Digital Commons Network^™

Global Distribution Of The Cold-Water Coral Lophelia Pertusa, R. Tong, Andrew J. Davies, A. Purser, X. Liu, F. Liu

Graduate School of Oceanography Faculty Publications

Lophelia pertusa plays an important role as a major contributor to many cold-water coral reefs, supporting a high diversity of associated benthic and benthopelagic species. Due to the high sensitivity of L. pertusa to human activity, it has been classified as indicator species for Vulnerable Marine Ecosystems. However, the global spatial distribution of L. pertusa is far from well known. In this study, a database of L. pertusa presence data was compiled derived from the large number of L. pertusa occurrence records appearing in recent years. In conjunction with data layers covering a range of environmental drivers, habitat suitability for …

Antibiotic Treatment Ameliorates The Impact Of Stony Coral Tissue Loss Disease (Sctld) On Coral Communities, G E. Forrester, Laura Arton, Argel Horton, Katie Nickles, Linda M. Forrester

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Stony coral tissue loss disease has spread widely in the Caribbean and causes substantial changes to coral community composition because of its broad host range and high fatality rate. To reduce SCTLD impacts, intervention programs throughout the region have divers treating corals with antibiotics. We assessed the effect of antibiotic treatment in the British Virgin Islands by comparing coral communities at 13 treated sites to those at 13 untreated sites. The prevalence of white syndromes (assumed to be primarily SCTLD), the severity of white syndrome lesions, partial colony mortality and complete colony mortality all showed a qualitative pattern consistent with …

Assortative Mixing In Eastern Spadefoot (Scaphiopus Holbrookii) Spatial Networks Is Driven By Landscape Features, Anne Devan-Song, M. A. Walden, James R. Watson, Anna E. Jolles, Justine M. Fox, Nancy E. Karraker

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Biotic and abiotic factors drive assortative mixing (preference for or sorting with individuals with similar characteristics) in animal populations on a landscape, with implications for dispersal, population structuring, and other ecological and evolutionary processes. However, patterns and generative mechanisms of assortative mixing are overlooked in amphibians outside of specific life history events such as reproduction. The aims of this project were to determine whether there is assortative mixing by size and life history category in eastern spadefoots (Scaphiopus holbrookii), whether these patterns are preserved across time and spatial scale, and quantify the nature and relative role of various …

Angler’S Sense Of Place As An Indicator For Perceptions Of Vulnerability And Life Satisfaction Relative To Shifting Stock Distributions, Elizabeth Conley

Open Access Master's Theses

Geographic locations are a fundamental aspect to human life, but their impact on well-being is seldom accounted for and often not formally considered within assessment frameworks to monitor at-risk coastal communities. Climate change continues to warm ocean waters and cause fish stocks to redistribute to untraditional locations, prompting changes in angler behavior and destabilizing the connection they have built with particular places in order to fish successfully. This research evaluates recreational angler’s sense of place in NY, CT, and RI, as an indicator to assess perceptions of vulnerability and life satisfaction in relation to shifting fish stock distributions through a …

Care-Portal: A Clinician-Centered Digital Health Portal For Wearable Data Analytics, Shejar Sadhu

Open Access Master's Theses

Growth of “e-health” (electronic health) is unprecedented especially after the COVID-19 pandemic. Wearable technology such as smartwatches and smart finger rings have the capability to remotely monitor and quantify biometric and daily life activity parameters such as heart rate, body temperature, sleep, exercise, sedentary periods, and others from patients when they are in naturalistic environments such as home, school, work, and sports. This wearable technology can also be used to remotely monitor longitudinal symptomatic changes in chronic and acute conditions such as neurological and psychiatric disorders that may require some indicators of psychological stress in daily life settings. Wearable technology …

A Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of The American Woodcock, Anna R. Fateiger

Open Access Master's Theses

The decline in young forests has caused almost 70% of the birds that flourish in such habitats to experience a severe population decline over the past 60 years. The American Woodcock (Scolopax minor) is no exception to this population reduction due to its heavy reliance on such habitats, making them a key indicator species for young forest management. Conservationists rely on information received from tracking woodcock for details about the young forest vegetation in hopes of preserving the habitat and protecting the wildlife that flourishes in such areas. This paper expands on previous research that focused heavily on …

