Digital Commons Network^™

Single But Not Solitary: A Call For Nuance In The Study Emerging Adult Singlehood, Jonathon J. Beckmeyer, Tyler Jamison

Faculty Publications

Both research and theory demonstrate that single adults are not a homogeneous group. However, scholars continue to rely on participants to self-identify their relationship status from a list that includes multiple forms of romantic involvement (e.g., casual dating, committed relationship, engaged, married), but only one category of non-involvement: “single.” This approach is especially limiting when studying emerging adults, who are often exploring different forms of sexual and romantic engagement. Consequently, we developed a two-step approach that contextualizes singlehood through the romantic and sexual activities of self-reported single emerging adults. Across three samples of U.S. emerging adults, we found that about …

Thermoset Polymer Composites With Gradient Natural And Synthetic Fiber Reinforcement: Self-Healing, Shape-Memory, And Fiber Recyclability, Sakil Mahmud, John Konlan, Jenny Deicaza, Rachel Anna Schmidt, Guoqiang Li

Faculty Publications

Natural fibers have high potential as renewable reinforcement for polymers; however, their lower load-carrying capacity compared to synthetic fibers significantly limits the wide application in fiber-reinforced polymer composites. In laminated composite beams under bending load, the normal stress is the highest on the top and bottom layers but is zero at the mid-plane, with almost a linear normal strain distribution. Although the shear stress is the highest at the mid-plane, it may not be a major concern as most polymers can survive the high shear stress. Using this concept, we have designed a hybrid fiber reinforcement in a gradient manner: …

Wastewater Monitoring Can Anchor Global Disease Surveillance Systems, Aparna Keshaviah, Megan B. Diamond, Megan B. Diamond, Matthew J. Wade, Samuel V. Scarpino, Warish Ahmed, Fabian Amman, Olusola Aruna, Andrei Badilla-Aguilar, Itay Bar-Or, Andreas Bergthaler, Julie E. Bines, Aaron W. Bivins, Alexandria B. Boehm, Jean Martin Brault, Jean Baptiste Burnet, Joanne R. Chapman, Angela Chaudhuri, Ana Maria De Roda Husman, Robert Delatolla, John J. Dennehy, Celeste Donato, Erwin Duizer, Abiodun Egwuenu, Oran Erster, Despo Fatta-Kassinos, Aldo Gaggero, Deirdre F. Gilpin, Brent J. Gilpin, Tyson E. Graber, Christopher A. Green, Amanda Handley, Joanne Hewitt

Faculty Publications

To inform the development of global wastewater monitoring systems, we surveyed programmes in 43 countries. Most programmes monitored predominantly urban populations. In high-income countries (HICs), composite sampling at centralised treatment plants was most common, whereas grab sampling from surface waters, open drains, and pit latrines was more typical in low-income and middle-income countries (LMICs). Almost all programmes analysed samples in-country, with an average processing time of 2·3 days in HICs and 4·5 days in LMICs. Whereas 59% of HICs regularly monitored wastewater for SARS-CoV-2 variants, only 13% of LMICs did so. Most programmes share their wastewater data internally, with partnering …

Near-Term Impact Of Covid-19 Pandemic On Seniors’ Crash Size And Severity, Saba Doulabi, Hany M. Hassan

Faculty Publications

Recent research revealed that COVID-19 pandemic was associated with noticeable changes in travel demand, traffic volumes, and traffic safety measures. Despite the reduction of traffic volumes across the US, several recent studies indicated that crash rates increased across different states during COVID-19 pandemic. Although some recent studies have focused on examining the changes in traffic conditions and crash rates before and during the pandemic, not enough research has been conducted to identify risk factors to crash severity. Even the limited research addressing the contributing factors to crash severity were focused on the pool category of drivers and no insight is …

On The Characteristics Of Fatigue Fracture With Rapid Frequency Change, Mohammad A. Amooie, K. P. Lijesh, Ali Mahmoudi, Elaheh Azizian-Farsani, Michael M. Khonsari

