Digital Commons Network^™

Magnetic Heating Efficiency Of Magnetite Nanoparticles: Dependence On Size And Alternating Magnetic Field, Sarah E. Kubican

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

Magnetic heating mediated by magnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (MION) has several clinical applications including cancer thermal therapy, tissue thawing for organ preservation, and magnetogenetics. However, current models of magnetic heating, including the widely used linear response theory, inadequately predict MION heating efficiency. An experimental study covering alternating magnetic field (AMF) strengths and frequencies ranging from 3.98 – 27.85 kA/m and 103.6 – 984.1 kHz, respectively, with a range of MION core diameters 9.5- 30.3 nm was conducted to elucidate the relationships between these AMF parameters and MION sizes and the resulting heating efficiencies. Heating efficiency was found to increase approximately …

Pathogen Surveillance Of Viruses And Antimicrobial Resistance Through Wastewater Based Epidemiology, William Strike

Theses and Dissertations--Biomedical Engineering

Pandemic surveillance is a cornerstone in public health safety, as it enables identification of pathogens circulating within a community before they become widespread outbreaks. Wastewater based epidemiology has blossomed in recent years due to its success in the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, but this form of public health surveillance has a global equity problem. A large majority of the wastewater-based surveillance work has been done in large metropolitan cities with access to advanced testing infrastructure, which poses a challenge as we consider where pandemics have historically emerged. Therefore, there is a need to identify, adapt, and develop workflows to meet the needs …

Stable Oxygen And Hydrogen Isotopic Ratios Of Precipitation And Modelling Of Precipitation Sources In Central Kentucky, Usa, 2017-2022, Ariel Gold-Mccoy

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Our goals were to carry out analyses of a multi-year δ¹⁸O and δ²H dataset of precipitation from central Kentucky and to analyze the source of precipitation for storm events from 2017 to 2022. δ¹⁸O and δ²H were measured for 244 weekly precipitation samples collected by the National Atmospheric Deposition Program at Mackville, Kentucky, USA. Modelling precipitation source was carried out using HYSPLIT model for 414 events. Results of δ¹⁸O and δ²H from central Kentucky show: consistent seasonality, including summer highs and winter lows for δ¹⁸O and δ²H; correlation with air temperature; and …

Measuring Accessibility Of Electric Vehicle Charging Infrastructure: A Case Study In Kentucky, Oluwasola Elijah Fagbohun

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

This thesis assesses spatial accessibility to electric vehicle charging infrastructure across Kentucky by investigating methodological approaches to measure accessibility: provider-topopulation ratios, regional accessibility metrics, and several methods in the family of gravity models. The Enhanced Two-Step Floating Catchment Area method was employed to measure electric vehicle charging station accessibility across Kentucky using a network-based approach in ArcGIS Pro. The analysis integrated 2023 American Community Survey 5-year Census block group data, Kentucky road network datasets, charging station locations from the Alternative Fuels Data Center, and Alternative Fuel Corridor designations. We examined existing infrastructure and proposed stations outlined in the Kentucky electric …

A Scoring Approach For Evaluating And Ranking Complete Streets Projects, Eirini Stavropoulou

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Complete Streets is a vital strategy for developing an equitable transportation network that provides access to all users and transportation options to communities. A growing interest in this concept has been noted in the United States, with over 1,700 Complete Streets-related policies implemented nationwide. The Kentucky Transportation Cabinet (KYTC) has developed the “Complete Streets, Roads, and Highways Manual” and the “Complete Streets Policy” aiming to promote a safer and more inclusive transportation system statewide through Complete Streets implementation. A recent KYTC initiative was the development of a scorecard to systematically evaluate Complete Streets projects competing for funding. The scorecard is …

Adjusting Benefit Estimation For Pedestrian And Bicycle Facilities For Kentucky, Dionysios Tzamakos

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The growing shift of commuters towards active transportation (AT) in the U.S. has led transportation agencies to place greater emphasis on improving bicycle and pedestrian facilities. Such improvement efforts can be integrated into multi-modal highway planning and development or be implemented through stand-alone pedestrian and bicycle projects both resulting in additional AT demand. Measuring the benefits of infrastructure improvement is central to prioritizing projects, as active transportation contributes to health, congestion reduction, safety, and recreational benefits. This study aims to calibrate the demand estimates for walking and cycling and estimate the associated benefits for the state of Kentucky. Population density …

