Digital Commons Network^™

Nanoparticle Toxicity And Molecular Mechanisms In Fish: A Case Study With Silver Nanoparticles, Jiejun Gao

Open Access Dissertations

Nanoparticles (NPs) are widely used in a myriad of commercial and industrial products making their entry to the environment a likely event. NPs have unique physical-chemical properties that result from their small size and high surface area to volume ratio, making them highly reactive and potentially toxic. In Chapter 1, we summarize the effects and mechanisms of metal-based NPs on the vascular system. In vitro studies have shown that NPs are anti-angiogenic because they cause inflammation, oxidative stress, and apoptosis of endothelial cells resulting in increased permeability and decreased proliferation and migration. Whole animal studies examining the effects of NPs …

Syk Promotes Tgf-Beta-Induced P-Body Clearance In Breast Cancer Cells Through The Enhancement Of Autophagy, Shana D. Hardy

Open Access Dissertations

SYK is a protein tyrosine kinase that plays an essential role in the development and activation of immune cells. Its expression, however, is not limited to immune cells. SYK is expressed in a variety of epithelial cell types and epithelial-derived tumors. Reports regarding the role of SYK expression in these diverse cell types and tumors have been opposing. In breast cancer, SYK expression has been overwhelmingly associated with tumor suppression. The loss of Syk expression is observed in invasive breast carcinoma tissue and cell lines and the reintroduction of Syk into metastatic breast cancer cells suppresses tumor growth and metastasis. …

Effective Memory Management For Mobile Environments, Ahmed Mohamed Abd-Elhaffiez Hussein

Open Access Dissertations

Smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices exhibit vastly different constraints compared to regular or classic computing environments like desktops, laptops, or servers. Mobile devices run dozens of so-called “apps” hosted by independent virtual machines (VM). All these VMs run concurrently and each VM deploys purely local heuristics to organize resources like memory, performance, and power. Such a design causes conflicts across all layers of the software stack, calling for the evaluation of VMs and the optimization techniques specific for mobile frameworks.

In this dissertation, we study the design of managed runtime systems for mobile platforms. More specifically, we deepen the …

Perceval's Sister And Juliet Capulet As Disruptive Guides In Spiritual Quests, Joanna Benskin

Open Access Dissertations

Perceval’s sister in Sir Thomas Malory’s Le Morte Darthur and Juliet in William Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet act as disruptive guides in spiritual quests by contradicting the expectations placed on them as women characters.

Though women are banned from the quest for the Holy Grail, Perceval’s sister accompanies the Grail knights as an authoritative spiritual guide and a symbol of the Eucharist. Previous critics have not recognized Perceval’s sister as a fundamental disruption to the systemic misogyny of the Morte or her Eucharistic significance. She challenges both the chivalric misogyny that sees her as an object of rescue and the …

Modeling For Thermal Resistance Of Non-O157 Shiga Toxin Producing Escherichia Coli In Ground Beef, Jagpinder S. Brar

Open Access Dissertations

Predictive models in microbiology are used for estimating the growth or survival of microorganism in a set of environmental conditions. A validated predictive model provides an alternative to extensive survival and shelf life studies. In this study, a predictive inactivation model for non-O157 shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli (STEC) in ground beef was developed. Six strains of non-O157 STEC; E. coli O26:H1, E. coli O45:H2, E. coli O103:H2, E. coli O111:H8, E. coli O121:H9, and E. coli O145: nonmotile, has similar pathogenicity as E. coli O157:H7 and can cause serious food borne illnesses. These pathogens are considered as an adulterant …

Exploring The Cause Of Injury Or Death In Grain Entrapment, Engulfment And Extrication, Salah F. Issa

Open Access Dissertations

Grain entrapments and engulfments are one of most common hazards associated with grain storage facilities. Since the 1970’s over 1,880 incidents have been documented in agricultural confined spaces of which 65% of all recorded incidents were grain entrapments and engulfments. There have been several studies conducted on the contributing factors behind these incidents; however, there have been very few attempts to understand the environmental, physiological or psychological factors the victims experience while entrapped, engulfed, or extricated. This includes understanding how secondary injuries are caused by grain or during extrication by first responders. The research effort was divided into three segments. …

