Digital Commons Network^™

Identification Of Qtls For Resistance To Fusarium Head Blight Using A Doubled Haploid Population Derived From Southeastern United States Soft Red Winter Wheat Varieties Ags 2060 And Ags 2035, Alejandro Castro Aviles, Stephen Alan Harrison, Kelly Joseph Arceneaux, Gina Brown-Guidera, Richard Esten Mason, Niranjan Baisakh

Faculty Publications

Fusarium head blight (FHB), caused primarily by the fungus Fusarium graminearum, is one of the most damaging diseases of wheat, causing significant loss of yield and quality worldwide. Warm and wet conditions during flowering, a lack of resistant wheat varieties, and high inoculum pressure from corn stubble contribute to frequent FHB epidemics in the southern United States. The soft red winter wheat variety AGS 2060 is moderately susceptible (as opposed to susceptible) to FHB and regularly found in pedigrees of resistant breeding lines. AGS 2060 does not carry any known resistance genes or quantitative trait loci (QTL). A QTL mapping …

Effects Of Education Savings Accounts On Student Engagement: Instrumental Variable Analysis, David Ansong, Moses Okumu, Youn Kyoung Kim, Mathieu Despard, Raymond Darfo-Oduro, Eusebius Small

Faculty Publications

As interest in youth financial inclusion continues to grow substantially, emerging research points to positive associations between students’savings and their educational outcomes. However, there is no definitive data on how assets alter student engagement, particularly in resource-limited settings. This study contributes knowledge by assessing the causal effects of education savings accounts on student engagement. We evaluate causal effects by using instrumental variable methods and data from a pilot study that assessed the viability of different education funding mechanisms for junior high-school students in Ghana. Results show that the offering of an education savings account to young people with an opt-out …

Evaluating Temporal Approximation Methods Using Burglary Data, Lukas Oswald, Michael Leitner

Faculty Publications

Law enforcement is very interested in knowing when a crime has happened. Unfortunately, the occurrence time of a crime is often not exactly known. In such circumstances, estimating the most likely time that a crime has happened is crucial for spatio-temporal analysis. The main purpose of this research is to introduce two novel temporal approximation methods, termed retrospective temporal analysis (RTA) and extended retrospective temporal analysis (RTAext). Both methods are compared to six existing temporal approximation methods and subsequently evaluated in order to identify the method that can most accurately estimate the occurrence time of crimes. This research is conducted …

Evaluating The Kisan Credit Card Scheme: Some Results For Bihar And India, Areendam Chanda

Faculty Publications

The Kisan Credit Card (KCC) scheme was introduced in India in 1998-1999 and has since become a flagship programme providing access to short-term credit in the agricultural sector. According to the Government of India, over a 100 million cards had been issued cumulatively by March 2011. Using data from 2005-2006 to 2009-2010, the article critically examines the determinants of KCC lending across states in India and districts in Bihar. We also examine the effects of the scheme on agricultural growth and yields. Our results suggest that states with initially better access to agricultural credit show subsequently greater amounts of KCC …

How Should Non-Probate Transfers Matter In Intestacy?, Mary Louise Fellows, E. Gary Spitko

Faculty Publications

Current intestacy laws inadequately meet the needs of intestates. This study demonstrates that the new heir reform increases the likelihood of promoting intestates’ donative intent in a growing number of twenty-first century familial situations.

Prediction Of Trimethoprim/Sulfamethoxazole Resistance In Community-Onset Urinary Tract Infections, Madeline Demarsh, P Brandon Bookstaver, Caroline Gordon, Juanne Lim, Nicole Griffith, Nicole K. Bookstaver, Julie Ann Justo, Joseph Kohn, Majdi N. Al-Hasan

Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVES: This study aimed to predict trimethoprim/sulfamethoxazole (SXT) resistance in patients with community-onset urinary tract infection (UTI) due to Enterobacteriaceae based on patient-specific risk factors. METHODS: This was a retrospective case-control study in Prisma Health facilities in central South Carolina, USA, including three community hospitals, affiliated emergency departments and ambulatory clinics, including adult patients with community-onset UTI due to Enterobacteriaceae (1 April 2015 to 29 February 2016). Multivariate logistic regression was used to examine risk factors for SXT resistance. RESULTS: Among 351 unique patients with community-onset UTI, 71 (20.2%) had SXT-resistant Enterobacteriaceae urinary isolates. Overall, median age was 64 years …

