Effects Of Varying Warmup Stimuli On Running Economy, Connor Bigenho

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of two potentiating warm-up stimuli (weighted-vest strides and plyometrics) on running economy (RE) over short (5-10 minutes) and longer durations (30+ minutes) of exercise in trained distance runners. Methods: Five recreationally trained male runners were recruited to participate in this study. Each trial consisted of a 10-min self-paced warm-up on the treadmill followed by baseline RE test and baseline leg-stiffness. This was immediately followed by one of two intervention warmup protocols. The protocols consisted of either a series of plyometric movements, 6 x 10-sec strides with a …

Assessing Freezing Effect On Kiwifruit Cultivars And Mapping Suitable Areas For Growing The Crop In Eastern Texas, Lais De Oliveira Machado

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Kiwifruit is a perennial vine originating from China where it has been grown for centuries. In the United States, green kiwifruit (Actinidia deliciosa) is primarily produced commercially in California. They are fuzzy, green fleshed and well known in the marketplace. Kiwifruit plants require low to moderate soil pH, adequate winter chilling and adequate precipitation to guarantee plant development and good fructification. Actinidia chinesis or golden kiwifruit are smooth skinned, feature golden flesh and are a more recent introduction into the global market. Kiwifruit crops have attributes that favor production in east Texas, including low pest problems, current long …

Ultrafast Magnetic Entropy Dynamics With Time-Resolved Pump-Probe Magneto-Optical Technique., Sahar Goharshenasanesfahani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

It has been observed that ultrathin films, multilayers, or magnetic nanostructures indicate novel magnetic phenomena that differ profoundly from the respective bulk properties. Besides, because of the broad applications of these magnetic materials in the industry, they are an exciting research area. Hence, investigating the low-dimensional magnetic systems is one of the most active fields in experimental condensed matter physics. Magnetization dynamics can occur over a wide range of time scales (from seconds to femtoseconds). Some of these processes even occur on time scales as short as a few picoseconds (10^-12s) or femtoseconds (10^-15s). Measurement of …

A Remote Sensing Perspective: Mapping The Human Footprint In The Zambezi Region Of Namibia., Ariel E Weaver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The “human footprint” can be used as a general proxy to estimate human activities across the landscape. The human footprint in the Zambezi Region of Namibia is critically important for regional management of conservation efforts and land use planning. The land covers in the Zambezi Region are characteristically difficult to separate spectrally, due to a highly heterogeneous savanna landscape. Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA) and Random Forest (RF) methods are notable for their ability to improve classification accuracies of remotely sensed imagery. In this study, I investigate the extent of the human footprint in the Zambezi Region of Namibia, using …

Materials And Process Design For Ceramic Fused Filament Fabrication (Cf3) Of Hydroxyapatite., Kavish Sudan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ceramic fused filament fabrication (CF3) enables the fabrication of highly customizable ceramic parts at relatively lower costs compared to other AM technologies. Advanced ceramics, having specific or niche applications, call for a high level of accuracy to meet the performance requirements. For achieving the desired level of accuracy in any manufacturing process, it is important to know the effect of involved parameters at different stages of fabrication. CF3 has been around for a while but there has been a severe lack of literature dealing with understanding the effect of process parameters on the final part properties. In this study, Hydroxyapatite …

The Economic Rationality Of Consumption In The Mycenaean Political Economy And Its Role In The Reproduction Of Social Personae: Modeling Prestige Networks., Devin Alexander Stephens

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is a theoretical examination of the economic rationality of consumption as it existed within the Mycenaean political economy. Using a modified paradigm of social network analysis, a semiotic approach is used in the study of identity expression and economic stratification present at three Late Helladic cemeteries. In doing so, the claim that exchange strategies which existed outside of palatial redistribution were present in the Late Helladic was substantiated as a similar logic of mortuary stratification which existed during the palatial era was also found to have existed after the shift to the post-palatial era and the collapse of …

Design Of A 300cm2 Pemfc Stack With Force And Cfd Simulation To Optimize Flow Channels, Gasket Design, And Clamping Forces., Robert M. Ench

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Proton exchange membrane fuel cells are important to the future of green energy as hydrogen can be made with green technologies and store energy for later use. Fuel cells can efficiently convert the hydrogen to electricity as needed. This study uses Solidworks simulation to make design improvements to the fuel cell before the prototype build stage of testing; this saves money and time by reducing the prototype builds needed.

