Digital Commons Network^™

ความยั่งยืนทางทันตกรรม: การศึกษาเชิงเปรียบเทียบระบบทันตกรรมของ Nhs สหราชอาณาจักร กับภาครัฐและเอกชนของไทยในบริบทของระบบสาธารณสุข, น้ำทิพย์ คอนลอน

Thai Environment

No abstract provided.

การผลิตพลาสติกชีวภาพ การใช้ประโยชน์ และผลกระทบต่อสิ่งแวดล้อม, ธนวรรณ ตรีพัฒนพงศ์

Thai Environment

No abstract provided.

เมื่อนกน้อยในกรงทองส่งข่าวถึงผลกระทบของขยะทะเลจากการเกาะติด พันรัด และกักขัง, ศีลาวุธ ดำรงศิริ, ยศวดี ฮะวังจู

Thai Environment

No abstract provided.

นักวิจัยตรวจพบไมโครพลาสติกในน้ำดื่ม แล้วแต่ละปี เรากินเข้าไปเท่าไร ?, ศีลาวุธ ดำรงศิริ, สุทธิรัตน์ กิตติพงษ์วิเศษ, ภุมรินทร์ คำเดชศักดิ์, รัชชานนท์ เปี่ยมใจสว่าง, วรุณ วารัญญานนท์, ฤทธิเดช แววนุกูล, ณัฐภัทร รัตนวิชัย

Thai Environment

No abstract provided.

การบริหารจัดการขยะมูลฝอยขององค์กรปกครองส่วนท้องถิ่นในประเทศไทย (Solid Waste Management Of Local Administrative Organizations In Thailand), นิภาพรรณ เจนสันติกุล

Thai Environment

No abstract provided.

เรื่องจากปก : “แมว กับ สิ่งแวดล้อม” แมวบ้านที่ถูกเลี้ยงในระบบเปิด, ภุมรินทร์ คำเดชศักดิ์

Thai Environment

No abstract provided.

Bearpaw Reserve Wildlife Monitoring And Mapping With The Wildlands Conservancy, Hope Hansen

Scripps Senior Theses

For my Environmental Analysis Capstone, I worked in a small group to monitor and map the wildlife at Bearpaw Reserve. Bearpaw Reserve, located in Forest Falls, California, is a 600 acre tract of wilderness that is owned by The Wildlands Conservancy. Bearpaw is located about an hour from Claremont, in the San Bernardino Mountains. The Wildlands Conservancy makes management decisions about its reserves while applying conservation research to the real world.

My group’s task was to use trail cameras to gather data on the wildlife at Bearpaw, then visualize this information into a GIS map. We used a combination of …

Effects Of Varying Biochar Concentrations On The Growth Of Lactuca Sativa (Newham Bibb Lettuce), Lauren Holler

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The objective of this research experiment was to investigate the effectiveness of using biochar in potting soil in terms of plant growth and soil quality. This experiment was carried out using varying amounts (0%, 5%, 10%, and 20%) of biochar in the soil to see its effect on seed germination, plant growth, and soil quality such as pH, water retention, and soil temperature. The aim of the experiment was to identify whether biochar can be used in soil to promote healthier and stronger plants. There were four treatments which included 0% (Control), 5% (Treatment 1), 10% (Treatment 2), and 20% …

Endogenous Light In The Brain: Investigating Sources, Propagation, And State-Dependent Emission, Emre Cicek

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Ultraweak photon emission (UPE), and by extension light, has long been thought to be a modality of communication in nature. Prior studies have already identified that UPE can depend on cell type and can be used to discern between malignant and benign cells. However, besides theoretical models, not much effort has been made to identify possible biological structures that would allow for light to be used as a method of communication in the human body. According to the framework set by Shannon’s Information Theory, for communication to be possible at minimum a transmitter, a transmission channel, and a receiver are …

Sexual Di(Et)Morphism: Using Experimental Evolution To Test Whether Resource Partitioning Promotes Divergence Of The Sexes In Drosophila Melanogaster, Owen A. Jamieson

