Digital Commons Network^™

Advancing Carbon Sequestration Through Smart Proxy Modeling: Leveraging Domain Expertise And Machine Learning For Efficient Reservoir Simulation, Iman Oraki Kohshour

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Geological carbon sequestration (GCS) offers a promising solution to effectively manage extra carbon, mitigating the impact of climate change. This doctoral research introduces a cutting-edge Smart Proxy Modeling-based framework, integrating artificial neural networks (ANNs) and domain expertise, to re-engineer and empower numerical reservoir simulation for efficient modeling of CO₂ sequestration and demonstrate predictive conformance and replicative capabilities of smart proxy modeling.

Creating well-performing proxy models requires extensive human intervention and trial-and-error processes. Additionally, a large training database is essential to ANN model for complex tasks such as deep saline aquifer CO₂ sequestration since it is used as the …

Leveraging Data Science To Promote Sustainable Resource Recovery From Organic Waste Streams In Rural Regions, Mohammed Tamim Zaki

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Conventional organic waste management practices such as landfilling contribute to global warming and degrade environmental and human health. Alternatively, organic waste can be treated to recover energy, nutrients, and carbon through resource recovery technologies. Data science could benefit such technologies by improving their efficiency through data-driven process modeling along with reducing environmental and economic burdens via life cycle assessment (LCA) and techno-economic analysis (TEA), respectively.

A critical review of 616 peer-reviewed articles published during 2002–2022 was conducted on the use of data science methods in resource recovery from organic waste. Although applications of machine learning (ML) methods have drastically increased …

Evaluation Of Changes In Cellular Behavior Upon Exposure To Selected Analytes Used In Synthetic Applications, Olivia L. Rose

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Metal-organic frameworks (MOFs) are organic crystalline hybrids that have been used for a variety of applications from catalysis to gas storage and drug delivery. Studies have shown that generally, while such frameworks are more biocompatible than similar aspect ratio nanostructures, they are also more prone to transformation and disintegration due to their flexible and fragile nature as resulted from the structure assembly and implemented structure-function relationships. With extensive previous literature showing that materials with nano dimensions such as carbon nanotubes, quantum dots and other nanomaterials have unique physicochemical properties that lead to increased biosystems’ reactivity. With increasing concerns regarding adverse …

Examining The Relationship Of Race On Students’ Perceptions Of Safety And Concealed Campus Carry On A University Campus, Whitney H. Mascaro

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Previous literature suggests that students who feel unsafe in their academic settings experience harmful academic, social, and psychological ramifications. With an alarming increase in school shootings, violence, and media coverage, the political discourse surrounding gun violence and strategies to ensure safety on college campuses has become increasingly polarized. States like Texas, Georgia, and Colorado have passed bills allowing students to carry concealed handguns on university campuses. At the time of this study, the state legislature in West Virginia passed a similar bill known as the Campus Self-Defense Act (Senate Bill 246, 2021). College students who identify as Black, Indigenous, People …

Effects Of Interdependent Group Contingencies On Physical Activity, Katherine A. Cucinotta

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Physical inactivity amongst adults in the United States is increasing. In West Virginia, 28.5% of adults 18 years of age or older report not engaging in leisure-time physical activity (West Virginia Department of Health and Human Resources, Health Statistics Center, 2020). Physical inactivity costs $117 billion annually in health-related expenses in the United States and is associated with 10% of premature deaths (Department of Health and Human Services, 2018). As the number of physically inactive adults increases, it is important to find interventions that increase physical activity. Behavioral interventions, such as contingency management and group contingencies, have been employed to …

Longitudinal Sport Science Implementation In American Collegiate Men’S Basketball, Jason Stone

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The expanding opportunities to implement sport science frameworks in elite-level basketball environments coincide with the sport’s increasing global prominence. Concomitant to these opportunities is the continual growth of the sport technology market (e.g., wearables, force plates) and computational power (e.g., data management tools, coding capabilities), which yields solutions and challenges for both athletes and practitioners. Due to the rapid influx of new sport technologies in high performance environments, particularly American Collegiate Men’s Basketball, more formal and ecologically valid research on how to effectively utilize data derived from them, particularly over long periods of time (i.e., multiple seasons) is needed. To …