In this study, a multi-channel serpentine design with two outlets versus a single outlet is evaluated using CFD to investigate pressure drop. Lower pressure drops are desirable as less energy input …

A Phenomenological Study Examining How The Covid-19 Pandemic Changed The Way Teachers Use Technology To Deliver Instruction From March 2020 - May 2021, Dedra Lamb

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this qualitative study was to examine teacher perception of changes in the instructional delivery and learning opportunities via technology during and throughout the COVID-19 pandemic from March 2020 until May 2021. The COVID-19 pandemic has greatly affected educational organizations. School closures in March 2020 forced teachers to change their instructional delivery from an in-person platform to a virtual platform. This disruption to the delivery of instruction with the use of technology changed the way teachers plan for learning, delivery content, present learning activities, and assessment. The urgency required teachers to develop new strategies and experiment with adaptations …

Impact Of Pank1 Deletion On Mitochondrial Acetylation And Cardiac Function During Pressure Overload., Timothy N. Audam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent studies have associated elevated protein acetylation levels with heart failure in humans. Although mechanisms promoting elevated acetylation levels are not fully known, excess acetyl-CoA may drive enzyme-independent acetylation of cardiac proteins. Accumulation of acetyl-CoA depends on the availability of sufficient CoA, whose production is regulated by pantothenate kinases in the CoA biosynthetic pathway. We show that cardiac proteins are hyperacetylated during heart failure in humans and tested in mice whether limiting CoA abundance would improve ventricular remodeling during pressure overload-induced hypertrophy. We limited cardiac CoA levels by deleting the rate-limiting enzyme in CoA biosynthesis, Pank1 (one of three PANK-encoding …

Investigations Of Potential Mechanisms Underlying Spinal Cord Injury-Induced Polyuria., Jason H. Gumbel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Spinal cord injury (SCI) results in neurological impairments including motor, sensory, and autonomic dysfunction. These neurological deficits result in a litany of complications apart from muscular paralysis, including bladder, bowel, cardiovascular, and sexual function. SCI-induced polyuria (the overproduction/passage of urine) remains understudied, and therefore mechanisms behind it are largely unknown and require extensive investigation for potential targeted therapies to improve quality of life. The objective of this dissertation was to investigate potential mechanisms of SCI-induced polyuria and explore potential therapies to improve quality of life in the SCI population. Metabolic cages, Western blot, enzyme-linked immunoassay, and immunostaining were first used …

Towards Long Term Colloid Suspension In A Vertically Rotated System., Md Mahmudur Rahman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within a colloidal suspension gravity may compromise the observation of governing physical interactions, especially those that are weak and/or take significant time to develop. Conducting the experiment in a long-term microgravity environment is a viable option to negate gravitational effects, though significant resources are required to do so. While it may not be possible to simulate long-term microgravity terrestrially, particles can resist quick sedimentation in a confined suspension system rotating vertically with appropriate rotation speed. The goal of the investigation is to demonstrate the existence of long-term particle suspension regime for a certain colloidal suspension while characterizing colloidal behavior due …

The Role Of Sphingolipids In Aki And The Progression To Ckd: Potential Therapuetic Targets., Nicholas A. Hoffman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Acute Kidney Injury (AKI) is most simply defined as a rapid decline in kidney function over a period of hours to days. There is currently a lack of effective treatment options for patients with AKI, highlighting the need to identify new therapeutic targets. Sphingolipids play a number of roles in different models of AKI, suggesting they could be promising future targets for treating kidney injury. Specifically, sphingosine-1-phosphate (S1P) and its receptors (S1PRs) have been implicated in numerous inflammatory disorders and models of AKI. The purpose of this review is to better characterize the role of S1P receptors in models of …