Advancing Vapor Intrusion Science Using Systematic Frameworks To Foster Informed Decision Making, Hong Cheng Tay

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Vapor intrusion, the migration of subsurface vapors into indoor air spaces, is an important source of indoor air contamination to consider at hazardous waste sites contaminated by volatile organic compounds (VOCs). There is considerable uncertainty and variability in the factors that influence vapor intrusion processes, which poses a significant challenge for decision making, despite advancements in vapor intrusion science. This dissertation consolidates knowledge from existing scientific advances and investigates scientific gaps associated with the vapor intrusion preferential pathway conceptual model (i.e. conduit vapor intrusion), associated with the vapor entry pathway into buildings via sewer systems. The overall goal of this …

An Investigation Of The Legitimacy Of The Underlying Assumptions Of The Scs Curve Number Method By Application To Actual Urban Watersheds, Robert K. Peterson

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

The Soil Conservation Service (SCS) Curve Number (CN) method is widely used to estimate direct runoff, and its TR-55 urban-adapted Curve Numbers are commonly applied in stormwater design. However, the underlying assumptions of the method have been the subject of contemporary review, and concerns remain that these values underestimate runoff in actual urban watersheds. This study evaluates the performance of TR-55 CNs using rainfall–runoff data from twenty real-world urban watersheds in the National Stormwater Quality Database.

Empirical Curve Numbers were derived using two calibration techniques, the asymptotic CN method (CN∞) and a nonlinear least-squares optimization method (CN_LS), and …

Earthquake Wrangler: Leveraging Ios Technology For Earthquake Detection And Early Warning Application To Enhance Public Safety., Luis F. Salome

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Earthquakes are devastating natural phenomena and generate secondary hazards such as tsunamis, landslides and fires. Their catastrophic impacts span both developed nations including the United States, Japan, Turkey, and Italy and developing countries such as El Salvador, Haiti, Nepal and the Philippines, where disparities in early warning infrastructure remain important. Seismic events start with stress waves generated by tectonic plate motion, with body waves (P- waves and S-waves) and surface Rayleigh and love waves that carry energy through the earth. While some regions have adopted advanced early warning systems based on seismic hazard models and strong ground motion analysis, others …

Atomistic Calculations Characterizing Thermodynamic And Mechanical Properties Of High Entropy Alloys, Sarah O'Brien

Theses and Dissertations--Chemical and Materials Engineering

High entropy alloys (HEAs) are an exciting new class of materials. HEAs combine multiple elements in concentrations ranging from 5% to 35%. The large variation in concentrations increases the alloy’s entropy, stabilizing it. The stabilization is due to both an increased configurational entropy and increases the vibrational entropy when the alloy is at higher temperatures. This was seen for both MoNbTaW and FeNiMoW by combining the atomistic techniques: density functional theory (DFT) and density functional perturbation theory (DFPT). For MoNbTaW, the composition plays a large role in stabilizing the alloy over the configuration of elements. For the three-phase alloy, FeNiMoW, …

Augmenting Machine Learning Technique Through Natural Language, Tasmia Tasrin

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

While artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) have proven effective at addressing many of the challenges that we face in our everyday lives, there are many situations in which these methods struggle. Examples include environments where AI or ML systems must perform complex behaviors or those where rewards are difficult to calculate. To address this limitation, interactive machine learning (IML) techniques have been introduced, which incorporate machine-understandable human feedback into traditional ML approaches. This feedback is often given as a discrete, positive or negative numeric value. This feedback is typically provided as often as possible to convey a dense …

Harmful Algal Bloom Prediction Modeling In The Face Of A Changing Climate, Jordan E. Spears

Theses and Dissertations--Civil Engineering

Harmful algal blooms (HABs) in rivers pose significant threats to drinking water quality and public health, yet the predictive understanding of their proliferation remains limited, particularly regarding the influence of flow conditions in large rivers. This thesis addresses the critical knowledge gap of the relationship between seasonal flow variability and HAB proliferation in the Ohio River, with the Markland Pool serving as the primary study site. This study quantified the impact of early summer high flow events (>7500 m³ s^-1) and late summer to early fall low flow conditions (< 1500 m³ s^-1) by integrating …

