Digital Commons Network^™

Development Of A 7 Dof Exoskeleton Robot For Rehabilitation Of Lower Extremity, Sk Hasan

Theses and Dissertations

The World Health Organization reports that worldwide about 1 billion people have some form ofdisability. Of these, 110-190 million people have significant difficulties in functioning (mainly upper and lower extremity disability) independently. The major causes of human lower extremity disability include stroke, trauma, spinal cord injuries, and muscular dystrophy. Every 40 seconds, someone in the United States has a stroke. A statistic shows that approximately 65% of post-stroke patients suffer lower extremity impairment. Rehabilitation programs are the main method to promote functional recovery in disabled individuals. The conventional therapeutic approach requires a long commitment from a therapist or a clinician. …

Language Archive Records: Interoperability Of Referencing Practices And Metadata Models, Hugh J. Paterson Iii

Theses and Dissertations

With the rise of the digital language archive and the plethora of referenceable content, a critical question arises: “How easy is it for authors to use existing tools to cite the content they are referencing?” This is especially important as people use archived materials as evidence within published language descriptions.

Archived resource metadata is well discussed in language documentation circles; however, bibliographic metadata and its accessibility are less discussed. Discoverability metadata, a subset of archived resource metadata, serves aggregators like OLAC by declaring a resource exists. In contrast, bibliographic metadata functions within documents by declaring where to find a resource …

A Simulation Framework For Traffic Safety With Connected Vehicles And V2x Technologies, Md Abu Sayed

Theses and Dissertations

With the advancement in automobile technologies, existing research shows that connected vehicle (CV) technologies can provide better traffic safety through Surrogate Safety Measure (SSM). CV technologies involves two network systems: traffic network and wireless communication network. We found that the research in the wireless communication network for CV did not interact properly with the research in SSM in transportation network, and vice versa. Though various SSM has been proposed in previous studies, a few of them have been tested in simulation software in limited extent. On the other hand, A large body of researchers proposed various communication architecture for CV …

Ambient Micro-Climate And Thermal Comfort Assessment Of Davis Wade Stadium During The 2016 Football Season, Andrew Collins

Theses and Dissertations

College football stadiums host anywhere from 15,000 to 115,000 people each Saturday from late summer to early winter and leave fans exposed to ambient conditions. Amplified heat from stadium infrastructure substantially impact attendants’ thermal comfort. In order to assess personal heat exposure and mitigate exposure misclassification, temperature and relative humidity sensors (iButtons) were placed throughout Mississippi State University’s Davis Wade Stadium during the 2016 Football Season. iButton measurements established a micro-climate and compared its readings to the Soil Climate Analysis Network site 1.2 miles north of the stadium. The program RayMan Pro modeled a Physiological Equivalent Temperature (PET) micro-climate to …

Range-Wide Growth And Diet Of Pallid Sturgeon And Sympatric Shovelnose Sturgeon, Robert Jason Devries

Theses and Dissertations

Growth rates and diet patterns for sympatric pallid sturgeon Scaphirhynchus albus and shovelnose sturgeon S. platorynchus throughout the Missouri River and lower Mississippi River were examined. Pallid sturgeon growth in the Great Plains Management Unit (GPMU) was slower than in other river reaches until age 9 and pallid sturgeon from the Interior Highlands Management Unit (IHMU) and Coastal Plain Management Unit (CPMU) did not differ. No differences in growth between management units were detected for shovelnose sturgeon. Observed differences in growth between pallid sturgeon and shovelnose sturgeon were generally dependent upon which growth model was used, but pallid sturgeon were …

Investigations On Mechanisms Of Survival And Pathogenesis Of Mycobacterium Ulcerans In Polymicrobial Environments, Laxmi Dhungel

Theses and Dissertations

Buruli ulcer disease (BUD) remains a ‘mysterious disease’ due to the unknown mode of M. ulcerans transmission and pathogenesis. To understand these, it is important to determine the reservoir of the organism in its natural environments, and stress response and interactions of M. ulcerans in its natural niche and during infection of a host. The major virulence factor of M. ulcerans is mycolactone, a lipid cytotoxin that is encoded on a giant plasmid pMUM001. Genetic analysis suggests that plasmid pMUM001 was acquired by M. ulcerans during evolution from its progenitor, M. marinum. Coincidental evolution of virulence hypothesis suggests that many …

