Digital Commons Network^™

Shared Decision Making, Patient Satisfaction And Medication Use Behavior Among Patients With Diabetes, Gediwon Negash Milky

Open Access Theses

The objectives for this study were to assess association between demographic variables and clinical variables with shared decision making, to assess association between shared decision-making and patient satisfaction with care, and to assess association between shared decision-making and adherence to anti-diabetic medication among patients with diabetes. An observational retrospective cohort study design was employed to achieve the objectives using data from the 2011 to 2014 Medical Expenditure Panel Survey (MEPS). To be included in the sample, MEPS respondents had to have a diagnosis for diabetes, be 18 years old or older, have identified a usual source of care, and made …

Digital Forensic Acquisition Of Virtual Private Servers Hosted In Cloud Providers That Use Kvm As A Hypervisor, Adolfo A. Montironi

Open Access Theses

Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is one of the most popular hypervisors used by cloud providers to offer virtual private servers (VPSs) to their customers. A VPS is just a virtual machine (VM) hired and controlled by a customer but hosted in the cloud provider infrastructure. In spite of the fact that the usage of VPS is popular and will continue to grow in the future, it is rare to fnd technical publications in the digital forensic feld related to the acquisition process of a VPS involved in a crime. For this research, four VMs were created in a KVM virtualization …

Something Fishy? Uncovering Patterns Of Genetic Diversity And The Evolution Of Resistance In Fish Populations, Alexander S. Martinez

Open Access Theses

Chapter 1 Abstract Populations of fishes are increasingly threatened by over-exploitation, pollution, habitat destruction, and climate change. In order to better understand the factors that can explain the amount of genetic diversity in wild populations of fishes, we collected estimates of genetic diversity (mean heterozygosity and mean rarefied number of alleles per locus) along with habitat associations, conservation status, and life history information for 463 fish species. We ran a series of phylogenetic generalized least squares (PGLS) models to determine which factors influence genetic diversity in fishes after accounting for shared evolutionary history among related taxa. We found that marine …

Forest Ecosystem Response To Hemlock Woolly Adelgid (Adelges Tsugae) In The Southern Appalachian Mountains, Meghan L. Mulroy

Open Access Theses

The forests of eastern North America are faced with the loss of Tsuga canadensis (eastern hemlock) as the introduction of Adelges tsugae (hemlock woolly adelgid, HWA) an invasive insect native to Japan, has resulted in widespread T. canadensis mortality. Tsuga canadensis ranges from the southern Appalachian Mountains to the Great Lakes and into Canada. The dense canopies of T. canadensis create a cool, damp microclimate, and these conditions, combined with the tannin chemistry and nutrient poor litter of the species, slows decomposition, creating acidic nutrient-poor soils. As a result, understories under T. canadensis trees are typically species poor. Due to …

A Statistical Spatial Analysis Of The First-Mile-Last-Mile Problem In Public Transportation, Abdullah J. Nafakh

Open Access Theses

In using public transportation, a traveler typically needs to make additional trips to and from the public transit station. These trips are known as the first-mile-last-mile (FMLM) trips. Beyond a certain distance that a traveler is willing to cover to reach the station (the comfortable distance) the traveler considers alternative means of transportation. FMLM trips become an issue when a significant number of commuters are located beyond their comfortable-distances. For this reason, the accessibility to and from public transit stations needs to be addressed as part of the efforts geared toward increasing transit ridership.

A variety of strategies have been …

Towards Highly Sensitive Multi-Analyte Micro-Biosensor Arrays For In Vitro Sensing, James K. Nolan

Open Access Theses

Cells and tissues produce many micron-scale extracellular chemical gradients and fluxes due to metabolism and for communication [1, 2]. These gradients and fluxes have an important role in physiology and pathology. Highly sensitive multi-analyte micro-biosensor arrays would be useful tools for simultaneously measuring the gradients and fluxes of many molecules from cells cultures in vitro. To this end, we have investigated (1) a practical means to functionalize MEAs with two or more enzymes, (2) maximizing the effective surface area of Pt-black-modified biosensor, comparing it to other nanomaterials, (3) the nature of electron transfer between glucose oxidase and single-walled carbon nanotubes, …

