Digital Commons Network^™

The Effects Of Social Support And Working Alliance On Latino-American Male Combat Veterans, Lloyd Duran

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The negative effects of traumatic combat experiences on combatants' psychological functioning is well documented in the literature. The Global War on Terrorism (GWOT) has resulted in many veterans returning from deployments with mental health conditions related to trauma exposure, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, depression, general anxiety, and suicidality. Past researchers found significant ethnic differences in psychological functioning, with Latino-American veterans reporting more symptoms of PTSD. Furthermore, Latino-American cultural values place importance on collective orientation and secrecy of mental health concerns which may affect treatment. Thus, this study built on limited research about Latino-American male combat veterans by focusing on …

Consequences Of Altered Short-Chain Carbon Metabolism In Heart Failure, Julie Horton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Cardiovascular disease is currently the foremost cause of death within the United States. Heart failure (HF) is a syndrome defined by the inability of the heart to adequately execute requisite pump function in order to deliver nutrients and oxygen to peripheral tissues, irrespective of etiology. One of the most common causes of HF is chronic pressure overload due to hypertension. Ischemic heart disease is also a common driver of HF, often in conjunction with hypertension. Pressure overload initially causes compensatory metabolic changes. Structural changes follow shortly thereafter typically resulting in left ventricular hypertrophy. Eventually, the heart loses the ability to …

Go With The Flow: Patterns Of Connectivity In Low Dispersal Coral Reef Gobies (Coryphopterus Spp.) Throughout The Western Atlantic, Daniel Volk

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Gene flow is an integral biological process that can mediate speciation. While many consider the ocean to be an open environment, there are many barriers that limit gene flow, particularly in the western Atlantic. I analyzed data from two widespread, coral reef fishes, the bridled goby (Coryphopterus glaucofraenum) and sand-canyon goby (C. venezuelae), throughout their range in the western Atlantic. Using two genetic datasets, mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) and genomic SNPs, I investigated the evolutionary history of these species and inferred the location and strength of putative barriers. My results suggest that several unique lineages have genetically diverged from one another …

The Paths Less Traveled: Movement Of Gopher Tortoises Along Roads And Railways, Rhett Rautsaw

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Urbanization and an expanding human population have led to a large degree of habitat destruction and fragmentation. These, in turn, reduce biodiversity and wildlife population sizes on a global scale. Transportation infrastructure, such as roads and railways, are some of the largest contributors to habitat fragmentation. Roads are well-established to negatively impact wildlife, but some studies suggest a potential use in habitat connectivity by functioning as wildlife corridors to connect distant populations. Railways are similarly known to impact wildlife by increasing mortality rates as well as provide unique risks such as electrocution and entrapment when compared to roads. However, the …

Two-Component Covalent Inhibitors (Tcci) Of The Human Immunodeficiency Virus Reverse Transcriptase (Hiv-Rt), Carlos Ledezma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The traditional design of nucleoside reverse transcriptase inhibitors (NRTI's) involves the synthesis of chain-terminated nucleoside analogs. HIV-RT has relatively low fidelity which facilitates mutations that confer resistance towards NRTI's, also, drug promiscuity from NRTI's result in various side-effects that lead to poor patient adherence to treatment. We designed and tested two-component covalent inhibitors against HIV-RT. Our inhibitor design results in higher specificity due to its binary approach, which has previously been used in biosensing applications, where both components are necessary for therapeutic effect, and lower chances for mutagenesis because of its inhibitory action. The TCCI approach results in up to …

The Impact Of Automation And Stress On Human Performance In Uav Operation, Jinchao Lin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The United States Air Force (USAF) has increasing needs for unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) operators. Automation may enable a single operator to manage multiple UAVs at the same time. Multi-UAV operation may require a unique set of skills and the need for new operators calls for targeting new populations for recruitment. The objective of this research is to develop a simulation environment for studying the role of individual differences in UAV operation under different task configurations and investigate predictors of performance and stress. Primarily, the study examined the impact of levels of automation (LOAs), as well as task demands, on …

