Digital Commons Network^™

Oh, The Places You'll Guo! The Tactics And Impact Of A Chinese Multilingual Narrative Flooding Campaign Through Political Cartoons, Leland Fecher, Tyler Reich, Jack Taylor, Patrick Warren

Media Forensics Hub Creative Inquiry Reports

No abstract provided.

Supplemental Schedules For The Year Ended June 30, 2022, Clemson University Controller's Office

Supplemental Schedules

No abstract provided.

Pediatric Cardiac Devices: Recent Progress And Remaining Problems, Kyle Crawford, Martine Leberge, Dan Simionescu, Naren Vyavahare

Publications

Pediatric cardiology is a field that largely relies on translation of innovation in its adult counterpart in order to improve patient outcomes and introduce new technology to the field. Few FDA-approved pediatric cardiac devices are available for clinical use, thus leading to widespread off-label use within the field. Nonetheless, adaption of devices and technology from the adult field has proven to improve patient outcomes and overall wellness. However, the diversity of congenital heart disease, in terms of basic anatomy and treatment response, continues to complicate results. The combination of diversity of anatomy and small population size make it difficult for …

Tunable Blood Shunt For Neonates With Complex Congenital Heart Defects, Ellen Garver, Christopher B. Rodell, Kristen Shema, Krianthan Govender, Samantha E. Cassel, Bryan Ferrick, Gabriella Kupsho, Ethan Kung, Kara L. Spiller, Randy Stevens, Amy L. Throckmorton

Publications

Despite advancements in procedures and patient care, mortality rates for neonatal recipients of the Norwood procedure, a palliation for single ventricle congenital malformations, remain high due to the use of a fixed-diameter blood shunt. In this study, a new geometrically tunable blood shunt was investigated to address limitations of the current treatment paradigm (e.g., Modified Blalock-Taussig Shunt) by allowing for controlled modulation of blood flow through the shunt to accommodate physiological changes due to the patient’s growth. First, mathematical and computational cardiovascular models were established to investigate the hemodynamic requirements of growing neonatal patients with shunts and to inform design …

Climate Change Planning: Soil Carbon Regulating Ecosystem Services And Land Cover Change Analysis To Inform Disclosures For The State Of Rhode Island, Usa, Elena A. Mikhailova, Lili Lin, Zhenbang Hao, Hamdi A. Zurqani, Christopher J. Post, Mark A. Schlautman, Gregory C. Post, Peyton I. Mitchell

Open Access Publishing Fund

The state of Rhode Island (RI) has established its greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions reduction goals, which require rapidly acquired and updatable science-based data to make these goals enforceable and effective. The combination of remote sensing and soil information data can estimate the past and model future GHG emissions because of conversion of “low disturbance” land covers (e.g., evergreen forest, hay/pasture) to “high disturbance” land covers (e.g., low-, medium-, and high-intensity developed land). These modeled future emissions can be used as a predevelopment potential GHG emissions information disclosure. This study demonstrates the rapid assessment of the value of regulating ecosystems services …

Clemson Commencement Program, December 2021, Clemson University

Clemson Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Fragments Of The Self, Jessica Swank

All Theses

This body of work addresses humanity’s relationship with digital technology from a personal perspective. Through constructed photography and sculptural work, I point to the connections between humans, machines, and nature, emphasizing the blurred lines between each of these entities. By revealing overlaps and associations between them, I seek to reconcile digital connection and emotional connection. I believe reconciliation may come through the acknowledgment of digital technology’s influence, and the subversion of convenience for the sake of quality human connections.

The images within this series reside at the intersection of self-portraiture and documentary. A dialogue is formed between the subjects through …

Toxicity And Effects Of Tire Crumb Rubber In The Aquatic Environment, Stephanie Laplaca

All Dissertations

Plastic materials have provided innovative solutions to society’s evolving needs and challenges. Due to their durability and resistance to degradation, plastics remain in the environment for long periods of time and can therefore be transported to many environmental compartments such as water, sediment, and biota. Microplastics (MPs) have been defined as synthetic plastic particles that have at least one dimension less than 5 mm and are insoluble in water. Microrubber (MR), a recently acknowledged sub-group of MPs, has been documented in environmental samples more recently, frequently comprising a large portion of total MPs of various samples. In South Carolina specifically, …

Of Single Nucleotides And Single Cells: Charting The Genotype-Phenotype Map At High Resolution Using Drosophila Melanogaster, Sneha Shreekant Mokashi

All Dissertations

Understanding the mechanisms by which genetic variation brings about phenotypic variation is essential for understanding variation in complex traits. Drosophila melanogaster is a powerful model organism for such studies. Flies are easy to raise in the laboratory under controlled genetic and environmental conditions and many genetic tools are widely available. To chart the genotype-phenotype map, we need to study how individual genetic variants contribute to phenotypic variation, as well as how environmental perturbations influence gene expression.