Variable Valve Actuation Strategies For Improving Aftertreatment System Efficiency In Modern Diesel Engines Over The Heavy-Duty Federal Test Procedure Certification Cycle, Troy E. Odstrcil

Open Access Theses

Diesel engine aftertreatment thermal management is accomplished through two different strategies: get-hot when the aftertreatment is cold and stay-hot when the aftertreatment is at operating temperatures for efficient emission conversions. Get-hot utilizes high flow rates and temperatures to increase the aftertreatment systems temperatures at the expense of fuel consumption and stay-hot requires high temperatures in a fuel-efficient manner for increased aftertreatment performance. This study investigates the benefits of half-engine non-fired 2-stroke operation to increase the exhaust flow rates for aftertreatment get-hot. For aftertreatment stay-hot, reverse breathing strategies are compared to conventional aftertreatment strategies as well as cylinder deactivation. This study …

Potential Of Biochar To Mitigate The Effects Of Increased Precipitation Variability On Soil Greenhouse Gas Emissions And Soybean Growth, Akane Ota

Open Access Theses

Precipitation variability has been increasing due to climate change, characterized by more frequent heavy rainfalls and more prolonged drought. The projected continuation of this trend in precipitation will likely alter soil greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes and reduce plant growth. These impacts could be ameliorated by biochar addition in soil. Biochar has been shown to suppress soil GHG fluxes by altering microbial activity or substrate availability, and enhance plant growth by improving soil conditions. However, there have been no biochar studies to date under more variable precipitation conditions. I studied the effects of biochar on soil GHG fluxes and soybean (Glycine …

Improving Fret Relay Mechanism For Redox Dynamics In Live Cells, Jake Norley

Open Access Theses

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) have an important role with regards to intracellular signaling throughout the body. Levels of ROS fluctuate dynamically with differing sources of ROS as well as antioxidant mechanisms to regulate oxidative stress, cell to cell signaling, and cellular metabolism. In many cases, localized redox dynamics have not been elucidated due to a lack of tools available to study oxidative fluctuations localized to different compartments of ROS generation within cells. Previously, our lab reported the development of a new family of genetically encoded fluorescent protein redox biosensors. They utilize the ratiometric properties of roGFP2 and extend its fluorescence …

Multi-Scale Modeling For Assessment Of Sub-Surface Damage In Iron-Titanium Carbide Metal Matrix Composites, Yash Pachaury

Open Access Theses

This study is concerned with investigating the effect of laser assisted machining on sub-surface damage during turning of iron-titanium carbide metal matrix composite (MMC) manufactured through laser direct deposition. A high-fidelity 3D multi-scale computational model is presented to predict the macroscopic and micromechanical response of the metal matrix composites undergoing laser assisted turning. Implementation of the multi-scale model has been realized through a hierarchical multi-scale modeling methodology where the results of interfacial mechanics for Fe-TiC composites determined from MD calculations have been used to parameterize the cohesive zone model in the finite element simulations. The 3D nose turning simulation model …

Low-Cost Grain Moisture Meter System Networked To Smartphones, Marisol Pantoja Otero

Open Access Theses

Accurate moisture content measurement is one of the key quality factors listed in grain trade. It is important in determining whether a crop has been dried properly for safe storage and marketing, and it is used by buyers and sellers of grain to estimate the value of the commodity. Unfortunately, many farmers and grain originators in developing countries cannot afford to buy moisture meters and utilize them to routinely determine whether their crops are dried for safe storage, and thus incur huge losses along the value chain. Additionally, farmers are at a disadvantage in trading to high-ended markets, which have …

Genetic Analysis Of Carotenoid Content In Expired Plant Variety Protected Maize (Zea Mays L.) Inbreds, Samuel T. Prather