A Review Of Past, Present, And Future Technologies For Permanent Plugging And Abandonment Of Wellbores And Restoration Of Subsurface Geologic Barriers, Mercy Achang, Li Yanyao, Mileva Radonjic

Faculty Publications

Leakage of oil & gas during fossil fuel exploration, production, and transportation poses a major environmental challenge that impacts the quality of air, water, soil, and ultimately the life on Earth. The result of uncontrolled spills & leakages may cause the contamination of groundwater as well as methane emission into the atmosphere increasing global warming, while the spills in open waters in the case of offshore wellbores impact fragile marine ecosystems. The subsurface conditions where P&A materials need to be placed, the challenges encountered during barrier placement in wellbores under current P&A technologies, contaminations of barrier materials by drilling fluid …

Miocene C4 Grassland Expansion As Recorded By The Indus Fan, Sarah J. Feakins, Hannah M. Liddy, Lisa Tauxe, Valier Galy, Xiaojuan Feng, Jessica E. Tierney, Yunfa Miao, Sophie Warny

Faculty Publications

©2020. American Geophysical Union. All Rights Reserved. In the late Miocene, grasslands spread across the forested floodplains of the Himalayan foreland, but the causes of the ecological transition are still debated. Recent seafloor drilling by the International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) provides an opportunity to study the transition across a larger region as archived in the Indus submarine fan. We present a multiproxy study of past vegetation change based on analyses of the carbon isotopic composition (δ13C) of bulk organic carbon, plant wax n-alkanes and n-alkanoic acids, and quantification of lignin phenols, charcoal, and pollen. We analyze the hydrogen isotopic …

Recent Advances In Stimuli-Responsive Drug Release And Targeting Concepts Using Mesoporous Silica Nanoparticles, Ghada G. Abdo, Moustafa M. Zagho, Ashraf Khalil

Faculty Publications

Being a developed and promising approach, nanotechnology has attracted a lot of attention in biomedical and pharmaceutical therapy applications. Among nanostructured materials, mesoporous silica nanoparticles (MSNs) are effectively used as nanocarriers for drug delivery systems. MSNs can be tailored-designed by different synthetic techniques. Their morphological characteristics dictate the type of application of such materials. Recently, polymer-based materials have been employed to functionalize the MSNs surface. These modified nanocarriers are loaded with the drug and can unload their “cargo” upon exposure to either endogenous or exogenous types of stimuli. In this study, different targeting concepts, including passive, active, vascular, nuclear, and …

The Importance Of Infrequent, High-Intensity Rainfall Events For Longleaf Pine (Pinus Palustris Mill.) Radial Growth And Implications For Dendroclimatic Research, Tyler J. Mitchell, Paul A. Knapp, Thomas W. Patterson

Faculty Publications

Tree-ring based precipitation reconstructions are beneficial in placing interannual variability in an historical context. However, absent specificity on what is being modeled (e.g., event type or rainfall intensity), similar rainfall totals inferred from reconstructions between different years imply similar conditions. Consequently, variability in specific precipitation event types or intensity can affect radial growth widths despite no changes in overall precipitation amount. Here, we use a longleaf pine latewood chronology to demonstrate how infrequent, intense (i.e., > 2.0 SD above mean) rainfall events (IREs), representing ~ 50% of total summer (July–September) precipitation amounts and 14.1% of rainfall events, principally determine interannual variability …

Optimized Multilayer Structures With Ultrabroadband Near-Perfect Absorption, Chenglong You, Corey T. Matyas, Yin Huang, Jonathan P. Dowling, Georgios Veronis

Faculty Publications

We present aperiodic multilayer structures with ultrabroadband near-perfect absorption in the visible and near-infrared wavelength range. We use a hybrid optimization algorithm coupled with the transfer-matrix method, to optimize both the material composition and the layer thicknesses of the aperiodic multilayer structures that are composed of infinite slabs of material above a semi-infinite substrate. In order to achieve ultrabroadband near-perfect absorption, we consider a broad range of materials including dielectrics, metals, and semiconductors. The optimization algorithms previously used to design ultrabroadband near-perfect absorbers only optimized the layer thicknesses of structures with fixed material composition. In contrast, we find that our …

Influence Of Metal Nuclearity And Physicochemical Properties Of Ceria On The Oxidation Of Carbon Monoxide, Linxi Wang, Shyam Deo, Kerry Dooley, Michael J. Janik, Robert M. Rioux