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Sexual dimorphism has been a long-studied phenomenon in the field of evolutionary biology. Usually, these differences in morphology, physiology and/or behaviour between the sexes are studied through the parsimonious lens of sexual selection. However, there are natural history cases where this lens does not seem applicable. Some species show sex specific morphological traits whose presence may not be due to a direct benefit to reproduction, but a difference in how each sex interacts with the environment and differing selective pressures from the environment on either sex. Darwin even brought up examples of this kind of dimorphism and pondered their existence, …

Sediment Redox-Driven Iron Flux And Phytoplankton Community Responses: Implications For Cyanobacterial Suppression And Functional Stability Across Boreal Lakes, Julia K. Kozak

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Freshwater eutrophication contributes towards the development of cyanobacterial harmful algal blooms (cHABs), but nutrient availability alone does not fully explain variation in phytoplankton community composition or physiological performance. While phosphorus (P) availability has been known to regulate phytoplanktonic biomass, iron (Fe) is an important micronutrient supporting Fe-heavy processes within cyanobacteria (i.e., nitrogen fixation and photosynthetic electron transport). Sediment Fe availability in freshwater ecosystems is regulated by reduction oxidation (redox) conditions at the sediment-water interface (SWI), where nitrate (NO₃^-) has been found to maintain oxidizing conditions and prevent the reduction of Fe(III) to more readily bioavailable soluble Fe(II), …

Enhancing Shipboard Safety Management Under The Ism Code: An Innovative Risk Assessment Framework With A Stern Tube Case Study, Pi-Yen Lin

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The shipboard safety management system (SMS) is designed to enhance safe operations, risk management, and emergency response to improve overall ship safety and efficiency. This paper demonstrates the use of an engine room simulator (ERS) for collecting failure modes and applies it to a comprehensive failure analysis of the stern tube lubricating oil system. A new risk closeness coefficient method was developed, integrating expert background knowledge and weighted risk assessments. The analysis, based on multiple expert evaluations, covered five subsystems, eight main components, 23 failure modes, and 112 failure causes. This study presents 26 recommendations for maritime practitioners and onboard …

Robust Statistical Methods For Microbiome Abundance Data, Yiming Shi

WUSM Theses and Dissertations – All Programs

Differential abundance analysis in microbiome studies aims to identify taxa whose abundance differs across biological or clinical conditions. The observed data are typically taxon-specific sequencing read counts, representing reads assigned to different taxa within each sample. These counts are indirect measurements of the underlying microbial abundance profile and are constrained by sample-specific library sizes. Microbiome count data are also typically sparse, overdispersed, and heteroscedastic. Together, these characteristics create substantial challenges for differential abundance analysis and make the results highly sensitive to normalization procedures, model specification, and the statistical methods used for inference.

Normalization defines the scale on which samples are …

Surveillance And Comparative Genomics Of Bacteria From Hospital And Human Reservoirs, Emily E. Benedict

WUSM Theses and Dissertations – All Programs

Bacteria are diverse and adaptable and, consequently, present in a wide variety of environments. They are capable of growing under intense pressures, including those brought on by the human immune system and disinfection strategies. To survive these pressures, bacteria develop resistances. Antimicrobial resistance, which occurs when a microbe is no longer responsive to the antibiotic intended to control it, is one such adaptation that presents an especially serious threat, as it limits treatment options for infections caused by antimicrobial resistant microbes. Similarly, the ability of bacteria to survive in environments subjected to heavy disinfection efforts, such as intensive care units …

Investigating The Ability Of Presequences To Influence Mitochondrial Protein Import, Youmian Yan

WUSM Theses and Dissertations – All Programs

Mitochondria are essential organelles housing over 1000 proteins, 99% of which are nuclear-encoded and synthesized in the cytosol. Most mitochondrial proteins are targeted by a positively charged sequence called the presequence, which lacks a common sequence motif and is poorly conserved across evolution. Accumulating evidence suggests that presequences encode meaningful information that influences mitochondrial protein uptake. For instance, multiple stress response models propose that stress sensing proteins contain “weak” presequences which allows them to monitor mitochondrial health. However, there is a lack of systematic examination about how presequences influence import kinetics and what constitutes presequence strength. These gaps in knowledge …

