Digital Commons Network^™

Influences Of Yogurt With Functional Ingredients From Various Sources That Help Treat Leaky Gut On Intestinal Barrier Dysfunction In Caco-2 Cells, Ricardo S. Aleman, Ryan Page, Roberto Cedillos, Ismael Montero-Fernández, Jhunior Abraham Marcia Fuentes, Douglas W. Olson, Kayanush Aryana

Faculty Publications

The impact of yogurts made with starter culture bacteria (L. bulgaricus and S. thermophilus) and supplemented with ingredients (maitake mushrooms, quercetin, L-glutamine, slippery elm bark, licorice root, N-acetyl-D-glucosamine, zinc orotate, and marshmallow root) that can help treat leaky gut were investigated using the Caco-2 cell monolayer as a measure of intestinal barrier dysfunction. Milk from the same source was equally dispersed into nine pails, and the eight ingredients were randomly allocated to the eight pails. The control had no ingredients. The Caco-2 cells were treated with isoflavone genistein (negative control) and growth media (positive control). Inflammation was stimulated using an …

Design Guidance For Wetland-Road Crossings To Reduce Blanding’S Turtle Mortality Risk, Thomas P. Ballestero, Lauren E. White, Sandra Houghton, David Burdick, Josh Megyesy

Faculty Publications

Road mortality is a leading threat to freshwater turtles, particularly the Blanding’s turtle (Emydoidea blandingii), an endangered species in New Hampshire. Wildlife wetland-crossing structures, such as culverts and/or fences, have proven effective in reducing wildlife road mortality while retaining habitat connectivity. Funding for adequate wetland-crossing creation or restoration is limited, so prioritizing areas of high mortality risk is essential to ensuring that the resources spent are impactful. A research team of professionals from the New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, New Hampshire Fish and Game, University of New Hampshire, and other organizations formed to create a model capable …

Comparison Of Rheological Methods To Measure Grease Degradation, Alan Gurt, Michael Khonsari

Faculty Publications

In a previous paper, methods that have been used to quantify grease mechanical degradation were compared, finding that crossover stress is a practical method for estimating the cone penetration value of a grease using a small sample. This paper covers techniques that have not generally been applied to modeling grease degradation and indicates their usefulness in characterizing the state of a grease. Three methods are examined, each using a different flow profile: rotation, oscillation, and normal force/extension. It is found that crossover stress is likely still the best choice for estimating cone penetration, and a fast, practical method is introduced …

A New Rough Ordinal Priority-Based Decision Support System For Purchasing Electric Vehicles, Sadik Kucuksari, Dragan Pamucar, Muhammet Deveci, Nuh Erdogan, Dursun Delen

Faculty Publications

This study proposes a novel multi-criteria decision-making (MCDM) model based on a rough extension of the Ordinal Priority Approach (OPA) to determine the order of importance of users' perspectives on Electric Vehicle (EV) purchases. Unlike conventional methods that rely on predefined ranks for criteria weighting coefficients, the proposed rough OPA method employs an aggregated rough linguistic matrix, enabling a more precise and unbiased calculation of interval values. Moreover, the model addresses inherent uncertainties by incorporating nonlinear aggregation functions, accommodating decision makers' risk attitudes for flexible decision-making. To validate the model's efficacy, a large-scale post-EV test drive survey is conducted, enabling …

Impact Of Silicon Ion Irradiation On Aluminum Nitride-Transduced Microelectromechanical Resonators, David D. Lynes, Joshua Young, Eric Lang, Hengky Chandrahalim

Faculty Publications

Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) resonators use is widespread, from electronic filters and oscillators to physical sensors such as accelerometers and gyroscopes. These devices' ubiquity, small size, and low power consumption make them ideal for use in systems such as CubeSats, micro aerial vehicles, autonomous underwater vehicles, and micro-robots operating in radiation environments. Radiation's interaction with materials manifests as atomic displacement and ionization, resulting in mechanical and electronic property changes, photocurrents, and charge buildup. This study examines silicon (Si) ion irradiation's interaction with piezoelectrically transduced MEMS resonators. Furthermore, the effect of adding a dielectric silicon oxide (SiO₂) thin film is …