Development Of A New Instrument To Assess The Performance Of Systems Engineers, Niamat Ullah Ibne Hossain

Theses and Dissertations

System engineering (SE) is a structured systematized methodology that deals with designing, managing, and optimizing systems performance. System engineers use the perspective of system thinking to make the successful use and retirement of engineering systems. Since the role of system engineers ranges widely from technical support to customer interaction, system design to management, there is a demand to develop a cadre of effective systems engineers. However, two critical questions are not well-defined in the extant body of SE literature: (1) What are the fundamental attributes of systems engineering that would influence the performance/effectiveness of individual systems engineer? (2) What are …

Prevalence And Characterization Of Avian Pathogenic Escherichia Coli And Campylobacter In Mississippi Broilers, Tianmin Li

Theses and Dissertations

Avian pathogenic Escherichia. coli (APEC) and Campylobacter are pathogenic threats to poultry and human health, respectively. In this study, the prevalence of these pathogens in Mississippi broilers and their antimicrobial resistance (AMR) properties were investigated, and a multidrug-resistant APEC strain (APEC-O2-MS1170) was further explored by whole-genome sequencing (WGS). The efficacy of in ovo injection of Lactobacillus in reducing the APEC in broilers was evaluated. Results revealed a high prevalence of APEC and Campylobacter in broilers and broiler products. A lot of isolates were resistant to antibiotics of different sorts. Moreover, the in ovo administration of Lactobacillus did not reduce the …

Non-Conventional Sensors For Measuring Partial Discharge Under Dc Electrical Stress, Mojtaba Rostaghihalaki

Theses and Dissertations

Partial discharge (PD) is a micro discharge that occurs in defected regions within the insulating media. As these discharges are the main culprits that cause dielectric material aging, PD measurements have been used for assessing insulating materials, including solids, liquids, and gases for power applications. There are various methods and sensors available for measuring PD sensitive to specific characteristics and operable over a wide range of frequencies. Most PD measurement techniques provide patterns that enable PD interpretation more comfortable for users. For example, in AC applications, the phase-resolved partial discharge (PRPD) technique provides identifiable patterns for distinguishing various types of …

Design Of An Anechoic Chamber For Aeroacoustic Testing And Analysis Of Large Uas Propellers, Jonathan Hunter Vesa

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis details the design and construction of an anechoic chamber for acoustic testing and measurements of large UAS propellers. Three propellers are considered, as they are common propeller designs used for large UAS today. The knowledge and practices involved with acoustic testing and measurements in anechoic chambers, as well as the results of noise studies related to large UAS, are not widely available due in large part to the limited availability and use of large UAS in the public domain. Using established principles related to fundamental acoustic theory and propeller noise, the aeroacoustic noise from large UAS propellers was …

Temperature Effects On Unsaturated Soils: Constitutive Relationships And Emerging Geotechnical Applications, Sannith Kumar Thota

Theses and Dissertations

There has been an increasing interest in fundamental and applied research on emerging geotechnical and geoenvironmental engineering applications that pose multi-physics problems involving non-isothermal processes in unsaturated soils. Properly studying these problems requires the development of analytical models to describe the constitutive behavior of unsaturated soils under non-isothermal conditions. However, major gaps remain in the development of unified models that can properly represent the temperature dependency of unsaturated soil behavior. The effects of temperature on the stability of slopes, lateral earth pressure, and pile resistance in unsaturated soils are also not well understood. The main objective of this study is …

Forestland Ownership Changes And The Duration In Mississippi, Mahesha Kuluppuarachchi

Theses and Dissertations

Forest resources are significant in Mississippi's ecology and economy, with 12.5 million acres of Non-Industrial Private Forest (NIPF). Frequent ownership changes with lower durations decrease the average parcel size. The study examined the trends of NIPF parcelization accommodating duration analysis and tax roll data to identify the length of ownerships in an eight-county study. Based on the results, lower duration of ownerships was associated with increased number of smaller parcels less than 11 acres and a substantial loss of large forests. The median duration of ownership was between 10 to 15 years and 59% were absentee NIPF owners. Duration analysis …

