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Bringing Pandemic Science To The Classroom: Building Public Health Capacity At A Rural Kentucky High School, Sahar Alameh, Anna G. Hoover, James W. Keck, Scott M. Berry, Sagan Goodpaster, Savannah Tucker, Ashley Goodin Jan 2026

Bringing Pandemic Science To The Classroom: Building Public Health Capacity At A Rural Kentucky High School, Sahar Alameh, Anna G. Hoover, James W. Keck, Scott M. Berry, Sagan Goodpaster, Savannah Tucker, Ashley Goodin

Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) Education Faculty Publications

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, a multidisciplinary team at the University of Kentucky developed an interdisciplinary science, technology, engineering, and mathematics and environmental health unit—the Wastewater Assessment for Coronavirus in Kentucky: Implementing Enhanced Surveillance Technology (WACKIEST) Unit—for high school students in summer 2022. This case study outlines the WACKIEST Unit, which focused on wastewater surveillance and COVID-19, the obstacles faced during development and recruitment, and implementation of the WACKIEST Unit in conjunction with a rural wastewater surveillance initiative. The unit was implemented in spring 2023 at a rural high school in Kentucky, spanning 12 days and engaging 190 students. …


Contemporary Commercial Music: A Scoping Review With Implications For Music Therapy Practice, John A. Lawwill Jan 2026

Contemporary Commercial Music: A Scoping Review With Implications For Music Therapy Practice, John A. Lawwill

Theses and Dissertations--Music

Contemporary Commercial Music (CCM) is an increasingly popular group of non-classical musical styles. Music therapists need to know how to sing a wide variety of CCM genres authentically, yet little information exists on effectively teaching vocal CCM techniques to music therapists. The purpose of this study was to conduct a scoping review on CCM singing instruction and to synthesize implications for music therapists. I used EBSCOhost and ProQuest to search for reports in English published after 2002 containing the terms “Contemporary Commercial Music” or “CCM,” and variations of the term “sing.” I identified 26 reports that met inclusion criteria, including …


Seriosa And The Song Recital Tradition: Reframing The Antologi Musik Klasik Indonesia: Seri I—Vokal Dan Piano (Seriosa), Pharel Silaban Jan 2026

Seriosa And The Song Recital Tradition: Reframing The Antologi Musik Klasik Indonesia: Seri I—Vokal Dan Piano (Seriosa), Pharel Silaban

Theses and Dissertations--Music

This project traces the changing life of seriosa, later known as Indonesian art song, from its colonial emergence in the 1930s–1950s to its post-independence expansion and institutional contraction in the 1960s–1980s, and contemporary reframing since the early 2000s. It argues that the genre functioned as a vocal infrastructure that coordinated training, repertoire production, radio broadcast circulation, and public audibility. The study further shows that when the influence of Radio Republik Indonesia weakened, the fragility of this infrastructure became visible. Efforts to sustain the genre by figures such as Rose Pandanwangi, Pranawengrum Katamsi, Catharina Wiriadinata Leimena, and Aning Katamsi appeared …


Implementations Of Improvisation And Existing Materials In Electroacoustic Composition, Jeffrey Todd-Voyten Jan 2026

Implementations Of Improvisation And Existing Materials In Electroacoustic Composition, Jeffrey Todd-Voyten

Theses and Dissertations--Music

I have developed my compositional process through the use of sound synthesis, existing materials, and improvisation. When combining these techniques and resources, human gestures can emerge from inhuman materials in a dialogue between machines and humans. This thesis is an overview of my initial inquiries into the continuum of human agency and machine intervention, considering aspects of patch-programming, formal structure, and performance practice. In addition to the aforementioned compositional methods, this thesis also considers musico-dramatic meaning and personal musical influences outside the scope of electroacoustic music.


