Digital Commons Network^™

Inflammation And Corrosion In Total Hip Prostheses: The Generation And Interaction Of Reactive Oxygen Species With Cocrmo Metallic Biomaterial Surfaces, Michael John Wiegand

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There are many molecules, species and mechanisms that contribute to the overall wear and degradation of biometallic alloys like cobalt-chromium-molybdenum (CoCrMo). Following implantation, orthopaedic alloys are subject to an encompassing inflammatory response that will either lead to foreign body giant cell formation and attachment to the surface or the fibrous tissue encapsulation, forming an inflamed periprosthetic joint. In addition to the inflammatory response, tribocorrosion-based processes of alloy-on-alloy or alloy-on-polymer couples release polymeric wear debris, oxides, hydroxides, and metal ions in response to excessive wear, loading and corrosion. It is hypothesized that these processes, biological and triboelectrochemical, are linked together in …

Probabilistic Framework For Behavior Characterization Of Traffic Participants Enabling Long Term Prediction, Jasprit Singh Gill

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This research aims at developing new methods that predict the behaviors of the human driven traffic participants to enable safe operation of autonomous vehicles in complex traffic environments. Autonomous vehicles are expected to operate amongst human driven conventional vehicles in the traffic at least for the next few decades. For safe navigation they will need to infer the intents as well as the behaviors of the human traffic participants using extrinsically observable information, so that their trajectories can be predicted for a time horizon long enough to do a predictive risk analysis and gracefully avert any risky situation. This research …

Graphene Based Ion Sensitive Field Effect Transistor For K+ Ion Sensing, Hongmei Li

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Graphene, discovered in 2004, has drawn great interest in the wide range of applications due to its distinctive 2-dimensional material property. Sensing is the one application has been developed extensively owing to graphene’s ultra-high mobility, low electric noise, very high surface-to-volume ratio, and easy modulation of electrical characteristics. With these excellent properties, the present research explored graphene’s ion sensing potential with the goal of developing graphene-based K+ ion detector which can be applicable in implantable bio-sensors. As the major intracellular cation, potassium has very critical functions in various biological processes. Additionally, recent research found out that elevations in biological levels …

Crime And Greenspace: Extending The Analysis Across Cities, Samuel Scott Ogletree

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The role of greenspace in urban areas has become a focus of research as municipalities seek to increase the quality of life in cities. Multiple benefits are found to be associated with greenspace, but disservices such as crime are often overlooked. Studies investigating the link between crime and greenspace have revealed mixed results and been limited in geographic scope. This dissertation sought to examine the crime and greenspace relationship, extending the analysis to multiple cities in order to describe how the relationship may vary in different contexts. Additionally, one possible cause of crime, increased temperatures, was investigated to determine how …

Human-Machine Teamwork: An Exploration Of Multi-Agent Systems, Team Cognition, And Collective Intelligence, Lorenzo Barberis Canonico

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One of the major ways through which humans overcome complex challenges is teamwork. When humans share knowledge and information, and cooperate and coordinate towards shared goals, they overcome their individual limitations and achieve better solutions to difficult problems. The rise of artificial intelligence provides a unique opportunity to study teamwork between humans and machines, and potentially discover insights about cognition and collaboration that can set the foundation for a world where humans work with, as opposed to against, artificial intelligence to solve problems that neither human or artificial intelligence can solve on its own.

To better understand human-machine teamwork, it’s …

Impacts Of Outcomes Based Funding On Resource Allocation: A Case Study Of Senior Administrators In Colorado, Monica Kosanovich

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The purpose of this study was to understand the impacts of outcomes-based funding legislation on senior administrator’s resource allocation decision making at public doctoral granting institutions in Colorado. This qualitative study’s participants included five CFOs who were interviewed after the third fiscal year that HB14-1319 had been operating as the funding allocation model in the state. While there has been quantitative research on outcomes-based funding policies and their effectiveness, there are noted gaps in the literature for qualitative studies. To determine the potential impacts to senior administrator’s resource allocation decision making after the introduction and switch to a outcomes-based funding …