One Voice Training To Enable Nurses And Anesthesia Providers To Mitigate Pediatric Presurgical Anxiety, Sarah E. Hinnant

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

ABSTRACT

ONE VOICE Training to Enable Nurses and Anesthesia Providers to Mitigate Pediatric Presurgical Anxiety

Sarah E. Hinnant

Background: Children in the preoperative area experience presurgical anxiety at rates of up to seventy-five percent. Increased pediatric anxiety is directly linked to increased anesthetic requirements, increased risk for development of emergence delirium, and increased time spent in the post anesthesia care unit. Numerous high-quality studies show that intervention by a certified child life specialist mitigates preoperative pediatric anxiety. Often child life specialists are not available to meet with all children prior to surgery. Registered nurses (RNs) and certified registered nurse anesthesiologists …

Weigh-In-Motion Data-Driven Pavement Performance Prediction Models, Mohhammad Afsar Sujon

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The effective functioning of pavements as a critical component of the transportation system necessitates the implementation of ongoing maintenance programs to safeguard this significant and valuable infrastructure and guarantee its optimal performance. The maintenance, rehabilitation, and reconstruction (MRR) program of the pavement structure is dependent on a multidimensional decision-making process, which considers the existing pavement structural condition and the anticipated future performance. Pavement Performance Prediction Models (PPPMs) have become indispensable tools for the efficient implementation of the MRR program and the minimization of associated costs by providing precise predictions of distress and roughness based on inventory and monitoring data concerning …

The Economics Of Pollution: Policy, Productivity, And The Structure Of Road Networks, Michael Cary

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Air pollution impacts economic activity, and economic activity creates air pollution. Understanding this endogenous nexus is critical as any policy designed to affect one will inevitably affect the other. My research explores both sides of this nexus. Specifically, I identify the economic effects from the implementation of an international climate agreement (the Kyoto Protocol); I determine the impact of air pollution on physical productivity and determine which pollutants are responsible for this effect; and I link urban form to vehicular emissions via the structure of road networks.

The first chapter of this dissertation studies the impact of the Kyoto Protocol …

A Comparison Of Endodontic Root-End Filling Techniques: A Micro-Computed Tomography Analysis, Leslie P. Wolford

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Introduction:

Researchers have compared the differences between hand compaction of root-end filling bioceramics with compaction of these materials by hand followed by ultrasonic activation (hand/ultrasonic compaction). Additionally, most of these researchers did not utilize Micro-Computed Tomography (Micro-CT) analysis. The purpose of this study is to evaluate total porosity volume of three different bioceramics when compacted by hand alone versus hand/ultrasonic compaction using Micro-CT Analysis.

Materials and methods:

Seventy-two human maxillary central incisors were selected for the study. All were subjected to orthograde endodontic treatment followed by root tip resection 3-mm from the apex at a 90° to the long axis …

Working With Community Partners In Wv: Learning How To Frame Health Equity In Physical Activity Interventions, Karly Marie Casanave-Phillips

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Developing physical activity interventions that reach underserved populations and increase equitable access requires knowledge of health equity (Bantham et al., 2021). Thus, as funding organizations push for use of community engaged approaches, it becomes important to gauge what community leaders know about health equity. The present study employed surveys and semi-structured interviews to explore community partners’ understanding and perceptions of health equity, as well as benefits and barriers to promoting health equity in their communities. Participants (n = 20) were capacity-building grant applicants recruited through the Center for ActiveWV. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to develop two higher order …