Faculty Publications

The effect of sudden variations in working modes and fatigue behavior of CS 1018 is studied. A general model based on the framework of the fracture fatigue entropy (FFE) concept is developed to capture such changes. Fully reversed bending tests are performed on flat dog bone specimens with a series of variable frequency tests without turning the machine off to simulate fluctuating working conditions. The results are then post-processed and analyzed to assess how fatigue life changes when a component is subjected to sudden changes in multiple frequencies. It is demonstrated that regardless of the frequency changes, FFE remains constant …

Rapid Evaluation Of Fatigue Limit Using Energy Dissipation, Ali Mahmoudi, Michael M. Khonsari

Faculty Publications

Four different experimental approaches for rapid estimation of fatigue limit (endurance limit) based on energy dissipation during cyclic loading are discussed. The presented approaches use energy dissipation and thermography and can reliably evaluate the fatigue limit of material by conducting the fatigue test on a single specimen. Results show that the released energy due to damage accumulation at the stress levels above the fatigue limit changes the trend of energy dissipation and that this trend can be used to predict the fatigue limit. Experimental results on CS 1018 and SS 304 specimens are presented to illustrate the utility of the …

Social Media And Volunteer Rescue Requests Prediction With Random Forest And Algorithm Bias Detection: A Case Of Hurricane Harvey, Volodymyr V. Mihunov, Kejin Wang, Zheye Wang, Nina S.N. Lam, Mingxuan Sun

Faculty Publications

AI fairness is tasked with evaluating and mitigating bias in algorithms that may discriminate towards protected groups. This paper examines if bias exists in AI algorithms used in disaster management and in what manner. We consider the 2017 Hurricane Harvey when flood victims in Houston resorted to social media to request for rescue. We evaluate a Random Forest regression model trained to predict Twitter rescue request rates from social-environmental data using three fairness criteria (independence, separation, and sufficiency). The Social Vulnerability Index (SVI), its four sub-indices, and four variables representing digital divide were considered sensitive attributes. The Random Forest regression …

Cost-Effectiveness Of Federal Cdbg-Dr Road Home Program Mitigation Assistance In Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, Ayat Al Assi, Rubayet Bin Mostafiz, Carol J. Friedland, Robert V. Rohli, Arash Taghinezhad, Md Adilur Rahim

Faculty Publications

After Hurricanes Katrina and Rita in 2005, the State of Louisiana received federal Community Development Block Grant Disaster Recovery (CDBG-DR) assistance, administered by the Louisiana Office of Community Development (OCD) as the Road Home Program, to provide homeowners with the required matching funds for elevating damaged homes under the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP). This research evaluates the cost-effectiveness of the Road Home Program elevation mitigation assistance for a case study of homes in Jefferson Parish, Louisiana, using benefit–cost analysis (BCA) based on average annual loss (AAL) prediction. We use multiple return period flood depths …

Feature Extraction Techniques For Noisy Distributed Acoustic Sensor Data Acquired In A Wellbore, Jagadeeshwar Tabjula, Jyotsna Sharma

Faculty Publications

The distributed acoustic sensor (DAS) is a promising technology for real-time monitoring of wellbores and other infrastructures. However, the desired signals are often overwhelmed by background and environmental noise inherent in field applications. We present a suite of computationally inexpensive techniques for the real-time extraction of the gas signatures from noisy DAS data acquired in a 5163 ft. deep wellbore. The techniques are implemented on three well-scale DAS datasets, each representing multiphase flow conditions with different gas injection volumes, fluid circulation rates, and injection methods. The proposed denoising techniques not only helped in optimizing the gas slug signature despite the …

The Everydayness Of Instructional Design And The Pursuit Of Quality In Online Courses, Jason K. Mcdonald

Faculty Publications

This article reports research into the everydayness of instructional design (meaning designers’ daily routines, run-of-the-mill interactions with colleagues, and other, prosaic forms of social contact), and how everydayness relates to their pursuit of quality in online course design. These issues were investigated through an ethnographic case study, centered on a team of instructional designers at a university in the United States. Designers were observed spending significant amounts of time engaged in practices of course refinement, meaning mundane, workaday tasks like revising, updating, fine-tuning, or fixing the courses to which they were assigned. Refining practices were interrelated with, but also experienced …

Building Thriving Healthcare Teams Through Organizational Learning, Bret Lyman, Marie M. Prothero, Adrianna L. Watson

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this article is to provide practical steps nurse leaders can use to build thriving healthcare teams through organizational learning. The climate, culture, and activities associated with organizational learning are well-aligned with those needed to build thriving teams. Nurse leaders who leverage this alignment can effectively recruit and retain teams while enhancing their team’s ability to effectively navigate change.