Port And Vessel Communication Traffic Intrusion Detection: A Variational Autoencoder‑Enhanced Multilayer Perceptron Approach, Chien-Lin Chiang, Hsien-Cheng Chou, Ming-Yuan Peng, Yi-Yuan Chiang, Yu-Shun Liu

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Port and vessel networks increasingly operate on IP/Ethernet backbones with high‑noise, high‑dimensional traffic. We present a lightweight hybrid intrusion‑detection model that couples a variational autoencoder (VAE) with a multilayer perceptron (MLP) and augments training with a boundary‑oriented latent‑space mixup strategy. The VAE models the distribution of normal traffic and identifies anomalies through reconstruction errors. Subsequently, it generates robust latent vectors, enabling the MLP to perform highly accurate supervised classification. On the UNSW‑NB15 dataset, the proposed pipeline attains ≥97% accuracy and an outstanding recall of 99.56% in binary intrusion detection, and visualization of the latent space (PCA) together with reconstruction‑error analyses …

Sar Ship Detection Based On Shallow Feature Guidance, Chenxu Xia, Peng Chen, Ya Zhang, Ying Li

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Maritime ship detection is of great significance for both military security and civilian applications. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), with its all-weather and all-day imaging capability, plays a vital role in maritime surveillance. Nevertheless, SAR ship targets typically appear small in scale, embedded in complex backgrounds, blurred at boundaries, and easily confused with near-shore features, which pose substantial challenges for accurate detection. To address these issues, we propose a SAR ship detection network that integrates dual enhancements of small-object representation and edge information. The network introduces two key components: the Small Target Refine Pyramid (STRP) to strengthen shallow feature representation for …

Investigating How Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Promotes Its Survival In Neutrophils, Ananda N. Rankin

WUSM Theses and Dissertations – All Programs

The World Health Organization estimates that one-fourth of the world’s population has been exposed to Mycobacterium tuberculosis (Mtb). However, only 10% of those exposed develop active tuberculosis (TB), whereas other individuals will contain the pathogen in a latent state or clear the infection. It is unknown what mechanisms govern the development of active TB, latent infection, or clearance of infection, which is a barrier to successful treatment. Neutrophils have been identified as the predominantly infected cell type in bronchoalveolar lavage fluid, resected necrotic lung tissue, and sputum of patients with active TB. Lung neutrophil infiltration is also significantly increased in …

Multiomic And Single-Cell Analysis Of Tumors And Their Immune Microenvironment For Personalized Cancer Therapy, Kartik Singhal

WUSM Theses and Dissertations – All Programs

Precision oncology aims to match cancer treatment to the biology of an individual patient’s tumor. However, tumors that share a diagnosis can differ in their molecular features, cellular composition, clinical course, and response to therapy, making it difficult to determine which treatment will benefit an individual patient. This dissertation integrates genomic, transcriptomic, and single-cell multiomic computational analysis to characterize tumors across their somatic alterations, transcriptional cell states, microenvironment, and the immune response they elicit.

The first study describes a rare case of donor-derived follicular lymphoma following kidney transplantation. Genomic profiling showed that the donor and recipient tumors shared 31 somatic …

Moose On The Move: Seasonal Movement Ecology And Hunter Accessibility Of Male Moose In Interior Alaska, Forrest Rosenbower

Biological Sciences

Moose (Alces alces) are an important subsistence and sport harvested species in Alaska, yet seasonal patterns of male moose movement and habitat selection remain poorly understood. This knowledge gap limits our ability to anticipate hunter accessibility and effectively manage populations. In this thesis, I evaluated seasonal space use, movement behavior, and habitat selection of 78 GPS-collared adult males across three study areas in Interior Alaska during 2023 and 2024. In Chapter 1, I quantified seasonal overlap in space use and assessed hunter accessibility. We compared space use between the winter survey season 2023 and fall hunting season 2024. Population level …

Kinesiology Department Chairs’ Perceptions Of Their Training And Preparation, Kason O’Neil