Conversion And Utilization Of Forest Logging Residues For Value Added Bioproducts In The Eastern United Sates, Wanhe Hu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Four major studies were conducted in this dissertation to investigate the quality, availability, pretreatment, conversion, and utilization of forest logging residues in the eastern United States. The introduction and conclusion sections are found in the first and last chapters. The quality of various-year-naturally-decomposed softwood and hardwood forest logging residues from three subregions of the eastern United States was investigated in the second chapter. In the third chapter, the combustion and energy properties of hydrothermal, inert, and oxidative torrefied red maple were investigated. Finally, in the fourth and fifth chapters, KMnO₄ surface-modified logging residue hydrochars were used to investigate the …

An Empirical Analysis Of Approximation Algorithms For The Unweighted Tree Augmentation Problem, Jacob Thomas Restanio

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this thesis, we perform an experimental study of approximation algorithms for the tree augmentation problem (TAP). TAP is a fundamental problem in network design. The goal of TAP is to add the minimum number of edges from a given edge set to a tree so that it becomes 2-edge connected. Formally, given a tree T = (V, E), where V denotes the set of vertices and E denotes the set of edges in the tree, and a set of edges (or links) L ⊆ V × V disjoint from E, the objective is to find a set of edges …

The Eruption Of Disruption: The Manifestation Of Disrupting Whiteness In Secondary Social Studies In Appalachia, Elizabeth Disalvo Osborne

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This phenomenological dissertation explores the lived experiences of secondary social studies educators situated in the Appalachian region. Hermeneutic phenomenology was used as a philosophical and methodological approach to gather insights into this phenomenon. Interviews were conducted with three educators to capture their experiences from their childhoods, to their teaching careers, and into their current personal lives. These experiences were analyzed using a Whole-Part-Whole process to understand how they came to disrupt whiteness, the ways they did so, and their understanding of the impact disrupting whiteness for creating learning environments, developing curriculum and making instructional decisions. The findings revealed how these …

Developing New Ionization Strategies For Characterizing Structural Flexibility, Heterogeneity, And Transformation Of Biopolymers, Daud Sharif

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Biopolymers, such as proteins and nucleic acids, serve important functions dictated by their structural folding. Information excavated from the intricate structural arrangements of biopolymers have been proved to be vital in diagnosing diseases, unveiling disease mechanisms, and developing new drugs. A continuous effort has been put to improve the characterization techniques of these biomolecules so that more precision can be achieved in terms of detailing their structure-function relationship. Mass spectrometry (MS) is one such technique that has become very relevant for structural biology with the emergence of soft ionization techniques such as electrospray ionization (ESI). A prerequisite to the application …

Intersectional Microaggressions And Disordered Eating In Asian American Women, Spring Szoka

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Disordered eating in college-age women is well-documented. Less is known about minoritized populations and disordered eating for college-age women, especially Asian American women. As Asian Americans are often subjected to the “model minority” myth, less research has been dedicated to understanding disordered eating for this population. Small, everyday slights motivated by the model minority myth and other racial stereotypes are known as microaggressions. Asian American women hold an intersectional identity that places them at risk for experiencing microaggressions from their identity as both a woman and as an Asian American. The purpose of this study was to examine relationships between …

Sexual Misconduct Against Female Athletes: Knowledge, Training, And Readiness To Act Of Future Sport Leaders, Mackenzie B. Luikart

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The purpose of this study is to understand the comprehensiveness and effectiveness of current education in sport related degree programs and the impact that has on future and current sport leaders to confront and report sexual misconduct in sport.

A total of 15 participants were selected to participate in this study. The participants for this study include current graduate students pursuing degree programs in either coaching studies or sport management, and graduates of these two programs (within the last five years) who are currently in the workforce in their respective fields. Most participants were white, female, and currently served a …

Exploring The Conceptualizations And Utilizations Of Learning Theories In Sport Settings, Kevin R. Lou

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The purpose of this study was to identify how integrating learning theories into the design of a formal university course helps facilitate students’ resources, goals, and orientations (Schoenfeld, 2011) of learning theories for their future career work in coaching, sport psychology consulting, or other sport-related professions. Sixteen students signed up for a fifteen-week fall semester course at a Mid-Atlantic university in America and were asked to annotate, create, and reflect upon examples of future work in their desired fields for their three major written assignments in the course. Students reflected on their learning experience through pre-and-post semi-structured interviews and most …