Local Feature Selection For Multiple Instance Learning With Applications., Aliasghar Shahrjooihaghighi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Feature selection is a data processing approach that has been successfully and effectively used in developing machine learning algorithms for various applications. It has been proven to effectively reduce the dimensionality of the data and increase the accuracy and interpretability of machine learning algorithms. Conventional feature selection algorithms assume that there is an optimal global subset of features for the whole sample space. Thus, only one global subset of relevant features is learned. An alternative approach is based on the concept of Local Feature Selection (LFS), where each training sample can have its own subset of relevant features. Multiple Instance …

An Analysis Of Taste Neuron Morphological Variability: Influences Of Neuron Type And Plasticity., Lisa Christina Ohman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Taste neurons are functionally and molecularly diverse, but their morphological diversity was, until recently, completely unexplored. Taste neurons were considered relay cells, communicating information from taste-transducing cells to the brain without variation in morphology. Instead, individual taste neurons are tremendously morphologically variable. To determine how differences in branching relate to the number and types of taste-transducing cells providing neuronal input, I combined sparse cell genetic labeling with a whole-mount immunohistochemistry and analysis workflow. I found that the maximum number of taste-transducing cells capable of providing convergent input onto individual gustatory neurons varied with a range of 1-22 taste-transducing cells. Consistently, …

Literacy Abilities Of Children And Adolescents With Williams Syndrome., Caroline Greiner De Magalhaes

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation I report findings from two studies of the literacy abilities of children with Williams syndrome (WS), a genetic disorder associated with intellectual disability. I had two overarching goals: 1) evaluate the applicability of theories of reading and spelling acquisition developed based on typically developing children to children with WS; and 2) provide results that would inform the development of targeted assessments and interventions. In Study 1, individual differences in phonological awareness, visual spatial perception, vocabulary, overall intellectual abilities, and reading instruction approach (systematic phonics vs. other approaches) for sixty-nine 6 – 7-year-olds (most of whom were in …

The Impact Of Statin Use On Outcomes Of Diabetic Adult Patients Hospitalized For Community Acquired Pneumonia., Joel Lanceta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

BACKGROUND: Statins, a class of drugs that treat hyperlipidemia, may have an immunosuppressive effect for patients with community acquired pneumonia (CAP). Retrospective and in vitro studies have suggested an immunomodulatory, antioxidative and anticoagulant effects from statin use in patients with Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus (T2DM) hospitalized for CAP. Prospective studies that have tested any effect of statin therapy on patients with T2DM and CAP have not been found literature. To date, prospective studies showing of the effects statin therapy may have on T2DM patients hospitalized for CAP are not available. METHODS: This dissertation is a secondary analysis using deidentified data …

Collaborative Human-Machine Interfaces For Mobile Manipulators., Shamsudeen Olawale Abubakar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The use of mobile manipulators in service industries as both agents in physical Human Robot Interaction (pHRI) and for social interactions has been on the increase in recent times due to necessities like compensating for workforce shortages and enabling safer and more efficient operations amongst other reasons. Collaborative robots, or co-bots, are robots that are developed for use with human interaction through direct contact or close proximity in a shared space with the human users. The work presented in this dissertation focuses on the design, implementation and analysis of components for the next-generation collaborative human machine interfaces (CHMI) needed for …

Visualizing Anhydrobiosis: Liquid-Liquid Phase Separation, Membraneless Organelles, And Cellular Reorganization., Clinton J. Belott

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Water is an integral and necessary component of life. It is then, exceedingly remarkable that some species are capable of surviving virtually complete water loss for extended periods of time. Several decades of intense research into anhydrobiosis, or life without water, have given significant insights into the molecular mechanisms governing this phenomenon. Anhydrobiosis-related intrinsically disordered (ARID) proteins have been demonstrated to be critically important for desiccation tolerance in many anhydrobiotic species and exhibit a considerably wide range of protective properties that include membrane stabilization, reinforcing bioglass formation, and protein stabilization. This dissertation begins with cellular dielectrophoresis suggesting that two ARID …