The Effects Of Sprint Interval Training And Maturity Status On Metabolic And Neuromuscular Fatigue Thresholds In Adolescents, Kyle Beyer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Purpose: To examine the maturity-related differences in the adaptations to systemic and localized fatigue thresholds (FTs) in response to sprint interval training (SIT) amongst adolescent male athletes. Methods: Twenty-seven adolescent male athletes, 11-17 years of age, completed pre-testing, six weeks of SIT, and post-testing. Participants were grouped according to their number of years from peak height velocity (PHV), an estimation of somatic maturity status, into PRE ( < -1.5yr), PERI (between -1.5 to +1.5yr) and POST ( > +1.5yr) PHV groups. Each testing session consisted of a ramp exercise protocol on a cycle ergometer. During the protocol, three systemic FTs, gas exchange threshold, ventilatory threshold, and respiratory compensation point were calculated …

A Preliminary Assessment Of Steroid Reproductive Hormones In Archaeological Human Hair Utilizing A Modified Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay (Elisa) Technique, Elisha Tisdale

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hair has become an invaluable resource in forensic, clinical, and bioarchaeological research. The unique interaction between the growing hair fiber, the hair follicle, and the endocrine system inundates the growing hair fiber with an incremental record of many of the discreet physiological processes of the body. Recently, a novel study by Webb et al. (2010) demonstrated that endogenous records of cortisol, the "stress hormone", are capable of being extracted from archaeological human hair through a modified enzyme-linked immunosorbent assay (ELISA) technique, thus providing insight into the "invisible" stress experiences of an individual that would otherwise not be detectable through skeletal …

A Deoxyribozyme Sensor And Isothermal Amplification For Human Sex Determination, Alexandra Smith

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Ribozymes are known to catalyze biochemical reactions and behave like enzymes. They are naturally occurring and have very diverse functions within a cell. After investigating ribozymes that next step was to find if DNA can exhibit the same characteristics since RNA and DNA only differ by a ribose 2'-hydroxyl group. This evolution in curiosity gave rise to artificial DNA enzymes that can catalyze certain reactions and have been created by in vitro selection methods. Due to the ability to manipulate and control DNA hybridization, the deoxyribozyme is advantageous to the field of molecular diagnostics. Other hybridization probes like Taqman for …

Chaperonin Containing Tcp1 (Cct) As A Target For Cancer Therapy, Ana Carr

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Treatments for aggressive cancers like triple negative breast cancer (TNBC) and small-cell lung cancer (SCLC) have not improved and remain associated with debilitating side effects. There is an unmet medical need for better, druggable targets and improved therapeutics. To this end, we investigated the role of Chaperonin-Containing TCP1 (CCT), an evolutionarily conserved protein-folding complex composed of eight subunits (CCT1-8), in oncogenesis. Our laboratory was the first to report that the CCT2 subunit is highly expressed in breast cancer and could be therapeutically targeted. To determine whether CCT is a marker of disease progression in other cancers, we analyzed CCT2 gene …

Novel Cytokine Signaling And Molecular Therapeutic Strategy In Pancreatic Cancer, Sarah Gitto

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) is highly chemo-resistant and has a five year survival rate of < 8%. Risk factors of pancreatic cancer, such as chronic pancreatitis, help to elicit a pro-tumor immune response, and highly fibrotic environment that promotes tumorigenesis. To study how chronic pancreatitis promotes cancer initiation, traditional KRasG12D mice and double mutant Akt1Myr/KrasG12D mice were used to model microenvironment changes. Akt1Myr/KrasG12D mice were more susceptible to chronic tissue damage, accelerated tumor development and metastatic disease. These mice exhibited histological changes consistent with immune cell privilege, where M2 macrophages and non-cytotoxic eosinophils were co-localized with fibrotic regions. IL-5 expression was up regulated in pancreatic cells undergoing acinar to ductal metaplasia and then diminished in advanced lesions. Tumor cells treated with IL-5 exhibit increased migration and activation through STAT5 signaling. Collectively, the results suggest that eosinophils, which are responsive to IL-5, are key mediators in the pancreatic environment subjected to chronic inflammation and injury. Current therapeutics fall short in increasing patient survival. There remains an urgent need for innovative treatments and thus we tested difluoromethylornithine (DFMO) in combination with a novel polyamine transport inhibitor, Trimer44NMe, against Gemcitabine-resistant PDAC cells. Prior clinical failures when targeting polyamine biosynthesis with DFMO monotherapy may be due to tumor escape via an undefined polyamine transport system. In pancreatic tumor cells DFMO alone and with Trimer44NMe significantly reduced PDAC cell viability by inducing apoptosis or cell cycle arrest. In vivo orthotopic PDAC growth with DFMO treatment resulted in decreased c-Myc expression, a readout of polyamine pathway dysfunction. Moreover, dual inhibition significantly prolonged survival of tumor-bearing mice, and increased M1 macrophage infiltration and reduced FoxP3 expression. Collectively, these studies demonstrate that targeting polyamine pathways in PDAC is a promising immunomodulating therapy that increases survival.