Phytochemical Analysis And Biological Evaluation Of Maple (Acer Saccharum) Sap Water, Kara Torrey

Open Access Master's Theses

Our laboratory initiated a comprehensive research program to investigate the phytochemical composition and biological effects of an ethyl acetate maple water extract (MWX), in comparison to other maple food extracts. Created by boiling and evaporating maple sap (Acer saccharum), maple syrup has become a popular alternative sweetener. The raw sap of the maple tree has been consumed by indigenous cultures for centuries, but recently, maple water products have gained the interest of consumers seeking plant derived functional beverages with added health benefits. Based on previous studies by our group, we hypothesize that maple water (and MWX) contains many …

Predicting Pain Presence In Icu Patients Using Physiological Signals, Derek Jacobs

Open Access Master's Theses

Physiological data can be used to detect the presence of pain, a problem that up to this point has entirely subjective solutions. While there are general indicators of pain, physiological signals have been shown to alter as a response to painful stimuli. Prior work has primarily focused on predicting a level of pain reported by a patient based on the assumption that pain is present. In this work, we present a means of using machine learning to identify the presence of pain using data collected from a freely available database MIMIC-III. Our methodology involves constructing an image reconstruction based classifier …

Sedimentary Accumulation Of Black Carbon On The East Coast Of The United States, Ita Wulandari

Open Access Master's Theses

Sedimentary black carbon (BC) accumulation in shelf sediment along the US East Coast reflected incomplete combustion from natural and human activities. One of the BC materials is soot, a light-absorbing particulate matter, deposited and incorporated with the sediment consisting of various materials, including inorganic and organic carbon. We collected sediment core from two stations in North Carolina (ST02) and Florida (ST12) in the spring of 2017. We analyzed soot BC using the chemo-thermal oxidation method at 375 C (CTO- 375), total organic carbon (TOC) from inorganic carbon removal, stable carbon isotope δ13C from each BC and TOC sample, Polycyclic aromatic …

Diving In: Learning Best Practices From Belize’S Managed Access Program Fisheries Policy, Mary Carper

Open Access Master's Theses

Belize has recently transitioned from an open access fisheries management regime to a program called Managed Access, based on a form of spatial management known as Territorial User Rights for Fishers (TURFs). Coastal communities rely on fishing activity for a variety of reasons including food and job security. Community well-being refers to the holistic definition of the human state, indicated by a variety of socioeconomic factors. This multi-strategy research with a concurrent nested design looks at a combination of interview and archival document data, along with demographics from the Statistical Institute of Belize in order to understand the impacts of …

Do Environmentally Relevant Concentrations Of Microplastics Pose A Threat To The Eastern Oyster, Crassostrea Virginica?, Hannah Haskell

Open Access Master's Theses

It is well known that microplastics are ubiquitous within the marine environment and that organisms are interacting with them. However, information on the potential impacts this pollutant may have on an organism are less well understood, especially in response to environmentally relevant microplastic concentrations The aim of this study was to determine if environmentally relevant microplastic exposure has any physiological impact on the eastern oyster, Crassostrea virginica. We exposed C. virginica to daily doses of polyester microfibers based on concentrations reported from the field (0, 2, & 95 fibers L-1) as well as a higher concentration similar to those …

Translation And Validation Of Myeloid Derived Suppressor Cell Proteomic Targets In Liver And Lung Tumors, Justin Trickett

Open Access Master's Theses

Advancements in technology have made possible the development of highly personalized and efficacious medicines. Various forms of immunotherapy have demonstrated clinical utility in the treatment of blood-based cancers (e.g., leukemia, lymphoma, etc.). Cells in the tumor microenvironment (TME) of solid tumors can suppress the immune response of T cells, therefore hindering the efficacy of T-cell immunotherapies. Consequently, a growing number of studies are investigating methods of modulating the TME for improving immunotherapeutic outcomes in this context. Myeloid-derived suppressor cells (MDSCs) are one such cell responsible for diminishing the activity of immune cells by secreting immunosuppressive cytokines. Recent studies show that …