Incidence Of Chronic Kidney Disease Following Acute Coronavirus Disease 2019 Based On South Carolina Statewide Data, Roy O. Mathew, Jiajia Zhang Ph.D., Xueying Yang, Shujie Chen, Bankole Olatosi Ph.D., Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Background: Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) was associated with severe acute illness including multiple organ failure. Acute kidney injury (AKI) was a common finding, often requiring dialysis support.

Objective: Define the incidence of new clinically identified chronic kidney disease (CKD) among patients with COVID-19 and no pre-existing kidney disease.

Design Participants: The South Carolina (SC) Department of Health and Environmental Control (DHEC) COVID-19 mandatory reporting registry of SC residents testing for COVID-19 between March 2020 and October 2021 was included.

Design Main Measures: The primary outcome was a new incidence of a CKD diagnosis (N18.x) in those without a pre-existing diagnosis …

Combining Community Observations And Remote Sensing To Examine The Effects Of Roads On Wildfires In The East Siberian Boreal Forest, Vera Kuklina, Oleg Sizov, Victor Bogdanov, Natalia Krasnoshtanova, Arina Morozova, Andrey N. Petrov

Faculty Publications

The paper is aimed at assessing the associations between the road networks geography and dynamics of wildfire events in the East Siberian boreal forest. We examined the relationship between the function of roads, their use, and management and the wildfire ignition, propagation, and termination during the catastrophic fire season of 2016 in the Irkutsk Region of Russia. Document analysis and interviews were utilized to identify main forest users and road infrastructure functional types and examine wildfire management practices. We combined community observations and satellite remotely sensed data to assess relationships between the location, extent, and timing of wildfires and different …

Early Assurance Model For Physical Therapy Education: A Descriptive Study, Kimberly Coleman-Ferreira, Ivan Mulligan, Lora Packel

Faculty Publications

Introduction: Various curriculum models for Doctor of Physical Therapy (DPT) education exist across the country. The purpose of this study was to provide an updated description of the Early Assurance (EA) program model, including administrative variables for institutional leaders to consider. This descriptive study may help equip students to choose an educational program that suits their desires and enable institutions to consider models that fit their needs given their typical admission draw, the local environment, student debt, and resources available. Applications to DPT programs are on the decline while there continues to be an expansion of programs. Institutions are looking …

Preventing Vicarious Trauma And Encouraging Self-Care In Clinical Legal Teaching, Deeya Haldar, Sarah Katz

Faculty Publications

Vicarious trauma, sometimes called “compassion fatigue” or “secondary trauma,” is a term for the effect that working with survivors of trauma may have on counselors, therapists, doctors, attorneys, and others who directly help them. Vicarious traumatisation refers to harmful changes that occur in professionals’ views of themselves, others, and the world as a result of exposure to the graphic or traumatic experiences of their clients. While it is unusual for law students to experience vicarious trauma in a clinical legal education setting, there are good reasons to introduce the concept of vicarious trauma and measures to prevent vicarious trauma through …

Attaining Academic Tenure, Amy A. Emerson, Charlotte Schneider

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Contingency And Contestation In Christianity And Liberalism, Michael P. Moreland

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Individual Strategies For Resource Access On Collaboratively Maintained Irrigation Infrastructure, Jordan L. Stern, Afreen Siddiqi, Paul N. Grogan

Faculty Publications

Built infrastructure for water and energy supply, transportation, and other such services underpins human well-being and socioeconomic development. A fundamental understanding of how infrastructure design and user strategies interact can guide important design decisions as well as policy formulation for ensuring long-term infrastructure viability in conjunction with improved individual user benefits. In this work, an agent based model (ABM) is developed to study this issue for the specific case of irrigation canals. Cooperatively maintained irrigation canals serve essential roles in sustaining agriculture-based economies in many regions. Canal system design can strongly affect benefits derived by distributed users, regional agricultural output, …

User Guide For Urban Canopy Modeling In Wrf. Version 1.0, Corey L. Smithson, Natalie J. White, Hans R. Klomp, Eric C. Monson, Bradley R. Adams

Faculty Publications

Researchers at Brigham Young University (BYU) have developed this guide for running a WRF simulation using a single layer urban canopy model (UCM). This was developed specifically for the Greater Salt Lake Area but is adaptable to other urban areas. This guide includes information on running WRF simulations to study theoretical urban growth scenarios.

