Digital Commons Network^™

Computational Nutrition: An Algorithm To Generate A Diet Plan To Meet Specific Nutritional Requirements, Thomas Pikes, Robert Adams

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

Many methods have been proposed to generate meal plans, but most of them only consider proximates. However, the human body requires a combination of proximates and several macronutrients, micronutrients, vitamins, and minerals. Furthermore, the models designed to generate these meal plans do not take into account an individual’s specific nutritional needs. These needs are often expressed as a combination of lower bound amount (LBA), ideal amount (IA), and upper bound amount (UBA) necessary for the human body to thrive. The aim of this project is to generate an algorithm to produce a list of food items that will meet specific …

Automatic Water Pump Controller, Alam D. Salguero, Kyle Russell Marquez Weeks

Electrical Engineering

In countries including Indonesia, Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador, a city water authority supplies the clean water and pumps it into large ground-level storage tanks. A resident’s water pump then pumps the water to a water tank on top of his/her house. When the water level in the ground-level storage tank becomes too low, the pump siphons air and shuts down, requiring a resident to manually prime the water pump to get it running again. Residents struggle to monitor the water level of the tanks effectively and keep the pump running properly. To remedy the issue, the Automatic Water Pump …

Systematic Review Of The Funds Of Knowledge Framework In Stem Education, Dina Verdin, Allison Godwin, Brenda Capobianco

School of Engineering Education Graduate Student Series

This theory paper examines literature on the construct, funds of knowledge, as it has been applied in STEM education, with an emphasis on engineering and explores if and how funds of knowledge has been used to understand first-generation college students in engineering. Using a systematic literature review, we describe how the framework of funds of knowledge has been adopted in the engineering education literature. Funds of knowledge is a conceptual framework that has been concerned with social justice issues around validity and impacts of deficit theorizing (a theory that points to the underachievement of minority groups on perceived deficiencies related …

Removing Oil From Fried Foods Via Mechanical Process, Yufay Chow-Yee

Master's Theses

Fried foods are delicious and enjoyed by almost everyone. However, they are not the healthiest foods to eat because of the amount of oil they contain. This thesis, sponsored by Moaero Company founder, Mr. Harrish Bhutani, intends to determine whether a simply designed centrifuge system can remove a reasonable amount of oil from fried foods after it has been deep fried without adversely affecting the texture of the fried food. Due to a large variety in the texture as well as the type of fried foods, and in order to keep the scope of this thesis more focused and feasible, …

The Bottlefly Ios Application For Wine Recommendations, Carson James Carroll

Master's Theses

The use of smartphone applications has taken over the way people interact with the world. The design of an application has become an important aspect in keeping the user engaged [22]. People are looking for applications that are easy to use and will get the job done. This thesis focuses on the design of a mobile application for iOS that recommends wine in various retail locations that match a user’s taste preferences.

The goals of this thesis are to design an iOS application that recommends wine to consumers, improve upon the wine recommendation algorithms by acquiring more customer data, and …

Prosthetic Leg Kit For Deployment In Developing Countries, Brian Murphy, Dominique Porcincula, Derek Morgan, Kendall Ruggles, Christian Aguayo

Biomedical Engineering

The World Health Organization estimates that over 30 million people require some sort of prosthetic technology. However, traditional prosthetic fitting practices take a lot of time and cost a lot of money, making them inaccessible to millions of people around the world. StandUP Worldwide is an interdisciplinary project team devoted to creating low-cost prosthetic technologies for use around the world, especially in resource poor areas. They are currently developing a low cost, below-the-knee prosthetic kit that can be easily deployed in a resource-poor area. The following presents their solution for a below-the-knee prosthetic socket, foot, and leg.

Antibacterial Efficacy Of Nanometals In Conjunction With Electrical Stimulus, Syed A. Hussain

Theses

Hospital related infections generally result from the combined effect of preexisting bacteria on the patient and invasive devices. This demonstrates the significance in improving these medical devices to increase the quality of life of the patients that require them. This study will attempt to evaluate the antibacterial efficacy of nanocopper particles and an electrical stimulus for the usage in medical device development and the hospital environment.

