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Dissolved Organic Carbon And Dissolved Metal Pulses During Snowmelt Runoff In The Upper Provo River Watershed, Utah, Usa, Hannah Nicole Checketts

Theses and Dissertations

Snowmelt river systems exhibit seasonal fluxes in water chemistry, potentially affecting the water supply of one-sixth of the worlds population. In this study, we examined water chemistry of the upper Provo River, northern Utah, which supplies water to over two million people along the urban Wasatch Front. Seasonal changes in water chemistry were characterized by analyzing discharge and dissolved organic carbon (DOC) with dissolved trace metal and cation concentrations (La, Pb, Cu, Al, Be, Sr and K) over three consecutive water years 20142016, with intensive sampling during snowmelt runoff. To better understand links between metal movement and DOC, we sampled …

Assembly, Annotation And Optical Mapping Of The A Subgenome Of Avena, Rebekah Ann Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Common oat (Avena) has held a significant place within the global crop community for centuries; although its cultivation has decreased over the past century, its nutritional benefits have recently garnered increased interest for human consumption. No published reference sequences are available for any of the three oat subgenomes. Here we report a quality sequence assembly, annotation and hybrid optical map of the A-genome diploid Avena atlantica Baum and Fedak. The assembly is composed of a total of 3,417 contigs with an N50 of 11.86 Mb and an estimated completeness of 97.6%. This genome sequence will be a valuable research tool …

Capacity Of Human Immunodeficiency Virus Targeting Chimeric Antigen Receptor T Cells To Eliminate Follicular Dendritic Cells Bearing Human Immunodeficiency Virus Immune Complexes, Matthew T. Ollerton

Theses and Dissertations

An important obstacle to a functional cure for HIV/AIDS is the persistence of viral reservoirs found throughout the body in various cells and tissues. Reservoirs can be latently infected cells, or in the case of follicular dendritic cells (FDC), non-infected cells that trap infectious virus on their surface through immune complexes (HIV-IC). Although several strategies have been employed to target and eliminate viral reservoirs, they are short-lived and ineffective. In an attempt to provide a long-term approach, chimeric antigen receptor T (CAR-T) cells were designed to eliminate native HIV on FDCs. Although effective at eliminating HIV-infected cells, and halting spreading …

Understanding And Developing Estimates Based On Practical Foundation Methods For Alaska's Discontinuous Permafrost Region, Paul P. Dennison

Theses and Dissertations

This research uses a quantitative analysis to develop a family of curves and a calculator for potential foundation thresholds in the discontinuous permafrost region of Alaska. The United States Pacific Command (PACAF) is bolstering the region by advocating for the F-35, KC-46, and the newly proposed long-range bomber to be stationed in Alaska. These next generation aircrafts and warfighters will need new facilities and beddown plans to efficiently and effectively carry out their mission. The biggest obstacle in the region is permafrost; this unique polar phenomenon is found throughout the northern half of Alaska. Fairbanks in particular has multiple military …

Laying The Foundation For A Fremont Phytolith Typology Using Select Plant Species Native To Utah County, Madison Natasha Pearce

Theses and Dissertations

Archaeobotanical evidences for the presence of wild plants at Fremont archaeological sites are numerous. However, little can be positively argued for why those plants are present, if they were used by site inhabitants, and how they were used. Additionally, there are likely several wild plants that were used but that do not appear in the archaeobotanical record as pollen or macrobotanicals, the two most commonly identified plant remains. I argue that it is possible to provide better interpretations for how and why the Fremont used plants by researching how their historic counterparts, the Goshute, Shoshone, Ute, and Southern Paiute, used …

Understanding Community And Ecophysiology Of Plant Species On The Colorado Plateau, Hannah Elizabeth Yokum

Theses and Dissertations

The intensification of aridity due to anthropogenic climate change is likely to have a large impact on the growth and survival of plant species in the southwestern U.S. where species are already vulnerable to high temperatures and limited precipitation. Global climate change impacts plants through a rising temperature effect, CO2 effect, and land management. In order to forecast the impacts of global climate change, it is necessary to know the current conditions and create a baseline for future comparisons and to understand the factors and players that will affect what happens in the future. The objective of Chapter 1 is …

