Digital Commons Network^™

Transcriptomes Analysis Reveals Genes Commonly Induced By Botrytis Cinerea Infection, Cold, Drought And Oxidative Stresses In Arabidopsis Thaliana, Ahmed Dawood Al-Azzawi

Theses

Signaling pathways controlling biotic and abiotic stress responses may interact synergistically or antagonistically. To identify the similarities and differences among responses to diverse stresses, we analyzed previously published microarray data on the transcriptomic responses of Arabidopsis thaliana to infection with Botrytis cinerea (a biotic stresses). Our analyses showed that at least at early stages B. cinerea inoculation, 1498 genes were up-regulated (B. cinerea up-regulated genes; BUGS) and 1138 genes were down-regulated (B. cinerea down-regulated genes; BUG_S). We showed a unique program of gene expression was activated in response each biotic and abiotic stress, but that …

Applications Of Pure And Recycled Polymeric Micro-Nanofiber For The Removal Of Oil Spills., Afra Gharib Khamis Al Blooshi

Theses

Cleaning oil spills is a universal concern due to its environmental impact. The aim of this study is to study the effectiveness and applications of pure and recycled polymers in clean-up and the recovery of crude oil from oil spills. In this study, micro-nanofibres of analytical-grade and commercial polystyrene samples were prepared by electrospinning technique. Fiber size distribution was shown to vary with the electrospinning parameters and type of polymer. Fibrous sorbents prepared hereafter were investigated for their efficiency in removing oil spill. Results showed variation in the sorption capacities of the fibers to various types of crude oils with …

Potential Of Greywater Reuse And Its Effects On Potable Water Demand Management And Downstream Sewer Network, Muhammad Ashfaque Rajput Abdul Hameed

Theses

The UAE’s water demand is rapidly increasing because of population growth, infrastructure development, expansion of agricultural practices and for the desert greening policies. These circumstances force the country to depend on expansive desalinated water and made the country second largest desalination water producer in the world. It is essential to reduce the current water consumption rates by using efficient methods and conservation techniques. Greywater reuse is an effective and promising alternate to cope with this challenge. The study aimed to reduce the water consumption in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi by investigating the potential of greywater reuse. A field survey …

Low-Power, Low-Voltage Electroosmotic Actuator For An Implantable Micropumping System Intended For Drug Delivery Applications, Jirachai Getpreecharsawas

Theses

An electroosmotic (EO) actuator offers a low-power, low-voltage alternative in a diaphragm-based periodic displacement micropump intended for an implantable drug delivery system. The actuator utilizes an electroosmosis mechanism to transport liquid across a membrane to deflect the pumping diaphragms in a reciprocating manner. In the study, the membrane made of porous nanocrystalline silicon (pnc-Si) tens of nanometers in thickness was used as the promising EO generator with low power consumption and small package size. This ultrathin membrane provides the opportunity for electrode integration such that the very high electric field can be generated across the membrane with the applied potential …

Determining The Daily Caloric Needs Of Collegiate Female Athletes, Alicia D. Watson

Theses

Dietary requirements in athletes are critical to overall health and performance, yet no formula to predict dietary needs is available for female athletes. This study's purpose was to develop a validated prediction equation to predict the resting metabolic needs of female athletes. 63 NCAA Division II female athletes (19.7 ± 1.1 years, 169.3 ± 8.6 cm, 67.5 ± 9.1 kg) were recruited as participants in this study. Upon providing their informed consent, study participants arrived for testing in the morning between the hours of 0600 - 1000 after observing a ~10 hour fast and within 30 - 60 minutes of …

Aura: Social Impacts Of Everyday Objects, Bijal Patwa

Theses

Today, the relationship between subject and object has been reversed, and we are becoming more and more technology dependent, resulting in objects ruling us. The physical presence of people is losing its value. Small incidents or situations between strangers might lead to meaningful relationships. Everyday objects, such as a coffee table, salt-pepper shakers or phones are ubiquitous and are part of our lives in a way that influences our cultural and social behavior. The effect these objects create is more important than the objects themselves. Hence the name “Aura”, for the objects created during my thesis. These objects have a …

A Model-Based Design Framework For Application-Specific Heterogeneous Systems, Samuel Skalicky

Theses

The increasing heterogeneity of computing systems enables higher performance and power efficiency. However, these improvements come at the cost of increasing the overall complexity of designing such systems. These complexities include constructing implementations for various types of processors, setting up and configuring communication protocols, and efficiently scheduling the computational work. The process for developing such systems is iterative and time consuming, with no well-defined performance goal. Current performance estimation approaches use source code implementations that require experienced developers and time to produce.