Vortex Particle Method For Electric Ducted Fan In Non-Axisymmetric Flow, Eduardo Alvarez, Cibin Joseph, Andrew Ning

Faculty Publications

The vortex particle method has been reformulated in recent work as a large eddy simulation (LES) in a scheme that is both meshless and numerically stable, solving long-standing issues of numerical stability. In this study, we build upon this meshless LES scheme to create a simulation framework for electric ducted fans. This poses the challenge of introducing solid boundaries in the vorticity form of the Navier-Stokes equations without a mesh. Rotor blades are introduced in our computational domain through an actuator line model (ALM) following well-established practices for LES. A novel, vorticity-based, actuator surface model (ASM) is developed for the …

“And God Blessed The Seventh Day And Sanctified It”: The Sabbath At Creation, Dedications, And Christ’S Theophany In 3 Nephi, Dan L. Belnap

Faculty Publications

The Creation narrative, found in various places within the canon of scripture of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, describes the institution of two different types of time. The first type of time is established in the “fourth day” with the placement of the astronomical bodies, which act as markers “for signs, and for seasons, and for days, and for years”—that is, common time (Genesis 1:14; Moses 2:14). The second type of time is established in the “seventh day,” when the Lord rests from his labors. Situated as it was at the conclusion of the physical creation and …

Nonsolvent-Induced Phase Separation Inside Liquid Droplets, Rami Alhasan, Tanner A. Wilcoxson, Dakota S. Banks, Sion Jung, Douglas R. Tree

Faculty Publications

Nonsolvent-induced phase separation (NIPS) is a popular method for creating polymeric particles with internal microstructure, but many fundamental questions remain surrounding the kinetics of the complex coupled mass transfer and phase separation processes. In this work, we use simulations of a phase-field model to examine how (i) finite domain boundaries of a polymer droplet and (ii) solvent/nonsolvent miscibility affect the NIPS process. To isolate the effects of phase separation kinetics and solvent/nonsolvent mass transfer on the NIPS process, we study two different cases. First, we investigate droplet concentrations that originate inside the two-phase region, where phase separation kinetics alone governs …

Grieving Losses: It Takes Time, David Sedlacek, Beverly Sedlacek

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Active Learning Methodologies In A High Stakes Graduate Nursing Program, Nina Mclain, Mary Jane Collins, Lawanda Baskin

Faculty Publications

Active learning with student engagement has been demonstrated to improve knowledge retention and improve learning in graduate education. Nurse anesthesia education has traditionally been taught using lecture with slide presentations without considering student centered learning. Much attention has been given to active learning strategies to promote student engagement and content retention, yet little information exists regarding student preferences for in higher level graduate nursing courses. This mixed-methods study aimed to examine student learning preferences for seven different instructional methodologies; traditional lecture, a problem-based learning exercise, reading with workbook assignments, development of cognitive aids, game-based learning, practice questions, and a case …

Misogynoir And The Public Woman: Analog And Digital Sexualization Of Women In Public From The Civil War To The Era Of Kamala Harris, Cecilia Cerja, Nicole D. Nave, Kelly L. Winfrey, Catherine Helen Palczewski, Leslie A. Hahner

Faculty Publications

This essay identifies how the very conception of public woman is infused with the opprobrium hurled against a wanton woman–a sexualized figure who has lost claims to moral standing or social worth. Our analysis begins diachronically by using thin description to trace the historical conflation of public woman in general, and Black woman in particular, with prostitute to outline the contours of the trope of public woman that have solidified across time. We document how the public woman became equated with prostitute, and then how the label prostitute was affixed to women in public to situate them as promiscuous or …

Informal Practices Of Localizing Open Educational Resources In Ghana, Emily Durham Bradshaw, Jason K. Mcdonald

Faculty Publications

Research on the use of Open Educational Resources (OER) often notes the potential benefits for users to revise, reuse, and remix OER to localize it for specific learners. However, a gap in the literature exists in terms of research that explores how this localization occurs in practice. This is a significant gap given the current flow of OER from higher-income countries in the Global North to lower-income countries in the Global South (King et al., 2018). This study explores how OER from one area of the world is localized when it is used in a different cultural context.

