Digital Commons Network^™

Conservation Grazing With Native Irish Cattle In High Nature Value Environments, Kilian Kelly

Theses

Marrying conservation objectives with farming practices is a challenging necessity in the current era of anthropogenically-driven biodiversity loss. Upland habitats created by traditional farming are havens for wildlife but face multiple threats, including overgrazing and abandonment. Extensive cattle farming in the uplands has been mooted as a useful conservation measure, but Irish evidence supporting this approach is lacking. This thesis examines home range, habitat preferences and activity budgets for Dexter cattle in an extensive upland setting in southwest Ireland. It investigates the effects of the grazing regime on EU-protected habitats and ground beetles. Free-ranging cattle grazed the site over three …

Encountering Grief: Exploring The Value Of Art Therapy For Bereaved Adults, Paul Moynihan

Theses

This extended literature review explores the value of art therapy interventions for bereaved adults, with a particular emphasis on its application for individuals with histories of insecure attachment. A review of literature in the areas of bereavement and attachment considers how attachment insecurities present as a risk factor for complications in the grieving process with a subsequent focus on the implications for therapeutic intervention. A review of literature in art therapy, related areas of psychoanalysis and creativity aims to highlight the distinct value that art therapy could offer this particular subgroup of bereaved adults in adapting to grief. An incorporation …

Predictive Modeling Of Influenza In New England Using A Recurrent Deep Neural Network, Alfred Amendolara

Theses

Predicting seasonal variation in influenza epidemics is an ongoing challenge. To better predict seasonal influenza and provide early warning of pandemics, a novel approach to Influenza-Like-Illness (ILI) prediction was developed. This approach combined a deep neural network with ILI, climate, and population data. A predictive model was created using a deep neural network based on TensorFlow 2.0 Beta. The model used Long-Short Term Memory (LSTM) nodes. Data was collected from the Center for Disease Control, the National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI) and the United States Census Bureau. These parameters were temperature, precipitation, wind speed, population size, vaccination rate and …

Micro Pipes – A Portable Integrated Platform For Electrochemical Sensing Using Essence Architecture, Hansin Kim

Theses

The field of microfluidics and lab-on-chip (LOC) technology has the potential to have a truly transformative effect in biological engineering. This includes areas such as single-cell analysis, environmental monitoring, regenerative medicine, and point-of-care diagnostics. Yet despite being the subject of intense research over the past two decades, LOC devices have not been widely adopted. It is increasingly evident that there is a need for an effective and adaptable integration strategy to realize the potential of this technology.

Presented in this thesis is a design for a chip-to-world interface that aims to improve integration while maintaining cost-efficiency and ease of fabrication. …

Effect Of 3d Printed Tablet Shape On Drug Release Profile, Christina Gedeon

Theses

There is a growing interest in utilizing additive manufacturing (AM) as a manufacturing tool to develop oral tablets for personalized medicine. This ultimate goal in mind, this study explores the feasibility of extrusion-based fused deposition modeling (FDM) to 3D print oral tablets with tunable design to control drug release profile. Tablets are printed using poly(vinyl alcohol) (PVA) loaded with model drugs: acetaminophen and caffeine. Hot melt extrusion (HME) is used to fabricate PVA filaments loaded with acetaminophen and caffeine. These filaments are used to fabricate a range of tablets with varying designs to prepare immediate and delayed release tablets. Thermal …

Effect Of Process Conditions On Feature Size Of Inkjet Printed Silver Mod Ink, Manoj Meda

Theses

Advancements in functional printing processes have demonstrated the viability of fabricating electronic circuits through deposition of electrically conductive materials. This has opened various novel avenues such as flexible and stretchable electronics that are currently beyond the capabilities of conventional subtractive manufacturing processes. Among the functional printing processes, piezoelectric drop-on-demand inkjet printing has now become of increasing interest due to its versatility. In case of the electrically conductive materials, Metal Organic Decomposition (MOD) inks stand out due to their particle free nature, which improves the jetting behavior.