Regarding the former, I generated single nucleotide substitutions in Obp56h in a common genetic background. Obp56h, a member of the Odorant binding protein …

Deep Learning-Guided Prediction Of Material’S Microstructures And Applications To Advanced Manufacturing, Jianan Tang

All Dissertations

Material microstructure prediction based on processing conditions is very useful in advanced manufacturing. Trial-and-error experiments are very time-consuming to exhaust numerous combinations of processing parameters and characterize the resulting microstructures. To accelerate process development and optimization, researchers have explored microstructure prediction methods, including physical-based modeling and feature-based machine learning. Nevertheless, they both have limitations. Physical-based modeling consumes too much computational power. And in feature-based machine learning, low-dimensional microstructural features are manually extracted to represent high-dimensional microstructures, which leads to information loss.

In this dissertation, a deep learning-guided microstructure prediction framework is established. It uses a conditional generative adversarial network (CGAN) …

Glycan Functionalization Of Iron Oxide Nanoparticles (Ionps) As A Method Of Inactivating Antibiotic Resistant Neisseria Gonorrhoeae Via A Magnetically Mediated Energy Delivery (Magmed) System, Cedric Taylor

All Theses

With the increase of antibiotic resistant bacteria, current established therapeutic treatment methods are rapidly demonstrating decreasing efficacy. For this project, we are studying a novel alternate mechanism of treating antibiotic resistant bacteria by utilizing magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (IONPs) coated with a heterobifunctional polyethylene glycol polymer (PEG) and functionalized with glycan structures that can interact with Neisseria gonorrhoeae FA1090. Interaction between the IONPs and bacteria is manipulated by an external alternating magnetic field (AMF) in a process known as magnetically mediated energy delivery (MagMED). Magnetic IONPs were synthesized and reacted with PEG (PEG-IONPs) and functionalized with glycans Gal(α1-3)Gal(β1-4)Glc(β1-1) (common name: …

Soil Moisture And Light Conditions Impact Digital And Visual Soil Color Assessments, Isabella Hill

All Theses

Determining soil color has traditionally been done visually, but inaccuracies with this method have been documented, including disagreement in evaluators, to differences in physical color books. Determining Munsell soil color in the field is also subject to environmental conditions, including soil water content (SWC) and light intensity. New digital spectral technology designed for determining soil color may offer accurate assessments regardless of human inaccuracies and environmental conditions. This research aimed to assess if visual observations differed from digital measurements of Munsell soil color as well as, the impacts of SWC and light on visual observations and digital measurements of soil …

Celebrating And Practicing Aspects From Eastern- And Western-Centric Animation Styles, Alissa Annette Standerwick

All Theses

Animation styles in a modern world end up influencing the animation of other regions. This project, through animation, celebrates Eastern and Western differences in their animations. Rather than analyzing story differences, aspects of the habits formed by the region’s animators are analyzed and practiced. The formation of animation in respective cultures represents the local history of these regions. So to understand the aspects & technicalities of how animators animate per region, it is useful to understand how film, TV, & comic styles of an entire community impacted that area’s animation

Noise Types Adaptation For Speech Enhancement With Recurrent Neural Network, Xiang Lan

All Theses

Speech enhancement is a critical part in automatic speech recognition systems. Recently with the development of deep learning based techniques, those speech enhancement systems trained with neural networks can significantly improve performance. While many of the latest speech enhancement systems show advantages in maximizing the perceptual quality of the noisy signals, they expose drawbacks when the test noisy signals have noise types that never exist during the system training process. The systems have relatively poor performance when handling noisy signals with unseen noise in contrast to noisy signals with seen noise. The dissimilarity between the training and testing circumstances can …

In The Pines: Dung Beetle Community Composition In Longleaf Pine Habitat, Kelsea Lynn Young

All Theses

Dung beetle assemblages are recognized as ecological bioindicators, allowing us to monitor ecological impacts by observing community shifts. Acting as primary nutrient cyclers, they establish niche segregation by sometimes selecting dung based on species (e.g. coyote vs. deer) and by using dung in different ways (e.g. rollers vs. tunnelers). Longleaf pine savannahs are recognized as global hotspots for diversity. Species of dung beetles found within these ecosystems may differ substantially from those found in surrounding agricultural, residential or other forest land. Our objective was to investigate whether the exclusion of mammalian meso-predator exclusion impacts dung beetle abundance, species composition and …

Effect Of Metal Ions On Stability Of Ascorbic Acid And Niacin Determined By Hplc, Jhongyan Huang

