Digital Commons Network^™

Disease Progression And Serological Assay Performance In Heritage Breed Pigs Following Brucella Suis Experimental Challenge As A Model For Naturally Infected Feral Swine, Vienna R. Brown, Ryan S. Miller, Courtney F. Bowden, Timothy J. Smyser, Nicholas A. Ledesma, Aim E. Hartwig, Paul Gordy, Aaron M. Anderson, Stephanie M. Porter, Kate Alexander, Zane Gouker, Tom Gidlewski, Richard A. Bowen, Angela M. Bosco-Lauth

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Invasive feral swine (Sus scrofa) are one of the most important wildlife species for disease surveillance in the United States, serving as a reservoir for various diseases of concern for the health of humans and domestic animals. Brucella suis, the causative agent of swine brucellosis, is one such pathogen carried and transmitted by feral swine. Serology assays are the preferred field diagnostic for B. suis infection, as whole blood can be readily collected and antibodies are highly stable. However, serological assays frequently have lower sensitivity and specificity, and few studies have validated serological assays for B. suis in feral swine. …

Evaluation Of The Effect Of Hydrated Lime On The Scavenging Of Feral Swine (Sus Scrofa) Carcasses And Implications For Managing Carcass-Based Transmission Of African Swine Fever Virus, Courtney F. Bowden, James Grinolds, Gregory Franckowiak, Loma Mccallister, Joe M. Halseth, Matthew Cleland, Travis Guerrant, Michael J. Bodenchuk, Robert Miknis, Michael C. Marlow, Vienna R. Brown

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

African swine fever (ASF) is a devastating hemorrhagic disease marked by extensive morbidity and mortality in infected swine. The recent global movement of African swine fever virus (ASFV) in domestic and wild swine (Sus scrofa) populations has initiated preparedness and response planning activities within many ASF-free countries. Within the US, feral swine are of utmost concern because they are susceptible to infection, are wide-spread, and are known to interact with domestic swine populations. African swine fever virus is particularly hardy and can remain viable in contaminated carcasses for weeks to months; therefore, carcass-based transmission plays an important role in the …

Perturbations Highlight Importance Of Social History In Parakeet Rank Dynamics, Annemarie Van Der Marel, Xavier Francis, Claire L. O'Connell, Cesar O. Estien, Chelsea Carminito, Virginia Darby Moore, Nickolas Lormand, Bryan M. Kluever, Elizabeth A. Hobson

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Dominance hierarchies can provide many benefits to individuals, such as access to resources or mates, depending on their ranks. In some species, rank can emerge as a product of a group’s history of social interactions. However, it can be difficult to determine whether social history is critical to rank in observation-based studies. Here, we investigated rank dynamics in three captive groups of monk parakeets (Myiopsitta monachus). We used experimental social perturbations to test whether social history shapes rank emergence in these groups. Using targeted removals and reintroductions, we tested whether differently ranked individuals could re-take their ranks in hierarchies after …

Distribution Of The Misfolded Isoform Of The Prion Protein In Peripheral Tissues And Spinal Cord Of Rocky Mountain Elk (Cervus Elaphus Nelsoni) With Naturally Occurring Chronic Wasting Disease, Terry R. Spraker, Thomas Gidlewski, J. G. Powers, T. A. Nichols, M. A. Wild

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Chronic wasting disease (CWD) is an infectious transmissible spongiform encephalopathy of cervids associated with the presence of a misfolded prion protein (PrPCWD). Progression of PrPCWD distribution has been described using immunohistochemistry and histologic changes in a single section of brain stem at the level of the obex resulting in scores from 0 (early) to 10 (terminal) in elk with naturally occurring CWD. Here we describe the spread and distribution of PrPCWD in peripheral tissues and spinal cord in 16 wild and 17 farmed Rocky Mountain elk (Cervus elaphus nelsoni) with naturally occurring CWD and correlate these findings with obex scores. …

Predator Telemetry Informs Temporal And Spatial Overlap With Stocked Salmonids In Lake Huron, David G. Fielder, Todd A. Hayden, Thomas R. Binder, Brian S. Dorr, Heidi A. Currier

