Digital Commons Network^™

Integrated Chirped-Grating Spectrometer-On-A-Chip, Shima Nezhadbadeh

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

In this dissertation we demonstrate a new structure based on waveguide coupling atop a silicon wafer using a chirped grating to provide the dispersion that leads to a high-resolution, compact, fully integrable and CMOS-compatible spectrometer. Light is both analyzed and detected in a single, completely monolithic component which enables realizing a high-resolution portable spectrometer with an extremely compact footprint. The structure is comprised of a SiO₂/Si₃N₄/SiO₂ waveguide on top of a silicon wafer. Grating regions are fabricated on the top cladding of the waveguide. The input light is incident on a chirped grating …

Design And Applications Of Charge-Separated Metal-Organic Frameworks, Sheela Thapa

Chemistry and Chemical Biology ETDs

Ionic tetrapodal ligands with colinear coordinating arms are very effective for designing hybrid porous materials with unusual structure and properties. The novelty of this research work lies in the utilization of a unique borate ligand that leads to charge-separated MOF structure with tailor designed properties. Borate ligands being tetrahedral afford 3D materials and the negative charge of borate anion can compensate the positive charge of metal ion in the framework. The borate ligands designed in this research consists of quaternary ammonium cation and anionic borate with four pyridine arms. These ligands upon coordination with Cu(I), Cu(II), Ag(I) and Co(II) metal …

Biointerfacial Studies Of Nitrifying Biofilms On Physically And Chemically Modified Surfaces, Philip Marley Roveto

Civil Engineering ETDs

Interactions between bacteria and surfaces during the initiation of biofilm formation are complex phenomena with significant and wide-ranging implications for nutrient cycling, ecosystem and human health, and the remediation of anthropogenic pollutants. Nitrifying biofilms are currently used for ammonia removal in wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) systems. As well-studied biofilms, they can serve as models towards understanding crucial aspects of biofilm engineering. The overall objective of this research was to better understand how variations in specific surface chemistries and topographical features affect nitrification rates and microbial populations in an effort to develop technologies for improved productivity. The experimental approach was to …

Recovery Of Gypsum & Magnesium Hydroxide From Brackish Water By Chemical Precipitation, Sugam Tandukar

Civil Engineering ETDs

Exhaust gases from coal combustion contain contaminants such as sulfur dioxide (SO₂) and nitrous oxide (NO_x), and traces of other pollutants such as arsenic (As), mercury (Hg), nitrate (NO₃), and selenium (Se). Exhaust gas scrubbers are used to limit the emissions of these constituents to air. Treating exhaust gases to remove SO₂ is referred to as flue gas desulfurization (FGD), and the most common method is the use of wet scrubbers using limestone slurries. The limestone slurry is recycled multiple times in the scrubber, and to limit the concentration of dissolved constituents, a …

The Influence Of Infant Temperament On Maternal Sensitivity In Preterm Infants, Suzanne Vaccaro

Psychology ETDs

Infants who experience sensitive caregiving are at lower risk for numerous adverse outcomes. This is especially true for infants born preterm, leading them to be more susceptible to risks associated with poorer quality caregiving. Some research suggests that preterm and full term infants differ on in temperament, which may contribute to findings that caregivers of preterm infants are often found to display less sensitive responding to their infants. To investigate the associations between term status, infant temperament, and maternal behavior, videotaped play interactions and a measure of temperament, the Infant Behavior Questionnaire were coded for samples of preterm and full …

Novel Biological Super-Luminescent Sensors For The Detection Of Neurodegenerative Disorders, Florencia Monge

Shared Knowledge Conference

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is the 6th leading cause of death in the U.S. and the only disease in the top ten causes for which we have no treatment or cure. The cost of this disease is expected to rise over a trillion dollars over the next 30 years, it affects individuals and it is also a national healthcare crisis. This disease shares pathological hallmarks, protein aggregates, with other neurodegenerative disorders such as Parkinson's disease and traumatic brain injuries. Proteins are an organism's micro-machinery for transport, defense, storage, and communication. However, in neurodegenerative diseases, the proteins malfunction, change shape, clump together …