The Application Of Natural Language Processing To Open Source Intelligence For Ontology Development In The Advanced Persistent Threat Domain, Corey T. Holzer

Open Access Dissertations

Over the past decade, the Advanced Persistent Threat (APT) has risen to forefront of cybersecurity threats. APTs are a major contributor to the billions of dollars lost by corporations around the world annually. The threat is significant enough that the Navy Cyber Power 2020 plan identified them as a “must mitigate” threat in order to ensure the security of its warfighting network.

Reports, white papers, and various other open source materials offer a plethora of information to cybersecurity professionals regarding these APT attacks and the organizations behind them but mining and correlating information out of these various sources needs the …

The Development Of Preclinical Strategies For Facilitation Of Lead Candidate Selection, Christopher Dale Kulczar

Open Access Dissertations

Chapter 1 details a background of techniques used for modeling the blood-brain barrier (BBB). The BBB represents a diffusive barrier to both paracellular and transcellular movement of many compounds in and out of the brain. The main rate- limiting barriers of the BBB include exclusive tight junctions that prevent the movement of hydrophilic molecules through intercellular gaps, and efflux proteins in the membrane which pump many hydrophobic molecules back into the blood. In addition, the BBB contains metabolizing enzymes, including Cytochrome P450s. This barrier acts to protect the vulnerable tissues of the brain from harmful xenobiotics, but also can serve …

Functional Diversity Enhances Detection Of Ecosystem Stability And Resolution Of Predator-Prey Interactions Within A Multitrophic Community, Ashley Lorraine Kissick

Open Access Dissertations

Habitat fragmentation and loss are principal factors that contribute to the decline of biodiversity which in turn has a negative impact on ecosystem function. There has been growing interest in understanding diversity’s role in the mechanisms behind ecosystem resilience with much attention focusing on how functional diversity, or the range of species’ ecological roles in a community, impacts ecosystem function. Under the functional insurance hypothesis, stability in ecosystems is maintained by species that perform similar functions but have asynchronous responses to disturbance. There are three proposed stability mechanisms that operate through species’ asynchronous responses: cross-scale resilience, response diversity, and density …

Modifying Burning Rate And Agglomeration Size In Aluminized Composite Solid Propellants Using Mechanically Activated Metals, Hatem Mohamed Belal

Open Access Dissertations

Agglomeration reduction techniques are important field in solid propellant industry, Large agglomeration results in excessive two phase losses. Tailored composite particles has been applied to tailor aluminum particle ignition and combustion. In this research, mechanical activated aluminum magnesium powders are synthesized, tested in both laser ignition using CO2 and propellant. Prepared powders categorized into particle size that suitable for propellant application. Laser ignition tests showed that the prepared powder are more reactive than magnalium which has the same Al:Mg weight ratio. Agglomeration capturing showed that the prepared powder produce much less than neat aluminum or even similar physical mixture of …

Energy Localization And Heat Generation In Composite Energetic Systems Under High-Frequency Mechanical Excitation, Jesus O. Mares

Open Access Dissertations

In this work, the ability to use high frequency mechanical excitation to generate significant heating within plastic bonded explosives, as well as single energetic particles embedded within a viscoelastic binder, is studied. In this work, the fundamental mechanisms associated with the conversion of high-frequency mechanical excitation to heat as applied to these composite energetic systems are thoroughly investigated.