Open Access Theses

Lutein and zeaxanthin are the only carotenoids preferentially accumulated in the macular region of the eye. Studies have associated reduced risk of age-related macular degeneration with accumulation of lutein and zeaxanthin. Both lutein and zeaxanthin carotenoids can not be synthesized de-novo by humans and must be obtained from dietary sources. In adults over the age of 65 within the developed world, age-related macular degeneration is the leading cause of blindness. Given the prevalence of age-related macular degeneration in developed regions of the world such as the United States, and the expected increase in the human population over 65 years of …

Theories On The Origin Of The Etruscan Language, Adelle Rogers

Open Access Theses

Etruscan was a language once spoken in what is now Tuscany. The origins of both the Etruscan people and the Etruscan language have been debated for thousands of years. The languages of Lemnian and Raetic may be related to Etruscan, however very little is currently known about these two languages. The similarities between Raetic and Etruscan led to the ancient author Livy to claim that Raetic and Etruscan were related. The historian Herodotus had claimed that Etruscans and their language had originated in Anatolia. However, Dionysius of Halicarnassus claimed that the Etruscans were autochthonous to Italy. This debate has continued …

Faster Cnn-Based Object Detection With Adaptive Network Selection On Embedded System, Fengjian Pan

Open Access Theses

Due to the dramatic growth of the amount of video data on the Internet, a need arises for processing the data at cameras and reducing network traffic. Cameras may be deployed in many energy-constrained systems, such as drones, mobile phones, surveillance cameras using renewable energy. These systems have limited computational capability for running state-of-the-art computer vision applications using the convolutional neural network (CNN) for object detection. Such methods divide the input images into equal-size cells and predict bounding boxes by regression on each cell. They also provide the trade-off between accuracy and speed by varying the input image sizes. When …

Raman Thermometric Method Development, Colby W. Raymond

Open Access Theses

Water has an identifiable Raman feature between 3000-4000 cm-1 that can act as a probe for its environment. Generally, on addition of hydrophobic solutes into water, the OH stretching mode is perturbed enough to show changes that indicate a disruption in the hydrogen bonding network. That stretching mode is also highly temperature dependent, exhibiting spectral changes at low temperatures, around 3000-3200 cm-1 & high temperatures, around 3600 cm-1. These regions respectively indicate tetrahedral order or disordered state enhancement. The state enhancement is respectively from either an increase or a breakdown of the rigid hydrogen bonding network. Previous methods of water …

Disney Minority Heroines: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Race, Gender, And American Politics, Brooklyn Russell

Open Access Theses

The Walt Disney Corporation has provided family-centered entertainment, for decades, in the form of animated films, beginning with the adaptation of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). Since then, and succeeding the death of its patriarch in 1966, the Disney Corporation has upheld the legacy of producing films that continue to captivate children through historical, cultural, and rhetorical approaches. However, as generations have passed, Disney heroines have changed and so has their strategies for accomplishing their goals. For decades, Disney has produced similar plot stories using the same character profiles as well: a girl, more often than not living …

Evaluation Of Impact Attenuation Properties Of Soccer And Football Padding Headgear, Goutham Sankaran

Open Access Theses

Roughly 1.6 to 3.8 million sports-related head injuries occur that lead to traumatic brain damage every year [1]. In the absence of visible concussive symptoms, previous studies have proven the presence of repetitive impacts that have led to irreparable neurophysiological damage [2]. This study improves on the currently deployed football NOCSAE helmet evaluation framework to better assess the effectiveness of headgear devices in attenuating translational and angular head accelerations over a range of impacts. Data was collected from two tests: one by impacting a headgear strapped to a Hybrid III head-form to map input force to output accelerations and another …

In-Silico Tensile Testing Of Additively Manufactured Short Fiber Composite, Miguel A. Ramirez

Open Access Theses

The extrusion deposition additive manufacturing process produces a short fiber composite material wherein the details of its microstructure directly depend on the manufacturing process parameters. Performance characterization of these materials may become an expensive and laborious proposition if many processing changes are made. The framework for virtually characterizing the mechanical behavior of additively manufactured short fiber composites has been created based on the homogenization methods utilized in multiscale analyses. Experimental quantification of the microstructure of a printed carbon fiber reinforced polycarbonate with 20% fiber weight fraction was performed. The statistical data obtained from the microstructure were used as input parameters …