Μconadapter: Reinforcement Learning-Based Fast Concurrency Adaptation For Microservices In Cloud, Jianshu Liu, Shungeng Zhang, Qingyang Wang

Faculty Publications

Modern web-facing applications such as e-commerce comprise tens or hundreds of distributed and loosely coupled microservices that promise to facilitate high scalability. While hardware resource scaling approaches [28] have been proposed to address response time fluctuations in critical microservices, little attention has been given to the scaling of soft resources (e.g., threads or database connections), which control hardware resource concurrency. This paper demonstrates that optimal soft resource allocation for critical microservices significantly impacts overall system performance, particularly response time. This suggests the need for fast and intelligent runtime reallocation of soft resources as part of microservices scaling management. We introduce …

Strong Evidence For 9N And The Limits Of Existence Of Atomic Nuclei, R. J. Charity, J. Wylie, S. M. Wang, T. B. Webb, K. W. Brown, G. Cerizza, Z. Chajecki, J. M. Elson, J. Estee, D. E. M. Hoff, S. A. Kuvin, W. G. Lynch, Juan J. Manfredi, N. Michel, D. G. Mcneel, P. Morfouace, W. Nazarewicz, C. D. Pruitt, C. Santamaria, S. Sweany, J. Smith, L. G. Sobotka, M. B. Tsang, A. H. Wuosmaa

Faculty Publications

The boundaries of the chart of nuclides contain exotic isotopes that possess extreme proton-to-neutron asymmetries. Here we report on strong evidence of ⁹N, one of the most exotic proton-rich isotopes where more than one half of its constitute nucleons are unbound. With seven protons and two neutrons, this extremely proton-rich system would represent the first-known example of a ground-state five-proton emitter. The invariant-mass spectrum of its decay products can be fit with two peaks whose energies are consistent with the theoretical predictions of an open-quantum-system approach; however, we cannot rule out the possibility that only a single resonancelike peak …

Augmenting External Surface Pressures’ Predictions On Isolated Low-Rise Buildings Using Cfd Simulations, Md Faiaz Khaled, Aly Mousaad Aly

Faculty Publications

The aim of this paper is to enhance the accuracy of predicting time-averaged external surface pressures on low-rise buildings by utilizing Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) simulations. To achieve this, benchmark studies of the Silsoe cube and the Texas Tech University (TTU) experimental building are employed for comparison with simulation results. The paper is structured into three main sections. In the initial part, an appropriate domain size is selected based on the precision of mean pressure coefficients on the windward face of the cube, utilizing Reynolds Averaged Navier-Stokes (RANS) turbulence models. Subsequently, recommendations regarding the optimal computational domain size for an …

Active-Illumination Extension To The Priest And Meier Pbrdf, Mark F. Spencer, Milo W. Hyde Iv, Santasri R. Bose-Pillai, Michael A. Marciniak

Faculty Publications

This paper develops a 3D vector solution for the scattering of partially coherent laser-beam illumination from statistically rough surfaces. Such a solution enables a rigorous comparison to the well-known Priest and Meier polarimetric bidirectional reflectance distribution function (pBRDF) [Opt Eng 41(5),988 (2002).]. Overall, the comparison shows excellent agreement for the normalized spectral density and the degree of polarization. Based on this agreement, the 3D vector solution also enables an extension to the Priest and Meier pBRDF that accounts for the effects of active illumination. In particular, the 3D vector solution enables the development of a closed-form expression for the spectral …

Directional Microwave Emission From Femtosecond-Laser Illuminated Linear Arrays Of Superconducting Rings, Thomas J. Bullard, Kyle Frische, Charlie Ebbing, Stephen J. Hageman, John Morrison, John Bulmer, Enam A. Chowdury, Michael L. Dexter, Timothy J. Haugan, Anil K. Patnaik

Faculty Publications

We examine the electromagnetic emission from two photo-illuminated linear arrays composed of inductively charged superconducting ring elements. The arrays are illuminated by an ultrafast infrared laser that triggers microwave broadband emission detected in the 1–26 GHz range. Based on constructive interference from the arrays a narrowing of the forward radiation lobe is observed with increasing element count and frequency demonstrating directed GHz emission. Results suggest that higher frequencies and a larger number of elements are achievable leading to a unique pulsed array emitter concept that can span frequencies from the microwave to the terahertz (THz) regime.