Faculty Publications

The redox properties of ceria make it suitable as a catalyst or support in oxidation reactions. Ceria-supported transition metal nanoparticles or isolated single atoms provide a metal-support interface that reduces the energy cost to remove interfacial oxygen atoms, providing active oxygen species that can participate in Mars van Krevelen oxidation processes. CO oxidation is a key probe reaction to test the reducibility of ceria-supported catalysts and is also practically important in the elimination of CO at relatively low temperatures in various applications. Preferential oxidation of CO (PROX) in excess H2 controls the CO concentration to ultra-low levels to prevent poisoning …

Regulatory Malfunctions In The Drug Patent Ecosystem, Ana Santos Rutschman

Faculty Publications

Patent protection for several of the world’s best-selling and most promising drugs—biologics—has begun waning. Over the next few years, many other drugs in this category will lose critical patent protection. In principle, this should open the United States market to competition, as more manufacturers are now able to produce relatively cheaper versions of these expensive drugs, known as biosimilars. That, however, has not been the case. This Article examines this problem in the context of the articulation between anticompetitive behaviors and regulatory interventions in the biopharmaceutical arena and argues for a novel solution: a timelier response provided by the U.S. …

Violating The Inviolate?: Divided Tennessee Supreme Court Upholds Constitutionality Of Noneconomic Damage Caps, Focuses On Right To Jury Trial, Bailey D. Barnes

Faculty Publications

On Feb. 26, in McClay v. Airport Management Services LLC, the Tennessee Supreme Court upheld the constitutionality of the noneconomic damage cap provisions of the Tennessee Civil Justice Act of 2011. The court’s analysis primarily centered on the constitutional right to a trial by jury. The justices split on whether the General Assembly maintains the authority to alter or abridge the state’s common law when doing so affects a constitutional right.

The three-justice majority concluded that noneconomic damage caps do not violate the right to a jury trial, though one of those justices authored a concurring opinion declaring the issue …

Differential Relationships Between Waist Circumference And Cardiorespiratory Fitness Among People With And Without Type 2 Diabetes, Andrew Ortaglia, Samantha M. Mcdonald, Christina Supino, Michael D. Wirth, Xuem Sui, Matteo Bottai

Faculty Publications

Adults with type 2 diabetes mellitus tend to exhibit an increased level of central adiposity, augmenting their risk of further non-communicable diseases (NCDs). Importantly, consistent evidence demonstrates a significant, negative association between cardiorespiratory fitness (CRF) and waist circumference (WC). However, no previous studies have investigated differences in these CRF-related reductions in WC between adults with and without diabetes.

This study used data from the Aerobic Center for Longitudinal Studies, conducted between 1970 and 2006 among predominately Non-Hispanic White, middle-to-upper class adults in Texas. Quantile regression models were used to estimate CRF-related differences in WC between persons with and without diabetes. …

Third-Party Interests And The Property Law Misfit In Patent Law, Sarah Rajec

Faculty Publications

Courts and scholars have long parsed the characteristics of patent grants and likened them, alternately, to real or personal property law, monopolies, public franchises and other regulatory grants, or a hybrid of these. The characterizations matter, because they can determine how patents are treated for the purposes of administrative review, limitations, and remedies, inter alia. And these varied treatments in turn affect incentives to innovate. Patents are often likened to real property in an effort to maximize rights and allow inventors to internalize all of the benefits from their activities. And courts often turn first to real property analogies when …

Reflections On Covid-19, Insurance, Business Interruption, Systemic Risk, And The Future, Robert H. Jerry Ii

Faculty Publications

The COVID-19 pandemic is a major loss event for the insurance industry. This chapter begins with an overview of the pandemic’s most significant insurance implications. Because business interruption has been the most prominently discussed of these impacts, the second part of this chapter takes a closer look at business interruption insurance. This part describes how markets for this coverage are structured in the U.S., and then undertakes a detailed analysis of one of the most common business interruption policy forms, demonstrating that some aspects of this form, insofar as pandemic-caused business interruption is concerned, were not drafted with utmost precision. …

A Road Paved With Good Intentions?: Ferc’S Illegal War On State Electricity Subsidies, Todd S. Aagaard, Andrew N. Kleit