Cultus: Eco-Phenomenology In The Work Of John Steinbeck, Robinson Jeffers, And Jack London, Carter D. Johnson Jan 2026

Cultus: Eco-Phenomenology In The Work Of John Steinbeck, Robinson Jeffers, And Jack London, Carter D. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations--English

In the face of increasingly dire environmental crises, proposed solutions have gravitated toward imperatives for faster, cleaner, and more efficient technologies and resources. While practical solutions are necessary, they are entirely insufficient to deal with an underlying issue driving environmental degradation: unbridled instrumental reason. In this dissertation, I suggest a theoretical posture, cultus, which attempts to balance the necessity of instrumental action with the guiding counterweight of receptivity. Furthermore, I argue that such personal receptivity is uniquely fostered in aesthetic experiences, attuning the individual to the non-identical and renewing a relationship of care.

I examine the life and work of …


Interpretable Deep Learning Reveals Spatiotemporal Mri Features Of Brain Aging That Align With Neurodegeneration, Nikhil N. Chaudhari, Owen M. Vega, Phoebe Imms, Jaron M. Kawamura, Nahian F. Chowdhury, Tamara Jafar, Andrei Irimia, Kenneth Spicer, Crystal Flynn Longmire, Jacobo Mintzer, Yaneicy Gonazalez Rojas, V. Sotelo, William Hu, Floyd Jones, Amy Saklad, Sudha Seshadri, Amy Boegel, Sydni Jenee Hill, Paul Newhouse, Rebecca Long, Campbell Long, Arthur Williams, Allison Acree, Olga Brawman-Mintzer, Chelsea Reichert, Vita Pomara, Raymundo Hernando, Nunzio Pomara, Skieff Acothley, Nadeen Elayan, Micah Ellis Slaughter Jan 2026

Interpretable Deep Learning Reveals Spatiotemporal Mri Features Of Brain Aging That Align With Neurodegeneration, Nikhil N. Chaudhari, Owen M. Vega, Phoebe Imms, Jaron M. Kawamura, Nahian F. Chowdhury, Tamara Jafar, Andrei Irimia, Kenneth Spicer, Crystal Flynn Longmire, Jacobo Mintzer, Yaneicy Gonazalez Rojas, V. Sotelo, William Hu, Floyd Jones, Amy Saklad, Sudha Seshadri, Amy Boegel, Sydni Jenee Hill, Paul Newhouse, Rebecca Long, Campbell Long, Arthur Williams, Allison Acree, Olga Brawman-Mintzer, Chelsea Reichert, Vita Pomara, Raymundo Hernando, Nunzio Pomara, Skieff Acothley, Nadeen Elayan, Micah Ellis Slaughter

Neurology Faculty Publications

Cortical thinning and atrophy are hallmarks of brain aging that have been characterized using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI). Brain aging involves many neuroanatomic features whose effects on brain structure remain unexplored. To address this challenge, we trained interpretable deep neural networks (DNNs) to estimate brain age (BA) from T1-weighted (T1w) MRI. By identifying MRI features unapparent to humans, DNNs can find aging-related structural alterations above and beyond cortical thickness and atrophy. Using a novel approach to DNN interpretability, we mapped brain aging progression in 25,539 cognitively normal UK Biobank adults aged 45–83 years. Cortical aging is …


Autosiq, Liming Zhou, Talukder Z. Jubery, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Thomas Lübberstedt, Siddique I. Aboobucker Jan 2026

Autosiq, Liming Zhou, Talukder Z. Jubery, Baskar Ganapathysubramanian, Thomas Lübberstedt, Siddique I. Aboobucker

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Doubled haploid (DH) technology can fast-track crop breeding.Haploid induction yields haploids with only one set of genomes, which are usually sterile.Haploid fertility (HF) is the ability of haploid plants to set seed, and it is a critical bottleneck in DH pipelines.Genetic mechanisms to restore HF hold immense potential in DH crop breeding, yet its phenotyping remains manual, destructive, and inconsistent.While recent advances in imaging and machine learning have improved throughput for general plant traits, no curated image dataset exists for Arabidopsis thaliana that explicitly represents HF.Here, we present AutoSiQ, a dataset and baseline deep learning pipeline for automated HF quantification.AutoSiQ …