For devices such as catheters, infections typically result from bacteria entering the body from the outside. This is accomplished by bacteria attaching themselves to the exterior of the device and producing biofilm which allows …

Raman Spectroscopic Analysis Of Fingernail Clippings Can Help Differentiate Between Postmenopausal Women Who Have And Have Not Suffered A Fracture, James R. Beattie, Niamh M. Cummins, Clare Caraher, Olive M. O'Driscoll, Aruna T. Bansal, Richard Eastell, Stuart H. Ralston, Michael D. Stone, Gill Pearson, Mark R. Towler

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Raman spectroscopy was applied to nail clippings from 633 postmenopausal British and Irish women, from six clinical sites, of whom 42% had experienced a fragility fracture. The objective was to build a prediction algorithm for fracture using data from four sites (known as the calibration set) and test its performance using data from the other two sites (known as the validation set). Results from the validation set showed that a novel algorithm, combining spectroscopy data with clinical data, provided area under the curve (AUC) of 74% compared to an AUC of 60% from a reduced QFracture score (a clinically accepted …

Do Natural Disasters Induce More Crime?, Michael Lentini, Plamen Nikolov, Matthew Schwartz

Binghamton University Undergraduate Journal

The Indian Ocean Tsunami of 2004 resulted in grave consequences for South East Asia. Indonesia, in particular, had the highest death toll, losing over 150,000 people. Indonesia’s coastal region Aceh was the hardest hit by this disaster. Exploiting exogenous spatial variation at the district level, we use difference-in-difference analysis to estimate the causal effect of the 2004 disaster on subsequent crime rates. We find that after the tsunami, total annual crime rate went down, on average, by 244 crimes per annum.

Potential For Biofuel Production From Algae Based Wastewater Treatment In California: Can Algal Biofuels Be Cost-Competitive With Traditional Petroleum Based Diesel?, Amanda Rupiper

Master's Projects and Capstones

Neither the use of algae to clean wastewater, nor the use of photosynthetic organisms to generate biodiesel, are new concepts on their own. By combining these two processes, algal-based wastewater treatment with algal biofuel production, additional benefits can be derived, among which could be a cost-savings. In California the average estimated base production cost per gallon for algal biodiesel is $5.98/gallon. Compared to the adjusted production cost of petroleum-based diesel of $1.53/gallon, biodiesel is not cost-competitive. Coupling wastewater treatment and algal cultivation reduces the net energy use of the two processes separately and, if accounted for, greatly reduces the production …

Revelation Of Yin-Yang Balance In Microbial Cell Factories By Data Mining, Flux Modeling, And Metabolic Engineering, Gang Wu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The long-held assumption of never-ending rapid growth in biotechnology and especially in synthetic biology has been recently questioned, due to lack of substantial return of investment. One of the main reasons for failures in synthetic biology and metabolic engineering is the metabolic burdens that result in resource losses. Metabolic burden is defined as the portion of a host cells resources either energy molecules (e.g., NADH, NADPH and ATP) or carbon building blocks (e.g., amino acids) that is used to maintain the engineered components (e.g., pathways). As a result, the effectiveness of synthetic biology tools heavily dependents on cell capability to …

Anti-Oxidant Addition To Cd-Cho Media To Prevent Damage Induced By Uv Disinfection, Emma Dare

Cell Culture Engineering XV

Ultraviolet (UV) irradiation is an advantageous sterilization technique in the biopharmaceutical industry as it is capable of targeting non-enveloped viruses and smaller viruses that are difficult to remove via conventional filtration. Unfortunately, cell culture media contains many components that, upon exposure to light, undergo phototransformations that subsequently lead to poor cell growth. We have shown previously Chinese Hamster Ovary (CHO) cell culture performance was affected at fluences above 200 mJ/cm² due to the depletion of several key nutritional components (pyruvate, tryptophan, tyrosine, pyridoxine, pyridoxamine, thiamine) and the accumulation of reaction by-products (acetate, formate, sarcosine). Our objective was to determine …

Production Of Stable, Immunogenic Foot-And-Mouth Disease Vaccine In A Chemicallydefined, Serum-Free Medium Optimized For Bhk-21 Cells, Paul Gulde