Meso-Mammal Predators And Northern Bobwhite (Colinus Virginianus) Occupancy Of Early Successional Patches In A Managed Ecosystem, Kelsey Fleming

Theses and Dissertations

Heterogeneous landscapes made up of variegated patches are common among managed ecosystems, and often provide diverse structural and compositional habitat characteristics. Landscape heterogeneity can affect distribution of resources, competition, and dispersal of organisms over space and time. Therefore, understanding how species respond to dynamic landscapes is necessary when implementing management decisions that foster biodiversity within managed ecosystems. My study uses hierarchical models in a Bayesian framework to quantify effects of landscape context on meso-mammal predators and northern bobwhite (Colinus virginianus) occupancy in an intensively managed loblolly pine forest. Results indicate that edge density can positively influence occupancy of meso-mammal predators, …

Towards A Theory Of Legacy: The Proposal, Development, And Validation Of A Family Legacy Orientation Scale, Nathaniel L. Hammond

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation follows extant scale development practices to propose, develop, and validate a measurement instrument for the family legacy orientation construct. Family legacy orientation (FLO) is understood to be the shared intentions and preferences a family has regarding the biological, social, and material components of the family legacy. The context of the family firm is of specific interest to the dissertation. The dissertation builds and extends our theoretical understanding of family legacy within the field of family business research. In doing so, the dissertation explores many ideas presented by Hammond et al. (2016; p. 1209) who emphasized the importance of …

Blade Element Approach For Computational Modeling Of Lift Driven Horizontal Axis Wind Turbine Performance, Abraham Ittycheri

Theses and Dissertations

The United Nations have declared the effects of climate change as the “defining issue of our time” (United Nations, 2019). As a result of increased industrialization in the last century to keep up with the demands of a growing global population, the global output of greenhouse emissions has rocketed, which is linked to the shifting and abnormal weather patterns of the planet. Electricity and heat production alone are attributed to generating 25% of greenhouse gas emissions (Edenhofer, et al.). To alleviate the increasing levels of carbon emission there is an effort to transition in green energy power generation sources like …

Traversability Analysis In Unstructured Forested Terrains For Off-Road Autonomy Using Lidar Data, Morteza Foroutan

Theses and Dissertations

Scene perception and traversability analysis are real challenges for autonomous driving systems. In the context of off-road autonomy, there are additional challenges due to the unstructured environments and the existence of various vegetation types. It is necessary for the Autonomous Ground Vehicles (AGVs) to be able to identify obstacles and load-bearing surfaces in the terrain to ensure a safe navigation (McDaniel et al. 2012). The presence of vegetation in off-road autonomy applications presents unique challenges for scene understanding: 1) understory vegetation makes it difficult to detect obstacles or to identify load-bearing surfaces; and 2) trees are usually regarded as obstacles …

Why Do Alumni Continue To Give Back: The Influencers Of Civic Engagement Of Fraternity And Sorority Members, Jacqueline Carson Mullen

Theses and Dissertations

A commitment to advancing civic engagement has been evident throughout the history of the U.S. higher education system. Civic engagement is a part of the mission of fraternity and sorority organizations. Because of this commitment to civic engagement, the purpose of this study is to understand what is happening in the development of civic engagement of fraternity and sorority alumni, specifically the role fraternity and sorority life plays in this development. The research questions that guide this study include: 1) How do fraternity and sorority alumni exercise civic engagement upon graduating from their undergraduate college experiences?; 2) How do fraternity …

Wintering Population Estimates And Microplastics Prevalence For Tidal Marsh Birds Of Mississippi, Spencer Weitzel

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the global loss of tidal marsh area, potential anthropogenic and natural disturbances to these systems, and coastal marshes’ affinity for trapping environmental pollutants, understanding how marsh birds inhabiting these ecosystems will adapt to these changes is paramount. To quantify future changes, I first needed to have something to compare against – baseline estimates. To this end, I performed distance sampling line transect surveys during the nonbreeding season to estimate species-specific population abundance, density, and habitat associations and captured two species of marsh bird, Clapper Rail (Rallus crepitans) and Seaside Sparrow (Ammospiza maritima), to estimate baseline ingestion of one …