Proposal Of Metagenomic-Origin Lra-5 As A Precursor Of Active Β-Lactamases Through Tyr69gln And Val166glu Amino Acid Substitutions, Gabriela D'Amico González, María Margarita Rodríguez, Pedro Penzotti, Florencia Brunetti, Barbara Ghiglione, Luke A. Moe, Daniela Centrón, Gabriel Gutkind, Lin Gao, Shozeb Haider, Rachel A. Powers, Sebastián Klinke, Pablo Power Jan 2026

Proposal Of Metagenomic-Origin Lra-5 As A Precursor Of Active Β-Lactamases Through Tyr69gln And Val166glu Amino Acid Substitutions, Gabriela D'Amico González, María Margarita Rodríguez, Pedro Penzotti, Florencia Brunetti, Barbara Ghiglione, Luke A. Moe, Daniela Centrón, Gabriel Gutkind, Lin Gao, Shozeb Haider, Rachel A. Powers, Sebastián Klinke, Pablo Power

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Wild-type LRA-5, recovered from Alaskan soil samples, shares no more than 33% amino acid sequence identity with enzymes from pathogens like PER β-lactamases. Recombinant E. coli expressing wild-type LRA-5 and its engineered variants LRA-5Y69Q and LRA-5V166E showed MIC values equivalent to control strains. However, LRA-5Y69Q/V166E displayed MICs above the resistant breakpoint for some β-lactams. Kinetic parameters correlated with the MICs, showing that the catalytic efficiency of LRA-5Y69Q/V166E was comparable to those from class A β-lactamases, such as CTX-M-15, PER-2, and KPC-2. LRA-5Y69Q/V166E exhibited kcat/Km values up to 11,000-fold higher compared to wild-type …


Hybrid Genome And Enzyme Characterization Uncover Novel Glycosyltransferases Associated With Benzylisoquinoline Alkaloid Chemodiversity In Lotus, Hedi Zhao, Xinyi Qi, Yan Liu, Zhuyin Chen, Yifan Wang, Jing Que, Yanyan Su, Ling Yuan, Gangqiang Dong, An Liu, Zhennan Wang, Sha Chen Jan 2026

Hybrid Genome And Enzyme Characterization Uncover Novel Glycosyltransferases Associated With Benzylisoquinoline Alkaloid Chemodiversity In Lotus, Hedi Zhao, Xinyi Qi, Yan Liu, Zhuyin Chen, Yifan Wang, Jing Que, Yanyan Su, Ling Yuan, Gangqiang Dong, An Liu, Zhennan Wang, Sha Chen

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Introduction: Hybridization is a key evolutionary force that enriches genetic diversity and is associated with metabolic innovation. Lotus (Nelumbo), comprising Asian lotus (N. nucifera) and American lotus (N. lutea), is both a culturally important ornamental and medicinal plant rich in benzylisoquinoline alkaloids (BIAs). However, the genomic and biochemical basis of BIA glycoside biosynthesis remains poorly understood. Objectives: A high-quality hybrid lotus genome was presented to dissect the formation of benzylisoquinoline alkaloid glycosides and the mechanism underlying their synthesis. Methods: The chromosomal-level hybrid genome was constructed through PacBio HiFi, ONT Ultra-long, and Hi-C sequencing data combined assembly strategies. The metabolite and …


The Role Of Small Extracellular Vesicles In Modulating Radiation Resistance In H3k27m-Pediatric Diffuse Midline Glioma, Viral Oza Jan 2026

The Role Of Small Extracellular Vesicles In Modulating Radiation Resistance In H3k27m-Pediatric Diffuse Midline Glioma, Viral Oza

Theses and Dissertations--Molecular and Cellular Biochemistry

Pediatric diffuse midline gliomas with H3K27M alteration (H3K27M-pDMG) are the leading cause of pediatric brain tumor-associated deaths. All H3K27M-pDMG are initially treated with fractionated radiotherapy, the standard of care, and most children succumb to their disease within two years of diagnosis. There are no universally effective chemotherapies and full resection is impossible due to the diffuse nature of the tumor and sensitive location. There has not been a significant clinical advancement in more than 40 years.