Biomimetic Electrospun Films For Effective Radiative Cooling Under Sunlight, Bokyung Park, In Chul Um, Sang M. Han, Sang Eon Han

Shared Knowledge Conference

We demonstrate that natural silk can be restructured by electrospinning into nanoscale morphology mimicking white beetle scales for enhanced radiative cooling. While natural silk cocoons exhibit strong broadband light scattering by Anderson localization, for exceptionally strong scattering, white beetle scales rely on different physics that remains largely unclear. By electrospinning regenerated silk, we create silk films where the fibers are a quarter micron in mean diameter and randomly oriented in the plane directions, similar to white beetle scale structures. Relative to raw silk films, the restructured silk films substantially increase optical scattering strength in the visible spectrum and emissivity in …

Simulation Of Tethered One-Legged Molecular Walkers On Independent 1-D Tracks, David Arredondo, Darko Stefanovic

Shared Knowledge Conference

We study the motion of random walkers with residence time bias between first and subsequent visits to a site, as a model for synthetic molecular walkers based on catalytic DNA known as molecular spiders [3, 2, 1, 5]. Previous studies have discovered exceptionally long superdiffusive transients, which would be relevant in experiments and applications. The mechanism of the transient superdiffusion was explained via the emergence of a boundary between the new and the previously visited sites, and the tendency of the multi-legged spider to cling to this boundary, provided there is a residence time bias between the first and the …

Novel Methods For Measuring Drought Stress Of Crops In The Field, Kaitlyn Read, Patrick Hudson, Philip Miller, David Hanson

Shared Knowledge Conference

There is currently no available method for land managers to directly and non-destructively measure the water status of plants in the field. Water status of a plant effects plant growth and function and contributes to end-of-season crop yield. We have developed wearable, minimally invasive microneedle sensors that can be precisely placed in leaves of crops, to be used as electrodes for electrical impedance spectroscopy (EIS). EIS measures the passive electrical properties (magnitude and phase shift of impedance) of the leaf. EIS can be used to model biologic tissue as an electrical circuit, where ions in the intra- and extracellular fluid …

Multi-Systemic Heart, Kidney, And Liver Disease Induced By Gadolinium-Based Contrast Treatment, Joshua Deaguero, G. Patricia Escobar, Xochitil Trejo, Tamara Howard, Adrian Brearly, Brent Wagner

Shared Knowledge Conference

Introduction: Gadolinium-based contrast agents have revolutionized clinical imaging. Conversely, there is growing concern of the overall safety of these agents. Once administered there is long-term retention of gadolinium in tissues. The long-term biologic impact of gadolinium retention is if monumental concern to patients and drug-regulating administrations. Methods: Our research team was the first to establish a rodent model of iatrogenic systemic fibrosis using chimeric mice. Wild-type C57/BL6 mice were randomized by sex and weight into contrast treatment (2.5 mmol/kg intraperitoneally, 20 doses over 4 weeks) or untreated groups. Ultrasound (Vevo 3100, FujiFilm VisualSonics) was performed several days-post final contrast treatment. …

Sex-Specific Survival And Tumor Mutational Burden In Early Stage Melanoma, Matthew Schwartz, Li Luo, Sara Niedbalski, Arshi Arora, Ronglai Shen, Marianne Berwick

Shared Knowledge Conference

Introduction Tumor mutational burden (TMB) is a promising biomarker of clinical response to immune checkpoint inhibitors in metastatic cancers, and melanoma-specific survival. There are also significant gender-specific differences in TMB with men having consistently higher TMB than women. This relationship is provocative given the well-documented female melanoma survival advantage, and has not been investigated in early-stage primary tumors naïve to treatment. Approach Here we present preliminary findings on sex, survival, and tumor mutational burden from Stages II and III primary melanoma tumors, none of which have received immunotherapy using the MSK IMPACT™ next generation sequencing assay. Our team evaluated survival …