The Effect Of Pubertal Stress On Prefrontal Cortex Related Behavior In Adult And Adolescent Mice, Bryan Rodriguez

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The prefrontal cortex (PFC) is an area of associated with cognitive flexibility, decision making, and value processing. The most common neuropsychiatric disorders globally, including generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, schizophrenia, and substance abuse disorders, have been associated with dysfunction in the PFC. One of the environmental factors that may lead to increased risk for developing these disorders is exposure to stressful or traumatic situations during key developmental periods, such as adolescence. Human studies found that individuals who were faced with early adverse events but had some form of social interaction or support during that time, had a lower risk …

Adventures In Flute Playing: A Literature Survey And Anticipated Beginning Flute Method, Sammy Holloman

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This Literature Survey will investigate 10 method books used by beginning flute students, aged 6-13, in the United States. In this survey, books will be analyzed to identify which musical concepts are covered and their overall methodical approach. Comprehensive graphs are offered in the Appendix to provide readers brief contextual information on the books analyzed.

The results from this survey have influenced the creation of my beginning flute method, Adventures in Flute Playing, which incorporates exercises that are less commonly found in the method books being used today. Adventures in Flute Playing will consist of a series of online videos …

Composers At War: A Study Of Composers Who Fought In World War I And World War Ii, Jason T. Hoffmann

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This research document explores the connections between the war experiences of four composers and whether the possibility existed that any of the composers had posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD), moral injury, mild traumatic brain injuries (mTBI), traumatic brain injury (TBI) or chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). Scholars have not thoroughly examined the music of composers written before, during, and after war experiences and any potential changes to musical styles or compositional techniques. In my research I look at the effects that war can have on composers through autobiographical and biographical accounts of Ivor Gurney (WWI), Olivier Messiaen (WWII), Maurice Ravel (WWI), and …

Gut-Lung Axis Of The Microbiome Alterations After Ultrafine Particles And Ozone Inhalation, Md Habibul Hasan Mazumder

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Air pollution poses a significant threat to public health. It is a mixture of particulate matter, gaseous substances, and other secondary substances. Despite epidemiological research indicating the interactive effects of various components of air pollution, existing studies and regulatory limits often focus on single-exposure scenarios. The emerging understanding of the microbiome’s role in regulating immune response, metabolism, and pathophysiology of various diseases points towards interactions between environmental exposures and microbial dysbiosis. In this dissertation, mice were exposed to relevant deposited doses of carbon black (CB) and ozone (O3), and lung inflammation as well as the lung-gut axis of the microbiome …

Relationships Between Geochemistry, Carbon Content, And Grain Size In Clastic Cave Sediments, Rebekah Rose Nicholas

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Understanding geochemical and physical properties of cave sediment gives insight to sediment characterization and carbon storage in the cave system. Previous work on clastic sediments largely encompasses physical properties, neglecting the importance of geochemical parameters on sediment deposition.

This study reports physical and chemical properties of sediment cores from three caves: two caves in Puerto Rico and one cave in Virginia. A total of 25 cores were used in this study; 6 of these cores were new and collected in 2022 from Butler Cave (BTC) in Virginia to focus on the effects of water level. Core samples were analyzed for …

Single Field Of View Calibration Through Estimating Three Mutually Orthogonal Vanishing Points For Spatial Data Collection In Traffic Scenes, Sourav Dutta

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Accurately extracting the three mutually orthogonal vanishing points plays a vital role in the field of view calibration for many surveillance-based traffic applications. However, the paucity of parallel lines along the dominant directions in many traffic scenes engenders the inapplicability of the current methods for a successful calibration. This research proposed a novel vanishing point estimating method for traffic scenes. This method capitalizes on both the road scene and moving vehicles for the determination of the dominant directions of the real-world coordinate frame. It also exploits distinctive edgelets for the direct identification of vanishing point candidates. Both lab and field …