All Theses

Water-soluble vitamins, such as vitamin C and vitamin B, exist in various food stuffs, including vegetables, fruits, fortified grains, milk, and meat, etc. Those vitamers play essential roles in many biochemical functions in human body, thus are significant components for maintaining human health. However, the stability of vitamers is susceptible to many factors, such as light, temperature, metal ions, levels of oxygen concentration, and moisture contents, etc. As vitamers are prone to further degradation, their bioactivities can be remarkably affected and even lost in food processing and food products.In this study, effect of different metal ions (i.e., Na+, K+, Ca2+, …

An Analysis Of Environmental Conditions Impacting Cyanobacterial Algal Blooms In Drinking Water Sources In Upstate South Carolina, Gregory Langlois

All Theses

Maintaining water quality in reservoirs used for drinking water has been an issue in recent years due to the presence of algal blooms. Algal blooms are a perennially recurring problem that can have negative impacts on tourism, recreation, and overall water quality. Additionally, algal blooms will often produce an assortment of chemicals, some of which are hazardous to the health of humans, and some of which that, while relatively innocuous, result in unpleasant tastes and odors in water. Geosmin and 2-methylisoborneol are two taste and odor compounds that are notoriously difficult to treat out of drinking water sources by traditional …

Damned Ol' Dirt, Molly Morningglory

All Theses

damned ol’ dirt centers mindfulness and embodiment practices to foster relationships with the self, each other, and the land. These relationships intend to collectively imagine and then build an emotionally and environmentally sustainable and joyful future. My practice foregrounds clay with digital video, photography, and fabric dyeing, recording the imprint of performance. I use my hereditary understanding of clay and fibers, a trained attunement to the natural world, and my background of performance in craft (via demonstration of tactile techniques) to transfer knowledge and skill to the viewer. Through the creation of tableaus and documents of rituals based in materiality, …

Effects Of Cashew Nut Shell Extract On Nutrient Digestibility And Ruminal Fermentation Under In Vitro Batch Culture And Continuous Culture Conditions, Chandler Compton

All Theses

The overall objective of this research was to determine the effects of cashew nut shell extract (CNSE; 59% anacardic acid and 18% cardol) on nutrient digestibility and rumen fermentation profile under in vitro batch culture (Chapter 2) and continuous culture conditions (Chapter 3). The second objective was to determine an optimal supplementation dosage for dairy cows. The batch culture study was organized as a randomized complete block design with 15 replicates per treatment incubated for 24 h during four incubation runs. Each incubation was inoculated with rumen contents collected from ruminally fistulated cows fed either a close-up ( …

How “Interested” Criticism Fueled The Formulation Of Nineteen Eighty-Four’S Cultural Afterlife, John Cameron Bosch

All Theses

George Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four carries a “cultural afterlife” as a result of “interested” criticism, which has a set political/practical barometer or motive. While everyone agrees that the novel presents a frightening dystopia, many also consider it a prophetic piece that illuminates the possible corruption of executive power of a nation thanks to this cultural afterlife; the modern and popular term “Orwellian” resulted from these sorts of analyses and have only escalated in the years since its inception. As a result, within the past decade, multiple scholars, analysts, and journalists have referenced Orwell’s novel as a factual representation of this executive …

Chasing Target Zero: Contributing Factors Of Fatal Crashes In South Carolina, Matthew Stanley

All Theses

South Carolina consistently ranks in the top-10 in fatal crashes per 100,000 capita and 100 million vehicle miles traveled. This thesis summarizes an analysis of contributing factors for fatal crashes in South Carolina. A primary objective of this thesis is to investigate differences in contributing factors for fatal crashes as compared to all crashes in South Carolina. 2018 South Carolina fatal crashes (N=970) and all crashes (N=152,973) were analyzed and compared using classic Venn diagrams to compare differences in contributing factors between fatal crashes and all crashes. Fatal, non-fatal, and all crashes were aggregated into one of seven possible contributing …

Studies In Consumption And Production Of South Carolina Aquaculture Products, David Cheplick

All Theses

Market demand for seafood products among South Carolina (SC) consumers has led to increased aquaculture production as a means of supporting the seafood supply chain across the state. Our objective is broken into four distinct parts; (1) understanding consumer’s preferences and perceptions of seafood, (2) calculating their willingness to pay (WTP) for seafood products available in SC using attributes of sustainability and locality; and (3) gathering production metric and anecdotal data from SC oyster growers. Previous research assessing the market channels of seafood in South Carolina is compared to survey results. Respondents indicated that taste and quality were the most …

Investigation On Effects Of Lactate Adaptation Using Metabolic Indicators And Amino Acids To Explore Cell Metabolism, Lisa Uy

All Theses

Biopharmaceutical products are drugs that are made from living cells. One protein type of high importance to biopharmaceuticals is monoclonal antibodies. Monoclonal antibodies allow for highly specific, targeted treatment of diseases and detection of molecules related to diseases. With major roles in detecting and/or treating diseases like human immunodeficiency virus (HIV), coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), and some cancers, monoclonal antibodies are in demand. This demand has led to a need for efficient cell culture systems to produce high yields of protein with minimal waste. The most commonly used cell culture system for these high-value proteins is Chinese hamster ovary (CHO) …