Tumors become completely resistant to radiation within the first six months of treatment. The mechanism of radiation resistance is unknown but is thought to …


Rna-Micelles As Self-Assembling Structures For Efficient Co-Delivery Of Synergistic Sirna And Nucleoside Analogues To Treat Crc Lung Metastasis, Kai Jin, Piotr G. Rychahou, Daniel W. Binzel, B. Mark Evers, Peixuan Guo Jan 2026

Rna-Micelles As Self-Assembling Structures For Efficient Co-Delivery Of Synergistic Sirna And Nucleoside Analogues To Treat Crc Lung Metastasis, Kai Jin, Piotr G. Rychahou, Daniel W. Binzel, B. Mark Evers, Peixuan Guo

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

SiRNA has been widely studied in cancer gene silencing over the last 25 years. However, few siRNA-based therapeutics have been approved by the FDA. An RNA-micelle platform provides a powerful therapeutic tool through simple one-step, high-yield production that is capable of efficient colorectal cancer lung metastasis treatment, a current lethal condition with a short survival rate post-diagnosis. Here, it is reported that the use of RNA-micelles co-carrying siRNA and nucleoside analogues to completely inhibit lung metastasis of colorectal cancer (CRC). The major advantage of the RNA-micelle is the successful co-delivery of siRNA and chemotherapeutic agent in a single delivery vehicle …


Eef2k Promotes Immune Evasion In Melanoma Via Cyclin D1–Mediated Stabilization Of Pd-L1, Yijie Ren, Darby J. Ballard, Anil Kumar, Andy F. Song, Mitiksha Gupta, Xiaofang Xiong, Xingcong Ren, Jugal Kishore Das, Jin-Ming Yang, Jianxun Song Jan 2026

Eef2k Promotes Immune Evasion In Melanoma Via Cyclin D1–Mediated Stabilization Of Pd-L1, Yijie Ren, Darby J. Ballard, Anil Kumar, Andy F. Song, Mitiksha Gupta, Xiaofang Xiong, Xingcong Ren, Jugal Kishore Das, Jin-Ming Yang, Jianxun Song

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Eukaryotic elongation factor 2 kinase (eEF2K) is a stress-responsive regulator of protein synthesis implicated in melanoma progression, but its role in tumor immune evasion remains poorly defined. We investigated how eEF2K influences programmed death ligand 1 (PD-L1) expression through modulation of Cyclin D1. We analyzed gene expression and dependency datasets from The Cancer Genome Atlas and the Cancer Dependency Map. Protein–protein interactions were assessed by co-immunoprecipitation. Cyclin D1 was inhibited pharmacologically with palbociclib. Immune responses were evaluated in murine B16-OVA and human A2058 melanoma models using flow cytometry and immunohistochemistry after genetic or pharmacologic modulation of eEF2K and Cyclin D1. …


Targeting Rsk2 Reverses Endocrine Resistance In Er-Positive Breast Cancer Via Inhibiting The C-Myc–Erbb4 Signaling Pathway, Ting Jiang, Shilong Jiang, Yueying Cheng, Xiaohui Yu, Zonglin Chen, Hang Li, Shijun Cao, Zhongyuan Xiang, Ruigang Zhao, Wenjun Yi, Jinming Yang, Yan Cheng Jan 2026

Targeting Rsk2 Reverses Endocrine Resistance In Er-Positive Breast Cancer Via Inhibiting The C-Myc–Erbb4 Signaling Pathway, Ting Jiang, Shilong Jiang, Yueying Cheng, Xiaohui Yu, Zonglin Chen, Hang Li, Shijun Cao, Zhongyuan Xiang, Ruigang Zhao, Wenjun Yi, Jinming Yang, Yan Cheng

Markey Cancer Center Faculty Publications

Endocrine therapy remains a major adjuvant treatment for estrogen receptor (ER)-positive breast cancer, yet its clinical efficacy is frequently compromised by primary or acquired resistance, leading to tumor recurrence and poor prognosis. In this study, we identified RSK2 (p90 ribosomal S6 kinase 2) as a critical mediator of endocrine resistance in ER-positive breast cancer. Analysis of publicly available datasets and our clinical samples revealed that high expression of RSK2 is associated with unfavorable outcomes in patients treated with endocrine therapy. RSK2 overexpression confers resistance to both tamoxifen and fulvestrant, two commonly used ER antagonists. We show that RSK2 is upregulated …


