases and is the second deadliest cancer worldwide. Chronic Hepatitis B (HBV) and Hepatitis C (HCV) remain one of the most important global risk factors and account for 80% of all HCC cases. HCC also exhibits sex-differences with significantly higher incidence and worse prognosis in males. The mechanistic basis of these sex-differences is poorly understood. To identify genes and pathways that are sex-differentially expressed in viral-mediated HCC, we performed differential expression analysis on tumor vs. tumor adjacent samples that were stratified based on sex, viral etiology, and both. The differentially expressed genes were then used in a pathway enrichment analysis to identify potential pathways of interest. We found differentially expressed genes in both sexes and both etiologies. 65 genes were unique to females and 184 genes unique to males. 381 genes are unique to HBV and 195 genes are unique to HCV. We also found pathways that were significantly enriched by the differentially expressed genes. Ten pathways unique to the female tumor tumor-adjacent comparison and a majority of those pathways were a part of the cell cycle. Four enriched pathways unique to male tumor tumor-adjacent and three of them were a part of the immune system. There were no pathways unique to either etiology, but seven pathways shared by both etiologies. Two were a part of the cell cycle and one involved lipid metabolism. These differentially expressed genes and significant pathways are potential targets for individualized therapeutics and diagnostics for HCC.

Growing interest in using volatile organic compounds (VOCs) as markers of biological function and health has highlighted the need for a standardized method to analyze gas metabolites released by biological organisms. Non-destructive VOC collection techniques have emerged, allowing researchers to study diseases over time without compromising the sample. However, continuous sampling is often not performed, and previous systems have not undergone rigorous testing. To overcome current limitations, we developed a gas flow-based device and tested it for consistent headspace sweeping, cell viability and morphology, and detection accuracy. The results showed that the device offers a high degree of reproducibility, and our modeling shows that laminar flow conditions are maintained at experimental gas flow rates, ensuring consistent headspace sweeping. Furthermore, our modular design allowed us to adjust the temperature and input gas, allowing us to maintain a favorable environment for cell culture. Isotopic labeling and heavy VOC production confirmed that the system achieves sufficient sensitivity and reproducibility to monitor metabolic changes across time. This comprehensive evaluation demonstrates that our flow-based device has great potential in further research and subsequent clinical applications.

This thesis focuses on how domain formation and local disorder mediate non-equilibrium order in the context of condensed matter physics. More specifically, the data supports c-axis CDW ordering in the context of the rare-earth Tritellurides. Experimental studies were performed on Pd:ErTe3 by ultra-fast pump-probe and x-ray free electron laser (XFEL). Ginzburg Landau models were used to simulate domain formation. Universal scaling analysis on the data reveals that topological defects govern the relaxation of domain walls in Pd:ErTe3. This thesis presents information on progress towards using light to control material domains.

In nuclear physics, there is a discrepancy between theory and experiment concerning the number of existing nucleon resonances. Current models predict far more states than have been observed. In particular, few searches have found excited nucleon resonances with energies above 2.2 GeV in the K Lambda channel. To investigate high-mass nucleon resonances, efficiency-corrected yields of the reaction ep --> e K+ Lambda(1520) --> e K+ K- p in the center-of-mass energy range 2.1-4.5 GeV are constructed utilizing Jefferson Lab's CLAS12 detector. This paper presents the results of an analysis searching for high-mass nucleon resonances in the K Lambda channel between 2.1-4.5 GeV.