Digital Commons Network^™

Penetration Forces For Subsurface Regolith Probes, Ahmed Elshafie

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Investigating planetary bodies using penetrometers can provide detailed information about its history and evolution. An estimation of subsurface density and porosity can be made from the shape of the penetration curve. Using penetrometers mounted on planetary platforms could be challenging due to the uncertainty of the subsurface composition and since the maximum allowed force for penetration is the weight of the lander or rover on the surface. Estimation of penetration forces can provide a reliable constraint on the maximum reachable depth without endangering the whole mission. Therefore, knowledge of the required penetration force to specific depths can be helpful in …

Capillary And Microchip Electrophoresis For The Monitoring Of Disease Causing Amyloid Proteins, Elizabeth Nancy Pryor

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The detection of oligomers and aggregates formed by two amyloid proteins, insulin and amyloid-beta (AB), is of particular importance due to the role which these species play in Diabetes and Alzheimer's disease, respectively. However, existing techniques are limited in the ability to detect insulin and AB; oligomers due to the fact that these early aggregates are transient, present at low concentrations, and difficult to isolate. Improvements must be made to existing techniques or alternative techniques must be explored in order to identify and quantify the size of these oligomeric and aggregate species without disrupting their structure.

Capillary and microchip electrophoresis …

Effects Of Felled Shortleaf Pine (Pinus Echinata Mill.) Moisture Loss On Oviposition Preferences And Survival Of Sirex Nigricornis F. (Hymenoptera: Siricidae), Jessica Hartshorn

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The European woodwasp, Sirex noctilio F. (Hymenoptera: Siricidae) utilizes pine as its host during larval development. Females drill through pine bark to deposit eggs, a symbiotic fungus, Amylostereum, and phytotoxic mucus into the tree. In their native range, these insects are not viewed as primary pests because they attack dead or dying trees. Over the last century, this woodwasp has been accidentally introduced into several countries in the southern hemisphere. Some regions have incurred millions of dollars in damage to large plantations of the widely planted pine species, radiata pine (Pinus radiata D. Don). Sirex noctilio was discovered …

Influence Of Nutritional Modifications On Sow, Litter, And Nursery Performance, Benjamin Edward Bass

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Two separate series of experiments were conducted to determine: 1) the influence of dietary arginine supplementation in late gestation on reproductive performance, and 2) the impact of a whole yeast product in gestation, lactation, and weaned pig diets on reproductive, growth, and immune parameters.

In the first study 99 sows were provided a control diet, or the control diet supplemented with 1% L-arginine from gestation d 93 to 110. Compared to control-fed sows, no differences were observed in reproductive parameters, however a tendency for increased gestational weight gain was observed for sows provided supplemental arginine.

In a second study, 98 …

Modeling, Fabrication And Characterization Of Scalable Electroless Gold Plated Nanostructures For Enhanced Surface Plasmon Resonance, Gyoung Gug Jang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The scientific and industrial demand for controllable thin gold (Au) film and Au nanostructures is increasing in many fields including opto-electronics, photovoltaics, MEMS devices, diagnostics, bio-molecular sensors, spectro-/microscopic surfaces and probes. In this study, a novel continuous flow electroless (CF-EL) Au plating method is developed to fabricate uniform Au thin films in ambient condition. The enhanced local mass transfer rate and continuous deposition resulting from CF-EL plating improved physical uniformity of deposited Au films and thermally transformed nanoparticles (NPs). Au films and NPs exhibited improved optical photoluminescence (PL) and surface plasmon resonance (SPR), respectively, relative to batch immersion EL (BI-EL) …

Traitorous Texting: Addressing The Methodological Issue Of Arousal In Romantic Jealousy Research, Rachel Rasley

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

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2012-2013 All Committee Updates

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December 2012 Full Issue

NASIG Newsletter

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Unnecessary Evil: An Examination Of Abu Ghraib Torture Photographs As Postcolonial Resistance Rhetoric, Patrick Gerhardt Richey

Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation is to examine the rhetorical nature of visual artifacts in a postcolonial context. In order to examine the nature of visual artifacts as a form of resistance against static ideologies and prevailing power structures, the author uses both media and cultural artifacts created in response to photographs taken of abused prisoners at Iraq’s Abu Ghraib Correctional Facility. The dissertation adds to scholarly knowledge of communication by addressing the intersections of iconographic visual communication and postcolonial resistance rhetoric. The dissertation provides a scholarly review of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, as well as of literature explicating …

Numerical Simulation Of Particle-Driven Gravity Currents, Sangdo An, Pierre Y. Julien, Subhas K. Venayagamoorthy