Functional Morphology And Environmental Impacts On Migration-Relevant Performance Measures In Amphidromous Goby Fishes, Kelly Marie Diamond

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Animals engage in migrations for diverse reasons and over a variety of time periods. Moving between habitats introduces novel challenges that migrating organisms must overcome in order to reach their intended destination. Such challenges include attaining resources required for survival while also avoiding becoming a resource for other organisms. Another challenge is that environmental structure can act as a barrier between habitats. Amphidromous goby fishes provide an advantageous system in which to study several aspects of migration-related performance. As adults, these fishes live and lay eggs in freshwater streams. Upon hatching, larvae are swept downstream to the ocean. At the …

The Economics Of Durable Goods And The College Textbook Market, Yuvaluck Setboonsrung

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This paper examined factors determine the update frequency of college economics textbook in six subjects, which are Economics, Microeconomics, Macroeconomics, Econometrics, Industrial Organization, and Game Theory. The unique data set of books published in the U.S. between 1964 and 2018 gathered from the Internet by searching the title of the book and collected all previous versions that the textbook has. The results show that each book has its update pattern, and the update frequency is different among categories and levels. On average, it takes approximately three years to update a new edition of a book. Books in introductory and intermediate …

The Effect Of Anthropometric Properties Of Self-Avatars On Action Capabilities In Virtual Reality, Ayush Bhargava

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The field of Virtual Reality (VR) has seen a steady exponential uptake in the last decade and is being continuously incorporated into areas of popular interest like healthcare, training, recreation and gaming. This steady upward trend and prolonged popularity has resulted in numerous extravagant virtual environments, some that aim to mimic real-life experiences like combat training, while others intend to provide unique experiences that may otherwise be difficult to recreate like flying over ancient Egypt as a bird. These experiences often showcase highly realistic graphics, intuitive interactions and unique avatar embodiment scenarios with the help of various tracking sensors, high …

Cognitive Processes In Undergraduate Anatomy And Physiology Courses, Staci Neas Johnson

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Multiple problems facing society in the 21st century, including climate change and global concern over pandemics, require a greater number of STEM graduates with content knowledge and critical thinking skills. This has led to additional funding and research in teaching and learning, but much of the published literature in the context of biology education has investigated the impact of specific instructional practices across a spectrum of classrooms (undergraduate and professional) or the learning strategies specifically of medical students.

As the science of learning has developed, it has become clear that the process of learning is context-dependent. Despite continued attention to …

Educating For Civic-Mindedness: Examining Student Impacts Of Academic Programs Of Community And Civic Engagement In Higher Education, Laura L. Minor

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Within the last decade, colleges and universities in the United States have embraced the “community engagement” model to fulfill their public missions and prepare their students for work within increasingly complex and diverse communities. The number of academic majors and minors in community engagement-related fields has multiplied across the country, yet there is little literature that examines their impact on students, and whether or not they are producing uniquely engaged citizens upon graduation. This quasi-experimental, quantitative study explores the effects of one such program on students at Central Connecticut State University. Graduates who have completed a minor in Community and …

Systems Engineering Approaches To Minimize The Viral Spread Of Social Media Challenges, Amro Khasawneh

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Recently, adolescents’ and young adults’ use of social media has significantly increased. While this new landscape of cyberspace offers young internet users many benefits, it also exposes them to numerous risks. One such phenomenon receiving limited research attention is the advent and propagation of viral social media challenges. Several of these challenges entail self-harming behavior, which combined with their viral nature, poses physical and psychological risks for the participants and the viewers. One example of these viral social media challenges that could potentially be propagated through social media is the Blue Whale Challenge (BWC). In the initial study we investigate …

Improving Healthcare Readiness To Respond To Human Trafficking: A Case Study, Traci A. Hefner