Nano-Injection Molding With Resin Mold Inserts For Prototyping Of Nanofluidic Devices For Single Molecular Detection, Farhad Shiri, Junseo Choi, Chad Vietz, Chathurika Rathnayaka, Anishkumar Manoharan, Suresh Shivanka, Guoqiang Li, Chengbin Yu, Michael C. Murphy, Steven A. Soper, Sunggook Park

Faculty Publications

While injection molding is becoming the fabrication modality of choice for high-scale production of microfluidic devices, especially those used for in vitro diagnostics, its translation into the growing area of nanofluidics (structures with at least one dimension <100 >nm) has not been well established. Another prevailing issue with injection molding is the high startup costs and the relatively long time between device iterations making it in many cases impractical for device prototyping. We report, for the first time, functional nanofluidic devices with dimensions of critical structures below 30 nm fabricated by injection molding for the manipulation, identification, and detection of single …

Creating An Inclusive Metadata Policy, Nicole Lewis, Jeremy Myntti

Faculty Publications

The BYU Library is creating an Inclusive Metadata Policy for metadata creators to use when creating and remediating descriptions to be more inclusive. Accompanying the policy is a companion document with recommendations and examples, including links to many external resources. In addition to working with stakeholders in the library to develop the policy, we consulted with the University’s Office of Belonging. This presentation describes the process we used to undertake the creation of the library policy and recommendations document.

Law And Its Limits: Ethical Issues In Mary Shelly's Frankenstein Or, The Modern Prometheus, David S. Caudill

Faculty Publications

The law and literature movement is frequently associated with the use of literary images of law as a point of reflection upon the ethical obligations of lawyers. Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (1818)—the story of a young scientist whose unorthodox experiments end up creating the famed “monster”—is not, at first glance, a likely candidate for that enterprise. However, Dr. Frankenstein’s ambition and ruthless pursuit of knowledge has become a contemporary image of science out of control and the need for ethical limitations on scientific progress. Consequently, the novel raises currently important issues of regulating science and technology. Given the lawyer’s ethical obligation …

Deconvoluting Charge-Transfer, Mass Transfer, And Ohmic Resistances In Phosphonic Acid-Sulfonic Acid Ionomer Binders Used In Electrochemical Hydrogen Pumps, Karthik Arunagiri, Andrew Jark Wah Wong, Luis Briceno-Mena, Hania Mohamed Gaber Hassan Elsayed, José A. Romagnoli, Michael J. Janik, Christopher G. Arges

Faculty Publications

Ion-pair high-temperature polymer electrolyte membranes (HT-PEMs) paired with phosphonic acid ionomer electrode binders have substantially improved the performance of HT-PEM electrochemical hydrogen pumps (EHPs) and fuel cells. Blending poly(pentafluorstyrene-co-tetrafluorostyrene phosphonic acid) (PTFSPA) with Nafion™, and using this blend as an electrode binder, improved proton conductivity in the electrode layer resulting in a 2 W cm−2 peak power density of fuel cells at 240 °C (a HT-PEM fuel cell record). However, much is unknown about how phosphonic acid ionomers blended with perfluorosulfonic acid materials affect electrode kinetics and gas transport in porous electrodes. In this work, we studied the proton conductivity, …

Neutronic Analysis Of The Byu Molten Salt Micro Reactor, Collin Bradford, Edward Mercado, Braden Clayton, Lagrande Gunnell, Andrew Larsen, Matthew Memmott

Faculty Publications

Background: With the rising need for reliable and clean energy, researchers at Brigham Young University created a molten salt microreactor (MSMR) concept to help meet the world’s growing energy demands. The MSMR is rated at 45 MWth and is uniquely capable of passively dissipating all decay heat using conduction only.