High-frequency contact excitation has been used to generate a significant amount of heat within samples of PBX 9501 and representative inert mock materials. Surface temperature rises on the order of 10 °C were observed at certain frequencies over a range from 50 …

Hydrodynamics Of Swimming Microorganisms In Complex Fluids, Gaojin Li

Open Access Dissertations

Swimming motion of microorganisms, such as spermatozoa, plankton, algae and bacteria, etc., ubiquitously occurs in nature. It affects many biological processes, including reproduction, infection and the marine life ecosystem. The hydrodynamic effects are important in microorganism swimming, their nutrient uptake, fertilization, collective motions and formation of colonies. In nature, microorganisms have evolved to use various fascinating ways for locomotion and transport. Different designs are also developed for the locomotion of artificial nano- and microswimmers. In this study, we use several different computational models to investigate the behavior of microswimmers.

Microorganisms typically swim in the low Reynolds number regime, where inertia …

Poetry Matters: Radical Politics In Postmodern American Poetry, Christopher J. Padgett

Open Access Dissertations

Directly or indirectly, poetry produced in the postmodern era is implicated in the politics of the time. Postmodern American poetry, then, is not reducible to a single poetic mode or to a specific set of stylistic features. In other words, a more comprehensive understanding of postmodern American poetry can be made by employing a flexible version of Raymond Williams’ notion of uneven development, a theory that insists on the synchronic existence of dominant, residual, and emergent cultural elements. As the stylistically and politically diverse work of the six poets—Susan Howe, Robert Grenier, Gary Snyder, A.R. Ammons, Sherman Alexie, and Kenneth …

Laser-Processed Parchment Paper For Fabrication Of Chronic Wound Dressings With Selective Oxygenation, Manuel Ochoa

Open Access Dissertations

Chronic non-healing wounds (e.g., diabetic foot ulcers and bed sores) impact over 6.5 million Americans per year, costs in excess of $25 billion to treat on an annual basis, and are on the rise due to increasing levels of obesity and diabetes compounded by an aging population. A major inhibitor of healing is suboptimal oxygenation of the wound bed. Unlike acute injuries that receive sufficient oxygen via a functional blood vessel network, chronic wounds often suffer from the lack of a proper vascular network; thus being incapable of providing sufficient oxygen for tissue growth. Typical medical treatment of hypoxic chronic …

Investigating The Effects Of Ph On Alphaviral E3-E2 Glycoprotein Association, Organization, And Cellular Tropism, Jason Michael Sequra

Open Access Dissertations

In alphaviruses the role of E3 is required in protecting the fusion peptide region of E1 during intracellular transport. Throughout viral processing, the association of E2 and E3 is required for the successful trafficking and incorporation of E1 into the mature virion. This E3-E2 association has been observed to extend to mature virions in the solved structure for the envelope of Semliki Forest virus (SFV) and supported by the solved structure for the entire Venezuelan equine encephalitis virion (VEEV) with exclusive contacts being made between E3-E2. Immunization with monoclonal antibodies against VEEV E3 provided protection for mice challenged by lethal …

Dynamic Holography In Semiconductors And Biomedical Optics, Hao Sun

Open Access Dissertations

Three-dimensional scanning and display are rapidly-advancing new technologies with important commercial drivers such as 3D printing and remote imaging for big data applications. Holography is a natural approach to recording and displaying three-dimensional information because it uses phase-sensitive interferometry to record interference patterns when a reference beam encounters coherent light arriving from an object. The 3D information is contained in the values of wave optics. Holography is a broad field that goes beyond recording and displaying. For instance, holographic optical elements, which take advantage of holographic imaging principles, perform the functions of lenses, gratings or mirrors. Holographic interferometry is also …

Improving And Elucidating Factors Regulating Black Walnut (Juglans Nigra L.) Clonal Propagation, Micah E. Stevens

Open Access Dissertations

Black walnut (Juglans nigra L.) is a fine hardwood tree species native to the central hardwood region of the United States. High-quality black walnut timber is highly desirable. Traded in both regional and global markets, it has been used for veneer, and the manufacture of high-end products such as cabinets, furniture, and gunstocks. As a result of its high economic value, black walnut has been commercially cultivated for many years, and breeding programs have generated superior timber genotypes with improved marketable traits. Once elite genotypes were developed, it was quickly recognized that black walnut was recalcitrant to clonal propagation …