Cell Culture Engineering XV

BHK-21 cells are an important bioprocessing host for the production of recombinant proteins and vaccines. The largest application of these cells is the production of Foot-and-Mouth Disease (FMD) and Rabies vaccines for the animal health market. Commercial FMD vaccine production relies on classical cell culture media supplemented with bovine serum. This serum is sourced locally from FMD-vaccinated cattle and thus requires antibody precipitation with PEG to allow supplementation during cell culture scale-up. This step diminishes the nutritional value of sera and also increases variability. To reduce serum use during the virus production phase, the process depends on media supplementation with …

Cho-K1 Host Cell Engineering Strategy Enabling The Establishment Of Strains Producing Higher Yields Of Recycling Antibodies, Hisahiro Tabuchi, Ikumi Murakami, Masaki Yamaguchi

Cell Culture Engineering XV

As described elsewhere (Biotechnol Bioeng 2010, 2013), our DXB11 (dhfr^–) host cell engineering strategy achieved high cell viability for a prolonged period (more than 1 month) and enhanced mAb productivity (>100 pg/cell/day) by nutritional control. Introduction of taurine transporter (TAUT) into DXB11 parent cells increased glutamine uptake and accelerated glutathione metabolism. By forcing the overexpression of TAUT, we were able to control DXB11 host cell functions and thereby increase the monoclonal antibody (mAb) titer up to 8.1 g/L/31 days under conventional 1-L bioreactor fed-batch conditions. Furthermore, the mAb produced by the DXB11/TAUT cells was comparable in quality …

Sustainable Reuse Of Fly Ash To Mitigate Landfill Methane, Sharon Priyadarshini

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

According to US, EIA 2014 coal alone produces nearly 40% of electricity more than another source in US. Out of the 110 million tons of Coal combustion by-products (CCBs) generated per year as a result of coal combustion, 47% is reused whereas 53% is stored on-site or sent to landfills. There are a number of adverse economic and environmental impacts associated with storage and disposal of coal. Methane (CH4) is a powerful greenhouse gas (GHG), contributing 32% of current climate forcing (US EPA, 2015). Landfill gas comprises of 50-55% CH4 and 40-45% CO2. Global warming potential of CH4 is 28 …

Statistical Learning Tools With Food Science, Jessica C. Hacker

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The food science discipline has many issues requiring research within academia in order to protect the food that gets distributed from industry. The team within the Center for Food Safety at the University of Arkansas’ Division of Agriculture has been studying the gastrointestinal microbial community in broiler chickens in order to control pathogenic bacteria and improve gut health within the chickens to promote a healthy adult microbiota. This has many positive effects on the quality of the chickens. The team performs a standard method of analysis on every experiment run within a software called QIIME to determine if a treatment …

Crizotinib And Ceritinib Induce Apoptosis And Necrosis In Primary Rat Hepatocytes With Distinct Capacity, Alec T. Salminen

Biomedical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Drug development makes up a major portion of biomedical engineering research interests. The FDA oversees the introduction, experimentation, and implementation of all drugs before market approval is granted. Even after market approval is granted, the FDA continues to monitor the safety of all drugs. Crizotinib and ceritinib are two anaplastic lymphoma kinase (ALK) inhibitors recently approved by the FDA. Both drugs are indicated for treatment of non-small cell lung cancers (NSCLC) with abnormal ALK gene, and they are approved with a companion diagnostic test that determines ALK abnormality. Clinical trial data suggest that crizotinib and ceritinib can cause liver injury, …

The Agricultural Growth And Malting Production Of Barley Grains In Northeast Tennessee And Southwest Virginia, Mark Evans Patton Mr.