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Double-Crested Cormorants (Phalacrocorax auratus), Walleyes (Sander vitreus), and Lake Trout (Salvelinus namaycush) are migratory predators that undergo extensive movements in Lake Huron. Stocking of juvenile salmonid fish (Oncorhynchus and Salmo sp.) is an important component of fishery management in Lake Huron and assessing the spatial and temporal extent of predator movements is a useful consideration for determining when and where to stock juvenile fish to reduce predation and maximize survival. Previous investigation indicated that some Walleyes migrate to the main basin of Lake Huron in spring from Saginaw Bay. Similarly, telemetry studies of Lake Trout movement in Lake Huron have …

Role Of Social Structure In Establishment Of An Invasive Large Mammal After Translocation, Lindsay M. Clontz, Anni Yang, Sarah M. Chinn, Kim M. Pepin, Kurt C. Vercauterten, George Wittemyer, Ryan S. Miller, James C. Beasley

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Background

Data on the movement behavior of translocated wild pigs is needed to develop appropriate response strategies for containing and eliminating new source populations following translocation events. We conducted experimental trials to compare the home range establishment and space-use metrics, including the number of days and distance traveled before becoming range residents, for wild pigs translocated with their social group and individually.

Results

We found wild pigs translocated with their social group made less extensive movements away from the release location and established a stable home range ~5 days faster than those translocated individually. We also examined how habitat quality …

Dna Capture And Translocation Through Nanopore, Swarnadeep Seth

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

This thesis investigates DNA dynamics and translocation through nanopores using Brownian dynamics (BD) simulations, offering insights into sequencing technologies, DNA marker detection, and accurate barcoding utilizing solid-state nanopore platforms. First, we in silico study the intricate process of capture and translocation in a single nanopore. Our simulation reveals a high probability of hairpin loop formation during the capture process. However, attaching a charged tag to one end of DNA improves multi-scan rates and enhances unidirectional translocations. We use modulating voltage biases to multi-scan a lambda-phage dsDNA with oligonucleotide flap markers (tags) through a single and double nanopore system. Our study …

Noteworthy Parasites (Trematoda, Cestoda, Phthiraptera) Of Three Birds (Aves: Passeriformes; Pelecaniformes; Piciformes) From Arkansas, C.T. Mcallister, H.W. Robison

Journal of the Arkansas Academy of Science

Between November 2020 and March 2021, three species of birds, one each of a tufted titmouse (Baeolophus bicolor), pileated woodpecker (Dryocopus pileatus), and great blue heron (Ardea herodias) were salvaged from Lawrence and Polk counties, Arkansas, and examined for parasites. Found were four taxa of parasites, including a dicrocoeliid trematode, a cyclophyllidean cestode, and species of philopterid and menoponid lice. We document new host and distributional records for these parasites from select birds of the state.

Improving Deep Neural Network Training With Knowledge Distillation, Dongdong Wang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Knowledge distillation, as a popular compression technique, has been widely used to reduce deep neural network (DNN) size for a variety of applications. However, in recent years, some research had found its potential for improving deep neural network performance. This dissertation focuses on further exploring its power to facilitate accurate and reliable DNN training. First, I explored data-efficient method for blackbox knowledge distillation where the specifics of the DNN for distillation is inaccessible. I integrated active learning and mixup to obtain significant distillation performance gain with limited data. This work reveals the competence of knowledge distillation to facilitate large foundation …

Massachusetts Prevalence Of Opioid Use Disorder Estimation Revisited: Comparing A Bayesian Approach To Standard Capture-Recapture Methods, Jianing Wang, Nathan Doogan, Katherine L. Thompson, Dana Bernson, Daniel Feaster, Jennifer Villani, Redonna Chandler, Laura F. White, David Kline, Joshua A. Barocas

Statistics Faculty Publications

Background: The National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH) estimated the prevalence of opioid use disorder (OUD) among the civilian, noninstitutionalized people aged 12 years or older in Massachusetts as 1.2% between 2015 and 2017. Accurate estimation of the prevalence of OUD is critical to the success of treatment and resource planning. Various indirect estimation approaches have been used but are subject to data availability and infrastructure-related issues.