First Principle Studies Of The Effects Of Alkali-Metal Intercalation On Structural Transition From Black To Blue Phosphorene And The Adsorption Of N2h4 On Ws2 Layers., Md Rajib Khan Musa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A comprehensive density functional theory calculation has been conducted to seek a potential structural transition from black to blue phosphorene layers, with a focus on the roles played by alkali-metal intercalation in black phosphorene/phosphorus. This study reveals that at sufficiently high Li concentration and specific, well-defined configurations, a phase transition from black to blue phosphorene can take place. The Li atoms intercalated in black phosphorene could act as a “catalyst” in the“reactive region” of the lone pair of P atoms, leading to a P-P bond breaking and, subsequently, a local structural transformation from an orthorhombic lattice to an assembly of …

Digital Design And Thermomechanical Process Simulation For 3d Printing With Abs And Soyhull Fibers Reinforced Abs Composites., Saleh Khanjar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recent demonstrations with fused filament fabrication (FFF) 3D printing have shown to produce prototypes as well as production components. Additionally, due to the FFF process platforms being low-cost and readily available there has been a high-demand to produce on-demand parts for various applications in automotive, in-space manufacturing and electronic industries. However, current limitations such as limited availability of advanced composites materials, and guidelines for design-for-manufacturing make the process prone to trial-and-error experiments both at the materials development, product design and manufacturing stage. In this work, new thermomechanical process simulations platform, Digimat-AM has been evaluated to address and demonstrate digital design …

Black Codes Re-Envisioned: The Dred Scott Majority Opinion As An Antiblack Performative Speech Act., Tiffany Dillard-Knox

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is a discursive analysis of the decision in the Dred Scott v Sandford, 1857 case written by Chief Justice Roger Taney. It begins with an overview of the literature on performative speech acts, focusing on the aspects of performatives that relate to Louis Miron and Jonathan Xavier Inda’s thesis that race is a performative speech act. Breaking from their use of race as the analytic, this analysis is situated within a black/nonblack paradigm. This provides a framework that focuses on the unique ways in which the discourse of the text enacts, accumulates and renders blackness fungible. The …

Lung Nodules Identification In Ct Scans Using Multiple Instance Learning., Wiem Safta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Computer Aided Diagnosis (CAD) systems for lung nodules diagnosis aim to classify nodules into benign or malignant based on images obtained from diverse imaging modalities such as Computer Tomography (CT). Automated CAD systems are important in medical domain applications as they assist radiologists in the time-consuming and labor-intensive diagnosis process. However, most available methods require a large collection of nodules that are segmented and annotated by radiologists. This process is labor-intensive and hard to scale to very large datasets. More recently, some CAD systems that are based on deep learning have emerged. These algorithms do not require the nodules to …

Additive Manufacturing Using Robotic Manipulators, Fdm, And Aerosol Jet Printers., Alexander Curry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Additive manufacturing has created countless new opportunities for fabrication of devices in the past few years. Advances in additive manufacturing continue to change the way that many devices are fabricated by simplifying processes and often lowering cost. Fused deposition modeling (FDM) is the most common form of 3D printing. It is a well-developed process that can print various plastic materials into three-dimensional structures. This technology is used in a lot of industries for rapid prototyping and sometimes small batch manufacturing. It is very inexpensive, and a prototype can be created in a few hours, rather than days. This is useful …

An Investigation Into Energy-Material Properties Interaction In Additive Manufacturing Of Polymers., Pu Han