Generalized User Experience Questionnaire (Ueq-G): A Holistic Tool For Measuring Multimodal User Experiences, Chase Shelton Boothe

Theses and Dissertations

The holistic user experience (UX) is comprised of both pragmatic and hedonic qualities and encompasses both product-centric and service-type experiences. Currently there is no questionnaire that measures the holistic UX for both types of experiences, and, without one, it is not possible to measure multimodal experiences that cross between experience types within the same extended experience. To address this need, the User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ), originally designed to measure product-centric experiences, was generalized to work for both product-centric and service-type experiences in a variant called the Generalized User Experience Questionnaire (UEQ-G). In a first study, the UEQ-G was tested alongside …

Graduation And Retention Of Underrepresented Minorities And Male Transfer Students Who Enroll In An Academic Retention Program, Jermaine Jackson

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, the research problem was underrepresented minority (URM) male and female transfer students and male transfer students of all ethnicities who were placed on academic suspension, thus removing their chances of being retained and graduating. The purpose of this study was to see to what extent there were relationships between the dependent variables retention and graduation and the independent variables ethnicity, gender, and enrollment in a retention program. A total of 295 participants were included in the study: 119 students who chose to enroll in the retention program and 176 students who chose not to enroll. Descriptive statistics …

Halo Effective Field Theory For Radiative Capture Reactions, Pradeepa Sanjeewani Premarathna

Theses and Dissertations

In this work, the radiative capture reactions 7Li(n, γ)8Li, 7Be(p, γ)8B, 3He(α, γ)7Be, and 3H(α, γ)7Li are studied using halo effective field theory (EFT). These capture reac- tions are some of the key nuclear reactions for the solar neutrino production and heavy element production in stellar and primordial nucleosyntheses. At low energy, halo EFT provides a model independent framework to describe physical observable as an expansion of a low momentum scale over a high momentum scale with well-defined error estimates. In this dissertation, electric dipole (E1) capture cross section of 7Li(n, γ)8Li reaction is calculated as a coupled channel using …

Household Food Insecurity And Its Determinants In The United States, Sweta Tiwari

Theses and Dissertations

Food insecurity is one of the biggest challenges facing American society today. Over 13.7 million US households were food insecure in the year 2019 and 19 million Americans lived in food deserts in the year 2015 (USDA, 2020, 2017). Despite food insecurities affecting communities in every corner of the country, there is a dearth of research on food security and food deserts. Therefore, the main objectives of this study are 1) to identify underlying neighborhood characteristics that predict the communities at higher nutritional risk, 2) to analyze the impacts of household characteristics on household food insecurity, and 3) to examine …

In Ovo Vaccination Of Layer Chickens With 6/85 And Ts-11 Vaccine Strains Of Mycoplasma Gallisepticum, Abdulmohsen Alqhtani

Theses and Dissertations

Mycoplasma gallisepticum (MG) is the organism that causes avian respiratory mycoplasmosis, leading to chronic respiratory disease in chickens and infectious sinusitis in turkeys (Stipkovits and Kempf, 1996; Levisohn and Kleven, 2000). It is also responsible for reductions in egg production and other economic losses in the poultry industry (Stipkovits and Kempf, 1996; Levisohn and Kleven, 2000). Commercially, layer chickens are vaccinated against MG in the pullet phase before lay. In this dissertation, the potential application of in ovo vaccination in layer embryos for the subsequent early protection of pullets against field-strain MG infections was investigated. The use of different sites …

The Effect Of Light-Emitting Diode Light On The Growth, Egg Production, Egg Quality, Hormone Concentration And Health Of Hy-Line® W-36 Laying Hens, Ishab Poudel

Theses and Dissertations

Light-emitting diode (LED) is an improved light delivery technology that provides better energy efficiency, longer lifespan, and the ability to select a specific wavelength of light. We evaluated the effect of blue and red-LED on performance, behavior, egg quality, hormonal concentration, and prevalence of Avian pathogenic E. coli (APEC) like E. coli in pullets and laying hens raised in cageree housing system. Results showed that birds raised in blue-LED during the pullet phase had higher body weight and earlier onset of early lay. Red-LED increased the yolk percentage, illustrating that red-LED can stimulate reproduction. Red-LED also decreased the relative spleen …

