Digital Commons Network^™

Number 17, 2013, Palara Editors

PALARA: Publication of the Afro-Latin/American Research Association

Complete Issue

Interprofessional Faculty Development: Integration Of Oral Health Into The Geriatric Diabetes Curriculum, From Theory To Practice., G. Dounis, M. Ditmyer, S. Vanbeuge, S. Scherman, M. Mcclain, K. Dounis, C. Mobley

Dental Medicine Faculty Research

No abstract provided.

“Mad-Speak” And Manic Prose: Nick Cave’S Presentation Of Insanity In And The Ass Saw The Angel, Laura Hardt (Class Of 2014)

English Undergraduate Publications

Nick Cave’s novel And the Ass Saw the Angel attempts to exist firmly within the Southern Gothic tradition, pulling direct inspiration from authors such as William Faulkner, Cormac McCarthy, and Flannery O’Connor. However, Cave’s novel seems to lack the careful construction and purposefulness of these writers, with its graphic violence, constantly shifting tone, style, narrative voice, and employing an utterly bizarre and arcane vocabulary. This essay aims to illustrate that although this may make the work seem poorly composed and somewhat slipshod, the manic prose of Cave’s novel is actually rather purposeful, presenting the protagonist’s descent into madness in an …

Understanding Synesthesia And Impact For Learning, Kateri Lynn Wheeler

Dissertations, Masters Theses, Capstones, and Culminating Projects

Synesthesia is a neurological disorder that has to do with the ‘union of the senses.’ The literature reveals that students with synesthesia are affected with various degrees of severity. Students may hear a bell ring. Their brain is wired to take that sound and interpret it differently, through color, texture, taste, sound or temperature among other things. While some people hear a bell, others may also experience the activation of another sense. The difficulties these students exhibit involves longer processing or thinking time to sort out the extra stimulus. Limiting sound environments and other visual cues like color coding to …

Manufacturing The Next Generation Of Vaccines: Non-Egg Based Platform For Influenza Vaccine, Andrew B. Price

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This report explores the design of an influenza vaccine manufacturing facility using a non-egg based expression platform. The current standard procedure in flu vaccine production is to grow the virus in bird eggs. However, recently there is evidence that supports production by other expression platforms. The Sf9 insect cell is considered in this report. Facility design including cell culture media formulation through product storage for shipment and final formulation is considered based on the use of an existing facility. The new design also employs the use of disposable equipment such as bioreactors and purification unit operations. These disposables help reduce …

Birthday Curse, Vichida Vongvanij

Writing Programs

A freshman major in entrepreneurship from Bangkok, Thailand, Vichida Vongvanij takes her reader on an exhilarating and colorful science fiction journey. In her short story, the protagonist, Sally, endures terrifying nightmares every year on her birthday. This year, she wakes up alone in a dense forest and finds herself in perilous defense against the dark forces of nature that pursue her. As an international student, Vongvanij eloquently incorporates a unique voice and style in crafting the animated story of Sally and her birthday curse, culminating in an unexpected plot twist. This short story was written for Dr. Janna Goebel’s English …

Implementation Of Precast Concrete Deck System Nudeck (2nd Generation), George Morcous, Maher K. Tadros

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Development And Evaluation If Best Management Practices For Highway Runoff Pollution Control, Tian C. Zhang, John S. Stansbury, Massom Moussavi

Nebraska Department of Transportation: Research Reports

No abstract provided.

Development Of Novel Subunit Vaccine Against H5n1 Influenza, Lu Zhang

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Influenza is a common infectious disease resulting from a frequently mutated RNA virus. Vaccination is currently the most effective method to prevent people from seasonal or pandemic influenza. The production of traditional egg-based influenza vaccine is time-consuming and provides limited effect against new strains. Therefore, it is necessary to develop a rapid method to produce influenza vaccines. We proposed a novel influenza vaccine based on the E.coli expression system. Hemagglutinin (HA) is the major target surface protein of influenza virus for vaccine development. In this study, we sub-cloned the HAs encoding gene into an E. coli expression vector; the signal …

Can Clustering Improve Requirements Traceability? A Tracelab-Enabled Study, Brett Taylor Armstrong

Master's Theses

Software permeates every aspect of our modern lives. In many applications, such in the software for airplane flight controls, or nuclear power control systems software failures can have catastrophic consequences. As we place so much trust in software, how can we know if it is trustworthy? Through software assurance, we can attempt to quantify just that.