Faculty Publications

Most initial reviews of FERC’s order have offered scathing criticism of its negative policy consequences. Our critique adds two perspectives not represented thus far in the reaction to FERC’s order. First, we explain how the FERC majority got to the point where it felt compelled to take action against state subsidies and why that judgment, although understandable in some respects, is misguided. FERC’s action follows logically from a flawed policy adopted by a Democratic-majority Commission in 2011. Second, we explain why FERC’s order fails to create a mechanism for a just and reasonable price and violates both the Administrative Procedure …

Grandpa's Legacy, Anthony Wagenersmith

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

A Brief Report: Preliminary Findings For Pathways To Resilience Among Critical Incident Stress Management Responders, Harvey J. Burnett, Karl G. D. Bailey, Rachelle E. Pichot

Faculty Publications

Previous research by Burnett, Pichot, and Bailey (2019) found support for several innate well-being and behavioral action variables that contribute to Everly’s Psychological Body Armor’s (PBA) two unique interacting human protective pathways (proactive and reactive resilience) among a non-disaster mental health response population. However, research is limited regarding the unique proactive and reactive pathway variables that contribute to resilience capacity among trained disaster mental health responders. Participants (N = 63) were novice and experienced disaster mental health responders who attended a Critical Incident Stress Management (CISM) training conference in Michigan that completed the same 14 measures used in the original …

Meeting Temporary Facility Energy Demand With Climate-Optimized Off-Grid Energy Systems, Jay F. Pearson, Torrey J. Wagner, Justin D. Delorit, Steven J. Schuldt

Faculty Publications

Remote and contingency operations, including military and disaster-relief activities, often require the use of temporary facilities powered by inefficient diesel generators that are expensive to operate and maintain. Site planners can reduce operating costs by increasing shelter insulation and augmenting generators with photovoltaic-battery hybrid energy systems, but they must select the optimal design configuration based on the region’s climate to meet the power demand at the lowest cost. To assist planners, this paper proposes an innovative, climate-optimized, hybrid energy system selection model capable of selecting the facility insulation type, solar array size, and battery backup system to minimize the annual …

Detection Of Hydroxyl Radicals Using Cerium Oxide/Graphene Oxide Composite On Prussian Blue, Surachet Duanghathaipornsuk, Sushil R. Kanel, Emily F. Haushalter, Jessica Ruetz, Dong-Shik Kim

Faculty Publications

A composite sensor consisting of two separate inorganic layers of Prussian blue (PB) and a composite of cerium oxide nanoparticles (CeNPs) and graphene oxide (GO), is tested with •OH radicals. The signals from the interaction between the composite layers and •OH radicals are characterized using cyclic voltammetry (CV). The degradation of PB in the presence of H₂O₂ and •OH radicals is observed and its impact on the sensor efficiency is investigated. The results show that the composite sensor differentiates between the solutions with and without •OH radicals by the increase of electrochemical redox current in the presence …

Battlespace Next™: Developing A Serious Game To Explore Multi-Domain Operations, Nathaniel Flack, Alan C. Lin, Gilbert L. Peterson, Mark G. Reith

Faculty Publications

Changes in the geopolitical landscape and increasing technological complexity have prompted the U.S. Military to coin the terms Multi-Domain Operations (MDO) and Joint All-Domain Command and Control (JADC2) as over-arching strategy to frame the complexity of warfare across both traditional and emerging warfighting domains. Teaching new concepts associated with these terms requires both innovation as well as distinct education and training tools in order to realize the cultural change advocated by senior military leaders. Battlespace Next™ (BSN) is a serious game designed to teach concepts integral to MDO and initiate discussion on military strategy while conserving time, money, and manpower. …

When To Make The Sensory Social: Registering In Face-To-Face Openings, Danielle M. Pillet-Shore

Faculty Publications

This article analyzes naturally occurring video-recorded openings during which participants make the sensory social through the action of registering—calling joint attention to a selected, publicly perceiv- able referent so others shift their sensory attention to it. It examines sequence-initial actions that register referents for which a participant is regarded as responsible. Findings demonstrate a systematic preference organization which observably guides when and how people initiate registering sequences sensitive to ownership of, and displayed stance toward, the target referent. Analysis shows how registering an owned referent achieves intersubjectivity and puts involved participants’ face, affiliation, and social relationship on the line. A …

A Multi-Criteria Logistics Analysis Of Photovoltaic Modules For Remote Applications, Nathan Thomsen, Dimitri Papazoglou, Torrey J. Wagner, Andrew J. Hoisington, Steven J. Schuldt

