Digital Commons Network^™

Analysis Of Aerosol Particle Size Distributions Observed During Aerose V Campaign, Mariana Guereque

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The African continent is the principal contributor of mineral aerosols into the atmosphere. It is also a significant source of carbonaceous aerosols resulting from rampant biomass burning activities. Both aerosol types have a profound impact on climate change and are an important factor in climate modeling, regional weather forecasting, as well as health-impact studies. Due to their importance, it is beneficial to characterize the transport and evolution of these aerosols from their origins in Africa, across the Atlantic Ocean and into the Americas. In-situ aerosol number distributions were collected during the 2009 Aerosols and Ocean Science Expeditions (AEROSE) V campaign, …

Life Without Boundaries: A Positive Deviance Inquiry Of Communication Behaviors That Influence Academic Success Of Learning-Disabled University Students, Davi Kallman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The label of "disabled" causes many learning-disabled students to downplay their disability in order to avoid alienation and isolation. Hence, many of learning-disabled students go through years of education without accommodations, increasing the likelihood for academic failure. Students who do have accommodations are still at risk of failure especially if they lack strong support systems and suffer from low expectations. Simply put, dropout rates among learning-disabled students are a complex social problem. The dropout rate among these students is nearly double that of general education students (Blackorby & Wagner, 1996). Dropping out has devastating financial, educational, and social repercussions for …

Development Of Nanocomposites For Energy Storage Devices, Md Ashiqur Rahaman Khan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the ever-increasing need in improving the performance and operation life of future mobile devices, developing higher power density energy storage devices has been receiving more attention. Lithium ion battery (LIB) and capacitor are two of the most widely used energy storage devices and have attracted increasing interest from both industrial and academic fields. Batteries have higher power density than capacitor but significantly longer charge/discharge rates. In order to further improve the performance of these energy storage devices, one of the approaches is to use high specific surface area nano-materials. Among all the nano-materials developed so far, one-dimensional nanowires are …

The Impact Of Decadal Land Cover Change On The Global Warming Potential Of Beringian Arctic Tundra, David Hwei-Len Lin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Arctic terrestrial ecosystems play an important role in the global carbon cycle. If arctic warming continues to rise as projected, large amounts of soil carbon stored in these ecosystems could be released to the atmosphere as carbon dioxide or methane and positively enhance greenhouse warming. Thus, improving understanding of the likely future state and fate of arctic soil carbon, and the carbon uptake potential of arctic terrestrial ecosystems are well recognized research priorities.

At the pan-arctic scale, decadal increases in NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), an index of vegetation productivity, have been observed from satellite imagery, indicating a general greening …

The Effects Of Extended Access To Methamphetamine Self-Administration On Dopaminergic Markers In The Striatum, Joe Luevano

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Methamphetamine (METH) abuse is a persistent problem in the U.S. and abroad. Escalation of METH use among independent users occurs for a variety of physiological and psychological reasons. Methamphetamine dependence may be attributed to the rewarding effect of this drug via the dopaminergic systems of the central nervous system (CNS). The presence of METH in the CNS increases synaptic release of dopamine. This increase in dopaminergic neurotransmission is thought to be directly attributed to the rewarding effects of METH. Following METH use, compensatory changes have been found to occur in the dopaminergic system during various periods of abstinence. It is …

In The Spirit Of Liberation: Race, Governmentality, And The De-Colonial Politics Of The Original Rainbow Coalition Of Chicago, Antonio R. Lopez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Original Rainbow Coalition was a revolutionary alliance established in Chicago in early 1969 by the Illinois Chapter of the Black Panther Party, the Young Lords Organization, and the Young Patriots. The alliance connected one of the largest Black Panther chapters in the country with its headquarters in the heart of North Lawndale, to militant organizations in other outcast communities of the city. In Uptown, the Young Patriots were rooted in almost a decade of grassroots efforts that aimed to organize poor people in a community that featured a large population of southern whites who migrated to Chicago. And in …

Validating The Adidas Micoach For Estimating Pace, Distance, And Energy Expenditure During Treadmill Walking And Running, Sean T. Miller

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The use of accelerometry based physical activity monitors among recreational athletes to meet or exceed recommended physical activity guidelines has grown in popularity. In the interest of capitalizing on this demand, Adidas developed the miCoach Pacer System which allows the user to observe pace, distance, and energy expenditure during walking or running. Purpose. To validate the accuracy of the Adidas miCoach activity monitor in estimating energy expenditure (EE) (kcal/min), pace (min/km), and distance (km) during treadmill walking and running, and for two different sensor configurations. Methods. Nine male and 9 female moderately endurance trained volunteers (mean ± SD age: 28.83 …