Modeling Mastitis Reveals Relative Impact Of (A)Symptomatic Infectivity, O. Liota Weinbaum, Helen J. Wearing

Shared Knowledge Conference

Despite widespread compliance with control recommendations, chronic infectious disease remains problematic in animal agriculture. Efforts to disrupt transmission target symptomatic individuals, but disease persists at the population level. Staphylococcus aureus mastitis in dairy cows is a painful inflammation of the udder that reduces milk volume and quality. The popularly targeted transmission mechanism is contact between the milk of symptomatic cows and the udders of susceptible cows via milking equipment. A common control practice is to milk symptomatic cows last, known as the Milk Last Intervention (MLI). However, asymptomatic cows are also infectious. We suspect that they play an important role …

Climatic Niches Of Desert Plant Phenology, Alesia Hallmark, Jade Mclaughlin, Jenn Rudgers

Shared Knowledge Conference

Plant phenology - the timing of important life events such as leaf growth or reproduction - can be cued by many abiotic factors. In aridlands, plant growth and reproduction may be controlled by photoperiod, stochastic rain events, or temperature. Variation in these environmental variables may lead some species to "boom" in good years or fail to grow or reproduce in extreme seasons or years, especially in aridlands. Here, we leverage plant phenology and biomass datasets to study the intra- and interannual variation in flowering communities at three semi-arid biomes. We relate indices such as diversity, abundance, and synchronicity to site-specific …

Micromammal Teeth Reflect Megamammal Extinction Ecology, Jonathan Keller, S. Kathleen Lyons, Seth D. Newsome, Felisa A. Smith

Shared Knowledge Conference

As humans radiated across the Americas, we restructured New World ecosystems by driving 100+ ecologically influential megafaunal species extinct in the terminal Pleistocene extinction (TPE) ~11,500 years ago. Using the exceptional fossil record at Hall's Cave in Texas, we study the last 22,000 years of surviving micromammal community composition and ecology to characterize long-term ecosystem response to climate change and extinction. Small mammals like mice that survived mammoths' extinction represent a near-ideal study system due to their well-understood ecology, numerical abundance across strata, small home ranges recording local conditions, and short generation times promoting observable evolutionary change in response to …

Altered Proteasome Expression And Nuclear Factor (Erythroid-Derived 2)-Like Signaling In Experimental Autoimmune Encephalomyelitis, Kara Leasure Shanley

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Multiple sclerosis (MS) is a complex neurological disorder characterized by the interactions between heightened inflammation, oxidative stress and neurodegeneration. We and others have previously demonstrated that proteasome dysfunction and its consequences are also important factors in the pathology of both MS and its rodent model, experimental autoimmune encephalomyelitis (EAE). While proteasome subunit alterations in EAE have been observed, the underlying mechanisms are poorly understood. The first goal of this dissertation was to characterize the mechanisms that regulate proteasome expression and composition in neural cells in EAE and in vitro.

Immunohistochemical analysis of the EAE spinal cord shows changes in …

The Role Of Adaptive Immunity In Chronic Hypoxia-Induced Pulmonary Hypertension, Levi David Maston

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Inflammation is a prominent pathologic feature in pulmonary arterial hypertension as demonstrated by pulmonary vascular infiltration of inflammatory cells, including T and B lymphocytes. However, the contribution of the adaptive immune system is not well characterized in pulmonary hypertension (PH) caused by chronic hypoxia (CH). Inflammatory cells, through various mechanisms, have the capability to increase pulmonary vascular resistance in various disease states. CD4⁺T cells have the potential to play a significant role in the disease process initiated by hypoxia. CD4⁺T cells are largely responsible for orchestrating downstream immune processes and are critical in focusing and amplifying …

Preservice Teachers' Perceptions Of Readiness For Teaching In A 1:1 Classroom, Laura Jeffery

Teacher Education, Educational Leadership & Policy ETDs

With the emergence of digital technology as a primary means to communicate and learn, it is imperative that educators become proficient in utilizing 21^stcentury digital tools and apps. However, research has shown that preservice teachers' levels of readiness for teaching in 1:1 classrooms are not sufficient. Preservice teachers need to increase their proficiency with technology, both hardware and software, in order to maximize student achievement and prepare their future students for a wide array of post-secondary options.