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Department chairs are responsible for leading academic departments in higher education.  These individuals regularly make important decisions regarding such things as managing faculty and academic programming, overseeing budgets, and supporting student needs. Despite these responsibilities, many people become department chairs without receiving formal leadership training. This study explored how kinesiology department chairs across the United States viewed their preparation for the role and the importance of leadership training. A total of 111 department chairs completed an online survey about their background, previous training, and the importance of training for different administrative responsibilities. The results showed that most chairs had little …

Leveraging Mammal Mycophagy To Determine Environmental Drivers Of Truffle Diversity, Brittany Hartsock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many mycorrhizal fungi are hypogeous (truffle-forming), producing underground fruiting bodies. Studying truffles is inherently challenging due to their hidden nature. However, mycophagous mammals provide a unique opportunity to study hypogeous fungi because they rely on truffles as a food source. Although several truffle species have recently been described in the southern Appalachian region, their fruiting patterns remain poorly understood. To address this, we quantified truffle richness and spore loads from 670 Peromyscus scat samples collected across 42 sites spanning an environmental gradient during 2024 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of East Tennessee. We found that truffle richness and spore abundance …

A Global High-Resolution Comprehensive Heat Indices Dataset From 1950 To 2024, Abdul Malik, Sateesh Masabathini, Mohsin Ahmed Shaikh, Qinqin Kong, Muhammad Usman, Dasari Hari Prasad, Ibrahim Hoteit

All Works

Heatwaves are becoming more intense and frequent as global temperatures rise, affecting vulnerable populations, particularly in low-income communities. Addressing the impacts of heatwaves requires high-resolution data to assess their influence on labour productivity, public health, and climate risk. We introduce the Comprehensive Heat Indices (CHI) dataset, a high-resolution (0.1° × 0.1°) hourly dataset from 1950 to 2024, derived from the ERA5 and ERA5-Land reanalyses. The CHI dataset encompasses thirteen heat stress indices, including wet-bulb temperature, universal thermal climate index, mean radiant temperature, wind chill, and lethal heat stress index (Ls). Thresholds for Ls are empirically linked to mortality, enabling the …

Long-Term Analysis Of Pm2.5 Elemental Composition And Source Contributions In Coastal Urban Environments Of Corpus Christi And Houston In Texas, Sai Deepak Pinakana, Jeremy A. Sarnat, Amit U. Raysoni

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Long-term assessments of fine particulate matter play a key role in identifying persistent and emerging emission contributors. Coastal urban areas are highly susceptible to transboundary dust and wildfire events in addition to local pollution sources. Multi-decadal assessments in these regions using chemical speciation data could offer insights into major pollutant sources and their trends. This study utilizes nearly two decades of PM2.5 elemental composition data at two major coastal cities in Texas: Houston and Corpus Christi. Fourteen trace elements were analyzed to characterize the seasonal variability and long-term source evolution using a combination of Spearman’s correlation analysis, principal component analysis, …

Stocks And Fluxes Of Carbon And Nitrogen In Northeastern Brazil Coastal Seascapes, Antoniwal A. Jatobá-Junior, Pere Masque, Carlos Eduardo De Rezende, Vanessa Hatje

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Quantifying carbon and nitrogen dynamics is essential for understanding the role of coastal ecosystems in climate change mitigation and habitat connectivity. We assessed organic carbon (OC) and total nitrogen (TN) stocks, accumulation rates, and isotopic composition (δ¹³C and δ¹⁵N) in sediment across diverse seascapes in northeastern Brazil, including high- and low-salinity mangroves, a tidal flat, a freshwater marsh, and an inundated forest. OC stocks in the upper meter of sediment were highest in the freshwater marsh (283 ± 64 Mg OC ha⁻¹) and tidal flat (266 ± 27 Mg OC ha⁻¹), and …