A Universal Electrochemical Biosensor For The Detection Of Nucleic Acids Based On A Four-Way Junction Structure, Dawn Mills

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Electrochemical hybridization sensors have been explored extensively for analysis of specific nucleic acids. However, commercialization of the platform is hindered by the need for attachment of separate oligonucleotide probes complementary to a RNA or DNA target to an electrode's surface. This dissertation demonstrates that a single probe can be used to analyze several nucleic acid targets of different lengths with high selectivity, low cost and can be regenerated in 30 seconds by a simple water rinse. The universal electrochemical four-way junction (4J)-forming (UE4J) sensor consists of a universal DNA stem-loop (USL) probe attached to the electrode's surface and two adaptor …

Harnessing Spatial Intensity Fluctuations For Optical Imaging And Sensing, Milad Akhlaghi Bouzan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Properties of light such as amplitude and phase, temporal and spatial coherence, polarization, etc. are abundantly used for sensing and imaging. Regardless of the passive or active nature of the sensing method, optical intensity fluctuations are always present! While these fluctuations are usually regarded as noise, there are situations where one can harness the intensity fluctuations to enhance certain attributes of the sensing procedure. In this thesis, we developed different sensing methodologies that use statistical properties of optical fluctuations for gauging specific information. We examine this concept in the context of three different aspects of computational optical imaging and sensing. …

Network Partitioning In Distributed Agent-Based Models, Antoniya Petkova

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Agent-Based Models (ABMs) are an emerging simulation paradigm for modeling complex systems, comprised of autonomous, possibly heterogeneous, interacting agents. The utility of ABMs lies in their ability to represent such complex systems as self-organizing networks of agents. Modeling and understanding the behavior of complex systems usually occurs at large and representative scales, and often obtaining and visualizing of simulation results in real-time is critical. The real-time requirement necessitates the use of in-memory computing, as it is difficult and challenging to handle the latency and unpredictability of disk accesses. Combining this observation with the scale requirement emphasizes the need to use …

Linking Climate Change And Socio-Economic Impact For Long-Term Urban Growth In Three Mega-Cities, Qi Lu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Urbanization has become a global trend under the impact of population growth, socio-economic development, and globalization. However, the interactions between climate change and urban growth in the context of economic geography are unclear due to missing links in between the recent planning megacities. This study aims to conduct a multi-temporal change analysis of land use and land cover in New York City, City of London, and Beijing using a cellular automata-based Markov chain model collaborating with fuzzy set theory and multi-criteria evaluation to predict the city's future land use changes for 2030 and 2050 under the background of climate change. …

Biological Nutrient Removal (Bnr) Process Optimization And Recovery Of Embedded Energy Using Biodiesel By-Product, Sultan Salamah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Enhanced biological phosphorus removal (EBPR) as well as biological nitrogen removal require a carbon source to be carried out. Volatile fatty acid (VFAs) (mainly acetic and propionic acids) are the major driving force for EBPR. Many domestic wastewaters have an insufficient amount of VFAs. However, carbon sources such as acetic and propionic acids can be produced using primary solids fermentation process. Due to the cost of VFA production, an external carbon source can be added to the biological nutrient removal (BNR) system that can be fermented to provide the desired VFAs. Glycerol (biodiesel by-product) offers a solution to reduce carbon …

Redox-Active Solid State Materials And Its Biomedical And Biosensing Applications, Ankur Gupta