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The purpose of this qualitative case study was to assess the readiness of a Department of Emergency Medicine (ED) to respond to human trafficking (HT), using an adapted Transtheoretical Model’s Stage of Change Model as a guide. Content analysis allowed for an assessment of 13 system-wide policies and procedures and 25 hours of on-site observations of patient data collection processes and clinical practices during intake, triage, and the medical screening evaluation at three ED sites. Thematic analysis identified five readiness themes based on semi-structured interviews with 22 healthcare personnel from four ED sties. Results indicated that system-wide policies and procedures …

A Case Of Arts Coordination In A Rural School District: A Distributed Perspective, Anna Shealy Wages

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Though researchers have demonstrated the benefit of prolonged engagement in the arts (Catterall, Dumais, & Hapden-Thompson, 2012) school districts struggle to maintain high quality programs. Rural programs, in particular, are faced with unique challenges to providing arts programs (Donovan & Brown, 2017). Despite these challenges, some rural school districts have succeeded in providing quality programs, which are more in line with more resourced urban districts. Arts researchers (Bodilly, Augustine, & Zakaras, 2008) have found that arts coordination is a strategy to increase access to and the quality of an arts program. Further, districts of quality, even small ones, have arts …

Social Competence And Attitude Towards School In Relation To Academic Achievements Of Students In Kosovo, Blerta Perolli Shehu

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The focus of the research was to determine the relationship among social competence, attitudes toward school and academic achievement of primary school students in Kosovo. Participants in the study were 206 students of 4th grade classes from five different schools in Kosovo, one of their parents and teachers. Parents completed a Survey of Students’ Characteristics, children completed a self-report measure on School Attitude, and teachers completed the Social Competency Rating Form and the School Attitude/Behavior Teacher Version for each of the children in their class. Teachers also assessed the children’s academic performance in 7-items Likert-type scale for each of the …

The Role Of Self-Reflection In The Spiritual Quest To Make Meaning Of Experiences, Ikenna Q. Ezealah

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The purpose of this dissertation was to explore the role that self-reflection has in the spiritual quest to make meaning of experience. It also examined how spiritual quest can operate within moments of spiritual struggle in order to make meaning of the experience through a process of self-reflection. In the literature view, relevant theories and concepts by preeminent scholars in the field of spirituality were examined. Though the spirituality of students in higher education was discussed in the literature, as well as the concepts of self-reflection (Bassot, 2013, Grossman, 2009), spiritual quest (Astin, Astin & Lindholm, 2011; Vaughan, 2002), and …

Essays On China's Cigarette Industry, Xi Bai

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This dissertation comprises three chapters on the Chinese cigarettes industry. The China State Tobacco Monopoly Administration (STMA) regulates this industry, allocating quotas of production across manufacturers. Between 2006 and 2007, it mandated all cigarette firms within a province merge into a single state-owned, province-level firm. After the merger, the province-level firms allocate their quotas for the maximum number of cartons they can produce directly.

In the first chapter, I examine how the mandated change in market structure resulting from the STMA affected allocation on the quality dimension. To assess the pre-merger differences in market structure in quota allocation, I compare …

Development Of Blast Risk Assessment Framework For Financial Loss And Casualty Estimation, Paresh Chandra Poudel

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The entire study can be divided into four main studies. Study I presents the development of probabilistic version of popular Kingery and Bulmash (KB) blast model. The probabilistic model was developed by considering the uncertainty in the model quantified using available experimental data. The model was then applied to generate fragility curves are developed for three types of glazing under three common bombing scenarios and study 1995 Oklahoma City damage.

Study II discusses on development a blast loss estimation framework for buildings where demand loads are calculated using the probabilistic blast model and capacity form seismic design. Loss for archetypes …

The Impact Of Transportation Disadvantage On Healthcare Access, Ying Zhou

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Millions of Americans have difficulties in transporting themselves to desired locations and thus are considered to be transportation disadvantaged (Wallace, Hughes-Cromwick, Mull, & Khasnabis, 2005). This population group is found to participate in fewer out-of-home activities, which may eventually result in social exclusion and impaired well-being (Kenyon, Rafferty, & Lyons, 2003; Marottoli et al., 2000). This research examines one critical aspect that is important for people’s well-being—healthcare access. Despite the effort and resources the government has put into improving healthcare access, impaired access remains a problem in the United States (Department of Health and Human Services, 2010). Transportation disadvantage has …