The strict demand from the electronics industry necessities uniform, smooth features of high resolution …

A 3u Cubesat Platform For Plant Growth Experiments, Jared A. Loewenthal

Theses

This thesis work presents the design, manufacturing, and ground testing of a 3U Cubesat platform intended for plant growth experiments. The structure is comprised of four identical, but independent plant growth chambers. Each of these accommodates about two cubic inches of soil, and the necessary air volume and moisture regulation to grow a fast-growing plant from seed to seed in 3-4 weeks. The plant growth is artificially stimulated by an array of light emitting diodes (LEDs) at grow light wavelengths that match the properties of chlorophyll, and is monitored by a suite of sensors: temperature, pressure, relative humidity, CO2, custom …

Low-Rank Multivariate General Linear Model With Relationship Between Brain Regions And Time Points, Ge Song

Theses

The human brain is hard to study and analysis, not because of the complexity of the brain structure, such as neurons and neurons connections, but also because of the complexity of the brain activities. Since in different scales, for example, different time series, different physical senses, the measurements of the human brain activities can be varied. Tring to measure the brain regions relationships in person, the Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI) is one of the methods. The focus of this paper is on analyzing human brain regions relationships in different time domains and different scans of fMRI by using low-rank …

Vertical, Thermal, And Geographic Habitats Of Whale Sharks (Rhincodon Typus) Tagged Along Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia, Rachel Steinberg

Theses

Though whale sharks (Rhincodon typus) are the largest fish in the ocean there is little known about the species’ life history. Juvenile males are often observed at a number of locations world-wide but adult females, adult males, and neonates are rarely seen. Consequently, important issues like where whale sharks mate and give birth are unknown. Similarly, what geographic and vertical habitats whale sharks use to forage in are similarly poorly known. Seventeen juvenile whale sharks (10 female, 7 male) were outfitted with satellite tags off Ningaloo Reef, Western Australia between 2003 and 2009, and subsequently monitored for 1920 …

New Possibilities For Stilt Building, Zhuming Liu

Theses

The purpose of the thesis lies in exploring the new possibilities of the stilt building in dealing with two sustainability problems caused by urban development: the Lack of Public Greening in Prosperous, High-density Areas, and the Continuous Sprawl of Private Housing in Suburbs.

As a functional building method with a long history, stilt building, or known as building with “The Pilotis,” regained its vitality in the 20th century with Le Corbusier. However, the common application mode of today’s stilt building has deviated from Corbusier's original intention, which was to provide sheltered outdoor green space for residents in the city. This …

Multi-Objective Optimal Capacity And Placement Of Distributed Generators In The Power System Networks Using Atom Search Optimization Method, Ashwaq Faisal Alkhatib

Theses

Nowadays, renewable energy sources become a significant source of energy in the new millennium. The continuous penetration of dispersed resources of the reactive power into power systems is predicted to introduce new challenges. Power loss mitigation and voltage profile development are the major investigation challenges

that recently attracted the attention of researchers in the field of power systems. Distributed generation (DG) is widely preferred because it is a highly effective solution that strengthens the performance of power system networks. This multiobjective function study aims to minimise power losses in the feeders, sustain voltage levels and reduce the application cost of …

Understanding The Role Of Epstein-Barr Virus Encoded Rna-1 (Eber-1) In The Cell Proliferation, Yasmeen Atta Ali Abdelmowla

Theses

Epstein-Barr virus (EBV) is a human herpes virus that infects and persists in > 90% of human adults, generally without causing disease. However, EBV has oncogenic properties and is associated with several malignancies of epithelial and lymphoid origin. The details of the molecular steps leading to these different malignancies are poorly understood. It is believed that some of the EBV latent gene products are involved. Two small EBV-encoded RNAs referred to as EBER1 and EBER2 have been shown to be expressed in all forms of EBV latent infection. These non-polyadenylated and non-protein-coding RNAs are by far the most abundant transcripts expressed …