Methods: This work presents the results of the simulated neutronic behavior of the MSMR using the Monte Carlo neutronics code OpenMC with the ENDF/B-VII.1 cross-section library at steady state conditions. The specific characteristics discussed in this work are: keff, power profile, axial and radial peak power factors, Doppler coefficient of …

Ready Worker One? High-Res Vr For The Home Office, Anastasia Ruvimova, Felipe Fronchetti, Boden A. Kahn, Luiz Henrique Susin, Zekeya Hurley, Thomas Fritz, Mark Hancock, David Shepherd

Faculty Publications

Many employees prefer to work from home, yet struggle to squeeze their office into an already fully-utilized space. Virtual Reality (VR) seemingly offered a solution with its ability to transform even modest physical spaces into spacious, productive virtual offices, but hardware challenges - such as low resolution - have prevented this from becoming a reality. Now that hardware issues are being overcome, we are able to investigate the suitability of VR for daily work. To do so, we (1) studied the physical space that users typically dedicate to home offices and (2) conducted an exploratory study of users working in …

Continuous Spin Excitations In The Three-Dimensional Frustrated Magnet K2ni2 (So4)3, Weiliang Yao, Qing Huang, Tao Xie, Andrey Podlesnyak, Alexander Brassington, Chengkun Xing, Ranuri S.Dissanayaka Mudiyanselage, Haozhe Wang, Weiwei Xie, Shengzhi Zhang, Minseong Lee, Vivien S. Zapf, Xiaojian Bai, D. Alan Tennant, Jian Liu, Haidong Zhou

Faculty Publications

Continuous spin excitations are widely recognized as one of the hallmarks of novel spin states in quantum magnets, such as quantum spin liquids (QSLs). Here, we report the observation of such kind of excitations in K2Ni2(SO4)3, which consists of two sets of intersected spin-1 (Ni2+) trillium lattices. Our inelastic neutron scattering measurement on single crystals clearly shows a dominant excitation continuum, which exhibits a distinct temperature-dependent behavior from that of spin waves, and is rooted in strong quantum spin fluctuations. Further using the self-consistent-Gaussian-approximation method, we determine that the fourth- and fifth-nearest-neighbor exchange interactions are dominant. These two bonds together …

Word Choice: A Neglected But Key Skill For Ell Writers, Kristin Lems

Faculty Publications

With all of the urgent, critical issues confronting education in general, and literacy practices in particular, why write a column on something as obscure as word choice? Word choice (sometimes called vocabulary choice or diction) often drops to the bottom of the “To Do” list for English as a Second Language (ESL), English, bilingual, and language arts teachers. Even when teachers are able to focus on writing to begin with (writing development is often the first thing cut when lessons run over), teachers of English language learners (ELLs) are too preoccupied with teaching grammar, spelling, organization, syntax, genres, and building …

Toward Food Security In 2050: Gene Pyramiding For Climate-Smart Rice, Isnaini Isnaini, Yudhistira Nugraha, Niranjan Baisakh, Nono Carsono

Faculty Publications

The decline in crop productivity due to climate change is a major issue that threatens global food security and is the main challenge for breeders today in developing sustainable varieties with a wider tolerance to abiotic and biotic stresses. Breeding climate-smart rice (CSR) cultivars may be the best adaptation to climate change, with the potential to improve future food security and profitability for farmers in many nations. The main objective of this review is to highlight the direction of development of superior rice breeding from time to time, and various studies of new techniques of breeding methods for pyramiding various …

Multimessenger Diagnostics Of The Engine Behind Core-Collapse Supernovae, Christopher L. Fryer, Eric Burns, Aimee Hungerford, Samar Safi-Harb, R. T. Wollaeger, Richard S. Miller, Michela Negro, Samalka Anandagoda, Dieter H. Hartmann

Faculty Publications

Core-collapse supernova explosions play a wide role in astrophysics by producing compact remnants (neutron stars or black holes) and the synthesis and injection of many heavy elements into their host galaxy. Because they are produced in some of the most extreme conditions in the universe, they can also probe physics in extreme conditions (matter at nuclear densities and extreme temperatures and magnetic fields). To quantify the impact of supernovae on both fundamental physics and our understanding of the universe, we must leverage a broad set of observables of this engine. In this paper, we study a subset of these probes …