Methods: We used 2015 data from the Massachusetts Public Health Data Warehouse (PHD) to compare the results of two approaches to estimating OUD prevalence in the Massachusetts population. First, we used …

Impact Of Covid-19 Nationwide Lockdowns And Unlock Phases In India On River Water Quality Of Upper Part Of The Ganga River, Dhara Kakwani, Abha Kumari, Kumar Suranjit Prasad, Bablu Prasad

Applied Environmental Research

The river water quality index (RWQI) of the upper Ganga canal has been computed to assess the effect of lockdown and unlock phases lead down by COVID-19 in India. Geospatial distribution of RWQI from January 2019 to December 2021 in the study area revealed significant impacts of lockdown on water quality. However, unlock phases (post lockdown) have deteriorated water quality since August 2020 and reached to actual conditions of the river by August 2021. To evaluate the lockdown as a management strategy to clean the river, other factors were reviewed including rainfall data, migration, and other activities. The results revealed …

Identification Of Rickettsia Prowazekii Methionine Aminopeptidase Inhibitors And Development Of Thermal Shift Assays For Burkholderia Pseudomallei Ispf And Sars-Cov-2 3cl Protease, Ishpriya Sharma

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

There is a crucial need for new antibacterial agents to combat the increase in antibiotic resistance. Methionine aminopeptidase (MetAp) is an enzyme that removes the amino-terminal methionine residue from newly synthesized proteins, an important step in the maturation of proteins. As such, MetAp is a target for the development of antibacterial and anticancer agents. One such bacterial target is Rickettsia prowazekii (Rp), the causative agent of epidemic typhus. To discover new inhibitors of RpMetAp1, the MMV Malaria Box, which is a collection of 400 compounds with drug-like and probe-like compounds, was screened using a high throughput fluorescence-based RpMetAp1 enzyme inhibition …

Interspecific Oral Rabies Vaccine Bait Competition In The Southeast United States, Wesley C. Dixon, Jacob E. Hill, Richard Chipman, Amy J. Davis, Amy Gilbert, James C. Beasley, Olin E. Rhodes Jr., Guha Dharmarajan

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Rabies Management Program (NRMP) has coordinated the use of oral rabies vaccination (ORV) to control the spread of raccoon rabies virus variant west of the Appalachian Mountains since 1997. Working with state and local partners, the NRMP deploys ORV baits containing a rabies vaccine, primarily targeting raccoon populations (Procyon lotor). Bait competition between raccoons and non-target species may limit the effectiveness of ORV programs, but the extent of bait competition remains poorly quantified, particularly in the southeastern United States. We placed placebo ORV baits in bottomland hardwood (n = 637 baits) and upland …

Besoins Ontologiques Pour La Transformation Des Aliments, D. Dooley, M. Weber, L. Ibanescu, M. Lange, L. Chan, L. Soldatova, C. Yang, R. Warren, Cogan Shimizu, H. Mcginty, W. Hsiao

Computer Science and Engineering Faculty Publications

People often value the sensual, celebratory, and health aspects of food, but behind this experience exists many other value-laden agricultural production, distribution, manufacturing, and physiological processes that support or undermine a healthy population. The complexity of such processes is evident in both every-day food preparation of recipes and in industrial food manufacturing, packaging and storage. An integrated ontology landscape does not yet exist to cover all the entities at work in this farm to fork journey. It seems necessary to construct such a vision by reusing expert-curated fit-to-purpose ontology subdomains. The challenge is to make this merger be, by analogy, …

A Mathematical Model Of Juvenile Delinquency In The New York State, Oluwasegun Micheal Ibrahim

Articles

This report presents a mathematical model of juvenile delinquency in the New York State. In particular, we develop a juvenile delinquency system of non-linear differential equations using the mathematical epidemiology framework. In constructing this model, we assume that juvenile delinquency can be studied as a socially infectious disease. The stability of the juvenile delinquency-free equilibrium of the model is examined using the standard non-linear dynamical systems theory technique. We carried out a data fitting based on real-life data from the New York State Criminal Justice Services. The research result reveals that the formulated model conforms with the available data and …