Recommending Privacy Settings For Internet-Of-Things, Yangyang He

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Privacy concerns have been identified as an important barrier to the growth of IoT. These concerns are exacerbated by the complexity of manually setting privacy preferences for numerous different IoT devices. Hence, there is a demand to solve the following, urgent research question: How can we help users simplify the task of managing privacy settings for IoT devices in a user-friendly manner so that they can make good privacy decisions?

To solve this problem in the IoT domain, a more fundamental understanding of the logic behind IoT users’ privacy decisions in different IoT contexts is needed. We, therefore, conducted a …

Simulation-Based Evaluation And Optimization Of The Seismic Performance Of Buildings With Passive Energy Dissipation System, Yuting Cheng

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Earthquakes are one of the major natural hazards that could directly cause damages to or collapse of buildings, leading to significant economic losses. In this dissertation research, analytical tools and simulation-based optimization framework are developed to improve our understanding of and the ability to design more seismic-resilient structures with passive energy dissipation systems. The main objectives of this dissertation are to (1) investigate the seismic performance of structures with energy dissipation systems and evaluate the effectiveness of damping coefficient dissipation methods using three-dimensional numerical models; (2) develop a simulation-based multi-objective optimization framework to evaluate and optimize the seismic performance of …

Stochastic Simulation Of Hurricane Wind And Rain Hazards, Prashant Rawal

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Quantification of hurricane hazard, which includes wind, rainfall and storm surge, is essential for engineering design as well as financial loss assessment. The objective of this study is to develop a stochastic simulation framework which integrates the simulation process of hurricane rainfall and wind hazard. This study is divided into two parts. The main objective of the first part is to develop a method for the estimation of the hurricane wind field parameters radius to maximum wind speeds (R_max) and Holland B parameter (B). The second part develops a stochastic model to simulate hurricane rainfall, which is named the ‘NormRain’ …

Lived Experiences Of Christian Development Workers In The Thailand Anti-Trafficking Movement: Lessons From The Field, Lauren M. Pinkston

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Private enterprise, sex tourism, international adoption, and soldier recruitment have all been industries that benefit from the coercion or trade of human beings. Although international development organizations and government agencies have been particularly focused on preventing human rights violations, the Protestant Christian community also has been poised with a vested interest around the globe. Unfortunately, data are lacking about faith-based efforts in the anti-trafficking space. This research looks at faith-based organizations’ anti-trafficking operations in Thailand particular, as it has been traditionally known as a nation with unique immigration challenges and extensive migration patterns.

This qualitative study is based on open-ended …

Development Of A Nucleus Pulposus Implant For Intervertebral Disc Repair, Joshua Dillon Walters

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The intervertebral disc (IVD) is a fibrocartilaginous tissue connecting adjacent vertebrae in the spinal column. It comprises three distinct tissues: a gelatinous core known as the nucleus pulposus (NP), concentric fibrous rings encircling the NP known as the annulus fibrosus (AF), and the superior/inferior cartilaginous endplates (CEPs). The complex mechanical interplay of these tissues allows the IVD to withstand complex loading in the spine while maintaining trunk stability and flexibility. IVD pathologies, such as IVD degeneration (IDD) and herniation, are associated with cell-mediated inflammation in vivo. This inflammation creates a catabolic environment which degrades the extracellular matrix (ECM) of the …

The Impact Of Ergot Alkaloid Consumption During Gestation On Maternal Performance And Fetoplacental Development, Jessica Lynn Britt

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Tall fescue is the primary cool season perennial forage grass in southeastern US for grazing livestock. Tall fescue the is known to be drought tolerant , disease resistant, grazing tolerant and overall very hardy. Many of these attributes common to fescue are due to a symbiotic relationship between the fescue plant and an endophyte, Epichloë coenophiala , which produces a class of mycotoxins known as ergot alkaloids. These ergot alkaloids are similar in structure to several biogenic amines, such as epinephrine, norepinephrine, and dopamine. When consumed, ergot alkaloids cause a syndrome known as fescue toxicosis which causes problems with weight …

