Nanotechnology and nanomaterials, in general, have become prominent areas of academic research. The ability to engineer at the nano scale is critical to the advancement of the physical and medical sciences. In the realm of physical sciences, the applications are clear: smaller circuitry, more powerful computers, higher resolution instruments. However, the potential impact in the fields of biology and medicine are perhaps even grander. The implementation of novel nanodevices is of paramount importance to the advancement of drug delivery, molecular detection, and cellular manipulation. The work presented in this thesis focuses on the development of nanotechnology for applications in neuroscience. The nervous system provides unique challenges and opportunities for nanoscale research. This thesis discusses some background in nanotechnological applications to the central nervous system and details : (1) The development of a novel calcium nanosenser for use in neurons and astrocytes. We implemented the calcium responsive component of Dr. Roger Tsien's Cameleon sensor, a calmodulin-M13 fusion, in the first quantum dot-based calcium sensor. (2) The exploration of cell-penetrating peptides as a delivery mechanism for nanoparticles to cells of the nervous system. We investigated the application of polyarginine sequences to rat primary cortical astrocytes in order to assess their efficacy in a terminally differentiated neural cell line. (3) The development of a cheap, biocompatible alternative to quantum dots for nanosensor and imaging applications. We utilized a positively charged co-matrix to promote the encapsulation of free sulforhodamine B in silica nanoparticles, a departure from conventional reactive dye coupling to silica matrices. While other methods have been invoked to trap dye not directly coupled to silica, they rely on positively charged dyes that typically have a low quantum yield and are not extensively tested biologically, or they implement reactive dyes bound to larger encapsulated molecules

Normal human cells require a series of genetic alterations to undergo malignant transformation. Direct sequencing of human tumors has identified hundreds of mutations in tumors, but many of these are thought to be unnecessary and a result of, rather than a cause of, the tumor. The exact number of mutations to transform a normal human cell into a tumor cell is unknown. Here I show that male gonadal germ cell tumors, the most common form of testicular cancers, occur after four mutations. I infer this by constructing a mathematical model based upon the multi-hit hypothesis and comparing it to the age-specific incidence data. This result is consistent with the multi-hit hypothesis, and implies that these cancers are genetically or epigenetically predetermined at birth or an early age.

• Alterations to the somatic genome lead to a tumor. • Different germ line genomes influence the formation of the tumor and its response to therapeutics. • Germ line genetics can play a role in breast cancer. • Race is an imperfect measure of germ line genetics. • Black women have a higher incidence of triple negative breast cancer.

Short-term survival and an exuberant plunge into building our future are generating a new kind of unintended consequence -- hidden fragility. This is a direct effect of the sophistication and structural complexity of the socio-technical systems humans create. It is inevitable. And so the challenge is, How much can we understand and predict about these systems and about the social dynamics that lead to their construction?

Computing power and sophisticated data acquisition mask the fact that, in many sciences and engineering, the balance between theory and experiment is getting increasingly out of whack. The imbalance becomes an even greater concern in light of the increasingly complex natural systems science now confronts and the increasingly complex and interdependent sociotechnical systems modern engineering allows us to construct. Given its critical role in understanding such complex systems, Big Theory deserves a place alongside Big Data and Big Iron, says Jim Crutchfield. © 2014 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.

The Age of Discovery brought to western Christianity a missionary challenge of epic proportions. Medieval Christianity had always claimed to be universal, but it was the geographical discoveries of the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries that moved the claim towards reality. By the seventeenth century the frontier of the Christian mission stretched from China to Paraguay, and from Mexico City to Quebec. On that frontier the Society of Jesus was perhaps the best organized and most effective force for the spread of Christianity. Jesuit missions in the New World were a major institution on the frontier and a crucial arena for the confrontation of European and Native American cultures. It is that arena and the meeting of cultural values in one mission region that is the subject of this essay. While historians of the Christian mission and of Indian-white relations have been quick to see the importance of Jesuit missionaries on the frontiers of the Americas, these same observers have done little to explore the theories and methods of the missionaries, and even less quick to examine the impact of the mission on Native Americans. This historiographical failure is nowhere more evident than in studies of the Jesuit missions in New France. From Francis Parkman to the most recent comprehensive history of the Christian mission, the treatment of the missionaries and the Indians has been remarkably similar. The Fathers, so goes this interpretation,

We develop the concept of an infinite-energy statistical solution to the Navier–Stokes and Euler equations in the whole plane. We use a velocity formulation with enough generality to encompass initial velocities having bounded vorticity, which includes the important special case of vortex patch initial data. Our approach is to use well-studied properties of statistical solutions in a ball of radius R to construct, in the limit as R goes to infinity, an infinite-energy solution to the Navier–Stokes equations. We then construct an infinite-energy statistical solution to the Euler equations by making a vanishing viscosity argument.