This dissertation explains how the Indian Constitution that came into force in 1950, became part of the lived experience of ordinary Indians during the transition from the colonial state to the postcolonial republic. The Constitution by expanding the powers of…

In numerous animal groups, individuals within the group often wish to impose
their preferences and guide the group in a certain direction. Conflicting preferences are
common in these situations and, in order to maintain group cohesion, collective decisionmaking
needs to…

In polyandrous species, sexual selection acts both before (precopulatory) and after
(postcopulatory) mating on traits that are important for reproductive success. Precopulatory traits
are important for mate acquisition and include weapons and ornaments. Postcopulatory traits
include components of sperm quantity…

The range of habitats a plant species is able to occupy is determined by a combination of
biotic and abiotic factors. Herbivores have long been predicted to play an important role in
species sorting by exaggerating the differences between soil…

The
welfare
system
in
the
United
States
has
seen
great
changes
over
the
course
of
the
last
century,
moving
us
away
from
“charity”
and
towards
a
system
that
considers
cash
assistance
to
be
a
temporary,
support
system
as
people
get

The analysis of noisy consensus dynamics in networks is of great interest to both
advance the fundamental understanding of multi-agent systems in nature as well as
create robust decentralized engineering systems. We develop a protocol that heuristically attempts to optimize…

During the twentieth century, tobacco farmers in rural North Carolina quietly changed the relationship between the government and citizen in America . Flue-cured tobacco growers produced not only the finest cigarette leaf, but also new systems of marketing, regulating, and…

Protein domain prediction is a key step in characterizing protein structure, function, and evolution. However, the genome of Plasmodium falciparum, the causative agent of malignant malaria, remains poorly-annotated using standard approaches to domain prediction. We identified several general problems with…

Human cells are protected by cell-intrinsic mechanisms that specifically detect microbial pathogens and elicit innate immune response. Such activities are essential in restricting viral infections. Despite the extensive knowledge about cytoplasmic sensing processes, little is understood about the nuclear counterpart.…

In this thesis we develop and test methods for numerically evolving hydrodynamics coupled to the Einstein field equations, and then apply them to several problems in gravitational physics and astrophysics. The hydrodynamics scheme utilizes high-resolution shock-capturing techniques with flux corrections…