The Disappearance Of Shannon White, Kathryn J. Limberg

Theses and Dissertations--English

The Disappearance of Shannon White is a Mystery-Thriller novel. The aim of the piece is to explore thematic components including perseverance, socio-economic inequities, the stigmas and medical malpractice of the American mental health system in the late twentieth century, and, ultimately, to entertain. My earliest love in the literary world was science fiction and fantasy. Writers like Robert Jordan, and more recently, Simone St. James, create worlds that test the bounds of reality in a way that I find liberating, and I seek to implement this in my own work. Such authors have taught me that fiction offers freedom to …

Applications Of Remote Sensing Data To Understanding Geohazards In Wyoming And Kentucky, Meredith Swallom

Theses and Dissertations--Earth and Environmental Sciences

Shallow geohazards such as earthquakes, landslides, and floods profoundly impact communities globally. Constraining susceptibility to these hazards is critical for effective hazard mitigation and building more resilient communities. This dissertation includes multiple studies that leverage remotely sensed datasets to address hazard susceptibility, including: (1) characterizing a potential northern extension of the Teton fault system, (2) deriving a vegetation-based metric to improve landslide susceptibility maps in eastern Kentucky, with potential global implications, and (3) combining numerical modeling, landscape models, and field constraints to understand how anthropogenic factors affect flood severity in southern Appalachian catchments.

In the first study, analysis of new …

Plastic Gerontologies: Epigenetic Clocks As Instruments Of The Profitable Medicalization Of Aging, Hans T. Purisch

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

Epigenetic clocks are algorithms that use epigenetic biomarkers of aging to calculate an organism’s ‘biological age.’ Through discursive analysis of commercially available epigenetic clock marketing materials, scientific articles, and interviews with actors in the longevity biotechnology industry, this study examines the commercialization of epigenetic clocks in the form of consumer test-kits. The study argues that longevity biotechnology companies leverage the malleable and fluid qualities of epigenetic markers of biological age to extend the domains of profitable therapies. It shows that epigenetic clock companies market the dynamic qualities of epigenetic biological age measurements to redefine health around the project of optimizing …

Spatializing The Tax Code: Using Property Records To Locate The Fiscal Face Of Rentiership, Michael J. Mccanless

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation analyzes how the tax code shapes housing financialization in mid-sized US cities. Employing a mixed-methods approach that integrates critical computational analysis with qualitative fieldwork in Memphis, I examine the role of public rent-seeking in shaping housing financialization in U.S. cities. The first article analyzes the property tax appeal strategies of corporate landlords and their implications for public revenues and municipal budgets. The second article explores how the IRS 1031 exchange provision—which allows for capital gains deferrals when the proceeds of a property sale are reinvested in a ‘like-kind’ property—facilitates the movement of capital from high-cost coastal markets into …

The Houston Climate Justice Museum As A Catalyst For Environmental Justice: Exploring The Intersection Of Art, Activism, And Creative Placemaking In Houston, Texas, Aylin Castro

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This thesis explores how the Houston Climate Justice Museum (HCJM) functions as a site for environmental/climate justice education through art and community engagement. Drawing on interviews, participant observation, and document analysis, this research examines how the museum’s curating practices generate new understandings of environmental in/justices, fosters local partnerships, and creates a welcoming space for community dialogue. Findings show that the HCJM does more than exhibit art, it demonstrates how art can be leveraged to advance both activist and educational projects. This study positions the HCJM as a model for how local and justice orientated museums and cultural spaces can contribute …

Making Slums Legible, Visible And Calculable: Geospatial Technologies And The Governance Of Urban Land In Mumbai, Sanjana Krishnan

Theses and Dissertations--Geography

This dissertation examines how geospatial technologies are used to make slums in Mumbai legible, calculable, and hypervisible, and how these practices reshape urban land governance. It situates mapping, remote sensing, and algorithmic systems within their political-economic contexts, showing how technologies intending to see the city often function as instruments of dispossession. The research has three interconnected empirical chapters. The first empirical chapter traces the history of slum mapping in Mumbai, from their absences in early development plans to their selective hypervisibility under the contemporary governance regimes. Using critical cartographic methods, it highlights how novel technologies such as remote sensing, biometric …

Orthographic Errors For Dysgraphic Second Language Learners In Russian And Hebrew, Kyra O. Morgan

Theses and Dissertations--Linguistics

Students of Second Languages might be asked to learn new writing systems in the classroom. This study is interested in how dysgraphic students, that is, students with a specific learning impairment with regards to written expression, make errors in comparison to their peers. These errors revolve around orthography, spelling, and spacing. However, this study will take a turn and focus on how all of the respondents understood the prompt and what that says about their relationship with writing in the classroom.