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Additive manufacturing (AM), known as three-dimensional (3D) printing, is a fabrication process to build 3D objects layer by layer based on computer aided design (CAD) model or digital 3D model. Fused filament fabrication (FFF) has become a preferred method for additive manufacturing due to its cost-effectiveness and flexibility. However, the parts built using FFF process suffer from lower mechanical strength compared to that fabricated using traditional method and rough surface finish. With this motivation, this dissertation aims to develop and implement a novel in-process laser assisted technique on FFF to heal the microstructure of FFF built objects by enhancing reptation …

Hybrid Structural Health Monitoring Using Data-Driven Modal Analysis And Model-Based Bayesian Inference., Jice Zeng

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Civil infrastructures that are valuable assets for the public and owners must be adequately and periodically maintained to guarantee safety, continuous service, and avoid economic losses. Vibration-based structural health monitoring (VBSHM) has been a significant tool to assess the structural performance of civil infrastructures over the last decades. Challenges in VBSHM exist in two aspects: operational modal analysis (OMA) and Finite element model updating (FEMU). The former aims to extract natural frequency, damping ratio, and mode shapes using vibrational data under normal operation; the latter focuses on minimizing the discrepancies between measurements and model prediction. The main impediments to real-world …

Solvent Engineering Of Molybdenum Disulfide Electrocatalyst For Hydrogen Evolution., Robert Carl Spalding

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Energy is at an exponentially growing demand, and to keep up with these demands new technologies for renewable energy have received increased attention. Hydrogen plays a vital role in water electrolysis and fuel cells, as the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) is the main step water splitting process. Most of the current electrocatalysts for HER are dominated by platinum and other precious metals due to their low over-potential and small Tafel slope, however, they are extremely costly. For this reason, cost-effective non-precious metal catalysts must be developed. Transition metal dichalcogenides, such as molybdenum disulfide (MoS2), are abundant and have recently shown …

Update Of Multicellular Data Standard To Match Physicell "Compact" Output., Reid A Honeycutt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In the field of multicellular biology, it is currently very difficult for researchers to share digital data, due to a lack of standards for said data. Each laboratory will collect data from a particular project, which will describe only the features relevant to their research, and then present that data using written descriptions, charts, graphs, and images. This makes it difficult for the data produced by these studies be leveraged in other research efforts by scientists studying similar phenomena. An open-source, universal standard that attempts to meet this need is the MultiCellular Data Standard (MultiCellDS). MultiCellDS is described as a …

Nursing Perceptions For Utilizing Essential Oil Application In Labor And The Effect Of Targeted Education, Joni R. Beckham

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This Doctor of Nursing Practice project was implemented to determine how a nurse’s perception of aromatherapy influences their decision to provide aromatherapy for patients during labor and the effect of targeted education on a nurse’s perception. The purpose of this project was to determine how nurses view the use of aromatherapy resources at their disposal and the likelihood that they would offer the intervention to their patients. This project provided education to increase nurses’ confidence in providing optimal care to patients using a traditional and holistic avenue of aromatherapy while determining if education can positively influence nurses to support essential …

Implementing Mindfulness Meditation To Reduce Nurse Burnout, Jannelle V. Sanchez

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Abstract

There will be an estimated shortage of 100,000 nurses by the year 2022, with 500,000 seasoned nurses retiring. The nursing profession has recently experienced a devastating pandemic that left no time to combat the detrimental effects of burnout, specifically for intensive care nurses, who are the frontline workers of a physically and psychologically draining working environment conducive to burnout. Nurses experience burnout for a mixture of reasons, but mainly it is due to the lack of interventions to help them combat the disease. Mindfulness meditation represents an interventional tool that has been shown to reduce the negative stressors associated …

The Impact Of Leadership And Institutional Priorities On Degree Completion Of Community College Students, Estelle L. Garza

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study explored student perceptions of leadership and the impact they believed it to have on their ability to complete a degree at a community college district. Community college degree completion is both a statewide and national problem as most students who start a degree program will drop out before reaching the requirements to finish their degree, which can hurt their career opportunities and the economy. The purpose of this study was to determine how students perceive factors like leadership and their satisfaction with institutional priority factors to impact degree completion. This study used action research and a mixed methods …