Improvements To A Thermally Actuated Mems Viscosity Sensor, Shreyas Choudhary

Theses

Being able to measure and monitor the viscosity of a fluid accurately and in real-time can provide insights and prevent field failures of lubricated mechanical elements. A micro electro mechanical system (MEMS) viscosity sensor that measures the properties of liquids through thermal vibrations of a silicon membrane has been previously developed. The device measures viscosity through three different characteristics: the frequency, amplitude and the quality factor of the vibrating membrane. The membrane is actuated via a short pulse of heat delivered by the heater resistor provided by an external voltage. The pulse width is controlled by a waveform generator and …

Modeling Interacting Time-Series Signals, Kantha Girish Gangadhara

Theses

Many real-life systems consist of multiple information signals which might be potentially interacting with each other over time. These interactions can be estimated/modeled using techniques like Pearson Correlation (PC), Time lagged Cross Correlation (TLCC) and windowed TLCC, Dynamic Time Warping (DTW), and coupled Hidden Markov Model (cHMM). These techniques, excluding cHMM, cannot capture non-linear interactions and does not work well with multi-variate data. Although cHMM can capture the interactions effectively, it is bound by Markov property and other assumptions like latent variables, prior distributions, etc. These influence the performance of the model significantly. Recurrent Neural Network (RNN) is a variant …

Spatially-Explicit Snap Bean Flowering And Disease Prediction Using Imaging Spectroscopy From Unmanned Aerial Systems, Ethan W. Hughes

Theses

Sclerotinia sclerotiorum, or white mold, is a fungus that infects the flowers of snap bean plants and causes a subsequent reduction in snap bean pods, which adversely impacts yield. Timing the application of white mold fungicide thus is essential to preventing the disease, and is most effective when applied during the flowering stage. However, most of the flowers are located beneath the canopy, i.e., hidden by foliage, which makes spectral detection of flowering via the leaf/canopy spectra paramount. The overarching objectives of this research therefore are to i) identify spectral signatures for the onset of flowering to optimally time the …

Mydoula: An Interactive Screening And Support System For The Prevention Of Perinatal Mood Disorders, Meghan M. Lewis

Theses

Perinatal Mood Disorders (PMDs) are the leading complication in pregnancies today. They stretch beyond the mother and can affect fathers and non-biological parents or guardians as well. The negative implications of these disorders diffuse out through the family into society as a catalyst for hindered child development, attachment disorders, lower cognitive abilities, and behavioral issues. They often have a profoundly negative effect on the family unit such as causing higher rates of violence, divorce, and loss of work. Parents experiencing mood disorders often have lower compliance rates when it comes to safety measures, such as using child car seats and …

Methods And Algorithms For Cardiovascular Hemodynamics With Applications To Noninvasive Monitoring Of Proximal Blood Pressure And Cardiac Output Using Pulse Transit Time, Yashar Seyed Vahedein

Theses

Advanced health monitoring and diagnostics technology are essential to reduce the unrivaled number of human fatalities due to cardiovascular diseases (CVDs). Traditionally, gold standard CVD diagnosis involves direct measurements of the aortic blood pressure (central BP) and flow by cardiac catheterization, which can lead to certain complications. Understanding the inner-workings of the cardiovascular system through patient-specific cardiovascular modeling can provide new means to CVD diagnosis and relating treatment. BP and flow waves propagate back and forth from heart to the peripheral sites, while carrying information about the properties of the arterial network. Their speed of propagation, magnitude and shape are …

Social Discounting Of Clean Water And Environmental Sustainability, Ashley Katz

Theses

The purpose of this study was to examine choice-making as it relates to providing a source of clean water to those at varying social distances. A discounting survey was completed by 65 participants asking them to choose between spending a specified about of money on plastic water bottles that have a 100% chance of harming the environment or spending $1000 on a water filtration system that has a 0% chance of harming the environment. Results indicated that as social distance increased, responding became more impulsive as evident by a steeper amount of discounting. For “Person #1”, 27.69% of participants chose …

The Effects Of Seasonal Variations, El Niño-Southern Oscillation, And Climate Change On The Tuna-Dolphin Association, Caitlynn Birch, Michael D. Scott, Zhi-Yong Yin, Lisa T. Ballance