The Mvohc Project, Brooke Day

All Theses

ABSTRACT

A Mvohc is a Morphic Vessel of Human Consciousness. The Mvohc Project traverses' theories of spatial identity in tandem with creative world-building as a method for examining the intricacies of the human condition and reimagining reality. My creations are designed to promote autonomy over the contemporary world's ever-evolving societal complexities to empower individuals, foster imagination and communication, and create space for positive change. This body of work incorporates fleshy biomorphic sculptures inspired by science fiction, deep-sea marine life, and the human body. The abject creatures are partnered with constructed audio-scapes that encompass the frenzy of an overarching internal monologue, …

Recapture And Reuse Of Nitrogen And Phosphorus From Rendered Animal Materials To Enhance Nutrient Use Efficiency And Produce Quality In Agricultural Crop, Bhupinder Jatana

All Dissertations

The current fertilizer regime heavily relies on inorganic fertilizers to meet the crop nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) demand. However, the United States has a limited N production capacity, with 50% N demand met through imports. On the other hand, the nonrenewable natural reserves of P are being depleted at an unprecedented rate and are expected to be exhausted with in next 100 years. Additionally, high solubility/liability of the field applied inorganic fertilizers often results in lower nutrient use efficiency (NUE;

The MBM led to rapid N mineralization, with 35% of the applied N mineralized within the first five days …

Mesopredator Detection And Eastern Spotted Skunk Den Site Selection In North Carolina, Anna Siegfried

All Theses

Small carnivore assemblages have been a topic of interest for many years because of their potential top-down effect on communities. However, mesopredators are a challenge to investigate because of their small sizes and elusive behavior. Advances in technology, such as non-invasive trail cameras and smaller GPS tracking devices, have increased the success in monitoring these communities, and we are learning that some of these species’ populations have drastically declined, are currently declining, or the population status is unknown.

Adding an attractant to remote camera sites has become a popular method to increase detections of mesopredators. However, there is an ongoing …

Effect Of Long And Short Chain Fatty Acids On Methane Yield And Microbial Community Composition In Anaerobic Co-Digestion, Emmaline Spier Camposano

All Theses

Fats, oils and greases are produced from a variety of industries, including animal rendering operations, vegetable oil processing plants and the hospitality industry. These hydrophobic, COD-rich compounds are known to cause issues in municipal wastewater collection and treatment systems. Anaerobic co-digestion has been shown to be an effective way to treat FOG and presents an opportunity to produce greater quantities of biogas. However, many microorganisms are sensitive to the degradation products of FOG, including long and short chain fatty acids. Two studies were performed to address potential inhibitory effects of both.

The first study co-digested various percentages of FOG with …

Acceleration Skinning: Kinematics-Driven Cartoon Effects For Articulated Characters, Niranjan Kalyanasundaram

All Theses

Secondary effects are key to adding fluidity and style to animation. This thesis introduces the idea of “Acceleration Skinning” following a recent well-received technique, Velocity Skinning, to automatically create secondary motion in character animation by modifying the standard pipeline for skeletal rig skinning. These effects, which animators may refer to as squash and stretch or drag, attempt to create an illusion of inertia. In this thesis, I extend the Velocity Skinning technique to include acceleration for creating a wider gamut of cartoon effects. I explore three new deformers that make use of this Acceleration Skinning framework: followthrough, centripetal stretch, and …

Analysis Of Deep Learning Methods For Wired Ethernet Physical Layer Security Of Operational Technology, Lucas Torlay

All Theses

The cybersecurity of power systems is jeopardized by the threat of spoofing and man-in-the-middle style attacks due to a lack of physical layer device authentication techniques for operational technology (OT) communication networks. OT networks cannot support the active probing cybersecurity methods that are popular in information technology (IT) networks. Furthermore, both active and passive scanning techniques are susceptible to medium access control (MAC) address spoofing when operating at Layer 2 of the Open Systems Interconnection (OSI) model. This thesis aims to analyze the role of deep learning in passively authenticating Ethernet devices by their communication signals. This method operates at …

Material Entropy, Lauren Bradshaw

All Theses

Although the sculptures of Material Entropy are not directly anthropomorphic, the corporeality of the materials is accentuated in rendering the entropic state of our ephemeral bodies. We often avoid thoughts concerning the anatomical systems that function beneath our skin as they reveal our mortality to be tangible. Clay is initially manipulated as a soft material, but once fired it gains permanence and loses the ongoing malleability of soft sculpture. Latex and fibers have been utilized in conjunction with ceramic in order to reveal the tension between dichotomies such as hard versus soft or internal versus external. The use of pantyhose …