Eigenblades: Application Of Computer Vision And Machine Learning For Mode Shape Identification, Alex W. La

Theses and Dissertations

On August 27, 2016, Southwest Airlines flight 3472 from New Orleans to Orlando had to perform an emergency landing when a fan blade separated from the engine hub and destroyed the cowling and punctured the fuselage. Initial findings from the metallurgical examination conducted in the National Transpiration Safety Board Materials Laboratory found that the fracture surface of the missing blade showed curving crack arrest lines consistent with fatigue crack growth. Fatigue is often cause by resonate vibrations. Modal analysis is a method that can model the natural frequencies and bending modes of turbomachinery blades. When performing modal analysis with finite …

The Growth, Structure, And Dynamics Of Crime In Cities, Marcos Oliveira

Theses and Dissertations

Crime is ubiquitous in cities but lacks a statistical characterization that could lead to uncovering its underlying mechanisms. Cities are, however, in a constant process of organization making difficult to analyze urban phenomena. Yet, to understand urbanization and its consequences, we need to approach cities as evolving processes, instead of static objects. With this perspective, we examined regularities in crime regarding its growth, structure, and dynamics. We developed frameworks to examine the spatial, temporal, and periodic variations of crime in cities. Though thefts increase super-linearly with the population, we found burglaries showing a linear increase. Our analyses also confirmed crime …

Information Densification Of Social Constructs Via Behavior Analysis Of Social Media Users – A Study On Twitter, Diogo F. Pacheco

Theses and Dissertations

We live in a digital era where everyday activities are increasingly being replaced by online interactions. In addition, technology advances and data availability are changing the way we expand our knowledge about ourselves, society, and the environment. The increasing availability of data, especially social media data, has called the attention of researchers, and we have been witnessing an outbreak in studies relying on this rich source of information. However, most social media research is tuned to improve the outcomes of specific problems. Therefore, the reuse of techniques used in different areas is limited to data specialists. We propose a straightforward …

A Context-Free Method Of Visualizing Streaming Object Data For The Purpose Of Identifying Known Events: An Implementation And Analysis, Quinn Gregory Carver

Theses and Dissertations

This year, every second, five gigabytes of new data will be streamed to storage and yet less than half a percent of all this data will ever be analyzed. Much of this muted data is high-variety object data, unnoticed in a void of sorely needed tools to make it readily understandable. A software tool for visualizing streaming object data in a context-free manner can be built, and this tool would aid in finding predictor data for known events which are functions of the data. The design of the tool to support the hypothesis is presented and field results from over …

Mining Location And User Information From Users’ Trajectories, Marcello Tomasini

Theses and Dissertations

The understanding of human mobility is integral to the advancement of many fields including public health, city planning, economic forecasting, and it attracts the interest of researchers from a broad number of fields. The work of such researchers would not have been possible without the availability of large localized datasets such as mobile phone Call Detail Records (CDRs) provided by telco operators and Location Based Social Networks (LBSNs) check-ins provided by popular applications such as Twitter, Facebook and Foursquare. However, such datasets are often incomplete, anonymized, and/or inaccurate. Hence there is a need to partially reconstruct or extract more information …

Parametric And Non-Parametric Regression Models With Applications To Climate Change, Osita Eluemuno Onyejekwe

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation we have studied the climate factors that contribute to climate change using univariate and multivariate parametric methods as well as nonparametric models. In this study, we have three major contributions. First, the extent of mountain glaciers around the globe and their responses to climate factors are investigated using multivariate methods and we have proposed a predictive model to estimate the mountain glacier response to climate factors. Second, we have addressed the important problem of bandwidth selection in presence of correlated noise in nonparametric regression analysis. We have proposed a denoising method based on an ensemble bandwidth optimization …

St. Lucie Shoal Complex: Regional Sediment Resource Or Submerged Storm Breakwater, Leaf Erickson