Split Catalytic Probes For The Detection Of Monkeypox Virus, Jaehyun Ahn

Honors Undergraduate Theses

The COVID-19 outbreak highlighted the important role that diagnostic tests play in the healthcare system. To reduce the impact of infectious disease outbreaks, the development of rapid and cost-effective point-of-care-tests (POCTs) is crucial. With the dissemination of the Monkeypox (Mpox) virus, it became a necessity to produce POCTS that are inexpensive and easy to use. This work explored the construction of two colorimetric assays that aim to detect Mpox genetic signatures. One is based on the split-peroxidase-like deoxyribozyme probes (sPDz), while the other utilizes a cascade system of split RNA-cleaving deoxyribozyme (sDz) and peroxidase-like deoxyribozyme (PDz). Both rely on catalytic …

การเปรียบเทียบอัลกอริทึมวิเคราะห์หาสาเหตุการตายโดยการสัมภาษณ์เมื่อมีข้อมูลไม่สมบูรณ์, ณัชชา สุวันทารัตน์

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

การศึกษาการเปรียบเทียบประสิทธิภาพของอัลกอริทึมในการวิเคราะห์หาสาเหตุการตายจากการสัมภาษณ์ (Verbal Autopsy) เมื่อมีระดับความไม่สมบูรณ์ของข้อมูลที่ต่างกัน ทำโดยเปรียบเทียบ 5 อัลกอริทึมในการแปลผลหาสาเหตุการตาย คือ InSilicoVA InterVA-5 Tariff Naïve Bayes Classifiers (NBC) และ Random Forest (RF) ในการจำแนกหาสาเหตุการตายเมื่อไม่มีการหายของข้อมูล มีการหายของข้อมูล 5% มีการหายของข้อมูล 10% และ มีการหายของข้อมูล 20% โดยเกณฑ์วัดในการประเมินประสิทธิภาพของอัลกอริทึมคือ ระยะเวลาในการทำงาน ค่าความถูกต้อง ค่า Chance-Concordance Corrected (CCC) ค่า Cause Specific Mortality Fraction (CMSF) accuracy ค่า Sensitivity และ ค่า Specificity ซึ่งข้อมูลที่นำการวิเคราะห์ในงานวิจัยนี้คือข้อมูล PHMRC Gold Standard ที่เป็นข้อมูลของผู้ใหญ่จำนวน 7,841 ตัวอย่าง จากการศึกษาพบว่าข้อมูลสมบูรณ์ทำให้มีประสิทธิภาพดีกว่าข้อมูลที่มีการทำให้หาย มีค่าตัวชี้วัดดีกว่าในทุกระดับการหายของข้อมูลและตัวชี้วัดข้างต้นที่กล่าวมาจะค่อยๆ ลดลงตามระดับการหายที่เพิ่มขึ้น VA อัลกอริทึมที่มีประสิทธิภาพในการแปลผลดีที่สุดคือ RF ในทุกระดับการหายของข้อมูลจากทุกดัชนีชี้วัดยกเว้นระยะเวลาในการทำงานและกลุ่มที่ใช้วิธีคิดแบบ data-driven อัลกอริทึมเช่น RF, Tariff และ NBC จะมีประสิทธิภาพในการแปลผลดีกว่า InSilicoVA และ InterVA 5 อาจเป็นเพราะเมื่อข้อมูลที่ใช้ในชุดเรียนรู้ในมีความครบถ้วนและสะท้อนกับข้อมูลชุดทดสอบแตกต่างกับวิธีที่ใช้หลักทางสถิติที่จะใช้ข้อมูลในการแปลผลข้อมูลมาจากแพทย์หรือผู้เชี่ยวชาญมากกว่าให้อัลกอริทึมการแปลผลเรียนรู้จากชุดเรียนรู้

The Identification Of New Directions For The Research Of Adhd, Andrew Burkhardt

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

ADHD is a disease commonly associated with childhood; however, recently adult cases of ADHD have been on the rise. The cause of ADHD is not yet known but can be treated. The issue with the treatment of ADHD is the use of heavily restricted stimulants. The use of these medications carry many health risks, most notability addiction. ADHD also has many co-morbidities like anxiety and autism. This makes ADHD a complex disorder, making the identification of a cause difficult. However, by identifying how drugs used to treat ADHD work, combined with genetic testing, areas of interest start to appear. An …