Bioconcentration Of Pfas From Afff Environmental Exposure: Evidence Of Precursor Bioaccumulation In Fathead Minnows, Nicholas Hill

Open Access Master's Theses

Exposure to per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) has been associated with toxicities in wildlife and negative health effects in humans. Decades of fire training activity at Joint Base, Cape Cod, Massachusetts incorporated the use of aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) which resulted in long-term PFAS contamination of sediments, groundwater, and hydrologically connected surface waters. To explore the bioaccumulative potential of PFAS residing in complex environmental mixtures, a mesocosm was established to evaluate bioconcentration of PFAS from AFFF-contaminated groundwater by flow-through design. Fathead minnows (n = 24) were exposed to PFAS in groundwater over a 21-day period and tissue specific PFAS …

Parallelized Implementation Of A Genetic Algorithm On A Field Programmable Gate Array (Fpga) To Provide Heuristic Solutions For The Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (Cvrp), Maximilian Jakob Heer

Open Access Master's Theses

This thesis reports on the implementation of a Genetic Algorithm for finding heuristic solutions to the Capacitated Vehicle Routing Problem (CVRP) on High-Performance Field Programmable Gate Arrays (FPGAs). The heuristic approach to the class of NP-hard problems related to the Travelling-Salesman-Problem (TSP) has a long tradition in computer science, with this thesis being directly based on an implementation of a specialized Genetic Algorithm for a Graphic Processing Unit (GPU). In my work, I describe how the algorithmic structure can be directly transformed into an adapted computing architecture with special focus on the highest possible degree of parallelism. For that, the …

Expert Elicitation Regarding Effectiveness Of Recent North Atlantic Right Whale Protection Agreement, Jessica Marie Hiltz

Open Access Master's Theses

With the rise of offshore wind energy in the United States, there has been increasing concern about how offshore wind turbine installation and operation is affecting benthic and pelagic marine life (Bailey et al. 2010). Increased, localized ocean noise resulting from project-related activities, such as vessel traffic, surveying, and turbine installation, has the potential to disturb or injure nearby marine life. Increased vessel traffic heightens the probability of a vessel strike occurring, and noise produced during the turbine installation phase, in which pile-driving is used to hammer and secure turbines to the seafloor, is significantly loud and widespread. This noise …

Modeling Rhode Island Food Production Potential Under Different Production Scenarios, Nina Oberg

Open Access Master's Theses

Food sovereignty emphasizes the rights of people to have control over their food system. Relocalizing food production and limiting dependence on global industrial supply chains is necessary to increase food sovereignty in regions dominated by conventional food systems. In the US, the New England region aims to relocalize production by producing 50 percent of food consumed in the region by the year 2060. Rhode Island can contribute to this goal by expanding production and strengthening local food systems, thus serving as a model for New England and other urbanizing regions globally. For this study, a site suitability analysis was performed …

A Proteomic Approach To Understanding Regulatory Pathways In Non-Alcoholic Fatty Liver Disease (Nafld), Teresa Sierra

Open Access Master's Theses

Background and Objectives:Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) encompasses the progressive hepatic pathologies from steatosis, non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), fibrosis, and irreversible cirrhosis in populations with little to no alcohol consumption. The disease is prevalent in societies dominated by Western dietary patterns and is associated with obesity, hypertension, dyslipidemia, type-2 diabetes mellitus, and metabolic syndrome. The pathogenesis of NAFLD is multifaceted and not completely understood. A proteomic analysis of a human liver tissue repository (n = 106) was used to gain insight into dysregulated pathways and significantly altered protein expression in NAFLD without or with fibrosis as well as NAFLD and diabetes …

Anti-Microbial Peptide Database, Anusha Singamaneni

Open Access Master's Theses

The goal of this thesis is to re-design and re-implement a functioning and efficient database with uniformity, coherence and most importantly transparency which clearly explains the system needs, methods and procedures openly to the users. The main users of the database are researchers, biologists, biochemists and engineers. We also developed a tool called MIC (Minimum Inhibitory Concentration) for the users of the database by which, researchers can upload their lab data, perform the calculation for average peptides with timepoints and see results using graphical visualizations.In addition, we developed a user-friendly web interface to support transparency. We revisited the normalization of …