Policy Design Tool For Managing Indoor Residential Water Demand In Water-Scarce Regions, Mujahed M. Thneibat

Open Access Dissertations

In view of population growth; climate change; and economic evolution, water resources in numerous parts of the world have reached their natural capacities. Consequently, the ability of many countries to grow; meet the basic needs of inhabitants; and protect the environment will be endangered like never before unless water resources are smartly handled and managed. ^ In the past few decades, many developed and developing countries have suffered from water scarcity, and more are certain to follow. The water security dilemma is much more challenging in developing countries. Water utilities have had to follow regulatory plans to manage demand on …

Identifying And Prioritizing Critical Success Factors For Fixed Base Operators In The United States: A Mixed Method Approach, Yu Wang

Open Access Dissertations

Fixed Base Operators (FBOs) are major service providers for the general aviation (GA) sector, which closely connect the public with the aviation industry. However, over the past decade, the U.S. GA industry has experienced a decline in the numbers of registered aircraft, pilots, and airports. Due to the fact that FBOs significantly contribute to the aviation industry, further research studies regarding the FBO-sector at a national level are needed. The purpose of this dissertation was to identify and prioritize the critical success factors (CSFs) that promote the success of FBO operations in the United States.

The methodology consisted of a …

On The Use Of Mechanical And Acoustical Excitations For Selective Heat Generation In Polymer-Bonded Energetic Materials, Daniel C. Woods

Open Access Dissertations

To address security issues in both military and civilian settings, there is a pressing need for improved explosives detection technologies suitable for trace vapor detection. In light of the strong dependence of vapor pressure on temperature, trace vapor detection capabilities may be enhanced by selectively heating target materials by external excitation. Moreover, polymer-bonded energetic materials may be particularly susceptible to heating by mechanical or acoustical excitation, due to the high levels of damping and low thermal conductivities of most polymers. In this work, the thermomechanical response of polymer-based energetic composites and methods for acoustical excitation are investigated in order to …

Making Connections, Building Community, Kathryn Conrad

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

If Rumors Were Horses, Katina Strauch

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Deadlines

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Atg Special Report--The Charleston Library Conference Fast Pitch 2016, Ann Okerson, Katina Strauch, Steve Goodall

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Inter-Color Npr Lines: A Comparison Of Rendering Techniques, Donald G. Herring

Open Access Theses

Renders of 3D scenes can feature lines drawn automatically along sharp edges between colored areas on object textures, in order to imitate certain conventional styles of hand-drawn line art. However, such "inter-color lines" have been studied very little. Two algorithms for rendering these lines were compared in this study - a faster one utilizing lines baked into the textures themselves and a more complex one that dynamically generated the lines in image space on each frame - for the purpose of determining which of the two better imitated traditional, hand-drawn art styles and which was more visually appealing. Test subjects …

Fractal Image Editing With Photofrac, Tim Mcgraw, Esteban Garcia Bravo, Jo Mcgraw, Lisa Parker

Computer Graphics Technology Faculty Publications

In this paper, we describe the development and use of PhotoFrac, an application that allows artists and designers to turn digital images into fractal patterns interactively. Fractal equations are a rich source of procedural texture and detail, but controlling the patterns and incorporating traditional media has been difficult. Additionally, the iterative nature of fractal calculations makes implementation of interactive techniques on mobile devices and web apps challenging. We overcome these problems by using an image coordinate based orbit trapping technique that permits a user-selected image to be embedded into the fractal. Performance challenges are addressed by exploiting the processing power …

Collecting To The Core--Cross-Disciplinary Criminal Justice Resources, Beth Sheehan, Anne Doherty

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

From The Reference Desk--Reviews Of Reference Titles, Tom Gilson

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Letters To The Editor, Katina Strauch

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.

Adding Media, Adding Value, Susan Doerr

Against the Grain

No abstract provided.