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Reactive oxygen species (ROS) are byproducts of physiological processes in human body, and strengthened production of ROS is known to cause acute conditions such as inflammation, aging, Alzheimer's disease, melanoma and ovarian cancer, fibrosis and multiple sclerosis. Therefore, early detection of ROS at nanomolar concentration (at cellular level) and developing more potent antioxidants is essential for regular health monitoring. As an example, ROS are also responsible for inflammation reactions at orthopedic implants-tissue interface triggered by wear debris. Inflammation induced by ROS results in revision surgery. Coatings of redox-active materials exhibiting antioxidant properties on implants have potential to mitigate the inflammation …

Learning Kernel-Based Approximate Isometries, Mahlagha Sedghi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The increasing availability of public datasets offers an inexperienced opportunity to conduct data-driven studies. Metric Multi-Dimensional Scaling aims to find a low-dimensional embedding of the data, preserving the pairwise dissimilarities amongst the data points in the original space. Along with the visualizability, this dimensionality reduction plays a pivotal role in analyzing and disclosing the hidden structures in the data. This work introduces Sparse Kernel-based Least Squares Multi-Dimensional Scaling approach for exploratory data analysis and, when desirable, data visualization. We assume our embedding map belongs to a Reproducing Kernel Hilbert Space of vector-valued functions which allows for embeddings of previously unseen …

End To End Brain Fiber Orientation Estimation Using Deep Learning, Nandakishore Puttashamachar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this work, we explore the various Brain Neuron tracking techniques, one of the most significant applications of Diffusion Tensor Imaging. Tractography is a non-invasive method to analyze underlying tissue micro-structure. Understanding the structure and organization of the tissues facilitates a diagnosis method to identify any aberrations which can occur within tissues due to loss of cell functionalities, provides acute information on the occurrences of brain ischemia or stroke, the mutation of certain neurological diseases such as Alzheimer, multiple sclerosis and so on. Under all these circumstances, accurate localization of the aberrations in efficient manner can help save a life. …

Reducing Sulfuric Acid Pretreatment In A Nanofiltration Process Treating Surficial Groundwater, Carlyn Higgins

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Nanofiltration (NF) is a pressure driven membrane process employed in drinking water treatment that requires pretreatment for reliable operation. The objective of this research was to determine if NF membranes can proficiently operate with a decreased or eliminated dose of sulfuric acid pretreatment. When used as pretreatment, sulfuric acid prevents calcium carbonate scaling on NF membranes, yet is costly, hazardous, and imparts high sulfate concentrations to NF feed and concentrate streams. To conduct this research, a 0.324 million gallon per day (MGD) NF pilot plant was operated for 3,855 run-hours at a flux rate of 15 gallons per square foot-day. …

Learning Dynamic Network Models For Complex Social Systems, Alireza Hajibagheri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Human societies are inherently complex and highly dynamic, resulting in rapidly changing social networks, containing multiple types of dyadic interactions. Analyzing these time-varying multiplex networks with approaches developed for static, single layer networks often produces poor results. To address this problem, our approach is to explicitly learn the dynamics of these complex networks. This dissertation focuses on five problems: 1) learning link formation rates; 2) predicting changes in community membership; 3) using time series to predict changes in network structure; 4) modeling coevolution patterns across network layers and 5) extracting information from negative layers of a multiplex network. To study …

Water And Energy Costs Of Landfilled Food Waste, Tonmoy Sarker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Energy and water are consumed or contaminated during both the production and disposal of wasted food. To date, evaluations of water and energy resources associated with food waste have considered only resources used in food production. To allow for the full characterization of food waste within a Food Energy Water (FEW) nexus framework, this study addresses a fundamental knowledge gap related to the energy and water impacts of food waste after disposal. Fluxes of water and energy related to disposal of wasted food in landfills within the state of Florida were characterized. It is estimated that each metric ton (Mg) …

Prototype Development In General Purpose Representation And Association Machine Using Communication Theory, Huihui Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biological system study has been an intense research area in neuroscience and cognitive science for decades of years. Biological human brain is created as an intelligent system that integrates various types of sensor information and processes them intelligently. Neurons, as activated brain cells help the brain to make instant and rough decisions. From the 1950s, researchers start attempting to understand the strategies the biological system employs, then eventually translate them into machine-based algorithms. Modern computers have been developed to meet our need to handle computational tasks which our brains are not capable of performing with precision and speed. While in …

