Digital Commons Network^™

Tin Dioxide Memristors On Glass And Plastic Substrates, Oscar Del Real

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

NanoMIL has studied and developed SnO2-based memristors, while the W.M Keck Center has been a research leader in printed silver inks. The focus of this thesis is to take the previous generation of memristors on glass and develop a process for creating memristors on flexible Kapton film for the first time. Moreover, collaborative work between the two UTEP laboratories produced memristors with printed silver top electrode contacts, also for the first time. These approaches may enable inexpensive flexible memory.

Maturation of the process was achieved by understanding important process parameters and subtle differences between glass and Kapton substrates. Moreover, electrical …

Incorporating Sustainability Into Urban Infrastructures: The Tension Between Bio-Cultural Aspects And Environmental Considerations, Shane Epting

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The following arguments focus on how to think about sustainability as it relates to technology and the non-human world within an anthropocentric framework. We end up with a picture showing that humankind needs to change the ways in which we look at anthropocentric concerns. Secondly, the discussion that leads up to the final picture details the urgency that guides the thinking behind the implementation of sustainability. Because, as the West learns to live in an entirely new sense that is consistent with holding humankind's desire for existence as a permanent situation, one finds that this notion must be paramount for …

/Intɛli/ A Bilingual Computer Software Treatment Program For Apraxia Of Speech, Esnire Abigail Gomez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Apraxia of Speech (AOS) is a motor speech disorder characterized as difficulty planning and producing precise and refined movements of the articulators for intelligible speech (CASANA). Purpose: The purpose of this study was to explore the success of /Inteli/, an experimental computer program that incorporates melodic intonation therapy (MIT), modified eight step continuum, visual and auditory cues, and voice recordings for instant feedback to increase speech intelligibility. Method: A single subject multiple-baseline design was used to examine the effects of /Inteli/ on the speech intelligibility of a child diagnosed with severe AOS. Treatment was applied to 30 multisyllabic words in …

The Existence, Perpetuity, And Proliferation Of Payday Loans: Impact On Vulnerable Populatons And The Regulatory Policy Process In Texas, Azuri Lizeth Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

If you have ever driven by a street, typically not in a very wealthy neighborhood, where a store front displayed signs with words like "Instant cash!," "No Credit Check," "First loan free," then you likely witnessed the marketing of a product called a payday loan. Payday loans are a form of a short-term loan product that is usually grouped with other loan products within the subprime lending industry, alternative financial resources, or fringe economy markets. This loan product has been the focus of a number of controversial debates among consumer protection groups, financial institutions, state regulatory entities, and legislators, regarding …

Examination Of Investigative Interviewing Techniques For Use In Secondary Screening For Malintent, Allyson Judith Horgan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

There has been a renewed focus on the development of innovative screening procedures and technologies since the September 11th attacks. While attention has been placed on the need for more effective screening methods, there has been a lack of research on screening for future intent, which is remarkable given its importance to national security (Granhag, 2010; Martin, Martin, & Coskren, 2007). The current project draws on previous research on deception detection and investigative interviewing, as well as recent research on false intent in order to investigate the utility of several interviewing methods in screening for intent. Participants (N = 144) …

Comparison Of Two Environmental Health Education Methods To Reduce Exposure To Residential Pesticides In Hispanic, Patricia M. Juarez-Carrillo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

ABSTRACT

Exposure to pesticides is associated with adverse health outcomes including poisonings, short-term signs and symptoms, and long-term adverse health outcomes including developmental and cognitive impairments, certain types of cancer, and damages to the endocrine, nervous, and reproductive systems. This study tested two educational methods aimed to help Hispanic, Spanish-speaking mothers living in the U.S.-México border make informed decisions about pesticides applied in their homes. 230 women were randomly allocated to a) a small group talk, b) a graphic booklet, or c) a control group. The outcomes were the knowledge level about the risks of pesticides and the pest prevention …

Impulse Oscillometric Features And Parsimonious Respiratory Models Track Small Airway Function In Hispanic And Anglo Children, Erika Guadalupe Meraz Tena

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Asthma is an inflammatory condition of the peripheral (small) airways resulting in airway hyper-reactivity and, among other symptoms, airflow obstruction. It is the most prevalent chronic respiratory disease in children. Reliable and patient-friendly instruments and methods are required to help pulmonologists accurately detect asthma and Small Airway Impairment (SAI) with acceptable clinical accuracy, specificity and sensitivity. Impulse Oscillometry System (IOS) based on the Forced Oscillation Technique (FOT) has been successfully used to measure lung function in children with a high degree of sensitivity and specificity to SAI and Asthma. IOS is a patient-friendly lung function to measure the mechanical impedance …

Structural And Functional Investigation Of Φ-El-Chaperonin Mediated Protein Folding, Sudheer Kumar Molugu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Chaperonins are ubiquitous, sequence related protein complexes that aid in the folding of nascent and misfolded polypeptides in an ATP driven pathway. Recently a GroEL-like, 860 kilo Dalton chaperonin protein complex was identified and isolated from the bacteriophage EL, a virus that infects the Gram-negative bacterium Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The bacteriophage EL contains 201 predicted open reading frames and is the only known phage that encodes for its own chaperonin known as Φ-EL-chaperonin.