Findings indicated …

A Hierarchical Cluster Approach Toward Understanding The Regional Variable In Country Conflict Modeling, Benjamin D. Leiby, Darryl K. Ahner

Faculty Publications

Purpose: This paper aims to examine how the regional variable in country conflict modeling affects forecast accuracy and identifies a methodology to further improve the predictions.

Design/methodology/approach: This paper uses statistical learning methods to both evaluate the quantity of data for clustering countries along with quantifying accuracy according to the number of clusters used.

Findings: This study demonstrates that increasing the number of clusters for modeling improves the ability to predict conflict as long as the models are robust.

Originality/value: This study investigates the quantity of clusters used in conflict modeling, while previous research assumes a specific quantity before …

Establishment Of Bovine Trophoblast Stem Cells, Yinjuan Wang, Hao Ming, Leqian Yu, Jie Li, Linkai Zhu, Hai Xi Sun, Carlos A. Pinzon-Arteaga, Jun Wu, Zongliang Jiang

Faculty Publications

Here, we report that a chemical cocktail (LCDM: leukemia inhibitory factor [LIF], CHIR99021, dimethinedene maleate [DiM], minocycline hydrochloride), previously developed for extended pluripotent stem cells (EPSCs) in mice and humans, enables de novo derivation and long-term culture of bovine trophoblast stem cells (TSCs). Bovine TSCs retain developmental potency to differentiate into mature trophoblast cells and exhibit transcriptomic and epigenetic (chromatin accessibility and DNA methylome) features characteristic of trophectoderm cells from early bovine embryos. The bovine TSCs established in this study will provide a model to study bovine placentation and early pregnancy failure.

Hierarchical, Porous Hydrogels Demonstrating Structurally Dependent Mechanical Properties, Elisabeth Lloyd, Rami Alhasan, Sujata Dhakal, Svetlana Morozova, Douglas R. Tree, Robert Hickey

Faculty Publications

While hierarchical ordering is a distinctive feature of natural tissues and is directly responsible for their diverse and unique properties, research efforts to synthesize biomaterials have primarily focused on using molecular-based approaches without considering multiscale structure. Here, we report a bottom-up self-assembly process to produce highly porous hydrogels that resemble natural tissues both structurally and mechanically. Randomly oriented, physically crosslinked nanostructured micelles form the walls of aligned, polymer-rich pore walls that surround water-rich cavities. Extremely soft elastic modulus (<  1 kPa), highly stretchability (greater than 12-times), strain-hardening, and completely reversible deformation result from the hierarchical structure. Independent control of nano and macroscales is realized through the combination of polymer macromolecular parameters and processing conditions, directly impacting the resulting phase behavior. Here, we demonstrate precise control of the material structure and structure orientation over many orders of magnitude (e.g., nm – µm), and reveal how the multiscale structure directly impacts mechanical properties.

Ten‐Year Cardiovascular Disease Risk Score And Cognitive Function Among Older Adults: The National Health And Nutrition Examination Survey 2011 To 2014, Jingkai Wei, Hanzhang Xu, Angela D. Liese, Anwar T. Nerchant Sc.D, Mph, Dmd, Liang Wang, Chih-Hsiang Yang, Matthew C. Lohman, Monique J. Brown Ph.D., Mph, Tiansheng Wang, Daniela B. Friedman Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

BACKGROUND: The Framingham 10-year cardiovascular disease risk score, which is based on age, sex, smoking, total cholesterol, high-density lipoprotein-cholesterol, blood pressure, and diabetes, has been found to be associated with cognitive health, but these findings have not been validated in a representative sample in the United States. We aimed to examine the associations of Framingham risk score with cognitive function among older adults in a nationally representative sample, as well as by race or ethnicity, education, and family income.

METHODS AND RESULTS: A total of 2254 older adults ≥60years (57% female, 79% non-Hispanic White) in the National Health and Nutrition …