“A True And Broad Sympathy:” Thomas Hughes, Medievalism, And Social Justice In The Nineteenth Century, Sarah E. Stapleton

Theses and Dissertations--History

Thomas Hughes, author of Tom Brown’s Schooldays (1857), used medievalism to help solve social problems of the Nineteenth Century. This contravenes the traditional view of medievalism, especially Anglo-Saxonism, since others have used it to justify the subjugation of people of lower social status, namely the poor in England, enslaved African Americans in the United States, and Indians under British rule.

While the use of medievalism is veiled in Hughes’ work, the subtext of Tom Brown’s Schooldays demonstrated Hughes’ Anglo-Saxonism. Tom Brown and the intertextual material surrounding his narrative exhibit the characteristics of Anglo-Saxonism through cultural primitivism, the concept of allodial, …

Regularized Methods For Tensor Recovery And Processing, Katherine J. Henneberger

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

The rapid growth of high-dimensional data has exposed the limitations of traditional vector and matrix-based methods for data analysis. These methods often struggle with computational inefficiencies, loss of critical cross-dimensional correlations, and challenges inherent in high-dimensional data. Tensors—multidimensional arrays—offer a robust framework for modeling and analyzing complex data. Tensor methods have proven valuable in tasks such as dimensionality reduction, feature extraction, and data compression, underpinning advancements in machine learning, computer vision, signal processing, and remote sensing.

This thesis focuses on two challenges in tensor analysis: tensor recovery and tensor processing. Tensor recovery addresses the reconstruction of incomplete or corrupted tensors. …

Applied Essays In Industrial Organization: Pricing In Short-Term Rental Markets And Policy Implications In Tobacco Consumption, Richard J. Applin

Theses and Dissertations--Economics

Economics 101 teaches that the interaction between supply and demand determines the prices and quantities consumers face. In econometric research, it is critical to remain aware of this canonical fact, as failure to do so can introduce bias in the estimation of economic parameters. This dissertation empirically demonstrates the importance of factoring in economic structure in three applied essays.

In the first essay, I estimate the impact of rating visibility on Airbnb pricing using a two-way fixed effects model. To do so, I primarily rely on an instrumental variables approach that I argue should identify a supply-side relationship. I provide …

Targeting Prmt5 In Inflammation And Cancer: A Nexus Of Endotoxin Signaling, Antigen Presentation And Immune Evasion., Jimmy James Msemo

Theses and Dissertations--Medical Sciences

Protein Arginine Methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5) is a member of PRMT family that controls both intrinsic and extrinsic oncogenic processes [1]. Protein arginine methyltransferase 5 (PRMT5) is a type II methyltransferase that exerts widespread influence over gene expression, splicing, DNA repair, and immune regulation through symmetric dimethylation of arginine residues on histone and non-histone proteins [2]. The addition of methyl groups induces gene silencing through producing dictatorial histone marks like H2AR3ne2s, H3R8me2s and H4R3mes [3], which act as epigenetic repressive marks on gene promoters. In non-histone proteins, PRMT5 can methylate and regulate transcription factor proteins such as p53, E2F1, and p65, …

Understanding The Impact Of The Medicaid Expansion On Hospital Length Of Stay And Emergency Department Use In Kentucky, Cameron Bushling

Theses and Dissertations--Epidemiology and Biostatistics

Three related analyses were performed to try to understand the immediate effects of Medicaid expansion on hospital systems in Kentucky. Medicaid expansion led to a large, sudden increase in the number of individuals eligible for various health care needs. This sudden increase in demand for health services lead to initial hypotheses regarding hospitals’ ability to handle this demand. The first analysis examined hospital average length of stay (LOS) using a linear mixed-effects model. Length of stay was modeled longitudinally between 2013 and 2015 to determine if significant changes in the slope of LOS could be detected after expansion (2014). Separate …