To understand the importance of Φ-EL-chaperonin in phage EL life cycle, the recombinant Φ-EL-chaperonin protein was expressed in Escherichia coli (E. coli) purified to homogeneity and the structure …

Three Essays On Immigrant Entrepreneurs, Carole Louise Cangioni

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The association between entrepreneurial activity and economic growth appears to be robust: the source of half of job creation emanates from new ventures which, in addition, are a source of technical and market innovation as well as higher labor productivity (Gartner, Shaver, Carter, & Reynolds, 2004). Also, there is a growing percentage of ethnic entrepreneurship in immigrant receiving metropolitan areas, and marginal economic conditions, often experienced by immigrants, increase self-employment. According to the U.S. Census Bureau: "By 2010, Hispanics will be the largest minority group in the U.S with more than 20% of the nation's population" and "minorities, now roughly …

The East Jhomolari Fault System And The Timing Of East-West Extension In Northwest Bhutan, John Matthew Cannon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This investigation documents a little known, regionally significant, high angle, southeast dipping, system of normal faults in northwest Bhutan, the East Jhomolari Fault System (EJFS). The EJFS trends parallel to the Yadong Gulu rift (YG) and can be traced from Mt. Jhomolari to the northern border with Tibet. This fault zone has been demonstrably active since the last glacial maximum and there is geomorphic evidence of Holocene activity on some fault segments. The structurally lowest EJFS fault, the Lingshi fault appears on some published maps, but the full geographic extent, displacement, onset of faulting, and most recent activity have not …

Crossing The Line: Influences On Foreign Intervention In Secessionist, Deidre Conklin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

No abstract provided.

A Symbolic Approach Towards Constraint Based Software Verification, Shubhra Datta

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Verification and validation (V&V) are two components of the software engineering process that are critical to achieve reliability that can account for up to 50% of the cost of software development. Numerous techniques ranging from formal proofs to testing methods exist to verify whether programs conform to their specifications. Recently, constraint programming techniques for V&V have emerged : they use the idea of proof by contradiction. They typically aim at proving that the code is inconsistent with the negation of the specification, which means that the software conforms to its specifications. Although the framework seems straightforward, the number of generated …

A Web Site-Level Implementation Of Owl Sameas Predicate In Drupal, Patricia Esparza

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Ontology Web Language (OWL) sameAs predicate states that if the predicate holds between two Uniform Resource Identifiers (URIs) A and B, then an object identified by A is the same object identified by B; its purpose is to enable machines to understand that both objects are the same although they may have distinct Web identifiers, i.e., URIs. The proliferation of the use of this predicate has brought several issues to the Web, e.g., high cost of manually creating sameAs statements, inconsistent use of the predicate leading to distinct objects to be identified as being a single object, and too …

Assessment And Evaluation Of Peripheral Neuropathy From Diabetic Mellitus Using Systems Analysis Approach, Oscar Alonso Espino

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Currently in America 1 out of every 10 residents suffers from diabetes, and this tendency is likely to grow up to "1 of every 3" by the year [6]. Diabetes exhibits several complications. In 2005, the lead cause of stroke and heart disease was diabetes, 68% of the cases [1]. In 2008, 44% of kidney failure was associated with diabetes [1]. 60 to 70 % of cases of diabetes have a mild to severe nervous system damage [1]. Diabetic patients who have developed peripheral neuropathy tend to also develop foot ulceration. In an advanced stage a foot ulcer can lead …

Is Silence Golden? Experiences Of Silence, Stigma And Cultural Violence Among Lgb People In El Paso, Tx., Elias Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Stigma not only affects how one is treated within a society; it is also one of the factors influencing social identity and sexual behavior. LGB individuals, as part of a stigmatized group, form their sexual identities in a culture and society that is hostile to or ignorant of them. This project synthesizes 14 ethnographic interviews with LGB individuals in El Paso, TX. The interviews focus on the formative years of the individual's life on the U.S.-Mexico Border, namely their school years and early formation through family socialization. They also focus on LGBT individuals' perceptions of their community and the city …

Quality Of Wastewater In The El Paso, Texas Region--Analysis Of Pharmaceuticals And Personal Care Products Using High Performance Liquid Chromatography Tandem Mass Spectrometry, Rodolfo Guerrero Jr.