This study examined the perceptions that preservice teachers held regarding their readiness to step into 1:1 classrooms upon completion of their …

Artificial Intelligence Empowered Uavs Data Offloading In Mobile Edge Computing, Nicholas Alexander Kemp

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

The advances introduced by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) are manifold and have paved the path for the full integration of UAVs, as intelligent objects, into the Internet of Things (IoT). This paper brings artificial intelligence into the UAVs data offloading process in a multi-server Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) environment, by adopting principles and concepts from game theory and reinforcement learning. Initially, the autonomous MEC server selection for partial data offloading is performed by the UAVs, based on the theory of the stochastic learning automata. A non-cooperative game among the UAVs is then formulated to determine the UAVs' data to be …

From Cymatics To Sound Therapy: Their Role In Spirituality And Consciousness Research, Victor Christianto, Kasan Susilo, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Sound is one of the types of waves that can be felt by the sense of hearing (ears). In physics, the definition of sound is something that is produced from objects that vibrate. Objects that produce sound are called sound sources. The sound source that vibrates will vibrate the molecules into the air around it. Sound is mechanical compression or longitudinal waves that propagate through the medium. This medium or intermediate agent can be liquid, solid, gas. So, sound waves can propagate for example in water, coal, or air. Most sounds are a combination of various vibratory signals composed of …

Essays On Nutrition And Cognitive Production In Developing Countries: Evidence From Ethiopia & Nepal, Mohammad Ali

Economics ETDs

This dissertation is comprised of five chapters. The first chapter provides an outline of the three separate research papers that are combined in this dissertation. It highlights the goals of each paper, discusses their importance to the field of economics, and outlines their contributions to the existing literature. The final chapter summarizes the main conclusions from the three research articles and points to how my future research trajectory is shaped by my dissertation research.

The second chapter explores the effect of current health (denoted by BMI for age scores) on cognitive test scores directly and indirectly, through time allocated to …

Multi-Year Water Quality Data Reveal Highly Variable Timing And Magnitude Of Metabolism And Physicochemical Drivers In An Aridland River Network, Betsy Marie Summers

Civil Engineering ETDs

Streams and rivers process and transport carbon to downstream systems and are important components of global and regional carbon budgets. Ecosystem functions, including gross primary production (GPP) and ecosystem respiration (ER), can be used to improve understanding of carbon cycling and ecosystem health in lotic systems. Whole-stream metabolism (GPP and ER) has been studied extensively in headwater streams. However, we know less about the variability in GPP and ER in aridland rivers and tributary streams despite being globally abundant and vulnerable systems to changing climate. This dissertation explores temporal and spatial variation of GPP and ER in a montane stream …

Diagnostic Sequence Detection Against A Complex Background Using A Dna Molecular Computation Framework, Adan Leon Myers Y Gutierrez

Nanoscience and Microsystems ETDs

Diagnostic assays are designed to detect a unique analyte profile in a disease of interest. Nucleic acids contain an information-dense sequence, and thus are ideal candidates for unique analytes. The gold-standard of nucleic-acid-based detection is PCR which has high sensitivity, but involves time, expertise, and cost. DNA molecular logic technology holds much promise as an alternative molecular detection method due to the potential to save cost and expertise, while also achieving a high sensitivity. However, nucleic acid detection in biomedical applications carries with it the difficulty of choice of appropriate sequence and potential biological sample background.

This work describes the …

An Approach To Similarity Measure Between Neutrosophic Soft Sets, K. Sinha, P. Majumdar

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

No abstract provided.

Water Resources Program 2019 Apr Self-Study & Documents, University Of New Mexico

UNM Academic Program Review

No abstract provided.