Collision Avoidance Information System Utilizing Machine Learning Image Recognition, Michael W. Long

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

This thesis addresses significant safety challenges presented by powered haulage fatalities in underground mining by developing and evaluating a machine learning-driven Collision Avoidance Information System (CAIS). The research utilized a ZED 2i camera to capture both RGB and depth data for enhanced spatial awareness in visually limited underground environments. A specialized dataset of underground mining equipment was captured from limestone and zinc mines, annotated, and used to train a segmentation network. The CAIS was field-tested in diverse underground settings, achieving an accuracy of 82% in a limestone mine similar to the training data, but a lower accuracy of 45% in …

The Dynamic Material Response Of Csa Cement Using A Split Hopkinson Bar, Elliott L. Morgan

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

The University of Kentucky Center for Applied Energy Research (CAER) Cementitious Materials Group is developing a pourable Calcium Sulphoaluminate (CSA) cement-based concrete for rapid repair applications. Due to dynamic events like vehicle strikes, ballistic events, or other dynamic loading events, the dynamic material characteristics are important for understanding how the material will respond. A large diameter Split Hopkinson Pressure Bar (SHPB) was used to test samples of the pourable CSA cement and determine its dynamic material properties in the early strength development phase. 24 samples were tested in 7 day intervals for 28 days. Samples were prepared targeting a length …

Temporal Machine Learning For Predicting Accidents And Violations In The Mining Industry, Nathan T. Kelley

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

This thesis examines the predictive capability of a temporal machine learning model for forecasting future accidents and violations at individual mines, based on historical data. Mine accidents were categorized by accident classification and violations were categorized by the Part Section. The primary datasets utilized were the mine safety and health administration’s (MSHA’s) Accident Injuries and Violations datasets. The available datasets were cleaned and organized by mine type and commodity, then divided into separate subsets for training, validating, and testing. Different models, cutoff metrics, learning rates, number of hidden layers, data processing methods, data processing divisions, number of points observed …

An Autonomous Robotic Inspection System For Underground Mines Using Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (Uavs), Kiazoa M. Joao

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

Underground mining environments pose unique safety challenges for workers due to poor visibility, unstable ground conditions, and the absence of GPS signals. To adhere to safety and health standards, underground mines are required to perform safety inspections regularly. Conventional safety inspections require personnel to enter the hazardous environment, highlighting the need for a safer, remote alternative. The use of UAVs for safety inspection in underground mines is a somewhat novel idea but has shown great promise. While Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) cannot eliminate all hazards associated with mining, they provide critical support by accessing hazardous or restricted zones that are …

Analysis Of Dynamic And Final Surface Subsidence Movements Over Subcritical Panels In The Eastern Us, Mauricio Parra Valencia Sr

Theses and Dissertations--Mining Engineering

Subsidence prediction is a critical field in mining engineering, focusing on anticipating ground movements caused by underground coal extraction. Accurately forecasting these movements is essential for protecting surface structures and infrastructure from damage. However, despite extensive research by mining professionals worldwide, reliable prediction remains challenging, especially in complex environments like subcritical mining areas and locations characterized by highly variable topography. These conditions introduce non-linear rock mechanics that often complicate the application of traditional predictive models. This thesis utilizes measured subsidence data related to the extraction of two adjacent longwall panels in a deep coal mine in the eastern US to …

Analysis Of Ptfe Radial Lip Seals For Wheel Bearing Applications, Madison Vogt

Theses and Dissertations--Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering

A numerical analysis was conducted to investigate the viscoelastic effects of nonlinear materials on the sealing zone and contact pressure distribution of radial lip seals in a conventional geometric topology. The use of nonlinear materials in radial lip seal applications is desirable to improve operation and reliability of rotating machinery due to their high operating temperatures, chemical compatibility, and low friction coefficients. Examples include, but are not limited to, seals within industrial air compressors, turbine engines, aircraft landing systems, chemical processing equipment, and Freon pumps. This work focuses on analyzing the nonlinear viscoelastic response of pure Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) and PTFE …