We present a framework to aid in the design of heterogeneous systems and the performance tuning of applications. …

197_, Jason Paul Reimer

Theses

This past year, two life-altering events descended on my life within a few months of each other: the death of my sister from cancer, and the birth of my first child. Both were anticipated, but hit me with a kind of emotional power that I couldn’t have imagined until they actually happened. The extremes of the highs and lows these events brought induced a mental whiplash as I thought about what they meant, and how they would affect my family and me. Grief and celebration seldom inhabit the same place at once, but I found my-self living shoulder to shoulder …

Fabrication Of Multibore Carbon Nanopipettes Using A Template-Based Nanomanufacturing Process, Ayomipo Arowosola

Theses

Currently, cancer accounts for nearly 1 of every 4 deaths in the United States which rates it as the second most common cause of death in the US, exceeded only by heart diseases. The detection, prevention and treatment of these death-causing diseases have necessitated and led to the development of novel tools for interfacing with single live cells –intracellular cell physiology. A major challenge, preventing the realization of effective and efficient intracellular physiology, is the lack of minimally invasive, nanoscale electrodes capable of probing cells without causing cell damage or death. Previous studies have succeeded in fabricating single nanoscale electrodes …

Distribution Of Ghrelin In Pancreatic Islet Cells Of Normal And Diabetic Rats And Its Effect On Diabetes Mellitus, Haba Y. M. El Abadlah

Theses

Ghrelin, a 28-amino acid peptide, is identified as the endogenous ligand of the orphan growth hormone secretagogue-receptor type 1a. Ghrelin presents a unique modification at Ser3 position essential for its activity. It was first discovered in the stomach of rat in 1999. Aside from ghrelin’s role as a potent growth hormone secretagogue and food intake modulator, ghrelin is thought to play a role in insulin and glucagon secretion and in glucose homeostasis. A lot of contradictory data have been reported in the literature regarding ghrelins co-localization with other hormones in the islets of Langerhans, its role in insulin secretion and …

Control Of Radiation Exposure To Paediatric Patients At Conventional Radiology And Cardiac Centers At Dubai Hospital, Najlaa Khalfan Saeed Almazrouei

Theses

In view of increasing the number of x-ray examinations over the years, paediatric radiation safety is considered as one of the critical subjects in the modern medical imaging. Paediatric patients are at higher risk from ionizing radiation than adults if they receive same amount of dose. This project was conducted to evaluate paediatric patient radiation dose levels in digital radiology (both fixed and mobile x-ray units) and interventional cardiology at Dubai Hospital. The results of this study are expected to contribute in establishing local and national diagnostic reference levels in United Arab Emirates (UAE). A combination of phantom studies and …

Gender Negotiations Of Female Collegiate Athletes In The Strength And Conditioning Environment: A Qualitative Analysis, Rachel I'Leene Roth

Theses

Research has shown that collegiate female athletes are oftentimes faced with negotiating meanings of their femininity and their athleticism. Athleticism has traditionally been equated with masculinity, and to be a collegiate athlete requires certain levels of skill, experience, and athletic ability. Therefore, female collegiate athletes are conflicted with managing their identities in order to avoid accusations of their sexuality, which often results in being labeled as deviant. A primary indicator of athleticism is muscularity, which is also considered a masculine trait. In order to stay within gender boundaries, female athletes may go above and beyond to emphasize their femininity, or …

Principals’ Instructional Leadership Practices And Their Relationship To Teachers’ Instructional Practices In Sharjah Schools., Hayat Mohamed Abdalla Al Hosani