Multi-Objective System Design Optimization Considering Environmental Emissions, Olivia Carolina Moreno

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The well-known reliability optimization problem, the redundancy allocation problem (RAP) involves the simultaneous selection of system components and a design level configuration that can meet several design constraints in order to optimize the predefined objective function(s). The RAP has been predominantly solved as a single objective optimization problem with the reliability of the system to be maximized or system design cost to be minimized. When considered as a multiple objective reliability optimization problem, the system reliability is maximized and the cost and weight of the system are minimized. In this work, the RAP was formulated as a multiple objective optimization …

Examination Of The Neurochemical Mechanisms That Mediate Nicotine Withdrawal In Adolescent And Adult Rats, Luis Alberto Natividad

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Introduction: The mechanisms that mediate nicotine withdrawal are presently unclear and age group differences in the neurochemical effects of withdrawal have been largely unexplored. Previous studies in our laboratory demonstrated that adult rats display a decrease in extracellular levels of dopamine in the nucleus accumbens (NAcc) during nicotine withdrawal and this decrease is reduced in adolescent rats (Natividad et al., 2010). The goal of this dissertation was to examine whether these age group differences in dopamine during withdrawal are mediated via excitatory and inhibitory mechanisms that modulate dopamine in the cell body region of the ventral tegmental area (VTA). Methods: …

Algorithmic Aspects Of Analysis, Prediction, And Control In Science And Engineering: Symmetry-Based Approach, Jaime Nava

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Algorithms are extremely important in science and engineering. One of the main objectives of science is to predict future events; this usually requires sophisticated algorithms. Once we are able to predict future events, a natural next step is to influence these events, i.e., to control the corresponding systems; control also usually requires complex algorithms. To be able to predict and control a system, we need to have a good description of this system, so that we can use this description to analyze the system's behavior and extract the desired prediction and control algorithms from this analysis. A typical prediction is …

Use Of Environmental Isotope Tracer And Gis Techniques To Estimate Basin Recharge, Abdulganiu A.A. Odunmbaku

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The extensive use of ground water only began with the advances in pumping technology at the early portion of 20th Century. Groundwater provides the majority of fresh water supply for municipal, agricultural and industrial uses, primarily because of little to no treatment it requires. Estimating the volume of groundwater available in a basin is a daunting task, and no accurate measurements can be made. Usually water budgets and simulation models are primarily used to estimate the volume of water in a basin.

Precipitation, land surface cover and subsurface geology are factors that affect recharge; these factors affect percolation which invariably …

Functional Characterization Of P90/Cip2a In Human Lung Cancer, Bo Peng

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

p90/CIP2A is a recently characterized oncoprotein which promotes cancer cell proliferation through the inhibition of c-myc-associated PP2A phosphatase activity, from which it derived the name as cancerous inhibitor of PP2A (CIP2A). Although p90/CIP2A has been found to be overexpressed in various cancer types, from solid tumors to hematological malignancies, the function of this protein is still limited to its ability to regulate the stability of c-myc. The recent study showing p90/CIP2A is able to regulate the phosphorylation of protein kinase B (PKB) in response to the treatment of chemotherapy drugs implied p90/CIP2A may have more functions. In order to investigate …

The Influence Of Build Parameters On The Microstructure During Electron Beam Melting Of Ti6al4v, Karina Puebla

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With the demand of devices to replace or improve areas, such as: electronic, biomedical and aerospace industries. Improvements in these areas of engineering have been in need due to the customer’s needs for product properties requirements. The design of components must exhibit better material properties (mechanical or biocompatible) close to those of any given product. Rapid prototyping (RP) technologies that were originally designed to build prototypes may now be required to build functional end-use products. To carry out the transition, from RP to rapid manufacturing (RM), the available materials utilized in RP must provide the performance required for RM. The …

Spatial Ecology Of The Trans-Pecos Rat Snake (Bogertophis Subocularis) In The Chihuahuan Desert Of Trans-Pecos Texas, Arturo Rocha

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Trans-Pecos Rat Snake (Bogertophis subocularis) is a medium to large rat snake that occurs from south-central New Mexico, south-central Texas, down into the north-central and northeastern states of Mexico. There is paucity in the ecology of B. subocularis to date. Some North American colubrid snakes, such as Thamnophis sirtalis, are the most represented species in thermal ecology and life history studies in all reptiles. There is nothing known on the winter ecological aspects of this species, and very little information regarding its overall ecology. The goal of this study is to determine home range, movement patterns, habitats and utilization …