Theses and Dissertations

Nearshore sand shoals have become the predominant sediment resource for beach nourishment projects on the east coast of Florida. Along this coast, the St. Lucie Shoal Complex (SLSC) is comprised of several shoals designated as sediment resources for beach nourishment, many having depths less than 7 meters, at their crests. This group of shoals represents the largest high-quality beach nourishment sediment resource in southeast Florida. Among these shoals, the St. Lucie shoal is the largest and shallowest at the crest. This project explores the current best practice methodologies to explore impacts of excavating sand resources from shallow-crested shoal systems like …

A Study Of Perceived Leadership Styles As It Affects The Decision-Making Process Employed By Eleven Catholic School Principals In South Texas, Mary Olivia Agbakoba

Theses and Dissertations

Catholic School principals play an important role in the development of students' spiritual, social, and academic wellbeing. Consequently, in order to improve students' spiritual, social, and academic skill, it is vital to study the perceived leadership styles and decision-making of Catholic School Principals. Research questions include: "Is there a relationship between Catholic School Principals and teachers' perceptions on principals' leadership styles?", and "Is there an association between decision type and decision-making style used?" 11 Catholic School Principals and 179 Catholic School Teachers completed a paper and pencil survey that assessed the perceived leadership styles of principals. Data was analyzed using …

Aristotle, Redemption, And The Conquest Of The Americas, Luis Angel Buentello

Theses and Dissertations

The central question addressed in my thesis is the claim that the even though the conquest of the Americas by the Spaniards was a brutal and murderous process, the Spanish imperial project in the Americas, based on Aristotelian ideology, resulted in the most beneficial and least harmful form of conquest conceivable in comparison to the next great empire of the age, the British Empire.

The founding pillars of Spain’s overseas empire in the Americas, based on an Aristotelian framework, produced a synthesis of political thinking that brought about greater benefits to the native populations, and slave populations, subsumed under the …

Utilizing Accelerometer Telemetry Tags To Compare Red Snapper (Lutjanus Campechanus) Behavior On Artificial And Natural Reefs, Ethan T. Getz

Theses and Dissertations

The Texas Parks and Wildlife Department Artificial Reef Program has deployed over 2,800 hectares of reefing area composed of petroleum platforms, steel vessels, and concrete. Artificial reefs have been shown to support many important reef fishes such as red snapper (Lutjanus campechanus), however, few studies have compared fish behavior on artificial reefs and natural habitats. We examined activity levels, behavioral patterns and habitat preferences of red snapper over natural reefs, oil platforms and submerged ships. Telemetry tags (Sonotronics model MTT) with tri-axial acceleration range, average depth, and average temperature were programmed to optimize data collection and tag life. …

Effect Of Land Use Change On South Texas Bats, Katharine Leigh Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Bats were acoustically recorded in South Texas over the summer of 2017. Nine species of bats were recorded and identified.

Interaction Between Fragments Of Tau Protein Investigated By Force Spectroscopy Using Afm, Anad Mohamed Afhaima

Theses and Dissertations

Over the last couple of decades, there has been rapidly growing interest in research of natively unfolded proteins. Some proteins from this group are implicated in a number of neurodegenerative diseases. One group of neurodegenerative diseases, taupathies, is associated with tau protein. A number of biophysical and spectroscopic studies have revealed that tau protein can expand to a largely extended state and to transition rapidly between many different conformations. Although many of the techniques that elucidate structure of macromolecules have provided important information about the folded states of proteins, important information about the transition between the extended conformation states remain …

Metastable-State Nh Photoacids And Organic Photo Carbon Monoxide Releasing Materials, Aluthwatte Rallage Nawodi Madhusanka Abeyrathna

Theses and Dissertations

The recently discovered metastable-state photoacids (mPAHs) can produce a large proton concentration with high efficiency and good reversibility upon irradiation with visible light with moderate intensity. Therefore, mPAHs can be conveniently incorporated in to different systems to control various proton-transfer processes. Recently, several applications of mPAHs have been demonstrated. However, none of the previously reported mPAHs can function at a pH 7.4. Thus, biological applications of mPAHs are limited. In this work, mPAHs that can reversibly release a proton in PBS buffer (pH = 7.4) under visible light are designed and synthesized. NH-PAH-1 is the first of this type of …