Numerical Analysis And Simulation Of Enhanced Performance In Nanowire Cds/Cdte Solar Cells: A Pathway To Greater Than 25% Efficient Cdte Solar Cell, Riasad Badhan Jan 2026

Numerical Analysis And Simulation Of Enhanced Performance In Nanowire Cds/Cdte Solar Cells: A Pathway To Greater Than 25% Efficient Cdte Solar Cell, Riasad Badhan

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

This Thesis finds a pathway to a significantly high-efficient CdTe based solar cell by demonstrating and harvesting the advantages of a nano-structure configuration in CdTe based solar cells. Nanowire CdS window layer and the “control”, planar CdS window layer films were fabricated in the laboratory and compared for their optical transmission and other characteristics affecting the performance of the CdS-CdTe solar cell. Numerical simulations were performed for a comparative evaluation of the embedded nanowire CdS-CdTe solar cell device and the traditional planar CdS-CdTe solar cell device. Experimentally measured spectral transmission of nanowire CdS film was used in the simulation environment. …


Robotizing Complex Welding Processes Through Imitation Learning And Generative Models From Human Demonstration, Yue Cao Jan 2026

Robotizing Complex Welding Processes Through Imitation Learning And Generative Models From Human Demonstration, Yue Cao

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Arc welding processes demand real-time adaptive control that current robotic systems cannot achieve autonomously. This dissertation develops a systematic framework to robotize complex welding by learning from human demonstration, integrating generative modeling, physics-informed reconstruction, and model-based imitation learning. First, human--robot collaboration systems are established for both Gas Tungsten Arc Welding (GTAW) and Double-Electrode Gas Metal Arc Welding, combining robotic teleoperation with virtual reality interfaces to capture high-quality operator demonstrations. Second, a physics-informed neural network framework reconstructs complete molten pool flow fields from high-speed imaging, enriching process understanding beyond direct sensor observation. Third, generative models, including a hybrid latent variational autoencoder …


Challenges And Applications Of Fine-Grained Temporal Action Understanding: Modeling Temporal Granularity And Data Efficiency, Halil I. Helvaci Jan 2026

Challenges And Applications Of Fine-Grained Temporal Action Understanding: Modeling Temporal Granularity And Data Efficiency, Halil I. Helvaci

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Fine-grained Temporal Action Segmentation (TAS) has become a cornerstone of video understanding, offering dense frame-level predictions essential for clinical assessment, surgical skill evaluation, and human-computer interaction. While TAS methods have delivered strong results on coarse-grained benchmarks, two fundamental challenges persist: (1) global attention mechanisms dilute boundary information critical for subsecond precision, a phenomenon we term the temporal granularity bottleneck, and (2) dense frame-level annotation remains prohibitively expensive, with most datasets requiring exhaustive labeling of lengthy untrimmed videos. These challenges are particularly pronounced in medical domains, where sub-second primitives define clinical outcomes while expert annotation remains scarce. In this dissertation, we …


Design Of Energy-Efficient, Scalable, And Flexible Tensor Processing Architectures With Electro-Photonic Integrated Circuits, Oluwaseun Alo Jan 2026

Design Of Energy-Efficient, Scalable, And Flexible Tensor Processing Architectures With Electro-Photonic Integrated Circuits, Oluwaseun Alo

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

In recent years, artificial intelligence has achieved remarkable success across domains such as computer vision, natural language processing, and scientific computing. This progress has been driven largely by advances in deep learning, particularly deep neural networks (DNNs), including convolutional neural networks (CNNs) and transformer-based models. While these models deliver unprecedented accuracy, often surpassing human performance, their computational complexity continues to grow rapidly due to multibillion- and trillion-parameter designs. As model sizes and deployment scales expand, the demand for energy-efficient and high-throughput hardware accelerators has intensified. Conventional electronic platforms based on CPUs, GPUs, ASICs, and FPGAs are increasingly constrained by the …