Assessing The Adsorption Of Various Proteins With Conformational Screening Utilizing K-Means Clustering And Charmm Potential Energy Calculations, Richard Edwin Overstreet

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Utilizing Quartz Crystal Microbalances (QCMB) to study the interaction of biochemical systems at interfaces is a diverse field with many potential applications. However, with an unfunctionalized surface, this technique suffers from a lack of known binding specificity which can denature the protein and result in a loss in activity. Under such conditions, investigating the adsorption mechanism of proteins to hydrophobic surfaces is difficult with traditional molecular dynamics simulations. In this work, we propose a screening model using geometric transformations, k-means clustering, and MD simulations to investigate the clustered orientations. In order to validate this model and predict the surface density …

Role Of Cryptococcus Neoformans Pyruvate Decarboxylase And Aldehyde Dehydrogenase Enzymes In Acetate Production And Virulence, Mufida Ahmed Nagi Ammar

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The basidiomycete Cryptococcus neoformans is is an invasive opportunistic pathogen of the central nervous system and the most frequent cause of fungal meningitis. C. neoformans enters the host by inhalation and protects itself from immune assault in the lungs by producing hydrolytic enzymes, immunosuppressants, and other virulence factors. C. neoformans also adapts to the environment inside the host, including producing metabolites that may confer survival advantages. One of these, acetate, can be kept in reserve as a carbon source or can be used to weaken the immune response by lowering local pH or as a key part of immunomodulatory molecules. …

The Effects Of Indirubin Derivative E804 On Inflammatory Profiles In Glioblastoma Multiforme Cell Lines And Subsequent Crosstalk Effect On Tumor Associated Thp-1 Macrophages, Micaela Ro Scobie

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Glioblastoma Multiforme (GBM) is a highly invasive brain tumor that affects approximately 18,000 people annually in the USA alone yet remains without curative treatment. Median survival with treatment is 14 months, with most treatments only prolonging life for several months while causing severe adverse side effects. There is a need for new therapeutic modalities. Herein I explore two small molecules that show promise in modulating inflammatory signaling in an in vitro GBM model. Indirubins E804 (indirubin-3’-(2,3 dihydroxypropyl)-oximether) and 7BIO (7-Bromoindirubin-3’-oxime) are synthetic derivatives of natural indirubin. Natural indirubin is a bisindole alkaloid derived from tryptophan precursors and is an agonist …

Privacy-Preserving Decentralized Optimization And Event Localization, Chunlei Zhang

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This dissertation considers decentralized optimization and its applications. On the one hand, we address privacy preservation for decentralized optimization, where N agents cooperatively minimize the sum of N convex functions private to these individual agents. In most existing decentralized optimization approaches, participating agents exchange and disclose states explicitly, which may not be desirable when the states contain sensitive information of individual agents. The problem is more acute when adversaries exist which try to steal information from other participating agents. To address this issue, we first propose two privacy-preserving decentralized optimization approaches based on ADMM (alternating direction method of multipliers) and …

Exploring The Benefits Short-Term Graduate Study Abroad Programs Provide To Professional Graduate Business Students And Business Employers, Evguenia Layton

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The continuous growth in demand for professional graduate programs and employers’ desires to seek talent with international experience has influenced a growth in graduate students engaging in short-term, faculty-led graduate study abroad programs (Witkowsky & Mendez, 2018; Ramakrishna, Sarkar, & Vijayaraman, 2016). A number of research studies have been done on undergraduate study abroad experiences; however, not much focus has been given to the benefits of graduate study abroad programs for professional graduate business students (Slantcheva-Durst & Danowski, 2018; Kamdar & Lewis, 2015; Petzold & Moog, 2018; Womble, L. et al., 2014). The purpose of this study was to identify …