5-Oxo-Ete Antagonists In Allergic Disease; Design And Synthesis Of Affinity Chromatography Ligand For 5-Hedh; And Synthesis Of Isoprostanes As An Index For The Diagnosis In Alzheimer’S Disease, Qiuji Ye

Theses and Dissertations

Arachidonic acid (AA, 4, Figure 1) is a 20:4 (ω-6) fatty acid with a 20-carbon chain and four cis-double bonds, and the esterified form of AA in phospholipids can be enzymatically liberated by phospholipases (PL) and subsequently metabolized into a variety of physiologically important mediators known as eicosanoids (Figure 2). One of the most important eicosanoids is 5-oxo-6,8,11,14-eicosatetraenoic acid (5-oxo-ETE, 17). The 5-oxo-ETE (17) is the most known potent chemotactic factors for human eosinophils, and it can stimulate the late-phase asthma attacks.¹ To determine how the biosynthesis of 5-oxo-ETE is regulated, so as to determine its pathophysiological roles in the …

Evaluation Of A Tool To Identify The Variables Responsible For Poor Parent Treatment Implementation: The Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Parent, Jamie Villacorta

Theses and Dissertations

In applied behavior analysis, parents are often taught to implement treatment programs in order to decrease their child’s problem behaviors and increase appropriate behaviors. Unfortunately, many parents have trouble implementing these programs correctly. It has been suggested that higher treatment integrity for a specified treatment program may be associated with higher levels of its success. The purpose of the present study was to evaluate the use of an assessment tool (i.e., the Performance Diagnostic Checklist-Parent, or PDC-P) to develop a treatment specifically targeted to address the variables responsible for poor program implementation by parents. First, the PDC-P was administered to …

Effective Parental Cooperation And Communication As Protective Factors For Adult Offspring Of Divorce, Damla Til Ogut

Theses and Dissertations

Research and society have focused attention on how divorce affects family dynamics for decades. The clinical literature points to significant discrepancies in psychological variables between offspring from divorced versus intact families, suggesting that divorce contributes to negative psychosocial outcomes. Accordingly, investigations have revealed the adverse effects of co-parental conflict and antagonistic communication on divorce offspring’s psychological outcomes. Although parental cooperation and communication are suggested to serve as protective factors, more research is needed, given the current literature’s reliance on measures of psychopathology, yet making conclusions on psychological wellness. Among 244 college students, results indicated that divorce offspring reported lower levels …

Metastable-State Photoacids And The Related Photo-Responsive Polymers, Zhuozhi Wang

Theses and Dissertations

Metastable-state photoacid is a type of photo-sensitive compounds that can release large amount of protons reversibly upon visible-light irradiation. Since being developed by our group in 2011, metastable-state photoacid has been utilized to develop many applications that involve controlling proton transfer processes. Since proton transfer process is one of the most common processes in nature, metastable-state photoacid is a powerful tool to control various processes with light. A introduction of metastable state photoacid is described in Chapter 1. In Chapter 2, metastable-state photoacids with different substituents were designed to study the relationship between their structures and physicochemical properties. In Chapter …

Effects Of Spatial Ability And Three-Dimensional Interactive Computer-Assisted Instruction On Functional Anatomy Learning, Kelly Michael Moore

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of spatial ability (SA) and three-dimensional (3D) interactive Computer-assisted instruction (CAI) on college student academic achievement (ACH). The study was a quasi-experimental, pretest-posttest, control group mixed methods design. Participants were assessed for spatial ability via the Revised Purdue Spatial Visualization Test: Visualization of Rotations (Revised PSVT:R), Yoon (2011). Participants were instructed to identify, locate and visualize human skeletal muscles and muscle actions. During laboratory sessions, control groups studied plastic anatomical 3D models and experiment groups utilized 3D interactive CAI. ACH was measured by the Human Skeletal Muscle Assessment (HSMA) difference …