Parent-Child Attachment, Parenting Practices And Their Effects On Adolescent Social Competence: The Mediating Role Of Income Among Vulnerable Families, Margaret Stark

Open Access Master's Theses

Parent-child attachment has been found to be a powerful predictor of children's social competence later in life (Bowlby, 1989; Weinfield, 1997). Additionally, Swanson et al. (2011) found that negative parenting practices, too, are predictive of adolescent social competence. However, less is known about the impact of positive parenting practices on social competence outcomes. Several studies have identified the importance of social competence as it enables individuals to interact with others in various environments, and serves as a protective factor to engaging in risky behavior, such as substance use (Griffin et al., 2001; Romppanen et al., 2021). The current study examined …

Home Grown: An Experimental Analysis Of Home-Methods Of Mold Removal On Textile Substrates, Paige Bailey

Open Access Master's Theses

When seeking information on how to clean away mold from clothing and textiles, searching the internet can lead to an overwhelming amount of confusing and vague information. A lack of reputable references and consistent measurements across methodologies makes attempting to clean textiles, valuable or not, potentially damaging to the textile itself. As such, the objective of this experiment was to select a handful of these cleaning methods and test them with the expectation that the results will contribute to reliable information on what methods could possibly work for certain textiles. It is the hope that this information will be made …

The Home Literacy Environment's Effect On Language And Literacy Outcomes In Monolingual And Bilingual First And Second Grade Students, Sarah Carney

Open Access Master's Theses

The Home Literacy Environment (HLE) is well researched to support early literacy development in children (e.g., Niklas et al., 2020; Inoue et al., 2018). The majority of research has investigated how the HLE supports children’s preschool literacy development and skills upon entry to kindergarten; however, few research studies have addressed how the HLE contributes to vocabulary, phonological awareness, and reading scores in Spanish-English bilingual first and second grade students. Our present study aims to answer two questions; if Parental Occupation Education (POE) and the HLE affect performance on inside out (phonological awareness and decoding) and outside in (language and vocabulary) …

An Exploration Of Instagram As An Active Learning Tool For Gaining New Political Knowledge, Sarah Olearnick

Open Access Master's Theses

This paper seeks to explore the way that Instagram can be an active learning platform for the political landscape. By surveying URI students this study looks at the various ways that students use Instagram for politics, their attitudes towards the platform as a political source, and their general interest in politics. The survey showed that those who have a higher interest in politics use various sources. The survey also showed that those who have a positive perception of Instagram as a political source do not use various other sources. This study serves as an extremely valuable launching point for additional …

Rise Above: A Patient-Centered Web-Based Intervention For Reducing Internalized Stigma In People With Epilepsy, Sabah Ummie

Open Access Master's Theses

Telemedicine and e-health has grown significantly over the last few decades with the evolution of information and communication technology. The application and implementations of information technologies have given rise to the delivery of remote patient care and contactless online healthcare service, during the uncontrolled outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Innovations in healthcare have proliferated during that period and enabled physicians to provide treatments for patients starting from primary care to cognitive disability.

Health related stigma, also known as internalized stigma, is a common cognitive illness in people with epilepsy (PWE), a neurological disorder that induces sudden unpredictable seizures within the human …

Characterizing Game-Play Styles In National Basketball Association, Zian Zheng

Open Access Master's Theses

Data analysis provides important insights to inform decision-making by discovering patterns and trends in datasets. With the increasing collection and availability of large datasets, data science has the potential to revolutionize decision-making in many fields. Basketball is one of the most popular sports in the world,and the application of data science in basketball has attracted a large amount of attention in recent years. Our research explores the dissimilarity and similarity of game-play characteristics through recent years within the National Basketball Association. We focused on the data analysis of basketball teams and player performance, analysis, and prediction of competition results. We …

The Structure, Constraints, And Suggestions Of The Indian Medical Textile Product Industry With A Focus On Fabric Manufacturers, Poonam Parab