Engineering Super-Poissonian Photon Statistics Of Spatial Light Modes, Mingyuan Hong, Ashe Miller, Roberto De J. León-Montiel, Chenglong You, Omar S. Magaña-Loaiza

Faculty Publications

The nature of light sources is defined by the statistical fluctuations of the electromagnetic field. As such, the photon statistics of light sources are typically associated with distinct emitters. Here, the possibility of producing light beams with various photon statistics through the spatial modulation of coherent light is demonstrated. This is achieved by the sequential encoding of controllable Kolmogorov phase screens in a digital micromirror device. Interestingly, the flexibility of this scheme allows for the shaping of spatial light modes with engineered photon statistics at different spatial positions. The performance of this scheme is assessed through the photon-number-resolving characterization of …

Sexually Dimorphic Oxytocin Receptor-Expressing (Oxtr) Neurons In The Anteroventral Periventricular Nucleus (Avpv) In The Postpartum Female Mouse Are Involved In Maternal Behavior, Kaustubh Sharma, Armita A. Govar, Bandana Ghimire, Katsuhiko Nishimori, Elizabeth Hammock, Ryoichi Teruyama

Faculty Publications

Maternal care is crucial for the survival and development of offspring. Oxytocin modulates maternal behavior by binding to oxytocin receptors (OXTRs) in various parts of the brain. Previously, we showed that OXTRs are expressed in the anteroventral periventricular nucleus (AVPV) of female, but not male mice. Because the AVPV is involved in the regulation of maternal behavior and oxytocin enhances its induction, this finding leads to the hypothesis that the female specific population of OXTR neurons in the AVPV regulates maternal behavior. To address this hypothesis, OXTR-Venus reporter mice were used to assess if expression levels of OXTR in the …

Pubertal Progression And Its Relationship To Psychological And Behavioral Outcomes Among Adolescent Boys, Meng-Che Tsai, Yu-Chung Lawrence Wang, Hsun-Yu Chan

Faculty Publications

Variations in pubertal timing and tempo have relevance to psychosocial development. Accounting for pubertal timing, tempo, and psychosocial development simultaneously in a model remains challenging. This study aimed to document the typology of pubertal development in a cohort of Taiwanese adolescent boys and then to examine how the associations between psychosocial variables across time vary by the patterns of pubertal development. A group of adolescent boys (n = 1,368) reported pubertal signs and psychosocial variables for 3 years since seventh grade. The growth mixture model revealed three major classes of pubertal transition: average pubertal growth, late-onset with rapid catch-up, and …

U-Net-Lstm: Time Series-Enhanced Lake Boundary Prediction Model, Lirong Yin, Lei Wang, Tingqiao Li, Siyu Lu, Jiawei Tian, Zhengtong Yin, Xiaolu Li, Wenfeng Zheng

Faculty Publications

Change detection of natural lake boundaries is one of the important tasks in remote sensing image interpretation. In an ordinary fully connected network, or CNN, the signal of neurons in each layer can only be propagated to the upper layer, and the processing of samples is independent at each moment. However, for time-series data with transferability, the learned change information needs to be recorded and utilized. To solve the above problems, we propose a lake boundary change prediction model combining U-Net and LSTM. The ensemble of LSTMs helps to improve the overall accuracy and robustness of the model by capturing …

Friction-In-Design Regulation As 21st Century Time, Place, And Manner Restriction, Brett Frischmann, Susan Benesch

Faculty Publications

Digital networked society needs friction-in-design regulation that targets the digital architectures, supposedly smart (data-driven, algorithmic) systems, and interfaces that shape human interactions, behavior, and will (beliefs, preferences, values, intentions). The relentless push to eliminate friction for the sake of efficiency has hidden social costs that affect basic human capabilities and society. A general course correction is needed.