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Pharmaceuticals and Personal Care Products (PPCPs), such as household cleaning materials, prescription medication, and personal hygiene products, are pollutants of emerging concern that are found in 80% of our water system. Because of their applications, PPCPs are subsequently being released into wastewater; however, current wastewater treatment facilities are not regulated or designed to remove PPCPs. Therefore, these compounds are discharged into the environment on a continual basis. The effects of PPCPs on human health are not yet well known; however, recent research has found that exposure to these chemicals has some adverse developmental effects on aquatic species at low concentrations …

Monitoring Ecosystem Dynamics In An Arctic Tundra Ecosystem Using Hyperspectral Reflectance And A Robotic Tram System, Santonu Goswami

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Global change, which includes climate change and the impacts of human disturbance, is altering the provision and sustainability of ecosystem goods and services. These changes have the capacity to initiate cascading affects and complex feedbacks through physical, biological and human subsystems and interactions between them. Understanding the future state of the earth system requires improved knowledge of ecosystem dynamics and long term observations of how these are being impacted by global change. Improving remote sensing methods is essential for such advancement because satellite remote sensing is the only means by which landscape to continental-scale change can be observed.

The Arctic …

Preperations On A Graduate Viola Recital, Julia Gutierrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The intention of this paper is to discuss three works of the viola repertoire and their specific performance practices and musical aspects. The paper discusses the historical background of the pieces, harmonic and form structure, and suggested performance practices for each work.

The Impact Of Sulfide Mineral Weathering On The Isotopic Signatures Of Fe And Cu In Metal-Rich Streams, Ana Lourdes Gutierrez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The oxidative weathering of sulfide minerals, like pyrite, at the Earth's surface controls the formation of acid mine drainage sites as well as the Fe isotope composition of these areas and the main processes taken place. In this study, water and rock samples were collected from acidic drainages (most from abandoned mining sites) from the St. Juan Mountains in Colorado. The water samples were measured in-situ for dissolved oxygen, dissolved Fe(II), pH, and conductivity. Filtered acidified, unfiltered acidified, and Fe-oxide samples were analyzed for their metal concentrations. Ion-exchange chromatography was applied to both water and digested oxide fractions in order …

Thomas Jefferson In Nairobi: The United States, Kenya, And The Democratization Debate, Cullen Haskins

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This work is an intellectual history focussing on the ideas surrounding the implimentaiton of democratic systems in Africa, and specifically Kenya, at the end of the cold war. Taking the constitutional change to multi-party politics in Kenya in late 1991 as its fulcrum, this work examines the ideas about democracy put forth by politcians and policy-making cirlces in the United States and Kenya during this period. The work begins with an examination of the attitudes toward democracy in Africa as expressed at the U.S. congressional hearings on aid to Africa in 1991, and ends with an afterward looking at the …

A First Step Toward Assessing Organizational Identification In A University Setting, Didier Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Organizational culture research has been steadily growing during the last two decades, and has become an essential component for assessing an organization's capacity to adapt and survive. Discovering the underlying assumptions within an organization offers a more accurate insight on how its members perceive, think, and feel about the environment they work in, thus providing the opportunity of assessing the group's cohesiveness and culture strength. This study was designed to establish an initial assessment of an organization within a university setting, and to provide insight to its membership sense of identification. The study reflects the analysis of different information made …

Accelerated Simulation And Testing Of Integrated Circuits Using High Performance Computing Machines, Matthew C. Markulik

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

As Moore's Law continues to hold true and transistor density becomes exponentially larger the need to rely on computer aided design (CAD) simulators has become more relevant and necessary. As we dive into the age of electronic reliance there presents a need to constantly improve methods to reduce time-to-solution for developing technologies. The reliance on CAD simulators for electronic development leaves engineers with an ability to improve the design process by improving these simulators or improving the methods in which these simulators are being utilized. With the advancement of quality fabrication processes and the ability to operate at sub-threshold levels …

An Integrated Geological And Geophysical Study Of The Fresh And Brackish Water Boundary In The Hueco Bolson, West Texas, Sandy Stephanie Marrufo

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Hueco Bolson in West Texas is located in the Rio Grande rift basin and provides water to El Paso County, Texas and Juarez, Mexico. El Paso Water Utilities (EPWU) drilled many wells up to 1000 ft (305) m into this aquifer, which provide 40% of El Paso's water supply. Stratigraphy and sedimentation in active extensional basins have received little study because they are usually buried and this research helped document these processes. The study area within the West Texas region of the Hueco Bolson Aquifer (HBA) lies within a transition zone between the fresh and brackish water sections of …