Analysis Of Pedestrian Safety Using Micro-Simulation And Driving Simulator, Jiawei Wu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, traffic agencies have begun to place emphasis on the importance of pedestrian safety. In the United States, nearly 70,000 pedestrians were reported injured in 2015. Although the number only account for 3% of all the people injured in traffic crashes, the number of pedestrian fatalities is still around 15% of total traffic fatalities. Furthermore, the state of Florida has consistently ranked as one of the worst states in terms of pedestrian crashes, injuries and fatalities. Therefore, it is befitting to focus on the pedestrian safety. This dissertation mainly focused on pedestrian safety at both midblock crossings and …

Molecular Analysis Of The Mating System Of A Population Of Fantail Darter (Etheostoma Flabellare) In Bates Fork, Greene Co., Pa, Ashley Seitz

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In May 2013, we examined the mating system of the Fantail Darter, Etheostoma flabellare, from a population inhabiting Bates Fork, a small tributary of the Monongahela River in Greene County, PA. Guarding adult male Fantail Darters excavate an area under a flat rock in moderately flowing rifles. Females select a male or his territory and deposit clusters of eggs on the underside of the nest rock. The guarding male provides all parental care. The locations of 23 nests were mapped over a 139m² stream segment before collecting embryos and attending males for a genetic parentage analysis. DNA was …

Parents Of Children Who Had Hypoxic-Ischemic Encephalopathy: A Mixed-Methods, Exploratory Study, Natalene Kramer

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: There is scant literature addressing the parents of children who had hypoxic-ischemic encephalopathy (HIE). therefore only inferences may be made as to issues of that experience affecting parents.

Purpose: The purposes of this study was to uncover the lived experiences of parents of children who had HIE, evaluate issues of stress, depression, coping, and impact of neurologic disability in order to better care for them and thus their families

Methods: A parallel, convergent mixed-methods design was used to explore experiences and perceptions of these parents regarding their experiences and life changes. The quantitative strand addressed four research questions which …

How Can The Use Of Human Enhancement (He) Technologies In The Military Be Ethically Assessed?, Philip Andrew Taraska

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

War is a terrible price to pay for the prospect of peace. Yet every nation has a moral obligation to protect its citizenry from unjust aggression and threats to security. To be sure, war is always a failure. It is a failure of mankind to come together in mutual respect for the inherent dignity of the human person. The issue of the use of HE in the military is relevant today because the Global War on Terror (GWOT) and the rapid rise of emerging technologies have led to a never-before-seen type of asymmetrical warfare. The rise of these technologies can …

Elemental Trauma: A Case Study Of Living With Contaminated Water Near Sites Of Marcellus Shale Gas Extraction, Christopher John Mccann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This qualitative research study examines the experiences of individuals living with contaminated water near sites of unconventional Marcellus Shale extraction (commonly called “fracking”) in western Pennsylvania. Five individuals across three households were recruited following IRB approval. Fieldwork was completed in a small town in western Pennsylvania from July of 2013 to April of 2014. This project examines how participant’s relationship to the materiality of water undergoes a drastic transformation. Water is explored as a dynamic, elemental substance that creates the conditions for both life and disease and death for participant-households. Water becomes a re-animated character in participant lives that restructures …

Analysis Of Dialog Surrounding Animal Testing In Vaccine Research, Natalie Johnson

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study analyzed the scholarly discussions surrounding the topic of animal testing for vaccine potency and safety in humans. The primary stakeholders in this discussion are the scientists, medical professionals, and researchers who are involved in animal models and alternative testing methods, specifically related to vaccine development. The debate among these professionals regarding alternative methods, which encompasses any testing approach that does not involve animals, has been analyzed. This project looks at the argument from a historical perspective, which provides background context for the current debate and an understanding of how the current arguments originated. The changing mindset over time …

Navigating The (Im)Perfect Performances Of Queer Iranian-American Identity, Shadee Abdi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Within the social sciences and humanities, failure to adequately account for the intersectional ways people of color navigate their multiple identities within contesting cultural systems, creates an unfinished portrait of queer identity. For queer people of color, negotiating queer identity is always in relation to their nationality, race-ethnicity, class, gender, religion, and family. While many queer of color stories share similar obligatory cultural norms, the legal ramifications that impact the lives of queer Iranians and their families, both within Iran and abroad, challenge many queer of color expectations. Due to stringent cultural and legal influences, Iranian social discourse heavily impacts …