Learning-Enabled Methods For Optimal, Constrained, And Fault-Tolerant Robot Motion Planning, Charles L. Clark Jan 2026

Learning-Enabled Methods For Optimal, Constrained, And Fault-Tolerant Robot Motion Planning, Charles L. Clark

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Safe and efficient motion planning is a core requirement for robots operating in complex real-world environments, yet traditional model-based approaches struggle to simultaneously achieve computational efficiency, solution optimality, and the ability to handle complex constraints and potential hardware failures. This dissertation investigates how neural networks, as general purpose function approximators, can be leveraged in both traditional and novel ways to overcome these limitations and advance beyond what purely model-based methods can offer. Three distinct contributions are presented. First, a new motion planner is developed that uses ReLU neural networks to decompose the configuration space into linear cost regions, enabling existing …


Advancing Edge Intelligence: Strategies For Improving Machine Learning On Embedded Devices, Prakash Dhungana Jan 2026

Advancing Edge Intelligence: Strategies For Improving Machine Learning On Embedded Devices, Prakash Dhungana

Theses and Dissertations--Electrical and Computer Engineering

Artificial intelligence (AI) has demonstrated tremendous success in handling complex tasks across multiple domains, a leap largely attributed to complex deep neural network (DNN) architectures. However, the increasing demand for real-time processing, low latency, limited connectivity, and enhanced privacy necessitates edge intelligence, where computation is performed directly on resource-constrained embedded devices rather than relying on cloud infrastructures. While optimized TinyML techniques such as pruning, quantization, and neural architecture search (NAS) have made edge deployment feasible by significantly reducing computation and memory demands, achievable performance remains severely limited by hardware constraints. Furthermore, models deployed in highly dynamic real-world environments suffer from …


Implementing A Competency-Based Cross-Training Program To Enhance Patient Flow, Jill E. Shanklin Jan 2026

Implementing A Competency-Based Cross-Training Program To Enhance Patient Flow, Jill E. Shanklin

DNP Projects

Objective: To evaluate the effect of a competency-based cross-training program on perinatal nurses’ preparedness to care for medical-surgical (med-surg) overflow patients and to support patient flow.

Design: Quality improvement project using a quasi-experimental pre–post design.

Setting: A 44-bed perinatal unit within a university-affiliated medical center in the United States.

Participants: Registered nurses employed in the perinatal unit for ≥6 months; 24 completed the preintervention survey and 28 completed the postintervention survey.

Interventions: A competency-based cross-training program consisting of e-learning modules, simulation-based competency validation, and structured policy and procedure review.

Main Outcome Measures: Self-reported comfort, …


Eco-Friendly Solvent-Based Fabrication Of Single-Layer And Polydopamine-Modified Bilayer Pvdf-Hfp Membranes, Eesh M. Kulshrestha Jan 2026

Eco-Friendly Solvent-Based Fabrication Of Single-Layer And Polydopamine-Modified Bilayer Pvdf-Hfp Membranes, Eesh M. Kulshrestha

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

The growing global demand for clean drinking water has intensified the need for advanced water treatment technologies capable of efficiently removing contaminants while maintaining environmental sustainability. Polymeric membrane systems have emerged as an effective approach for water separations due to their high separation efficiency, simplicity, and adaptability to a wide range of water treatment applications. However, traditional membrane fabrication processes often rely on toxic organic solvents, such as N-methyl-2-pyrrolidone (NMP) and diemethylacetamide (DMAc), which pose environmental and health risks. These concerns have led to an increase in regulatory restrictions, primarily through the Registration, Evaluation, Authorisation, and Restriction of Chemicals (REACH) …


Investigation Of Succinylated Zwitterionic Polyethylenimine/Dna Complexes: Performance In Serum, Internalization, And Intracellular Fate, Levi Lampe Jan 2026

Investigation Of Succinylated Zwitterionic Polyethylenimine/Dna Complexes: Performance In Serum, Internalization, And Intracellular Fate, Levi Lampe

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

Gene therapy has promised to revolutionize medicine since the earliest clinical trials, but a lack of delivery methods that are both safe and efficient has hampered progress. Gene therapy with viral vectors is effective at delivering nucleic acids to cells, but is associated with dangerous immunogenic responses and cancer-causing insertions into the genome. Viral vectors are also among the most prohibitively costly therapeutics in medicine. Polymeric vectors avoid these dangers and are made from inexpensive, off-the- shelf materials, but have been hindered by poor efficiency compared to viral vectors.