Evaluation Methods For Health Monitoring Of Aerospace Structure Rotary Joints, Sergio Armando Navarro

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In September 2007, the excessive vibrations played a significant role in the station operation since one of the rotary joints, which provides the station electrical energy, presented an anomaly. The replacement of its bearing components and re-lubrication were necessary to reduce the problem. To avoid a new anomaly, the inspection of the rotary joints performance continues by using the accelerometers data. This thesis presents three new approaches to monitor the vibrations at the International Space Station based on Root-Mean-Square, kurtosis, and Approximate Entropy (ApEn). MATLAB functions and codes were necessary to implement the three monitoring techniques results from the provided …

Computational Methods Of Hidden Markov Models With Respect To Cpg Island Prediction In Dna Sequences, Roberto Angel Ortega

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Hidden Markov models (HMM's) are a specific case of Markov models where, contrary to Markov chains, the observer is unaware of what state the model was in when the symbol is observed. Like Markov chains, HMM's assume that the future state of a sequence is dependent only on the current state of the sequence. The parameters associated with HMM's are transition and emission probabilities, where transition probabilities are associated with the probability of transitioning from one state to another, and emission probabilities are the probabilities associated with observing a symbol given it came from a specific state.

The structure of …

Fold-Thrust System Overprinting Syn-Rift Structures On The Margin Of An Inverted Rift Basin: Indio Mountains, West Texas, Seth Joel Page

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Detailed mapping in the central Indio Mountains in west Texas, reveal a complex stacking of thrust sheets that record inversion of the Mesozoic Chihuahua Trough rift basin. Important newly recognized structural complexities include both folding of older thrust sheets and development of younger, out-of-sequence thrusts that cut across older folds; detachment fold horizons within thrust sheets; and a regional anticlinorium that exposes the Squaw thrust in a structural half-window bounded on the west by the Neogene Indio normal fault. The Chihuahua trough originated as part of the late Mesozoic border rift system and was inverted during Laramide thrusting. Remnants of …

Free Radical Stress-Induced Parkinsonian Lewy-Like Aggregation Prevented Through Polyphenolic Phytochemical Analog Intervention: Implications For Subcellular Trafficking And Neurodegenerative Disorders, Rituraj Pal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Protein disulfide isomerase (PDI), the chief endoplasmic reticulum (ER)-resident oxidoreductase chaperone, is known to catalyze the maturation of disulfide-bond-containing proteins primarily through oxidation-reduction and isomerization functions. The rate-determining step in the oxidative regeneration path of disulfide-bond-containing proteins generally couples chemical thiol-disulfide-exchange reactions to a physical conformational folding reaction. I have determined the impact of PDI and its subdomains on the rate-determining step in ribonuclease A folding and on the physical structure-forming step of select ER-processed proteins including RNase A. This was facilitated through application of a novel chemical tool to exclusively populate native-disulfide-containing intermediates in unstructured forms. The described biochemical …

Comparison Of Four Methods Of Dietary Assessment: Food Records Vs. Combined Food Records With Digital Photography, Sara Lynne Peidle

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Methods for collecting dietary intakes of free-living individuals have been studied over the past century and there are many limitations. Collection of dietary intakes from individuals is best done in food diary format and researchers have investigated both written and photographic records. The purpose of this study was to add to the body of literature on studies of collecting dietary intakes by comparing written food records (FR), digital food records (DP), written and digital food records combined (FRDP), and digital food records with limited documentation (DPR) to one another and to a known, criterion value. This study included 50 Registered …

An Experimental Study On The Effect Of Particle Geometry On Drag And Flow Behaviors In A Packed Fluidized Bed, Md Mahamudur Rahman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Gasification offers a promising solution to producing fuels effectively in the coming years by providing a low-cost energy system, clean environmental performance, and reliability. Feedstock is prepared and fed to a gasifier in either a dry form or as slurry (mixed with water). One application of this technology uses heat, pressure, and steam to convert feedstock into a gaseous mixture, composed primarily of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2), named as syngas. Several technical and commercial issues were identified by the Nation Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in 2006 Multiphase workshop. US Department of Energy (DOE) is now focusing on attaining …

Assessing Data Quality In A Sensor Network For Environmental Monitoring, Gesuri Ramirez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Assessing the quality of sensor data in environmental monitoring applications is important, as erroneous readings produced by malfunctioning sensors, calibration drift, and problematic climatic conditions, such as icing or dust, are common.Traditional data quality checking and correction is a painstaking manual process, so the development of automatic systems for this task is highly desirable.

This study investigates machine learning methods to identify and clean incorrect data from a real-world environmental sensor network, the Jornada Experimental Range, located in Southern New Mexico. We evaluated several learning algorithms and data replacement schemes, and developed a method to identify the problematic sensor. The …