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Particle-driven gravity currents frequently occur in nature, for instance as turbidity currents in reservoirs. They are produced by the buoyant forces between fluids of different density and can introduce sediments and pollutants into water bodies. In this study, the propagation dynamics of gravity currents is investigated using the FLOW-3D computational fluid dynamics code. The performance of the numerical model using two different turbulence closure schemes namely the renormalization group (RNG) k-ε scheme in a Reynold-averaged Navier-Stokes framework (RANS) and the large-eddy simulation (LES) technique using the Smagorinsky scheme, were compared with laboratory experiments. The numerical simulations focus on two different …

Moral Foundation Theory And Marketing, Steve Lemay, James Coleman, Dave Mcmahon

Journal of Applied Marketing Theory

In setting the stage for Moral Foundations Theory (MFT), Jon Haidt (2004) identified five foundations of intuitive ethics: 1) harm/care; 2) fairness/reciprocity; 3) ingroup/loyalty; 4) authority/respect; 5) and purity/sanctity. Each foundation could have implications for the content of marketing messages, but this research is the first attempt to test those implications in specific markets with specific products. This research explores the practical, promotional uses of John Haidt’s Moral Foundation Theory. Haidt’s work shows a strong relationship between his moral foundations and political orientation. Since marketers can readily get political data at the county level in the United States, these foundations …

The Impact Of President Felipe Calderón’S War On Drugs On The Armed Forces: The Prospects For Mexico’S “Militarization” And Bilateral Relations, George W. Grayson Dr.

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

View the Executive Summary

In the absence of honest, professional civilian law-enforcement agencies, President Felipe Calderón assigned the military the lead role in his nation’s version of the “War on Drugs” that he launched in 2006. While the armed forces have spearheaded the capture and/or death of several dozen cartel capos, the conflict has taken its toll on the organizations in terms of deaths, corruption, desertions, and charges by nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) of hundreds of human rights violations. The nation’s Supreme Court has taken the first step in requiring that officers and enlistees accused of crimes against civilians stand trial …

Toward A Lockean Moral Justification Of Legal Protection Of Intellectual Property, Kenneth Einar Himma

San Diego Law Review

This Article attempts to provide the beginnings of a viable moral justification for recognizing and providing legal protection of intellectual property. The argument follows a line of arguments that is fairly characterized as “inspired” by John Locke’s attempt to justify legal protection of what he took to be a natural, objective, moral right to material property. That is to say, it is Lockean in spirit in the following sense: Locke grounds his argument for original acquisition in the idea that a person is justified in acquiring something from the commons in virtue of an investment he makes of something that …

Role Of Polymeric Excipients On Controlled Release Profile Of Glipizide From Plga And Eudragit Rs 100 Nanoparticles, Pratap Naha, Hugh Byrne, Amulya Panda

Articles

Polylactic-co-glycolic acid (PLGA) 50:50 and Eudragit RS 100 nanoparticles entrapping glipizide along with excipients were prepared using single emulsion solvent evaporation method. The objective was to develop single oral dose glipizide nano particles for reducing blood sugar level in diabetes induced experimental animals. Incorporation of Polyethylene glycol (PEG) (0.5%), Hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) (0.5%) and Tween 20 (0.5%) in the organic phase during particle formulation improved release profile of glipizide from the polymer particles. Entrapment efficiency of glipizide in all the polymeric formulations was around ~70 %. Around 80 % of glipizide was released from both PLGA and Eudragit …

Effects Of Salinity On The Toxicity Of Ionic Silver And Ag-Pvp Nanoparticles To Tisbe Battagliai And Ceramium Tenuicorne, Ailbhe Macken, Hugh Byrne, Kevin Thomas

Articles

The toxic effects of polyvinylpyrrolidone (PVP) coated silver nanoparticles (Ag-NP_PVP) and ionic Ag, to Tisbe battagliai (Tb) and Ceramium tenuicorne (Ct) were investigated and the usefulness of standardised marine guidelines for ENP risk assessment were assessed. The toxicity of Ag-NP_PVP [CtEC₅₀ = 26.6 µg/L, TbEC₅₀ = 7.9 µg/L] and Ag⁺ [CtEC₅₀ = 2312.2µg/L, Tb EC₅₀ = 90.9 µg/L] to both test species differed, with the silver ENPs being more toxic. In contrast to Ag⁺ the toxicity of Ag-NP_PVP increased significantly with increasing salinity, however, after thorough characterisation it was not …

Reactive Oxygen Species Mediated Dna Damage In Human Lung Alveolar Epithelial (A549) Cells From Exposure To Non-Cytotoxic Mfi-Type Zeolite Nanoparticles, Kunal Bhattacharya, Pratap Naha, Izabela Naydenova, Svetlana Mintova, Hugh Byrne