Exploiting The Advantages And Overcoming The Challenges Of The Cable In A Tethered Drone System, Rogerio Rodrigues Lima

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation proposes solutions for motion planning, localization, and landing of tethered drones using only tether variables. A tether-based multi-model localization framework for tethered drones is proposed. This framework comprises three independent localization strategies based on a different model. The first strategy uses simple trigonometric relations assuming that the tether is taut; the second method relies on a set of catenary equations for the slack tether case; the third estimator is a neural network-based predictor that can cover different tether shapes. Multi-layer perceptron networks previously trained with a dataset comprised of the tether variables (i.e., length, tether angles on the …

Spiking Neural Network That Maps From Generalized Coordinates To Cartesian Coordinates, Chloe K. Guie

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

In this thesis, I look to understand how insects compute task-level quantities by integrating range-fractionated sensory signals to create a sparse-spatial coding of Cartesian positions. I created biologically plausible 2-D and 3-D models of one species of the stick insect (Carausius morosus) leg and encoded the foot position through a spiking neural network. This model used spiking afferents from three angles of an insect leg which are integrated by one non-spiking interneuron. This model contains many dendritic compartments and one somatic compartment that encode the foot’s position relative to the body. The Functional Subnetwork Approach (FSA) was used …

Studies On Depth And Torsion In Tensor Products Of Modules, Uyen Huyen Thao Le

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation represents an in-depth exploration of two distinct yet interconnected research topics within commutative algebra: one centered around a conjecture of Huneke and R. Wiegand and the other concerns a depth inequality of Auslander. It consists of the following three papers as well as the author's work under the direction of Professor Olgur Celikbas:

• Remarks on a conjecture of Huneke and Wiegand and the vanishing of (co)homology, Journal of Mathematical Society of Japan Advance Publication. (joint work with Olgur Celikbas, Hiroki Matsui, and Arash Sadeghi).
• An extension of a depth inequality of Auslander, Taiwanese Journal of Mathematics, …

Blowdown Wastewater Co-Treatment With Produced Water For Resource Recovery: Moving Towards Zero Liquid Discharge And Sustainable Waste Management, Mohammad Hafez Ahmed

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Cooling of low-pressure steam and flue gas desulfurization (FGD) process at coal-fired powerplants often require large quantities of freshwater and can generate waste streams from the blowdown (BD) operations. Treating these wastewaters for reuse can offset the freshwater demand, which is beneficial especially in semiarid and arid regions. However, the traditional treatment (i.e., chemical softening and evaporation) of cooling BD water (BDW) is chemical- and energy-intensive and adds to the overall costs of water management for powerplants. Furthermore, the updated Effluent Limitation Guidelines and Standards for powerplants set forth by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) …

Cue Reactivity In Non-Smoking Electronic Cigarette Users, Ashley E. Douglas

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Electronic cigarettes (ECIGs) are among the most popular nicotine products in the United States, particularly among youth and young adults. Many individuals who use ECIGs report an interest in quitting or unsuccessful quit attempts. In addition to nicotine dependence, one factor that may contribute to continued ECIG use is an individual’s response to ECIG-related environmental stimuli, or cues. Existing research demonstrates that exposure to ECIG cues increases craving for ECIGs among cigarette smokers, including those without previous ECIG experience. The purpose of this study was to examine effects of ECIG cue exposure in experienced ECIG users with minimal smoking history, …

Relationships Among Racism, Dental Care-Related Fear/Anxiety And Dental Care Utilization Among Black And African American Women In Appalachia, Kalo Sokoto

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation is a study of the implications of racism in oral health care settings for dental care-related fear/anxiety, and dental care utilization. One in five adults in the US have experienced discrimination while receiving health care. Even though racism is the most reported type of discrimination in health care, little is known about its impact on dental outcomes. There is a paucity of prior studies measuring experiences of racism in dental settings. The current study proposed the application of Krieger’s Ecosocial Theory of Health Equity to explore relationships among racism in oral health care settings, dental care-related fear/anxiety, and …