Bistable Snapping Structures With Spatially Tailored Deformations Via Distributed Pre- Strain, Katherine S. Riley

Open Access Theses

Materials capable of exhibiting inherent morphing are rare and typically reliant on chemical properties. The resulting diffusion-driven shape adaptability is slow and limited to specific environmental conditions. In contrast, natural composites, such as those found in carnivorous plants, have evolved hierarchical architectures displaying remarkably fast adaptation in response to environmental stimuli. Whereas pre-stress in synthetic structures has conventionally been limited to uniform straight lines and rectilinear geometries, here we present two strategies to achieve spatially distributed pre-stress fields.

The first approach entails the use of magnetically responsive aluminum oxide platelets as reinforcements in an epoxy matrix to create bilayer composite …

Exploring The Knowledge, Skills, And Abilities Of Data Science Professionals, Corey S. Seliger

Open Access Theses

The feld of data science is growing at break-neck speeds. More industries are looking towards data science professionals to fnd, compile, explore, and model data from numerous areas of interest. Currently, there are over 130,000 data science positions open. Professional training and institutions of higher education are unable to train enough individuals to place into these positions. Initial research in this space has started reviewing some of the data in this space, including determining the knowledge, skills, and abilities (KSAs) employers seek in data science candidates and what institutions are providing in the means of preparation in this space. With …

Modeling And Characterization Of High-Power Electronic Devices: System Analysis Of Laser Diodes With Flash Boiling And Gan Hemt Reliability Modeling, Evan L. Schlenker

Open Access Theses

Modern electronics are increasingly more capable of high-power density operation, which presents important thermal challenges. High-power laser diode bars have proliferated in recent years, and while they can generate high optical powers, slope efficiencies are theoretically limited, resulting in high excess heat loads and consequent temperature shifts that can impair many applications. As a result, managing the ensuing heat flux and temperature changes has become increasingly important. Although traditional single-phase cooling solutions are limited by their convection coefficient to a certain temperature difference, two-phase solutions have potential for significantly higher convective coefficients. Flash boiling is a cooling method that can …

An Experimental Diminished Reality Implementation For Augmented Reality Furniture Shopping Applications, Zhengda Shi

Open Access Theses

This study focuses on implementation and user satisfaction assessment of a newly designed diminished reality method. To improve customers’ experience in previewing the result of replacing large furniture at home, an experimental method which covers a background rendering overlay cube on the target furniture was designed. An application implementing this method was developed, and a user experience survey was conducted. We were expecting our method would help customers find appropriate furniture and make decisions, but the result showed the reversed effect. However, some conclusions of this study can be useful for other future research.

A Multi-Objective Design Optimization Approach For Suas Fleet Design & Allocation In Meteorological Sampling Operations, Brandon E. Sells

Open Access Theses

Many potential small Unmanned Aerial Systems (sUAS) applications require or would benefit from deploying a fleet of aircraft to perform a mission. Fleet operations present advantages to maximize mission success by using additional sUAS; however, an additional advantage exists in the ability to design a bespoke sUAS and capitalize on the innovation in rapid prototyping and collaborative control. If this fleet includes new, yet-to-be-designed sUAS, the problem of both designing the new sUAS and allocating the fleet becomes a challenging optimization problem. Starting from promising work in similar applications, this work will investigate how a decomposition approach will allow a …

Functionalization Of Hyaluronic Acid Hydrogels With Ecm-Derived Peptides To Control Myoblast Behavior, Juan Martin Silva Garcia

Open Access Theses

Volumetric muscle loss (VML) occurs when skeletal muscle injury is too large for the body’s self-regenerative capabilities. As a consequence, fibrotic tissue fills the void, which reduces muscle functionality and limb movement. In the military, VML occurs mainly through explosions which represent more than 70% of total war injuries. Otherwise, the most common causes are traumatic accidents, tumor ablation, and musculoskeletal diseases.