Theses

Tuna and dolphins swim together in the waters of the eastern tropical Pacific, and this association has long benefitted tuna fishermen and intrigued scientists. Although the tuna-dolphin association is often referred to as a “mystery,” much is known about the association. Yellowfin tuna are primarily caught with spotted dolphins and, to a lesser extent, spinner dolphins; historically the spotted dolphin has borne the brunt of the bycatch mortality. The tuna-dolphin association is thought to be a product of the distinct oceanography of the ETP: a shallow mixed layer, a thick oxygen minimum zone, and warm surface waters. As the mixed …

On Unifying Declarative Memory, Thomas Ames

Theses

The distinction between episodic and semantic declarative memory systems, as introduced by Tulving (1972, updated in 1984, 1991), was a revolutionary approach to human memory. While the distinction is now widely endorsed in the study of memory, there are debates about what constitutes each system’s domain, how each system is used, how each system functions, and the phenomenal experiences associated with the functioning of each system. On the basis of clinical studies and insights from conditions affecting memory, this paper argues that the episodic/semantic distinction can be reframed as a result of a unified declarative memory system. In this view, …

A Systematic Analysis Of Accessibility Education Within Computing Disciplines, Paula Conn

Theses

Accessible technologies improve the usability for all users, including 1 billion people in the world who have a disability. Although there is a demand for accessible technologies, there is currently no requirement for universities to integrate this content within the computing curriculum. A systematic comparison of teaching efficacy is important to effectively prepare future computing professionals with the skills to create accessible technologies.

This dissertation contains a mixed-methods cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis of undergraduate Software Engineering and Information Technology students’ learning of accessibility. Four teaching conditions were assessed at Rochester Institute of Technology: content lectures, projects, exposure to stakeholders with …

Development Of Novel Peroxidase-Tio2/Zno Hybrid Catalysts For The Degradation Of Emerging Pollutants, Rana Fawzi Mohamed

Theses

Water pollution by different organic compounds is one of the most important environmental issues that is attracting the attention of many scientists due to its direct potential bad effect on human health. These organic pollutants include pesticides, pharmaceuticals, industrial wastes, and personal care products that are released in water bodies from domestic and industrial discharge. Various chemical, physical and biological approaches have been proposed to degrade these contaminants from the polluted water. In the present study, we immobilized versatile thermostable enzymes, Soybean peroxidase (SBP) and Horseradish peroxidase on functionalized photocatalysts—TiO₂ and ZnO to create novel bio-composite catalysts (SBP-TiO₂, SBP-ZnO, HRP-TiO₂, …

Prevalence, Antibiotic-Resistance And Growth Profile Of Vibrio Spp., Isolated From Imported Fish In The Local Markets, Tarfa Ali Mohamed

Theses

Seafood and fish are important food components for a large section of the world population. Seafood is prone to bacterial contamination, many are pathogenic to human and marine animals, and three species, Vibrio mimicus, Vibrio parahaemolyticus, and Vibrio vulnificus, are responsible for most cases of seafood-related human illness caused by Vibrio species. The study on the prevalence of these microorganisms in seafood of the United Arab Emirates is vital due to the cultural background of the Emiratis as a coastal heritage. A study was conducted to assess the prevalence of Vibrio spp. in imported fishes from local …

Evaluation Of Phytochemical Composition And Anti-Cancer Potential In Root Extracts Of Moringa Peregrina (Forssk.) Fiori, Salama Khamis Sultan Saeed Al Kaabi

Theses

Natural products provide many bioactive lead molecules for the discovery of new medicines. Naturally, derived phytochemicals have exhibited tremendous biological activities including anticancer activity. More than 60% of antitumor medicines are closely associated with natural products. In the present study, hexane, chloroform, acetone and, methanol extracts from roots of Moringa peregrina were screened for phytochemical analysis and anticancer activity. Phytochemical analysis was performed by Gas Chromatography and Mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The anticancer potential of the extracts was done on the human breast cancer cell line (MCF-7) and cell viability was measured using WST-1 Cell Proliferation Assay Kit. The cell line …