Low Energy Disruption Of Lipid Containing Biomass, Joaquin Rodriguez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Lipid containing biomass from microalgae has received recent research interest as a renewable and sustainable feedstock for biofuel production. Algae is known to offer as much as 30 times the energy density than corn based ethanol, the current world standard for biomass based liquid transportation fuels. The development of large scale systems and methods of extracting lipids from microalgae is still in the early stages of development and significant increases in efficiency and reduction in costs are necessary to substantiate algae as a feasible alternative source of fuel. Traditional conversion of algae feedstock into a refineable feedstock for biofuel can …

Jak3/Stat5 Signaling Cascade Represents A Therapeutic Target To Treat Select Hematologic Malignancies, Damaris Rosado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Tyrosine kinases are an essential component of cell signal transduction pathways, many of which promote cellular proliferation. However, when a tyrosine kinase is aberrantly activated or its negative regulation is lost, the result can be malignancy. In humans, 90 tyrosine kinases are present and of these, 51 have been linked to a malignancy through mutation or overexpression. Janus kinase 3 (JAK3) is one such kinase that upon hyperactivation, due to a somatic mutation, has been linked to cancer including its substrate, signal transducer and activator of transcription (STAT5). Few studies have investigated the role of JAK3/STAT5 pathways in hematopoietic cancers …

Arachidonic Acid Signaling In Invasive And Non-Invasive Breast Cancer Cells, Debarshi Roy

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Breast cancer is the second largest cause of cancer-related deaths in women all over the world. Epidemiological studies suggest that the consumption of high-fat diets can promote the incidence of breast cancers in both developed and developing countries. In particular, the lipid-rich diet contains arachidonic acid (AA, a C20:4 polyunsaturated fatty acid), which has been shown to be associated with tumor formation in breast tissues. Nevertheless, the actual mechanism by which AA induces the metastatic transformation and malignancy is not well understood. The goal of my dissertation, therefore, is to identify the molecules and unravel the pathways that participate in …

Identification Of Rework Station Location To Enhance Reworkability Using Design For Disassembly, Juan Alejandro Saavedra

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Rework stations are commonly established as part of each assembly stations causing the material flow of the process to be constantly interrupted. Another option is to place the rework station at the end of the production, but this is not cost effective. This breakeven point between reworkability and cost methodology has been proposed in this thesis to identify the location of a single rework station in an assembly line in order to enhance reworkability using the Design for Disassembly (DfD) principles. The methodology uses the 17 guidelines of DfD in a manufacturing scenario in order to propose a reworkability index …

Investigation On A Gas-Solid Fluidized Bed Hydrodynamics Using A Non-Intrusive Technology To Visualize Flow Field, Md Rashedul Hasan Sarker

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The biggest challenge for 21st century is to fulfill global energy demand and at the same time reduce detrimental impact on environment. Gasification technology can meet the requirement and also reduce emission without compromising its performance. In coal gasification, instead of burning coal completely a partial combustion takes place with presence of steam and limited amount of oxygen. In this controlled environment a chemical reaction takes place and produces a mixture of clean synthetic gas. Gas-solid fluidized bed is one type of gasification technology. During gasification mixing behavior of solid (coal) and gas and their flow pattern very complicated to …

Propagation Of Interval And Probabilistic Uncertainty In Cyberinfrastructure-Related Data Processing And Data Fusion, Christian Servin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Data uncertainty affects the results of data processing. So, it is necessary to find out how the data uncertainty propagates into the uncertainty of the results of data processing.

This problem is especially important when cyberinfrastructure enables us to process large amounts of heterogeneous data.

In the ideal world, we should have an accurate description of data

uncertainty, and well-justified efficient algorithms to propagate this uncertainty. In practice, we are often not yet in this ideal situation:

the description of uncertainty is often only approximate, and the algorithms for uncertainty propagation are often not well-justified and not very computationally efficient. …

Assessment Of Carbon Nanoparticle Exposure On Murine Macrophage Function, Raquel M. Suro

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

There is growing concern about the potential cytotoxicity of nanoparticles. Exposure to respirable ultrafine particles (2.5uM) can adversely affect human health and have been implicated with episodes of increased respiratory diseases such as asthma and allergies. Nanoparticles are of particular interest because of their ability to penetrate into the lung and potentially elicit health effects triggering immune responses. Nanoparticles are structures and devises with length scales in the 1 to 100-nanometer range. Black carbon (BC) nanoparticles have been observed to be products of combustion, especially flame combustion and multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWCNT) have been shown to be found in both …

A Study Of International Wastewater Challenges And Policy In The Tijuana River Watershed, Gloria Ann Villaverde

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Since the 1930s, untreated and undertreated sewage from Tijuana, Baja California, México has been released into the Tijuana River Watershed causing contamination of the water supply, crops, the Tijuana Estuary and California beaches. Passage of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) has exacerbated the problem by causing population and industrial growth explosions for which there have been insufficient services to meet the needs of the people. The waters of the Tijuana River flow (from México) north over the International Border, into the Tijuana Estuary, discharge out to the Pacific Ocean and often flow north, up the California Coast; therefore, …