Faculty Publications

Reliable electrical power grids are frequently unavailable or inaccessible in remote locations, including developing nation communities, humanitarian relief camps, isolated construction sites, and military contingency bases. This often requires sites to rely on costly generators and continuous fuel supply. Renewable energy systems (RES) in the form of photovoltaic (PV) arrays and energy storage present a rapidly improving alternative to power these remote locations. Previous RES literature and PV optimization models focused on economics, reliability, and environmental concerns, neglecting the importance of logistics factors in remote installations. This paper proposes additional optimization variables applicable to remote PV systems and compares PV …

Nondestructive Electromagnetic Characterization Of Uniaxial Sheet Media Using A Two-Flanged Rectangular Waveguide Probe, Neil G. Rogers, Michael J. Havrilla, Milo W. Hyde Iv, Alexander G. Knisely

Faculty Publications

Excerpt: Recent advancements in fabrication capabilities have renewed interest in the electromagnetic characterization of complex media, as many metamaterials are anisotropic and/or inhomogeneous. Additionally, for composite materials, anisotropy can be introduced by load, strain, misalignment, or damage through the manufacturing process [1], [2]. Methods for obtaining the constitutive parameters for isotropic materials are well understood and widely employed [3]–[8]. Therefore, it is crucial to develop a practical method for the electromagnetic characterization of anisotropic materials.

Too Important To Fail: The Banking Concept Of Education And Standardized Testing In An Urban Middle School, Eric Ruiz Bybee

Faculty Publications

Paulo Freire’s influential concept of “banking” education describes an oppressive process that positions teachers as the “depositors” of knowledge into passive student “receptacles.” However, according to Freire, teachers also have an “ontological vocation to be more fully human” that can only be achieved through freedom from oppression. In this article, I use Freire’s concept of banking education to reflect on my experiences giving standardized tests during my final year teaching at a high-need middle school in New York City. Drawing from narrative inquiry methodology, I bring these teaching/ testing experiences into conversation with the sociopolitical discourse on banks and argue …

The Work-Family Interface, Erin K. Holmes, Clare R. Thomas, Richard J. Petts, E. Jeffrey Hill

Faculty Publications

In this chapter, we focus on the work-family interface using an ecological systems framework and three other related theories: boundary theory, role theory, and gender theory. We then introduce the literature on the work-family interface and focus our attention on the experiences of work-to-family and family-to-work conflict, work-to-family and family-to-work spillover, work-to-family and family-to-work crossover, workplace flexibility, parental leave policies, and day-care arrangements. We further recognize that cultural characteristics imbedded in different regions and countries moderate dimensions of the work-family interface. We have emphasized research in multiple countries and regions where such cross-cultural research was available.

Estuarine And Coastal Natural Hazards: An Introduction And Synthesis, Jay Veeramony, Chunyan Li, Alex Sheremet, Edward P. Myers, Meng Xia, Steve Mitchell

Faculty Publications

Two sessions were organized during the 2018 Fall AGU Meeting entitled, (1) Coastal Response to Extreme Events: Fidelity of Model Predictions of Surge, Inundation, and Morphodynamics and (2) Improved Observational and Modeling Skills to Understand the Hurricane and Winter Storm Induced Surge and Meteotsunami. The focus of these sessions was on examining the impact of natural disasters on estuarine and coastal regions worldwide, including the islands and mainland in the northwestern Atlantic and the northwestern Pacific. The key research interests are the investigations on the regional dynamics of storm surges, coastal inundations, waves, tides, currents, sea surface temperatures, storm inundations …

Morphometric Response Of Galaxias Maculatus (Jenyns) To Lake Colonization In Chile, Margaret Mercer, Peter C. Searle, Roberto Cifuentes, Evelyn Habit, Mark C. Belk

Faculty Publications

Body and head shape in fish responds to environmental factors such as water flow rate, food sources, and niche availability. However, the way in which fish respond to these environmental factors varies. In Central Chile, multiple river and lake systems along the coast provide an ideal study site to investigate these types of shape changes. We use geometric morphometrics to characterize shape differences in Galaxias maculatus (Jenyns) between river and lake populations. Lake fish converge on a shape with a more fusiform body, narrower head, and larger eyes, while river fish have a more robust body, rounder head, and smaller …