Theses

Instructional leadership has become one of the most widely researched topics. This type of leadership has been connected to teacher growth and development, teacher job satisfaction, student achievement, and improving school climate in general. This study focuses on instructional leadership in schools of Sharjah Education Zone. Specifically, the study aims to describe the principal instructional leadership practices, to identify the most and least important teachers’ instructional practices, and to investigate whether there is a relationship between the principals’ instructional practices and teachers’ teaching practices. This study is quantitative in nature and therefore a questionnaire was used to collect data from …

This Thesis Is Submitted In Partial Fulfillment Of The Requirements For The Degree Of Master Of Science In Information Technology Management, Farhan Mohammed

Theses

A large number of recent advancements in the technology of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) have enabled them to be very useful and effective in many applications in today’s society. They demonstrate a high degree of stability and agility in the air. A few years ago military applications were the main driving force behind the development of UAVs and UAV systems. Many of their applications included monitoring, surveillance, data transmission and communication. Recently, several opportunities have emerged and participated in driving the development of UAV technology further ahead. Such opportunities include integration of UAVs with smart cities, disaster recovery, military and …

Trans-Species Transcriptomic Comparison Of In Vitro And In Vivo Neural Cells, Peter Loverso

Theses

RNAseq has recently evolved into a powerful tool for the analysis and comparison of different cell types within and across organisms, and allows for accurate, reproducible measurements of the transcriptome of these cells. Here, RNA from three different neural cells types (oligodendrocyte progenitor cells, neurons, and astrocytes) in rats (R. norvegicus) are grown in vitro then sequenced and aligned to the rn5 genome assembly. Furthermore, RNA from two different human (H. sapiens) neural cell types (neurons and astrocytes) grown in vitro were also sequenced and aligned to the hg38 assembly. An in vivo dataset of RNAseq reads was identified from …

Hate Speech And The Status Of Prisoners, Logan Richard Baseley

Theses

Drawing from feminist and critical race theorists’ analyses of pornography and racist speech, I advance an argument in favor of speech regulations vis-à-vis prison rape films. I call ‘prison rape films’ (PRFs) those films that depict prison rape humorously, as narrative springboards, or as unnecessary tangents. I explore why such films ought to be regulated by pointing out the harms these films have on prisoners. In doing so, I examine what it is to be a ‘historically oppressed group’ and what makes such groups particularly vulnerable to hate speech. Prisoners are a historically oppressed group that is harmed by prison …

Morphology And Characterization Of Abscission Zone Development And Its Role In Domestication In Setaria Viridis And Setaria Italica, John Gerard Hodge

Theses

Many critical agronomic traits have been selected over the course of domestication of various crops and of these, one of the most crucial for cereal crops (Poaceae) is increased seed retention or “reduced shattering”, although the underlying mechanisms remain poorly understood. Setaria viridis was selected to identify the underlying patterns related to abscission zone development within the previously uncharacterized tribe Paniceae (Panicoideae). For this study one line of the wild species S. viridis and two lines of S. italica , a derived domesticate of S. viridis , were used. Consistent differences were found in the phenotypic patterns and morphology of …

Is Natural Normativity True Normativity?, Amy Lawson Broadway

Theses

In this thesis, I describe two notions of normativity: John Broome’s theory of ‘true normativity’ and Philippa Foot’s theory of natural normativity. Both theories attempt to explain what determines how an individual ought to behave. Broome argues natural normativity is not true normativity. He claims natural normativity only describes the good of an organism and does not account for what a person ought to do. I argue this is a mistaken claim based on the assumption that what is evaluative and descriptive are necessarily separate. In addition, I argue Broome expresses inconsistent views. He thinks prudence is a source of …

Leaf-Cutter Ant (Atta Cephalotes) Behavioral Ecology Of Folivory In A Mixed-Use Guyanan Lowland Rainforest, Elizabeth Brianne Karslake