Articles

Increasing utilization of engineered nanoparticles in the field of electronics and biomedical applications demands an assessment of risk associated with deliberate or accidental exposure. Metal based nanoparticles are potentially most important of all the nanoparticles in terms of health risks. Microporousalumino-silicates and pure silicates named as zeolites and zeo-type materials with variety of structures, chemical compositions, particle sizes and morphologies have a significant number of industrial uses such as in catalysis, sorption and ion-exchange processes. In particular, the nanosized particles due to their unique properties are used in hybrid organic-inorganic materials for photography, photonics, electronics, labeling, imaging, and sensing. The …

A Survey Of Recommender Systems In Twitter, Su Mon Kywe, Ee Peng Lim, Feida Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Twitter is a social information network where short messages or tweets are shared among a large number of users through a very simple messaging mechanism. With a population of more than 100M users generating more than 300M tweets each day, Twitter users can be easily overwhelmed by the massive amount of information available and the huge number of people they can interact with. To overcome the above information overload problem, recommender systems can be introduced to help users make the appropriate selection. Researchers have began to study recommendation problems in Twitter but their works usually address individual recommendation tasks. There …

Detecting Anomalies In Bipartite Graphs With Mutual Dependency Principles, Hanbo Dai, Feida Zhu, Ee Peng Lim, Hwee Hwa Pang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Bipartite graphs can model many real life applications including users-rating-products in online marketplaces, users-clicking-webpages on the World Wide Web and users referring users in social networks. In these graphs, the anomalousness of nodes in one partite often depends on that of their connected nodes in the other partite. Previous studies have shown that this dependency can be positive (the anomalousness of a node in one partite increases or decreases along with that of its connected nodes in the other partite) or negative (the anomalousness of a node in one partite rises or falls in opposite direction to that of its …

Reducing In-Stent Restenosis Through Novel Stent Flow Field Augmentation, Eoin Murphy, Fergal Boyle

Articles

In-stent restenosis (ISR), manifested as a re-narrowing of the arterial lumen post-implantation of a stent, is a detrimental limitation of stent technology. Understanding and consequently devising ways of reducing the frequency of ISR has been a continuing goal of research into improved stent designs. The biological processes that can lead to ISR have been found to be partially flow dependent with the local hemodynamics at the arterial wall of crucial importance. This paper investigates these biological processes and their instigating factors. Furthermore, the history and theory behind three stent technologies which endeavour to reduce ISR rates through stent flow field …

Structural And Message Based Private Friend Recommendation, Bharath K. Samanthula, Wei Jiang

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The emerging growth of online social networks have opened new doors for various business applications such as promoting a new product across its customers. Besides this, friend recommendation is an important tool for recommending potential candidates as friends to users in order to enhance the development of the entire network structure. Existing friend recommendation methods utilize social network structure and/or user profile information. However, these techniques can no longer be applicable if the privacy of users is taken into consideration. in this paper, we propose a two-phase private friend recommendation protocol for recommending friends to a given target user based …

Fabrication Of Cao-Nao-Sio2/Tio2 Scaffolds For Surgical Applications, A. W. Wren, A. Coughlan, K. E. Smale, S. T. Misture, B. P. Mahon, O. M. Clarkin, Mark R. Towler

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A series of titanium (Ti) based glasses were formulated (0.62 SiO₂-0.14 Na₂O-0.24 CaO, with 0.05 mol% TiO₂ substitutions for SiO₂) to develop glass/ceramic scaffolds for bone augmentation. Glasses were initially characterised using X-ray diffraction (XRD) and particle size analysis, where the starting materials were amorphous with 4.5 μm particles. Hot stage microscopy and high temperature XRD were used to determine the sintering temperature (̃700 °C) and any crystalline phases present in this region (Na₂Ca₃Si₆O₁₆, combeite and quartz). Hardness testing revealed that the Ti-free control (ScC- …

Disordered Bosons In One Dimension: From Weak- To Strong-Randomness Criticality, Fawaz Hrahsheh, Thomas Vojta

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We investigate the superfluid-insulator quantum phase transition of one-dimensional bosons with off-diagonal disorder by means of large-scale Monte Carlo simulations. For weak disorder, we find the transition to be in the same universality class as the superfluid-Mott insulator transition of the clean system. The nature of the transition changes for stronger disorder. Beyond a critical disorder strength, we find nonuniversal, disorder-dependent critical behavior. We compare our results to recent perturbative and strong-disorder renormalization group predictions. We also discuss experimental implications as well as extensions of our results to other systems.

