Alveolar Erosion and its Conservation Recommendations for the Sandstone Masonry at Durham Castle

This research addresses the sandstone masonry of Durham Castle, a World Heritage site located in Durham, England. The study encompasses a focus on its current condition, deterioration mechanisms, and in particular, alveolar erosion, and the performance of previous repair techniques. The stone and weathering observed at the castle appear to be consistent across the entire site, regardless of age or location and are representative of other buildings in the area. The obvious diagnosis therefore appears to be related to the geo-chemical nature of the stone more than any other single factor. Alveolar erosion is particularly evident and poses the greatest risk given its resultant loss of stone and unit volume, leading to visual disfigurement and structural instability. Because of this long-lived problem, composite mortar repairs and stone replacement have frequently been performed on the castle. This study researches this current deterioration mechanism through literature reviews, archival research, on-site survey and investigation, and material analysis including thin section petrography, soluble salt and clay identification, porosity, and water absorption/desorption. This study concludes with possible sources of alveolar erosion at Durham Castle and conservation recommendations to maximize the retention of original stone through both preventive and remedial treatments before replacement in kind becomes necessary

Settling the Sample Complexity of Single-parameter Revenue Maximization

This paper settles the sample complexity of single-parameter revenue maximization by showing matching upper and lower bounds, up to a poly-logarithmic factor, for all families of value distributions that have been considered in the literature. The upper bounds are unified under a novel framework, which builds on the strong revenue monotonicity by Devanur, Huang, and Psomas (STOC 2016), and an information theoretic argument. This is fundamentally different from the previous approaches that rely on either constructing an $\epsilon$-net of the mechanism space, explicitly or implicitly via statistical learning theory, or learning an approximately accurate version of the virtual values. To our knowledge, it is the first time information theoretical arguments are used to show sample complexity upper bounds, instead of lower bounds. Our lower bounds are also unified under a meta construction of hard instances.Comment: 49 pages, Accepted by STOC1

Controlled Intracellular delivery of molecules using Nanoparticle-mediated Photoporation

Intracellular drug delivery has been of interest in recent years after the development of drugs targeting intracellular components. Delivery of exogenous material into cytosol has a variety of applications including cellular studies, therapies and diagnostics. Nanoparticle-mediated photoporation is novel platform technology, which enables intracellular delivery through transient cell membrane pore formation. In this thesis, we have explored the effects of changes in cellular microenvironment on cellular responses. Specifically, we highlight the role of nanoparticle and associated transient parameters, investigate cell responses to the presence of serum during photoporation and, provide operating conditions for enhanced macromolecular delivery for in vitro applications.Ph.D

RACE-BASED EXPERIENCES OF BLACK COLLEGE STUDENTS ATTENDING PREDOMINATELY WHITE INSTITUTIONS

The purpose of this study was to describe the raced-based experiences of Black students attending a predominately White institution. Data were collected through multiple sources, including informed consent, demographic surveys, and semi-structured interviews. The data collected in this study were analyzed using Moustakas’s (1994) Modification of the Van Kaam (1959, 1966) method for analyzing phenomenological data. The Modified Van Kaam method consists of seven steps for examining the completed transcription of the participant’s responses. A transcendental phenomenological approach was used in my study to explore the essence of the participants’ experiences that emerged from the audio-recorded semi-structured interview. Nine themes emerged from the data and identified the lived experiences of participants. The essence of the participant’s experiences in this study demonstrated a variety of ways Black college students were aware of their race prior to coming to college, and how each participant’s awareness of their race impacted their overall campus experience. Additionally, whether through first-hand experience, social media, or the vicarious experience of another Black student, race-based interactions were significant in altering how engaged and how safe Black college students felt while they were attending predominately White institutions. The results of this study indicated that the overall developmental process for Black college students is independent from the majority culture and must be further explored and supported. Specifically, future research should explore impact racial microaggressions have on Black students psychologically, and behaviorally on college campuses and within their campus community

Camp Studies, and Queer Theory, and drag queens, oh my! camping the academy, queer methods, and the potentiality of camp

In all seriousness, camp is not dead. But since Susan Sontag's Notes of 'Camp', academic attention to, and interest in the often recognisable (but painfully ineffable) Camp/camp has never been sustained. Each moment marked by a camp death. The focus of this dissertation is returning to these dead-ends and cul-de-sacs of thought, to map camp's enduring potential in straightie-time. Recuperating Sontag's capping of camp as apolitical, unserious, and unintentional, to recognise its affective world-making and technologies of survival by alternative existence. Not a 'revolutionary' full circle returning to where we started, or a 'cultural turn' that's turning, turning, turning towards progress. More like camp has turned/curdled, and in true camp fashion we're throwing some cheap perfume and glitter over it so we can keep partying on and performing. In mapping camp's deaths and reconfigurations, I offer camp's doubleness, resourcefulness, and its unburdening of liveness. Theorising what camp is, can be, and does. In doing so, this thesis unpacks camp's critical utility, while demonstrating its utility as method and critical lens. Researching camp, while doing camp research. Drawing on interviews with draggers (drag artists), not as empirical data to be analysed, but as a vanguard community of camp and street professionals; on Cultural, Performance, Art, and Queer Studies literature, materials, and mediums; and other silly texts, like children's animated programme Pinky Malinky, drag competition RuPaul's Drag Race, and les-bi-trans-queer BDSM practices. This thesis, as a generative and recuperative reconfiguration of camp, is an interdisciplinary pitching of tents across camp sites that demonstrates camp's potential to be and do social, political, and pedagogical work in Camp Studies

Simple Load Balancing for Distributed Hash Tables

Distributed hash tables have recently become a useful building block for a variety of distributed applications. However, current schemes based upon consistent hashing require both considerable implementation complexity and substantial storage overhead to achieve desired load balancing goals. We argue in this paper that these goals can b e achieved more simply and more cost-effectively. First, we suggest the direct application of the "power of two choices" paradigm, whereby an item is stored at the less loaded of two (or more) random alternatives. We then consider how associating a small constant number of hash values with a key can naturally b e extended to support other load balancing methods, including load-stealing or load-shedding schemes, as well as providing natural fault-tolerance mechanisms

Non-simple localizations of finite simple groups

Often a localization functor (in the category of groups) sends a finite simple group to another finite simple group. We study when such a localization also induces a localization between the automorphism groups and between the universal central extensions. As a consequence we exhibit many examples of localizations of finite simple groups which are not simple.Comment: 10 page