Theses

I studied the foraging ecology of a Neotropical leaf-cutter ant, Atta cephalotes, at CEIBA Biological Center, Guyana to elucidate diet choice and foraging strategy. These ants are serous agricultural pests because workers harvest leaves, flowers, fruits, and other plant organs of both cultivated and native plants. The plant materials are used to feed symbiotic fungi whose mycelia tips are the sole food of A. cephalotes larvae. Leaf-cutters were usually found in human disturbed habitats especially slash-and-burned forests cleared for farms, with their higher percentage of sun-exposure and lower plant stem diameters than second growth and primary forests. When given a …

The Scientific And Theological Superiority Of Divine Timelessness, David Christian Justice

Theses

For much of the history of the philosophy of religion it was generally accepted that God existed outside of time. Recently, however, many theologians have challenged the classical position that God exists outside of time and have instead argued for a temporal God. I argue that the concept of a temporal God is theologically and philosophically problematic, and in opposition to our best science. I first argue that a timeless existence is superior to that of a temporal existence, and that God as the most perfect being must therefore exist timelessly. I then argue a common objection raised against the …

Single Photon Counting Detectors For Low Light Level Imaging Applications, Kimberly Kolb

Theses

This dissertation presents the current state-of-the-art of semiconductor-based photon counting detector technologies. HgCdTe linear-mode avalanche photodiodes (LM-APDs), silicon Geiger-mode avalanche photodiodes (GM-APDs), and electron-multiplying CCDs (EMCCDs) are compared via their present and future performance in various astronomy applications. LM-APDs are studied in theory, based on work done at the University of Hawaii. EMCCDs are studied in theory and experimentally, with a device at NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab. The emphasis of the research is on GM-APD imaging arrays, developed at MIT Lincoln Laboratory and tested at the RIT Center for Detectors. The GM-APD research includes a theoretical analysis of SNR and …

Chiral Discrimination And Enantiomeric Cytotoxicity On Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells, Taylor Amber Davis

Theses

The negative health impact of chiral environmental pollutants (CEPs), including mutagenicity, teratogenicity, and developmental problems, highlight the importance of chirality to the biomedical research community and the need for new techniques for accurate analysis of CEPs in humans to promote the development of biomedical protocols for CEPs poisoning therapy. This study examined the effects of chirality on 1-(9-anthryl)-2,2,2-triflouroethanol (TFE) and 1,1²binaphthyl-2,2²-diamine (BNA) enantiomers interactions with human serum albumin (HSA), the dominant serum protein and a transporter of hormones, drugs and metabolites in human. Specifically, the emission, the binding constants, stoichiometry, and thermodynamic properties of enantiomers of TFE-HSA and BNA-HSA complexes …

Micro-Computed Tomography-Based Finite Element Analysis Of The Mechanical Integrity Of In Vivo Biodegradable Magnesium-Alloy Screw And Surrounding Bone, Adrienne F.O. Williams

Theses

The anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) tear, the most common knee injury, affects 100,000 to 200,000 persons in the US annually. Surgical repair is employed to restore the knee to its full range of motion. In the surgery, an interference screw is used to a secure a soft tissue graft that is used to replace the torn ACL. In 2012, orthopedic devices for knees accounted for the largest share of the $29.2 billion overall revenue for orthopedic devices. Biodegradable implants are expected to lead growth in the orthopedic sector by increasing the quality of life and decreasing recovery time after orthopedic …

A Generalizable Method To Normalize Luciferase Activity In Transiently Transfected B Cells, Ii Carl Parson

Theses

Cell-based assays are central to life science research. In many cases, these assays require transient, or stable, transfection of an exogenous DNA of the cells under study. Previous studies examining transcriptional regulation mediated by the tumor suppressor, p53, identified several putative p53-regulated promoters involved in diepoxybutene (DEB)-induced cancer progression. However, due to potential differences in transfection efficiencies among different promoter constructs, a direct comparison of these promoters was difficult to assess. Therefore, we sought to develop a generalizable normalization method that would enable direct comparison of promoter activation regardless of transfection efficiency. Specifically, we aimed to use GFP co-transfection as …