Immersion Research Education: Students As Catalysts For International Collaboration Research, Kathryn H. Anderson, Marie-Luise Friedemann, Andreas Buescher, Julita Sansoni, Donna R. Hodnicki

Nursing: Faculty Publications

Background:  This paper describes an international nursing and health research immersion program. Minority students from the USA work with an international faculty mentor in teams conducting collaborative research. The Minority Health International Research Training (MHIRT) program students become catalysts in the conduct of cross-cultural research.

Aim:  To narrow the healthcare gap for disadvantaged families in the USA and partner countries.

Methods:  Faculty from the USA, Germany, Italy, Colombia, England, Austria and Thailand formed an international research and education team to explore and compare family health issues, disparities in chronic illness care, social inequities and healthcare solutions. USA …

Altered Hemodynamics, Endothelial Function, And Protein Expression Occur With Aortic Coarctation And Persist After Repair, Arjun Menon, Thomas J. Eddinger, Hongfeng Wang, David C. Wendell, Jeffrey M. Toth, John F. Ladisa

Biomedical Engineering Faculty Research and Publications

Coarctation of the aorta (CoA) is associated with substantial morbidity despite treatment. Mechanically induced structural and functional vascular changes are implicated; however, their relationship with smooth muscle (SM) phenotypic expression is not fully understood. Using a clinically representative rabbit model of CoA and correction, we quantified mechanical alterations from a 20-mmHg blood pressure (BP) gradient in the thoracic aorta and related the expression of key SM contractile and focal adhesion proteins with remodeling, relaxation, and stiffness. Systolic and mean BP were elevated for CoA rabbits compared with controls leading to remodeling, stiffening, an altered force response, and endothelial dysfunction both …

Ciliary Neurotrophic Factor Signaling In The Magnocellular Neurosecretory System : Mechanisms Of Neuronal Survival And Sprouting, Jason Michael Askvig

Theses and Dissertations

While it is well-known that ciliary neurotrophic factor (CNTF) promotes the survival of a myriad of neuronal phenotypes, little is understood on the specific CNTF-induced neuroprotective mechanisms in the central nervous system (CNS). Elucidation of these mechanisms may provide insight that would assist in the development of future therapeutic strategies. Therefore, the goal of my research is to determine the mechanisms underlying the neuroprotective effects of CNTF within the rat magnocellular neurosecretory system. The central hypothesis of my research is that CNTF acts as both a neuronal survival and sprouting factor for hypothalamic magnocellular neurons in vitro and in vivo. …

Mobile Learning And The Visual Web, Oh My! Nutrition Education In The 21st Century, Ellen Schuster

Journal of Extension

Technology is rapidly changing how our program participants learn in school and for their personal improvement. Extension educators who deliver nutrition program will want to be aware of the technology trends that are driving these changes. Blended learning, mobile learning, the visual Web, and the gamification of health are approaches to consider using in programming in the near future to meet learners' expectations.

Using Digital Classrooms To Conduct 4-H Club Meetings, Patricia West, Nicholas E. Fuhrman, A Christian Morgan, Dennis W. Duncan

Journal of Extension

Using computer technology and digital classrooms to conduct 4-H Club meetings is an efficient way to continue delivering quality 4-H programming during times of limited resources and staff. Nineteen Junior and Senior 4-H'ers participated in seven digital classroom workshops using the Wimba Classroom application. These digital classroom sessions were designed to improve Project Achievement development and increase competition scores. Eighteen of the nineteen 4-H participants increased Project Achievement scores by approximately 11%. Seven hours of travel time and 26 hours of instruction time were saved by utilizing digital classroom technology in a 3-month period.

Improving Alaskan Aviation Safety With Turf Runways, Stephen C. Brown

Journal of Extension

A leading cause of aviation accidents in Alaska is due to rock damage caused by taking off and landing on gravel runways. This article describes how Extension in Alaska planted a demonstration runway with an environmentally appropriate native grass to suppress rock damage to propellers, engines, control surfaces, and airframes. More than 200 runways have taken advantage of the program at an annual savings of 1.5 million dollars. The program has also resulted in national attention for the University of Alaska Fairbanks Mat-Su/Copper River Cooperative Extension Service District.

Extension's Online Presence: Are Land-Grant Universities Promoting The Tripartite Mission?, Shannon Arnold, Alexandra Hill, Nikki Bailey, Courtney Meyers

Journal of Extension

Land-grant universities were established with a tripartite mission: education, research, and outreach through the Cooperative Extension Service. The purpose of the study reported here was to evaluate the online presence and technological adoptions of Extension on land-grant university, college of agriculture, and state Extension websites. Almost half of the university websites did not contain a direct link to Extension, and only 10% highlighted Extension services. Many state Extension websites had some form of social media, but only 45% had a link to eXtension. The results demonstrate the need to expand Extension's Internet presence, particularly on land-grant university websites.