Friction in the digital networked environment can come in many forms. It can be as simple as a time delay prior to publishing a social media post, a notice that provides salient information coupled with a nudge toward actual deliberation, or a query …

Coir/Glass Hybrid Fiber Reinforced Thermoset Polymer Composite Laminates With Room-Temperature Self-Healing And Shape Memory Functions, Sakil Mahmud, John Konlan, Jenny Deicaza, Guoqiang Li

Faculty Publications

Natural fibers have a lot of potentials as renewable reinforcements for polymers. However, their lower load-carrying capacity compared with synthetic fibers made it a challenge to use them as polymer reinforcements. When a laminated composite beam is bent, the normal stress is the highest on the top and bottom layers and zero in the midplane due to the (non)linear distribution of normal strain. Even though the shear stress is the highest in the midplane, most polymers can tolerate the high shear stress. Therefore, hybrid composite laminates with strong synthetic glass fibers stacked over the core of weak natural coir fiber …

Machine-Learning-Based Thermal Conductivity Prediction For Additively Manufactured Alloys, Uttam Bhandari, Yehong Chen, Huan Ding, Congyuan Zeng, Selami Emanet, Paul R. Gradl, Shengmin Guo

Faculty Publications

Thermal conductivity (TC) is greatly influenced by the working temperature, microstructures, thermal processing (heat treatment) history and the composition of alloys. Due to computational costs and lengthy experimental procedures, obtaining the thermal conductivity for novel alloys, particularly parts made with additive manufacturing, is difficult and it is almost impossible to optimize the compositional space for an absolute targeted value of thermal conductivity. To address these difficulties, a machine learning method is explored to predict the TC of additive manufactured alloys. To accomplish this, an extensive thermal conductivity dataset for additively manufactured alloys was generated for several AM alloy families (nickel, …

Additive Friction Stir Deposition Of Metallic Materials: Process, Structure And Properties, Jiayun Shao, Arash Samaei, Tianju Xue, Xiaoyu Xie, Shengmin Guo, Jian Cao, Eric Macdonald, Zhengtao Gan

Faculty Publications

Additive friction stir deposition (AFSD) is a relatively new additive manufacturing technique to fabricate parts in solid state below the melting temperature. Due to the solid-state nature, AFSD benefits from lower residual stresses as well as significantly lower susceptibility to porosity, hot-cracking, and other defects compared to conventional fusion-based metallic additive manufacturing. These unique features make AFSD a promising alternative to conventional forging for fabricating large structures for aerospace, naval, nuclear, and automotive applications. This review comprehensively summarizes the advances in AFSD, as well as the microstructure and properties of the final part. Given the rapidly growing research in AFSD, …

The Standard For Assessing Water Resistance Properties Of Lubricating Grease Using Contact Angle Measurements, Koottaparambil Lijesh, Roger A. Miller, Raj Shah, Khosro Shirvani, Michael M. Khonsari

Faculty Publications

Many grease-lubricated machines operate in wet environments, and are vulnerable to contamination because of water exposure. Reports suggest that even the presence of 1% water in grease reduces the life of a bearing by 90%. Nevertheless, only a few qualitative tests and standards are available to characterize the water resistance properties of greases. In this paper, we propose a standard for evaluating the water resistance properties of greases by studying their hydrophobic and hydrophilic nature via a custom-designed apparatus for measuring the grease contact angle. In this approach, a water droplet is dispensed onto the surface of the grease and …

In Situ Prediction Of Metal Fatigue Life Using Frequency Change, Ali Mahmoudi, Mohammad A. Amooie, Lijesh Koottaparambil, Michael M. Khonsari

Faculty Publications

A reliable technique for rapid prediction of the remaining useful life (RUL) of components experiencing fatigue degradation is introduced. The approach is based on measuring the temperature signature of a component upon rapidly changing its operating frequency for a short period of time. The temperature variations caused by alterations in plastic work rate are correlated to the loading history. The efficacy of the approach is investigated by conducting a series of axial fatigue tests on stainless steel 316 specimens. The material characterization involves subjecting the material to a constant amplitude fatigue load at 4 Hz and 12 Hz frequencies. The …