A Global Image-Based Data Repository Of Killer Whale Interactions With Elasmobranchs, Emma Luck, Isabella L. Reeves, Maeva Terrapon, Rebecca Wellard, Stephanie K. Venables, Alison V. Towner, Alison A. Kock, Charlotte Hussain, Molly Altschwager, Rosie Ballard, Evans Baudin, Nancy Black, Evan Brodsky, Jade Cantrall, Julio Cardoso, Matt I.D. Carter, Oliver Clarke, Santiago Diaz-Pazmino, David Donnelly, Georgina Cabayol Ferraz, Arlaine Francisco, Laura González García, Mark Jackman, Aimee Jan, Eric Martin, Dane Mcdermott, James Moskito, Blair Ranford, Jesús Erick Higuera Rivas, Jasmin O’Brien, Anton Oleynik, Hernán Orellana-Vásquez, Daniela Alarcón Ruales, Gemma Sharp, Jade Sharp, Alisa Schulman-Janiger, Colleen M. Talty, Paul Tixier, John A. Totterdell, Steve Truluck, Jennah Tucker, Tara Weberg, M. Fernanda Urrutia-Osorio, Machi Yoshida, Jochen R. Zaeschmar, Lauren Meyer

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Killer whales (Orcinus orca) are cosmopolitan apex predators that interact with numerous species, including sharks, skates, and rays (subclass Elasmobranchii). Interactions between killer whales and elasmobranchs have garnered attention from the scientific community, but the dynamics of these events are poorly understood, as interactions are often challenging to observe. In this study, we collated imagery of interactions between killer whales and elasmobranchs to create the first image-based repository of interspecific interactions between marine predators. A total of 320 photos and videos from 82 unique interactions were collected from 12 countries. A minimum of 18 elasmobranch species across 16 genera were …

Over A Century Of Global Decline In The Growth Performance Of Marine Fishes, Helen F. Yan, Hannah V. Watkins, Alexandre C. Siqueira, David R. Bellwood

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Human-driven pressures are causing large-scale changes in the ecologies and life histories of fishes. Growth performance is a composite life-history trait that captures the trade-off between two fundamental traits: growth and body size. Here, we assess the impacts of fishing and temperature on the growth performance of marine teleost fishes globally over the last century. Using 7683 growth curves encompassing 1479 species, we find a global pattern of decline in growth performance from 1908 onwards, with the greatest declines in commercially valuable fishes. Indeed, managed fisheries experienced a 9% decline in growth performance over the last century, which can equate …

Microplastics In Terrestrial Environments: Consequences To Organic Carbon Sequestration?, Khyla Johnson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Soils store more carbon than the atmosphere and all plant life combined, so even small changes in how soils cycle carbon can affect the climate. A new pollutant is accumulating in soils around the world: microplastics, tiny fragments of plastic that arrive through farming practices, litter, wastewater, tire wear, and the air. Adding microplastics to soil often increases the carbon dioxide that soil microbes release, so plastic pollution could reduce the carbon that soils store. While this trend is concerning, its cause remains unclear. Microbes may be consuming the plastic itself, or the plastic may prompt them to break down …

Exploring Burnout Among Ncaa Collegiate Athletes: The Impact Of Gender, Sport, Seasonal Demands, And Other Contributing Factors, Anneliese Wong

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine burnout among NCAA Division I student-athletes at one mid-sized University in the Rocky Mountains region of the United States and determine whether differences existed based on gender, sport type, competitive season stage, and burnout dimension. A quantitative, cross-sectional survey design was used and data was collected from 76 student-athletes across 11 varsity sports. Burnout was assessed using items adapted from the Athlete Burnout Questionnaire (ABQ; Raedeke & Smith, 2001), along with additional items assessing fatigue and seasonal experiences.

Descriptive results showed the student-athletes reported the highest mean level of physical burnout, followed …

Wildfire And Fuel Treatments In Utah: A Practical Guide And Outcomes From An Oak-Maple Ecosystem, Annie E. Prescott

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Wildfire is a natural part of Utah’s landscapes, but as wildfires become more extreme and communities continue to expand into wildland areas, it is increasingly important to understand how wildfires behave and how their negative effects can be mitigated. One way to reduce wildfire risks and protect life, property, and ecosystem services is through fuel treatments — actions that reduce the amount and arrangement of flammable vegetation through mechanical removal, wildland fire, or other methods.

Information on wildfire behavior and fuel treatments is abundant but often scattered, ecosystem-specific and difficult to access. In addition, most research in the Western U.S. …