Effects Of Electrospun Scaffolds On Epithelial Cell Growth And Morphology, Divya Shankar Iyer

Theses

Regeneration of cells on a scaffold is a main aspect in tissue engineering. Nanofibrous scaffolds from electrospinning provide great potential to engineer scaffolds for desired tissue engineering applications because they can mimic in vivo extracellular matrix (ECM). However, there is little known about how the microstructure and surface properties of electrospun nanofibrous scaffold influences the migration and growth of cells. Fundamental studies is demanded to understand the interaction between nanofibrous substrate and cells. In this research, four typical electrospun nanofibrous scaffolds including polyacrylonitrile (PAN), carbon, cellulose acetate (CA) and cellulose were prepared, characterized and then employed as scaffolds for Madin …

Impact Of Medical Drugs, Commonly Administered To The Elderly, On Viability And Functionality Of Commercially Available Probiotic Supplements, Desarae Nicole Johnson

Theses

The elderly population is inherently more susceptible to gastrointestinal problems and diseases due to significant age-related gastrointestinal changes experienced in gut physiology, reactivity of the immune system, and/or diet. These factors, coupled with increased occurrence of disease and corresponding medication use, could also modify the composition of gut microbiota. The impact of non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs (NSAIDs) on the physical gastrointestinal tract has already been shown. However, the impact of these factors on the microbiota inhabiting the GI tract has not been well established. A better understanding of the relationship between medication use and gut microbiota composition may have beneficial implications …

Investigation Of Biomechanical Risk Factors Of Medial Tibial Stress Syndrome Through Finite Element Analysis, Robert Allen Wesley

Theses

Medial tibial stress syndrome (MTSS) is an overuse injury in the lower extremity associated with endurance running. MTSS is a palpitation of pain of at least 5 centimeters along the medial tibia with possible microfractures in the tibia. The various risk factors which may lead to the development of MTSS are body mass index, over pronation, heel striking, level of shod in the running shoe, type and angle of running surface, high volume training, age, gender, stride length, range of motion, and calf girth. Few investigations have been made to limit these risk factors through the utilization of finite element …

Predicting Hereditary Breast Cancer By Combining Family History And Medical Information, Sherin John

Theses

Breast cancer is a malignant tumor, commonly found in women but rarely in men. One in eight US women will have the chance of developing breast cancer in their lifetime. A family history analysis and genetic test can identify the potential carrier gene that cause hereditary breast cancer. Mutated genes such as BRCA1, BRCA2, Tp53 and PTEN confer high lifetime risk of breast cancers and are the most significant genes for clinical studies. The study goals of this thesis were to: 1) develop an open source software tool to predict the risk of hereditary breast cancer and mutation risk of …

Machine Learning And A Workflow Engine For An Agent-Based Structural Health Monitoring System, Jr. William Nick

Theses

This thesis reports on work in machine learning and high-performance computing for structural heath monitoring. The data used are acoustic emission signals, and we classify these signals according to source mechanisms, those associated with crack growth being particularly significant. The work reported here is part of a larger project to develop an agent-based structural health monitoring system. The agents are proxies for communication- and computation-intensive techniques and respond to the situation at hand by determining an appropriate constellation of techniques. The techniques thus structured are executed by a workflow engine, which is part of the contribution reported here. It is …

Investigation Of The Binding And Thermodynamic Properties Of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons On Biological Specimen And Cytotoxic Effect On Triple Negative Breast Cancer Cells, Jr. Derick Jones

Theses

Pesticides, weed control chemicals, and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) are cytotoxic, carcinogenic, and toxic chemicals of concern. The toxic effects and health related issues of PAHs in humans necessitate the urgent need to investigate the binding mechanism of PAHs with biological specimen for biomedical diagnosis. This study investigated the binding of three PAHs (anthracene, pyrene, and naphthalene) with human serum albumin (HSA) and bovine serum albumin (BSA), proteins responsible for the delivery of drug molecules and other important metabolites to various targets. Specifically, the influence of the temperature, PAH type, and PAH concentrations on HSA/BSA emission property was investigated. The …