Salivary Duct Carcinoma: A Case Report Of Oncocytic Variant With Possible Treatment Implications And Review Of Literature, Radhika Sekhri, Ibrahim Ortanca, Christopher Boals, Shweta Agarwal

Pathology Research and Scholarship

Salivary duct carcinoma (SDC) is an aggressive malignancy, resembling high-grade ductal carcinoma of the breast. Histologically, it shows cords and nests with cribriforming, marked nuclear atypia, comedonecrosis, perineural, and lymphovascular invasion. We report a rare case of SDC in a 61-year-old woman presenting with facial asymmetry, dysphagia, and cervical lymphadenopathy. Imaging showed an ill-defined infiltrating mass in parotid gland and multiple enlarged cervical lymph nodes. Histologically, the largest focus of tumor consisted of an intra-parotid lymph node replaced by sheets of bland appearing oncocytic tumor cells with abundant cytoplasm, centrally placed nucleus, and single prominent nucleolus. No mitotic figures were …

Quantifying The Extent Of Wildfire Impacted Streams In The Western United States, Grady Ball

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

Beginning in the mid-1980s, the number of fires and acres burned by wildfire in the United States has grown at an explosive rate. Several factors, anthropogenic and natural, have converged to create a new era of high frequency, high intensity fires, which is predicted to continue until at least mid-century. Investigations into wildfire impacts have largely focused on post-fire impacts on terrestrial systems, while effects on aquatic ecosystems have been underrepresented. The growing threat of fire to streams has accelerated the need for germane information regarding the spatial extent of fire impacts on watersheds and post-fire impacts to aquatic systems. …

The Virtue Of Vulnerability: Mindfulness And Well-Being In Law Schools And The Legal Profession, Nathalie Martin

Faculty Scholarship

This article examines the role of vulnerability in transforming individual relationships, particularly the attorney-client relationship. In this essay, Martin argues that broadening our expressions can improve our client relations and decrease the likelihood that when that inevitable mistake occurs, we will be sued for it. Also, based upon virtue ethics, that practicing vulnerability is also virtuous and thus worthwhile in and of itself.

This essay starts by describing the traits people look for in lawyers as well as evidence that clients often feel that their lawyers are less than human. Then examines how legal education contributes to this problem by …

Thwarting Adversaries With Randomness And Irrationality, Abhinav Aggarwal

Computer Science ETDs

Distributed systems are ubiquitous today: from the Internet used by billions of people around the world to the small scale IoT devices. With this rapidly increasing need to perform computation at scales larger than ever before, comes the need to ensure resilience to adversarial failures so that these systems can continue to behave as intended even when some malicious tampering happens.

In this dissertation, we explore the power of randomness and the difficulty of rationally approximating the Golden Ratio to thwart adversarial behavior in two different problems in distributed computing: interactive communication and robust collaborative search. While randomness helps with …

On Three Possible Applications Of Neutrosophic Logic In Applied Sciences, Including Matter Creation, Victor Christianto, Robert N. Boyd, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In the same spirit with the theme of last issue of this SGJ journal (“Ongoing creation”), this paper shortly reviews a plausible mechanism from Aether to become ordinary matter from the perspective of Neutrosophic Logic. We also discuss two other possible applications of Neutrosophic Logic, including a resolution of conflicting paradigms in medicine. We hope that some ideas as outlined herein will be proved useful in the near future.

Mechanisms Of Pathogen Invasion Into The Central Nervous System, Matthew D. Cain, Hamid Salimi, Michael S. Diamond, Robyn S. Klein

Pathology Research and Scholarship

CNS infections continue to rise in incidence in conjunction with increases in immunocompromised populations or conditions that contribute to the emergence of pathogens, such as global travel, climate change, and human encroachment on animal territories. The severity and complexity of these diseases is impacted by the diversity of etiologic agents and their routes of neuroinvasion. In this review, we present historical, clinical, and molecular concepts regarding the mechanisms of pathogen invasion of the CNS. We also discuss the structural components of CNS compartments that influence pathogen entry and recent discoveries of the pathways exploited by pathogens to facilitate CNS infections. …