A Type-2 Fuzzy Rule-Based Model For Diagnosis Of Covid-19, İhsan Şahi̇n, Erhan Akdoğan, Mehmet Emi̇n Aktan

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

In this study, a type-2 fuzzy logic-based decision support system comprising clinical examination and blood test results that health professionals can use in addition to existing methods in the diagnosis of COVID-19 has been developed. The developed system consists of three fuzzy units. The first fuzzy unit produces COVID-19 positivity as a percentage according to the respiratory rate, loss of smell, and body temperature values, and the second fuzzy unit according to the C-reactive protein, lymphocyte, and D-dimer values obtained as a result of the blood tests. In the third fuzzy unit, the COVID-19 positivity risks according to the clinical …

Synthesis Of Mixed Metal High Entropy Oxyhalide For Photocatalytic Degradation Of Tetracycline, Chakgrid Noomak

Chulalongkorn University Theses and Dissertations (Chula ETD)

High entropy materials (HEMs) are new types of materials that contain five or more elements. HEMs have been applied in various applications. It has been proven that HEMs with multielement can provide good structural stability. However, the application of HEMs in the field of photocatalytic has rarely been reported. Therefore, it is interesting to construct HEMs to be used as photocatalysts. In this work, we designed and fabricated a mixed metal high entropy halide (SrxBa1-xBiO2Br), a novel photocatalyst that contains five elements in the structure, by incorporating metals (Sr and Ba) into bismuth oxybromide material (BiOBr) to enhance their stability …

Multipatch Stochastic Epidemic Model For The Dynamics Of A Tick-Borne Disease, Milliward Maliyoni, Holly D. Gaff, Keshlan S. Govinder, Faraimunashe Chirove

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Spatial heterogeneity and migration of hosts and ticks have an impact on the spread, extinction and persistence of tick-borne diseases. In this paper, we investigate the impact of between-patch migration of white-tailed deer and lone star ticks on the dynamics of a tick-borne disease with regard to disease extinction and persistence using a system of Itô stochastic differential equations model. It is shown that the disease-free equilibrium exists and is unique. The general formula for computing the basic reproduction number for all patches is derived. We show that for patches in isolation, the basic reproduction number is equal to the …

Analyzing Pulmonary Abnormality With Superpixel Based Graph Neural Networks In Chest X-Ray, Ronaj Pradhan

Dissertations and Theses

In recent years, the utilization of graph-based deep learning has gained prominence, yet its potential in the realm of medical diagnosis remains relatively unexplored. Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) has achieved state-of-the-art performance in areas such as computer vision, particularly for grid-like data such as images. However, they require a huge dataset to achieve top level of performance and challenge arises when learning from the inherent irregular/unordered nature of physiological data. In this thesis, the research primarily focuses on abnormality screening: classification of Chest X-Ray (CXR) as Tuberculosis positive or negative, using Graph Neural Networks (GNN) that uses Region Adjacency Graphs …

Using Wastewater-Based Epidemiology To Study Chlamydia Occurrence On A College Campus, Jessie E. Chin Quee

Honors Undergraduate Theses

Chlamydia is a sexually transmitted disease caused by Chlamydia trachomatis, commonly affecting sexually active college-aged adults. Presently, opportunistic testing, self-testing, and information campaigns are methods to screen vulnerable populations and raise awareness about chlamydia. Chlamydia remains underdiagnosed and undertested due to a lack of participation by individuals who may have been exposed to it. Wastewater-based epidemiology is a rising biomonitoring tool that detects the presence of disease- and drug-specific biomarkers in a community's wastewater. In this study, wastewater-based epidemiology was used to detect the presence of C. trachomatis on the University of Central Florida campus. Wastewater samples were collected …

Striving For Appropriate Antibiotic Use: A Biomarker Initiative, And Outcomes Associated With Azithromycin Exposure, Amanda Gusovsky

Theses and Dissertations--Pharmacy

The introduction of antibiotics into clinical practice is considered the greatest medical breakthrough of the 20^thcentury. However, the use of antibiotics can contribute to the development of resistance. In the United States (U.S.), approximately 2.8 million people are infected with antibiotic-resistant bacteria each year, and more than 35,000 people die as a result. Moreover, some antibiotics are known to cause cardiac side effects including QT prolongation, hypotension, and ventricular arrythmias. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) defines appropriate antibiotic use as the effort to use “the right antibiotic, at the right dose, for the right …