A benchmark polymer for in vitro nucleic acid delivery has been …


Aqueous Synthesis Of Luminescent Semiconductors For Opto-Electronic Applications, Saurabh Singh Jan 2026

Aqueous Synthesis Of Luminescent Semiconductors For Opto-Electronic Applications, Saurabh Singh

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

The advancement of opto-electronic and scintillation technologies relies heavily on developing low-temperature, eco-friendly, and scalable synthesis routes for high performance luminescent halide-based semiconductor materials. However, traditional synthesis methods for halide-based semiconductors, including hot-injection, solvothermal, solid-state reactions, Ligand-Assisted Reprecipitation (LARP), microwave-assisted synthesis, and thin film deposition techniques (spin coating, physical vapor deposition (PVD), chemical vapor deposition (CVD), etc.), often demand toxic organic/inorganic solvents, elevated processing temperatures, and high vacuum/inert environments. Such constraints limit their scalability, raise environmental concerns, and impede their commercial-level device integration. This research overcomes these long-standing challenges by employing water as a powerful crystallization-directing, and environmentally benign medium …


Utilizing Coal For Mesophase Pitch-Based Carbon Fiber Production: Precursors, Processes, And Progress, Christina M. Thompson Jan 2026

Utilizing Coal For Mesophase Pitch-Based Carbon Fiber Production: Precursors, Processes, And Progress, Christina M. Thompson

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Graphitic materials possess unique properties due to the unique combination of layered crystalline structure and carbon’s low atomic weight. High performance carbon fiber is one such example, displaying exceptional strength-to-weight ratios, stiffness, and thermal and chemical resistance. These properties render high performance carbon fiber a critical structural reinforcement material in the manufacture of composites across various industries, such as for automotive and aerospace applications. However, balancing fiber performance with precursor and processing costs remains a challenge. As alternative carbonaceous feedstocks are explored, coal has gained interest for utilization in graphitic products as a relatively abundant and low-cost source of aromatic …


Elucidating The Impacts Of Non-Covalent Interactions In Organic Materials Through A Multiscale Computational Approach, Sashen A. Ruhunage Jan 2026

Elucidating The Impacts Of Non-Covalent Interactions In Organic Materials Through A Multiscale Computational Approach, Sashen A. Ruhunage

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Noncovalent interactions (NCIs) in π-conjugated organic materials serve as tunable levers that influence molecular structure and intermolecular interactions in the condensed phase and, in turn, impact the electronic, optical, and mechanical properties of these materials. NCIs include attractive dispersion, electrostatic, and induction interactions, as well as repulsive exchange interactions. However, how to design materials with NCI considerations remains an open question across many fields. Here, we seek to provide an electronic and atomistic perspective on these interactions through multiscale simulations to aid materials design, processing, and performance optimization. In this study, we investigate NCIs and their effects across various systems …


Scrolling, Searching, And Self-Diagnosing: Examining How Social Media Influences Self- Diagnosis And Shapes Mental Health Literacy, Conceptualization, And Identity Development, Sara Elaine Hamilton Jan 2026

Scrolling, Searching, And Self-Diagnosing: Examining How Social Media Influences Self- Diagnosis And Shapes Mental Health Literacy, Conceptualization, And Identity Development, Sara Elaine Hamilton

DSW Capstone Projects

This capstone examines the influence of social media on the growing issue of self-diagnosis of mental health disorders through three scholarly works: a systematic literature review (SLR), a conceptual paper, and practice application paper. Accessibility, anonymity, and social isolation are identified as contributing factors of self-diagnosis, as individuals increasingly prioritize convenience over traditional help-seeking methods. Research suggests that self-diagnosis is influenced by misinformation and reinforced by validation and a sense of belonging, leading individuals to internalize mental health disorders as part of their identity. Findings further indicate that social media plays a significant role in the dissemination of misinformation about …