Assessment Of Conventional Wastewater Treatment Plants In Removing Pharmaceutical Compounds: A Case Study Of Al Ain City, Uae, Ahmad Mohammad I Hassan Alhalab

Theses

This thesis is concerned with the assessment of conventional wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in removing pharmaceutical compounds (PCs). PCs have classes like analgesics, antibiotics, antiseptics, hormones, cosmetic products, personal care products. They are used extensively by humans and they don’t have actual guidelines describing their concentration in domestic wastewater discharge. Thus, they may still be present in treated sewage effluent (TSE) or sludge and could consequently pose adverse environmental effects. Limited work has been done to assess the removal of PCs at WWTPs in arid and semi-arid countries including the United Arab Emirates (UAE). As such, this study aimed at …

The Impact Of Biotic Characteristics Of Uae Coastal Area On Movements Of Socotra Cormorant, Nouf Sameer Abdullah Saeed Al Qadi

Theses

Monitoring Socotra Cormorant population and conducting research on their breeding biology and feeding habits are considered the top priorities for ensuring the long-term protection of their breeding colonies and feeding grounds. The research was conducted by using ArcMap Software (10.5) to map Socotra cormorant migratory movements in the Arabian Gulf Region during the 2013-2014 and 2014-2015 breeding seasons.; and to determine environmental variables that affect migratory movements using a GIS approach, which helps to identify areas of conservation value. The study provided needed information on the current distribution of Socotra Cormorant along with the distribution of marine ecosystems (mangroves and …

The Association Of Dna And Histone Methyltransferase Genes With Different Methylation Levels In Fragile X Syndrome Individuals, Sara Humaid Sembaij

Theses

Fragile X Mental Retardation 1 (FMR1) gene produces an FMR protein (FMRP) which is known to regulate the translation process in various organs. It has a significant role in neurons function, maturation, and synaptic plasticity. FMR1 gene encompasses 5 - 30 CGG repeats and the greater number of repeats has the potential to expand during gametogenesis. The expansion depending on the number of CGG repeat undergoes hyper-methylation and is considered as a dynamic mutation in which the expansion increases through generation. Methylation of expanded CGG repeats results in inhibiting the transcription and silencing the gene. There are two types of …

Deepcon-Pre: Improved Protein Contact Map Prediction Using Inverse Covariance And Deep Residual Networks, Nachammai Palaniappan

Theses

As with most domains where machine learning methods are applied, correct feature engineering is critical when developing deep learning algorithms for solving the protein folding problem. Unlike the domains such as computer vision and natural language processing, feature engineering is not rigorously studied towards solving the protein folding problem. A recent research has highlighted that input features known as precision matrix are most informative for predicting inter-residue contact map, the key for building three-dimensional models. In this work, we study the significance of the precision matrix feature when very deep residual networks are trained. Using a standard dataset of 3456 …

Protein Inter-Residue Distance Prediction Using Residual And Capsule Networks, Andrew Dillon

Theses

The protein folding problem, also known as protein structure prediction, is the task of building three-dimensional protein models given their one-dimensional amino acid sequence. New methods that have been successfully used in the most recent CASP challenge have demonstrated that predicting a protein's inter-residue distances is key to solving this problem. Various deep learning algorithms including fully convolutional neural networks and residual networks have been developed to solve the distance prediction problem. In this work, we develop a hybrid method based on residual networks and capsule networks. We demonstrate that our method can predict distances more accurately than the algorithms …

The Distribution And Demography Of The Invasive Pacific Oyster, Crassostrea Gigas, And Native Olympia Oyster, Ostrea Lurida, In The San Diego River, Jason Langevin

Theses

Even though the introduction of the Pacific Oyster, Crassostrea gigas, to the west coast of North America, happened roughly a century ago, it has only been in the past 15 to 20 years that C. gigas has started to become an established and conspicuous species along Southern California’s coast. The establishment of C. gigas in Southern California has the potential to heavily influence many native species, as it has done globally. In Southern California, this invasion is particularly relevant for the native Olympia Oyster, Ostrea lurida. The Olympia oyster has both historical and present-day threats to its population, …