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study is to explore the history and production processes of beer and examines the components that contribute to its brewing. The narrative will provide a timeline of the processes that are required to create the product of beer beginning with the agricultural products and following the brewing processes that result in beer as the finished product. I will also examine the business of agriculture and grain processing and will provide some historical perspectives of grain, beer, and malting. I will also consider whether the growing, processing, and malting of grains in the East Tennessee and Southwest …

Handcrafted Electrocorticography Electrodes For A Rodent Neural Activity, Nishat Tasnim

Theses and Dissertations

Electrocorticography (ECoG) is a minimally invasive neural recording method that has been extensively used for neuroscience applications. Although many neural recording methods exist, ECoG provides a combination of stability, high spatial and temporal resolution with chronic and mobile capabilities. This paper presents an animal study using a low cost and simple handcrafted ECoG electrode that is made of commercially accessible materials. The study is performed on a Lewis rat implanted with a handcrafted 32-channel non-penetrative ECoG electrode covering an area of 3 x 3 mm 2 on the cortical surface. The ECoG electrodes were placed on the motor and somatosensory …

Investigating Biosynthetic Steps Of An Angucycline Antifungal, S. Gabrielle Gladstone

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The species of bacterium Streptomyces sp. SCC-2136 which has the American Type Culture Collection index 55186 naturally produces two chemical compounds, labeled Sch 47554 and Sch 47555. These compounds were previously reported to posess antifungal activity. This thesis sets out to confirm the mechanism by which the bacterium produces these compounds; specifically which genes are responsible for producing the enzymes that make and shape the molecules.

The genes and enzymes that were characterized are the minimal polyketide synthase, the ketoreductase that specifically acts on the ninth carbon, the first-ring aromatase, the subsequent ring cyclase, and two oxygenases. Also elucidated …

Urban Agriculture And Small Farm Irrigation: Case Studies From Cache Valley, Utah, Tyler Pratt

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The socioeconomic landscape of water in Utah is rapidly changing due to population growth, conversion of agricultural land to urban development, and increasing awareness of future water scarcity. The Utah Division of Water Resources (DWRe) forecasts that the currently developed water supplies will not be enough to provide for Utah’s future population, and is pursuing conservation and new development to be able to meet the state’s needs.

Along with the urban growth Utah is experiencing a quickly growing sector of urban and small farm agriculture, but knowledge of water use and current practices in this area is limited. Further research …

Rhizosphere Interactions Between Copper Oxide Nanoparticles And Wheat Root Exudates In A Sand Matrix; Influences On Bioavailability And Uptake, Paul Mcmanus

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Copper oxide nanoparticles (CuO NPs) are extremely small particles (less than 1 nm in one or more dimension, or one billionth (10^-9) of a meter) used in a diverse range of industries. They have been shown to travel through water systems, and like pharmaceuticals, can end up in wastewater treatment plants and then be land applied as biosolids, where crops are grown for animal consumption, potentially leading to food chain accumulation.

Cu is an essential micronutrient for plants, but is phytotoxic at higher concentrations. CuO NPs present an increasingly real environmental threat to agriculture in soils treated with …

Anaerobic Hydrogen And Methane Production From Dairy Processing Waste: Experiment And Modeling, Jianming Zhong

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Dairy processing waste (DPW) is the waste produced from manufacturing dairy products: cheese, yogurt, ice cream, milk, butter, etc. DPW is high in chemical oxygen demand (COD) due to its lactose, fat and protein content, and therefore needs to be appropriately treated. An investigation was conducted to produce energy (hydrogen and methane) from DPW by anaerobic digestion. This project developed an effective engineering method for stable methane production from DPW without adding pH control chemicals. This study also explored the optimal operational condition for hydrogen production from DPW. We further built a mathematical model to help us monitor and predict …

Anaerobic Digestion Process Stability And The Extension Of The Adm1 For Municipal Sludge Co-Digested With Bakery Waste, Morris Elya Demitry

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The anaerobic digestion process is used to treat and convert waste organic matter to biogas (principally methane and carbon dioxide) through biological, chemical and physical reactions. The biogas can be used as a source of energy recovery. In order to increase the biogas production rate, two different kinds of waste (municipal wastewater treatment sludge and bakery waste) were mixed together to enhance the anaerobic process and increase the biogas production in pilot scale reactors. The process succeeded in increasing biogas production and at the same time kept the process of treatment effective when high rates of organics were fed to …

The Child Brain Computes And Utilizes Internalized Maternal Choices, S. Seung-Lark Lim, J. Cherry C. Bradley, A. Davis, S. N. Balakrishnan, O. Ha, J. Bruce, A. Bruce