Open Access Master's Theses

Medical textiles are specialty fabrics and products doctors, nurses, and other healthcare workers use. These include bandages, surgical gowns, hospital sheets, artificial hearts, and hernia meshes. India has been a global textile manufacturing hub and has recently shifted its focus to medical textile/ textile products. However, there is no clear understanding of the basic structure of the Indian medical textile product industry related types of companies involved and their interactions with each other. The information about the industry needs to include categorization and depth, and there is no value chain-related information. A well-integrated value chain improves efficiency and effectiveness, which …

Satellite Investigation Of Drivers Of Phytoplankton Composition In A Continental Shelf Ecosystem, Somang Song

Open Access Master's Theses

Phytoplankton size classes (PSCs) play an important role in ecological and biogeochemical processes in marine ecosystems. Studying the dynamics of phytoplankton groups and the environment can inform how we manage marine resources, including fisheries, which are of critical importance in the Northeast U.S. continental shelf ecosystem. This study aims to shed light on phytoplankton community structure distribution and the environmental drivers of their variability in the Northeast U.S. continental shelf from a satellite remote sensing perspective, which has a captivating ability to view the global ocean and its dynamics on large spatial scales and long-term temporal scales. 23 years (1997 …

Design And System Identification Of A Low-Cost Usv For Coastal Observation, Roy Gilboa

Open Access Master's Theses

Monitoring areas near shore is often performed using unmanned surface vehicles but can be hampered by high cost and complexity. Existing vehicles can be expensive and difficult to operate. Recent development of consumer- and hobbyist-oriented marine hardware and control software have enabled the creation of vehicles that solve these problems. In this project, a low-cost, SUP-based USV was constructed and proved itself to be portable and capable of performing surveys at several sites in Rhode Island, with an approximate cost and vehicle mass of $3,500 and 20 kilograms respectively. It was also evaluated to determine its hydrodynamic properties and its …

Mammals Adjust Diel Activity Across Gradients Of Urbanization, Travis Gallo, Mason Fidino, Brian Gerber, Adam A. Ahlers, Julia L. Angstmann, Max Amaya, Amy L. Concilio, David Drake, Danielle Gay, Elizabeth W. Lehrer, Maureen H. Murray, Travis J. Ryan, Colleen Cassady St. Clair, Carmen M. Salsbury, Heather A. Sander, Theodore Stankowich, Jaque Williamson, J. Amy Belaire, Kelly Simon, Seth B. Magle

Natural Resources Science Faculty Publications

Time is a fundamental component of ecological processes. How animal behavior changes over time has been explored through well-known ecological theories like niche partitioning and predator–prey dynamics. Yet, changes in animal behavior within the shorter 24-hr light–dark cycle have largely gone unstudied. Understanding if an animal can adjust their temporal activity to mitigate or adapt to environmental change has become a recent topic of discussion and is important for effective wildlife management and conservation. While spatial habitat is a fundamental consideration in wildlife management and conservation, temporal habitat is often ignored. We formulated a temporal resource selection model to quantify …

Collaboration Is Key: Using Interdisciplinary Assessment To Improve Wildlife Management Practices, Public Engagement In Science, And Science Communication Programs In Rhode Island, Erin R. Harrington

Open Access Dissertations

Over the past few decades, prestigious scientific institutions such as The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the National Academy of Sciences have acknowledged the utmost importance of science communication to help improve the general public’s understanding of scientific knowledge. NSF has gone so far as to make “dissemination of research findings to increase scientific literacy” the third most recommended category for research funding priorities, second only to teaching and training, and broadening participation of underrepresented groups (NSB 2011, Skrip 2015). These efforts attest to a growing interest and investment in improving the field of science communication (Druschke and McGreavy 2016); …

Analyzing The Differential News Coverage Of The North Atlantic And North Pacific Right Whales: A Case Study Of Agenda Setting, Framing, And Tone In Endangered Species Communication, Colette Soulier

Open Access Master's Theses

Mixed methods analysis was used to evaluate policy protections and media coverage of the less endangered North Atlantic Right Whale (NARW) compared to the more endangered North Pacific Right Whale (NPRW) from 2008-2020. The NARW and NPRW represent an interesting case study of mismatched conservation action and threat status, due to their highly similar appearance and membership in a traditionally highly prioritized group for conservation action. This study establishes large differences in policy creation between the species and uses media content analysis of news coverage of both whales to understand trends in framing, tone, and content between articles focusing on …