Modified Adsorbents From Waste Materials For Water Remediation, Medagama Liyanage Achala Sandamali Liyanage

Theses and Dissertations

Water pollution is one of the major ecological threats people face around the world. Water contamination by organic and inorganic compounds is hazardous to both the environment and human health. Adsorption techniques have gained much attention in the field of water remediation due to their efficiency, simplicity in operation, and ease of implementation. However, the adsorbents currently being used are costly. The main objective of this work is to develop novel, low-cost adsorbents from waste material by modifying the adsorbent surface for water remediation. Adsorbent modifications involve various chemical and physical methods such as acid/base treatments, metal/metal oxide impregnation, functional …

Molecular Dynamics Simulations Of Nano-Scale Impact Icing On Graphene Substrates, Amir Afshar

Theses and Dissertations

In the atmosphere in the height of 18000ft to 25000ft, there are some metastable droplets called supercooled liquid water in the temperature range of 0◦C to 40◦C. When these droplets impinge on the wings of an airplane, a very thin layer of ice is formed on the surface. This natural phenomenon calls “impact icing”. In this research, I studied the nanoscale impact icing on structured graphite surfaces, as the substrates at the atomistic scale using Molecular Dynamics (MD) simulations. This research focuses on the first steps of the development of a predictive multiscale strategy for molecular simulations of impact ice …

Molecular Modeling Of Graphite/Vinyl Ester Nanocomposite Properties And Damage Evolution Within A Cured Thermoset Vinyl Ester Resin, Reda Nacif El Alaoui

Theses and Dissertations

The non-reactive Dreiding and the reactive ReaxFF atomic potentials were applied within a family of atom molecular dynamics (MD) simulations to investigate and understand interfacial adhesion in graphene/vinyl ester composites. First, a liquid vinyl ester (VE) resin was equilibrated in the presence of graphene surfaces and then cured, resulting in a gradient in the monomer distribution as a function of distance from the surfaces. Then the chemically realistic relative reactivity volume (RRV) curing algorithm was applied that mimics the known radical addition regiochemistry and monomer reactivity ratios of the VE monomers during three-dimensional chain-growth polymerization. Surface adhesion between the cured …

More Than A Student Worker Job: Transferrable Skills Matter In Career Readiness, T Jason Townsend

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation study investigated if students, both native and transfer to the institution, showed growth in the Team URec transferrable skills model through competency trainings preparing students for career readiness. The study utilized a convenience sampling method, while assessment measures were quantitative. A statistical analysis was performed through a paired samples t-test to measure differences in students’ pre-evaluation and post-evaluation results within the Team URec model. Additionally, a MANOVA analysis examined the differences between native and transfer students’ pre-evaluation and post-evaluation scores. Lastly, a MANOVA examined the difference in student post-evaluation scores and supervisor post-evaluation scores. The participants were 78 …

Electrochemical Characterization Of Fluoropolymers And Aromatic Compounds For Corrosion Protection Applications, Eugene B. Caldona

Theses and Dissertations

The consequences of corrosion are extremely costly and troublesome. In manufacturing companies, for instance, corrosion is considered a chronic problem that causes sudden disruptions in many segments of operation including processing, production, transportation, and containment of commodity products. Protection against corrosion is, therefore, important, as it helps achieve service life extension for metals and reduction in corrosion-related costs. Risk reduction for catastrophic structural failures and accident prevention can also be realized. Broader application of protective coatings and corrosion inhibiting agents remains one of the best technical practices in minimizing the effects of corrosion. This study introduces different classes of polymers …

Engineered Biochar And Eaf Slag For The Removal Of Phosphorus From Stormwater Runoff, James Casey Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

Phosphorus (P) in stormwater runoff has detrimental effects on water quality and ecosystem health when it reaches surface waters and promotes algal blooms. Constructed wetlands (CWs) have been utilized to combat this problem by containing stormwater and removing excess nutrients. Including filter materials in the design of CWs has shown promise for increasing their capacity for nutrient removal. This mesocosm scale study was conducted outdoors over a 12-month period to evaluate the effectiveness of three filter materials in their ability to adsorb phosphorus, retain water, and support plant life. The filter materials examined were electric arc furnace (EAF) slag, engineered …