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Antioxidant Potential Of Juglans Nigra, Black Walnut, Husks Extracted Using Supercritical Carbon Dioxide With An Ethanol Modifier, Johnathon Wenzel, Cheryl Storer Samaniego, Lihua Wang, Laron Burrows, Evan Tucker, Nathan Dwarshuis, Michelle Ammerman, Ali Zand

Chemical Engineering Publications

The black walnut, Junglas nigra, is indigenous to eastern North America, and abscission of its fruit occurs around October. The fruit consists of a husk, a hard shell, and kernel. The husk is commonly discarded in processing, though it contains phenolic compounds that exhibit antioxidant and antimicrobial properties. For this study, black walnut husks were extracted using supercritical carbon dioxide with an ethanol modifier. The effects of temperature, ethanol concentration, and drying of walnut husks prior to extraction upon antioxidant potential were evaluated using a factorial design of experiments. The solvent density was held constant at 0.75 g/mL. The optimal …

Swosu Research And Scholarly Activity Fair 2016, Lisa Appeddu

SWOSU Research and Scholarly Activity Fair Programs

Welcome to the Twenty-Third SWOSU Research and Scholarly Activity Fair! On display today are 117 presentations involving 187 student researchers, writers, presenters, and artists, and 45 faculty sponsors encompassing scholarly activity from the SWOSU School of Nursing and the SWOSU Departments of Art, Communication, and Theatre; Biological Sciences; Business & Computer Science; Chemistry and Physics; Education; Engineering Technology; Language and Literature; Music; Pharmaceutical Sciences; Psychology; and Social Sciences. In addition, there are poster presentations from the Western Technology Center Biomedical Academy.

Effect Of Packaging Material On Color Properties Of Catsup Tomato Sauce, Naser Kohan-Nia, Babak Pakbin, Razzagh Mahmoudi, Omid Fakhri

Journal of Applied Packaging Research

Catsup and tomato sauce products currently are one of the most popular and commercially available table sauces particularly consumed by young people and families around the world in recent decades. In this study colorimetric properties of catsup sauce samples including L*, a* and b* values in different packaging materials including PP, PE, PET, Glass and Sachet have been investigated during and after 180 days storage time at 22̊ C (environmental temperature). Hunter Lab system has been used to evaluate the color values of sauce samples. According to obtained results of experimental measurements and sensory evaluations, PP and PE packaging materials …

The Change In Nutritional Status In Traumatic Brain Injury Patients: A Retrospective Descriptive A Retrospective Descriptive Study, Dina A. Masha'al

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is a high prevalence in malnutrition among traumatic brain injury (TBI) due to the hypermetabolism and hypercatabolism which develop post injury. Traumatic brain injury patients are different, even among themselves, in their energy requirements and response to nutritional therapy. This implies that there are other factors that affect the energy intake of these patients and enhance the incidence of malnutrition.

This dissertation study examines the nutritional status of TBI patients upon admission to the intensive care unit (ICU) and during their hospital stay to describe baseline status, detect changes in nutritional status over 7 days, and identify the factors …

Planning For Climate Change: The Need For Mechanistic Systems-Based Approaches To Study Climate Change Impacts On Diarrheal Diseases, Jonathan E. Mellor, Karen Levy, Julie Zimmerman, Mark Elliott, Jamie Bartram, Elizabeth Carlton, Thomas Clasen, Rebecca Dilingham, Joseph Eisenberg, Richard Guerrant, Daniele Lantagne, James Mihelcic, Kara Nelson

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Increased precipitation and temperature variability as well as extreme events related to climate change are predicted to affect the availability and quality of water globally. Already heavily burdened with diarrheal diseases due to poor access to water, sanitation and hygiene facilities, communities throughout the developing world lack the adaptive capacity to sufficiently respond to the additional adversity caused by climate change. Studies suggest that diarrhea rates are positively correlated with increased temperature, and show a complex relationship with precipitation. Although climate change will likely increase rates of diarrheal diseases on average, there is a poor mechanistic understanding of the underlying …