Copper Tolerance Of Amphibalanus Amphitrite As Observed In Central Florida, Hannah Grace Brinson

Theses and Dissertations

Copper tolerance in the invasive barnacle Amphibalanus amphitrite has been observed in Florida by the Center for Corrosion and Biofouling Control since 2012 and by Weiss (1947). To test the theory that this barnacle preferentially settles on copper coated surfaces to avoid settlement competition by other sessile species, a series of two experiments and a literature review of historical copper toxicity tests on larval barnacles was conducted. The barnacle A amphitrite was preferentially used in many previous toxicity studies because it is readily available, has high fecundity, and is more sensitive to some toxicants than other species, including the native …

Predatory Capacity Of King Crabs In Antarctica, Brittan V. Steffel

Theses and Dissertations

For millions of years, cold water temperatures have excluded shell-crushing (durophagous) predators from continental-shelf environments off the western Antarctic Peninsula. Recently, however, king crabs, Paralomis birsteini, have been found in dense, reproductively viable populations on the upper continental slope, and rapid warming might enable them to expand to the shelf. King crabs are crushing shelled invertebrates on the slope, but calcification of sturdy, shell-crushing chelae is likely inhibited by the low saturation state of high-Mg calcite in the deep Southern Ocean. The objectives of this study were to better understand the predatory capacity of P. birsteini by estimating the potential …

Temperature Effects On An Axon’S Ability To Maintain Phasing Of A Rhythmic Motor System, Marissa Elaine Cruz

Theses and Dissertations

The precise timing of action potentials generated in the nervous system is crucial for generating adequate behavior. Once generated, action potentials travel along axons towards the neurons or muscles they innervate. Axons are also responsible for preserving the temporal fidelity of the generated action potentials. One challenge axons face is that they can be of considerable length, and exposed to changes in internal and external conditions. Temperature fluctuations, for example, affect the ion channels that generate and propagate action potentials causing changes in action potential speed. It is unclear if, and how, the timing of action potentials can be preserved …

Computational Study Targeting Anti-Fungal Tavaborole Analogs And Anti-Cancer Braco19, Babitha Machireddy

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis comprises of three computer aided drug design studies utilizing molecular docking and molecular dynamic simulations: (i) a lead optimization study virtually screening an initial library of ~120000 lead compounds targeting fungal leucyl tRNA synthetase, (ii) an exploratory study to understand the binding pathway of BRACO19 to a parallel telomeric DNA G-quadruplex by MD simulations and compare with experimentally solved X-ray crystal structure (iii) a comparative study to understand the lack of selectivity of BRACO19 to various topologies of human telomeric DNA G-quadruplex over DNA duplex.

The first chapter provides the background information required to understand the molecular docking …

Optimizing Monitoring Efforts Of Kit Fox (Vulpes Macrotis) In Utah, Kelsey Alina Richards

Theses and Dissertations

The kit fox (Vulpes macrotis) is a species of conservation concern in western North America. Recent methods for monitoring populations of kit fox include using lures and remote cameras in an occupancy-modeling framework and habitat modeling to predict areas of occupancy. In chapter one, we tested the optimal lure and movement procedure for scent stations to maximize visits and detection of foxes, thereby improving estimates of occupancy. Between May 2015 and October 2016, we placed remote cameras at 522 random locations throughout nine study areas in the Colorado Plateau, Great Basin Desert, and Mojave Desert. Each location was …

Impacts Of A Mixed Ungulate Community On Aspen Forests: From Landscape To Leaf, Aaron C. Rhodes

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the differential effects of an ungulate community (cattle, mule deer, and American elk) on aspen (Populus tremuloides) regeneration pre- and post-fire disturbance. It's first chapter examines the differential effects of cattle, mule deer, and American elk on aspen regeneration across variable topography, climate and forest type; aspen dominant to conifer dominant subalpine forests. We found that each ungulate species, if sufficiently numerous, can cause aspen regeneration failure. Also, high elevation, southern aspect and high winter snow pack increase resilience to ungulate herbivory. Chapter two compares the efficacy of four methods of estimating ungulate impact on …