Biological Effects Of Copper On Prosopis Pubescens (Screw Bean Mesquite), Marian Nicte Zappala

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Phytoremediation is an emerging technology for cleaning industrial and urban contamination (Peuke and Rennenberg, 2005). Many factors including germination rate, biomass changes, biochemical changes, and nutrient changes must be determined in order to utilize a plant for phytoremediation. Our results showed that Prosopis pubescens (Screw bean mesquite) is a hyperaccumulator of copper from copper sulfate and a feasible option to remediate fields with up to 200 ppm of copper sulfate.

Screw bean mesquite seeds are viable even after 30 years of storage. Both copper sulfate and copper nitrate decreased the germination rate of screw bean mesquite seeds. In soil grown …

Implementation Of Evolutionary Algorithms On The Power Industry And Aviation Security, Anuar Jesus Aguirre

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The main objective of the power electric power grid is to supply reliable electricity to all the customers. Customers could be industrial, commercial, household, transportation and others. The power grid is a complex and large, and it formed by the conjunction of the generation, transmission and distribution system. The present research is focused in power distribution system. A new component replacement analysis method to solve component replacement problems for complex electricity distribution systems using Genetic Algorithms is developed. In the present model a Taylor series expansion is used to approximate the associated opportunity cost for each component in the system. …

Decorin Expression, Straw-Like Structure, And Differentiation Of Human Costal Cartilage, Michael W. Stacey, Janna Grubb, Anthony Asmar, Julie Pryor, Hani Elsayed-Ali, Ali Beskok, Diganta Dutta, Annie Fecteau, Alice Werner, Dennis A. Darby, Robert Kelly

Bioelectrics Publications

Costal cartilage is much understudied compared with the load-bearing cartilages. Abnormally grown costal cartilages are associated with the inherited chest wall deformities pectus excavatum and pectus carinatum resulting in sunken and pigeon chests, respectively. A lack of understanding of the ultrastructural and molecular biology of costal cartilage is a major confounder in predicting causes and outcomes of these disorders. This study analyzed the structure of marginal human costal cartilage (ribs 6-10) through scanning electron and atomic force microscopes and identified the presence of straw-like structures running longitudinally. We also demonstrated that chondrocytes tend to occur singly or as doublets and …

Facebook, Twitter, And The Uncertain Future Of Present Sense Impressions, Jeffrey Bellin

Faculty Publications

The intricate legal framework governing the admission of out-of-court statements in American trials is premised on increasingly outdated communication norms. Nowhere is this more apparent than with the hearsay exception for “present sense impressions.” Changing communication practices typified by interactions on social media websites like Facebook and Twitter herald the arrival of a previously uncontemplated—and uniquely unreliable—breed of present sense impressions. This Article contends that the indiscriminate admission of these electronic present sense impressions (e-PSIs) is both normatively undesirable and inconsistent with the traditional rationale for the present sense impression exception. It proposes a reform to the exception that would …

Progress Towards Heterocycles As Inhibitors Of Plasminogen Activator Inhibitor-1, Gregory Alan Abernathy

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Synthesis Of Amphiphilic Diblock Copolymers: An Investigation Into The Formation Of Micelles As A Function Of Hydrophobic Block Length, Kevin S. Kawchak

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Acrylate-based amphiphilic diblock copolymers show great potential for anti-cancer drug transport due to their ability to aggregate into protective core-shell micelles. Using RAFT polymerization, copolymers containing poly(acrylic acid) and poly(methyl acrylate) blocks were made with high monomer conversion and narrow distributions of molecular weight for eventual use in medicinal applications. Based on previous findings of copolymers with low weight hydrophobic blocks failing to micellize, it was hypothesized that increasing the poly(methyl acrylate) block length would allow for micelle formation. 1H-NMR experiments conducted in the presence of an aqueous solution yielded diminished and broadened resonances of the lengthened hydrophobic block, which …

Synthesis And Purification Of Potential Antimicrobial Peptides, Christopher Ryan Snyder

Master's Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Do You Have A Conscience?, Jeremy Bendik-Keymer

Faculty Scholarship

“Do you have a conscience?” There was a time when this would have been a question that was immediately intelligible to people, like asking whether a person holding a ball can throw it. For much of the history of philosophy—that ancient Greek invention—the name for what allows one to stay in touch with moral principles in the midst of particular decisions was “conscience” (Langston 2001). To ask whether I have a conscience was tantamount to asking whether I can keep my decisions moral, whether I was capable of being a mature human being. Since morality is the domain of duties …