The Effect Of Land-Cover/Land-Use And Habitat Fragmentation On Spatial Patterns Of Lyme Disease In The Eastern United States, Maria Elizabeth Topmiller

Theses and Dissertations--Forestry and Natural Resources

Lyme disease has been of national concern for the past few decades. As our understanding of the role of landscape structure in epidemiology expands, it is essential to apply the principles of landscape ecology to the research of vector-borne and zoonotic disease. This study examined the strength of the relationship between land-cover class, degree of habitat fragmentation and county-level Lyme disease cases. Forest, agricultural, and urban land cover types were the categories of interest, while percent cover, edge density, and patch density were the landscape metric used to measure habitat amount and fragmentation. The general linear trends were modelled with …

Machine Learning Methods For Prediction Of Human Infectious Virus And Imputation Of Hla Alleles, Xiaoqing Gao

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation contains three Chapters. The following is a concise description of each Chapters.

In Chapter 1, we introduced the Random Forest, a machine learning method, to foresee whether a virus is capable of infecting humans. The Covid pandemic informs us the importance of predicting the ability of a zoonotic virus that can infect humans from its genomic sequence. We used the -mer with and as features of a virus to predict if it can affect humans. We further employed the Boruta algorithm to select the important features, then fed those important features into the Random Forest method to train …

Survey Of West Nile And Banzi Viruses In Mosquitoes, South Africa, 2011-2018, Caitlin Macintyre, Milehna Mara Guarido, Megan Amy Riddin, Todd Johnson, Leo Braack, Maarten Schrama, Erin Gorsich, Antonio Paulo Gouveia Almeida, Marietjie Venter

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

We collected >40,000 mosquitoes from 5 provinces in South Africa during 2011-2018 and screened for zoonotic flaviviruses. We detected West Nile virus in mosquitoes from conservation and periurban sites and potential new mosquito vectors; Banzi virus was rare. Our results suggest flavivirus transmission risks are increasing in South Africa.

Commentary On Healthcare And Disruptive Innovation, Hilary Finch, Affia Abasi-Amefon, Woosub Jung, Lucas Potter, Xavier-Lewis Palmer

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Exploits of technology have been an issue in healthcare for many years. Many hospital systems have a problem with “disruptive innovation” when introducing new technology. Disruptive innovation is “an innovation that creates a new market by applying a different set of values, which ultimately overtakes an existing market” (Sensmeier, 2012). Modern healthcare systems are historically slow to accept new technological advancements. This may be because patient-based, provider-based, or industry-wide decisions are tough to implement, giving way to dire consequences. One potential consequence is that healthcare providers may not be able to provide the best possible care to patients. For example, …

The Shortfalls Of Vulnerability Indexes For Public Health Decision-Making In The Face Of Emergent Crises: The Case Of Covid-19 Vaccine Uptake In Virginia, Lydia Cleveland Sa, Erika Frydenlund

VMASC Publications

Equitable and effective vaccine uptake is a key issue in addressing COVID-19. To achieve this, we must comprehensively characterize the context-specific socio-behavioral and structural determinants of vaccine uptake. However, to quickly focus public health interventions, state agencies and planners often rely on already existing indexes of "vulnerability." Many such "vulnerability indexes" exist and become benchmarks for targeting interventions in wide ranging scenarios, but they vary considerably in the factors and themes that they cover. Some are even uncritical of the use of the word "vulnerable," which should take on different meanings in different contexts. The objective of this study is …

An Assessment Of "Long-Thin" Airline Routes: Network Structure And Emissions Implications For Environmental Policy, Porter Burns

All Master's Theses

The purpose of this research was to define, map, and quantify the network and environmental implications of “long-thin” routes (LTRs) – a route structure that has been discussed in the aviation industry but not formally studied in literature. LTRs were defined through the use of global OAG scheduling data from 1998 to 2018 to identify trends in air traffic growth and network dynamics. Flights were separated into seven aircraft class sizes (e.g., 75–150 seats, 150–225 seats) to measure LTRs at multiple scales. Routes were considered “long” if the stage length was at or above the 75^th percentile in each …