Although a wide variety of natural and synthetic scaffolds have been studied with the purpose of providing the appropriate structural support, to date no scaffold has been able to significantly restore muscle functionality after VML. Satellite cells, adult …

Physiological Changes In Hippocampal Ca3-Ca1 Network Following Pilocarpine Induced Status Epilepticus, Alexandra L. Sommer

Open Access Theses

Status Epilepticus has been shown to increase the risk of developing epilepsy later in life. Anatomical changes such as dendritic instability and reduction in neurotransmitter associated vesicles have been found within the hippocampus. In this study, local field potential recordings in hippocampal slices were measured to determine how the anatomical variation between control and status epilepticus induced animals correlated to function changes in synaptic efficacy and plasticity. Rats and mice induced with status epilepticus were found to have decreased synaptic efficacy, but appeared to demonstrate varying plasticity compensation at different stimulation intensities.

Detection Of Arsenic In Skin In Vivo Using Portable X-Ray Fluorescence (Pxrf) Device, Kevinraj N. Sukumar

Open Access Theses

Arsenic is an element that is highly toxic in its inorganic form. It is widely distributed especially in water that becomes a primary source of exposure for human consumption. Chronic exposure can cause a variety of diseases such as lung cancer, bladder cancer, skin cancer, vascular diseases, and diabetes mellitus. Biomarkers for arsenic exposure are tissues that contain keratin such as hair, nails, and skin. Skin is an ideal biomarker due to its cumulative property that provides information about the individual long-term exposure to arsenic. Hence, a method for measuring arsenic levels in vivo will be useful to study the …

Alcohol Consumption And Physical Activity In College Students: Investigating The Role Of Guilt And Body Image, Jonathan R. Spencer

Open Access Theses

Background. Recent studies have shown evidence of a positive relationship between alcohol consumption and physical activity among college students. However, the association is weak and there is high variability across studies with respect to the measurement of both behaviors and analysis methods. Purpose. Two studies are contained within this research. The aim of Study 1 was to provide reliability and validity evidence for the use and interpretation of the measurement instruments in college students. The specific aims of Study 2 were (1) to determine whether the feeling of guilt related to alcohol use mediates the alcohol use—physical activity behavior association, …

Gas Rarefaction Effects In Nonlinear Acoustic Wave Steepening, Shubham Thirani

Open Access Theses

A numerical investigation of the effects of gas rarefaction on the steepening of planar nonlinear acoustic waves has been presented here. To this end, a problem setup consisting of a piston-tube assembly with adiabatic walls and the piston oscillating at the fundamental harmonic frequency of the tube was considered. The Knudsen number, which is a metric of the degree of rarefaction of the gas, considered for the assembly ranges from 0.1 to 10−5 with decrements of an order of magnitude between successive cases. The computational setup consists of numerical schemes based on the Bhatnagar-Gross-Krook (BGK) model for the Boltzmann equation …

Impacts Of Roads On Non-Native Plant Invasions Into U.S. Forests Under Different Land-Use And Ecoregion Settings, Benjamin S. Taylor

Open Access Theses

Plant invasions can often be attributed to human influences such as roadways and land-uses. It is not clear if roads and land use have a combined influence that can exacerbate plant invasions into forests. Additionally, variation in invasion patterns among forest regions could be better explained by potentially differing influences from roads and land-use. I hypothesized that roads aid plant invasions into forests by allowing invasive plants to establish along adjacent roadsides. Additionally, impacts of land use can exacerbate the road effects (i.e., number of invasive plant species & distance of invasive plants from a road). Here, using data from …

Restoring Joint Lubrication: The Development Of A Biomimetic Lubricin Peptidoglycan To Reduce Friction At The Articular Cartilage Surface, Celina M. Twitchell

Open Access Theses

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a painful and debilitating disease affecting 27 million people nationwide and is often characterized by the degradation of articular cartilage. The loss of lubrication in synovial joints is a major contributor to cartilage damage, and damage can be prevented if proper lubrication is restored through supplemental lubricant treatments. Hyaluronic acid (HA) injections are on the market today, but there is little clinical evidence to support that these products are effective in treating the long-term effects of osteoarthritis. Lubricin, a lubricating proteoglycan found in the human synovial fluid, has become a potential alternative to HA injections. Overall, lubricin …