Effect Of Substrate Dispersion Method And Particle Size On In Vitro Digestibility, Gas Production Kinetics And Composition, And Fermentation Characteristics In Different Feed Types, Luiz C. O. Sousa, Ellem M. A. Matos, Ronald J. Trotta, Edenio Detmann, David L. Harmon Jan 2026

Effect Of Substrate Dispersion Method And Particle Size On In Vitro Digestibility, Gas Production Kinetics And Composition, And Fermentation Characteristics In Different Feed Types, Luiz C. O. Sousa, Ellem M. A. Matos, Ronald J. Trotta, Edenio Detmann, David L. Harmon

Animal and Food Sciences Faculty Publications

Our objective was to evaluate the influence of substrate dispersion method and particle size on in vitro digestibility, gas production kinetics and composition, and fermentation characteristics of different feed types. Alfalfa hay, tall fescue hay, ground corn, soybean meal, and a total mixed ration (TMR) were used as substrates. Treatments were designed according to a 2 × 2 × 5 factorial arrangement: two substrate dispersion methods (loose substrate and in filter bags), two particle sizes (1 mm and 2 mm), and five feeds. Filter bags decreased (P ≤ 0.001) digestibility and gas production compared with loose samples. Filter bags decreased …


Soybean Meal Mitigates Vasoconstriction And Serotonin Suppression During Fescue Toxicosis In Beef Cattle, Luiz C.O. Sousa, Brittany E. Davis, David L. Harmon, Ronald J. Trotta Jan 2026

Soybean Meal Mitigates Vasoconstriction And Serotonin Suppression During Fescue Toxicosis In Beef Cattle, Luiz C.O. Sousa, Brittany E. Davis, David L. Harmon, Ronald J. Trotta

Animal and Food Sciences Faculty Publications

Legume supplementation has been shown to mitigate fescue toxicosis in beef cattle. However, no studies have directly compared the use of soybean-based feeds to alleviate symptoms of fescue toxicosis under controlled environmental heat and equalized feed intake. The objectives were to evaluate the effects of soybean hulls, whole soybeans, or soybean meal (SBM) supplementation on the mitigation of vasoconstriction, heat stress, and inflammatory responses in beef cattle during fescue toxicosis. Ten ruminally-cannulated Angus × Holstein steers were used in a 5 × 10 Latin rectangle design. Five treatments were evaluated: 1) non-toxic endophyte-infected tall fescue seed (NTE), 2) toxic endophyte-infected …


Working Memory In The Pigeon: An Alternative Paradigm, Daniel Peng Jan 2026

Working Memory In The Pigeon: An Alternative Paradigm, Daniel Peng

Theses and Dissertations--Psychology

One of the most widely used measures of working memory in non-human animals is the delayed matching to sample (DMTS) design. While this design can assess for duration of working memory, alternative accounts can be made to explain decrements in retention. In addition, DMTS does not assess capacity of working memory in terms of number of items able to be held. The works in this dissertation aims to design a paradigm to measure capacity of number of items held in memory for non-human animals by asking animals to make a specific response after presentation of a random spatial sequence. While …


Numerical Modeling Of Multi-Scale Jet Feedback In Seyfert Galaxies, Julianne Goddard Jan 2026

Numerical Modeling Of Multi-Scale Jet Feedback In Seyfert Galaxies, Julianne Goddard

Theses and Dissertations--Physics and Astronomy

We present a suite of high-resolution cosmological zoom-in simulations investigating the impact of mechanical and thermal feedback from low-luminosity jets launched from supermassive black holes (SMBHs) on Seyfert galaxy evolution from early cosmic times to the present (z ≤ 10). Our models follow the formation of central galaxies within identical dark matter halos of logMhalo/M⊙ ∼ 11.8 at z = 0, seeded with ∼ 10^6M⊙ SMBHs at z ∼ 9.1 and z ∼ 3.7. Feedback from active galactic nuclei (AGN) is implemented in the form of bipolar jets launched along the SMBH spin axis, with jet powers spanning Ljet ∼ …