Building complex, high assurance software is no simple task. The difficult information landscape of a software engineering project can make verification and validation, the process by which the assurance of a software is assessed, very difficult. In order to manage the inevitable information overload …

Pedagogical Promise, Disciplinary Practice, And The Fashioning Of Identities Among Marshallese Youth In Primary School, Laurence Marshall Carucci

Pacific Studies

This paper examines the educational experiences of elementary grade students from the Ujelang/Enewetak community across two distinct periods and locations: those residing on Ujelang Atoll in the 1970s and those living in Hawai‘i in 2002–2003. These children belong to a community that has endured profound historical trauma and rapid social transformation, while maintaining a strong commitment to preserving its cultural and historical identity. The study situates the community within the broader context of colonial and postcolonial displacement, highlighting the devastating impact of World War II and U.S. nuclear testing on Enewetak. It explores how these historical events have shaped migration …

Vol. 36 No. 3 (2013): Pacific Studies Full Issue, The Jonathan Nāpela Center For Hawaiian And Pacific Islands Studies

Pacific Studies

Pacific Studies is published two times a year by The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies, Brigham Young University Hawai‘i #1979, 55–220 Kulanui Street, Lāʻie, Hawai‘i 96762, but responsibility for opinions expressed in the articles rests with the authors alone. Subscription rate is US $26.00 yearly, payable to The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies. The Jonathan Nāpela Center for Hawaiian and Pacific Studies (formerly The Pacific Institute) is an organization funded by Brigham Young University Hawai‘i. The Center assists the University in meeting its cultural and educational goals by undertaking a program of teaching, research, …

On Spanish Loanwords And Loanblends In Hawal'i Creole English, Robert N. Smead

Pacific Studies

Hawai'i Creole English (HCE) has been the object of much linguistic research. Virtually all researchers agree that its principal lexical sources include English, Hawaiian, and Japanese. Other languages, such as Chinese and Portuguese, have also contributed. To elate, however, few sources have considered Spanish as an important lexical source for HCE. The research reported herein attempts to remedy that oversight by considering ten putative loanwords and loanblends thought to derive from Spanish. These include ethnic markers associated with and local dishes brought by Filipino and Puerto Rican immigrants in the early twentieth century. By documenting cultural traditions and consulting authoritative …

Food Choice Is A Fundamental Liberty Right, David J. Berg

Journal of Food Law & Policy

"[P]laintiffs do not have a fundamental right to obtain any food they wish." "When did we lose our right to buy whatever food we want directly from farmers and assorted food producers, outside of the regulatory system of permits and inspections?" For millennia, humans either caught or raised their own food or purchased it from local farmers or shopkeepers; however they obtained their food, they knew where it came from. In fact, obtaining one's food directly from the farmer who grew it is one of the most traditional economic practices that there can be. But with the industrial age came …

The Market For Drug-Free Poultry: Why Robust Regulation Of Animal Raising Claims Is The Right Prescription To Combat Antibiotic Resistance, Dorinda L. Peacock

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Since their introduction in the mid-twentieth century, antibiotics have become a mainstay of poultry production for purposes ranging from growth promotion to disease treatment and control. Nevertheless, for almost as long, there have been concerns about the role that these agricultural uses play in the development of antibiotic resistant bacteria. The issue of antibiotic resistance in general is fast becoming a public health crisis and scrutiny of agriculture as a contributing cause continues. Nevertheless, to date, neither regulatory efforts to curb agricultural usage nor private sector actions in response to consumer demand and public-interest campaigns have led to significant changes …

Journal Of Food Law & Policy - Fall 2013, Journal Editors

Journal of Food Law & Policy

No abstract provided.

The Effectiveness Of Using Digital Movies As A Form Of Reflection, Taralynn Hartsell

Journal of Educational Technology Development and Exchange (JETDE)

Digital videos can be effective authentic assessment tools to help students reflect on their learning acquisition. Using digital video reflections to synthesize learning of abstract concepts and theories such as instructional design can be a method to evaluate how students perceive, understand, and arrive to certain conclusions. This paper describes the process of creating digital videos as part of a reflection assignment that graduate students in an instructional design course had to complete. Benefits and limitations of using this form of assessment are addressed, including some recommendations. The purpose is to help readers understand how digital videos can aid students …

Fuzzy Search Strategy Generation For Adversarial Systems Using Fuzzy Process Particle Swarm Optimization, Fuzzy Patterns, And A Hunch Factor, Stephany Coffman-Wolph

Dissertations

Adversarial game-playing situations have been studied in both game theory and artificial intelligence since the 1950s. However, developing strategies for game playing is challenging due to the large search tree size as the environment size increases. The research presented develops a centralized fuzzy search strategy to find winning strategies for adversarial situations using fuzzy logic. The aforementioned fuzzy algorithm, Fuzzy Strategy Finder (FSF), can be used to find valid strategies for any problem that can be written as a Reti-like or zero-sum game. Using several chess endgames, the FSF will be shown to have a faster runtime without a significant …

Aerodynamic Performance And Particle Image Velocimetery Of Piezo Actuated Biomimetic Manduca Sexta Engineered Wings Towards The Design And Application Of A Flapping Wing Flight Vehicle, Anthony M. Deluca

Theses and Dissertations

Considerable research and investigation has been conducted on the aerodynamic performance, and the predominate flow physics of the Manduca sexta size of biomimetically designed and fabricated wings as part of the AFIT FWMAV design project. Despite a burgeoning interest and research into the diverse field of flapping wing flight and biomimicry, the aerodynamics of flapping wing flight remains a nebulous field of science with considerable variance into the theoretical abstractions surrounding aerodynamic mechanisms responsible for aerial performance. Traditional FWMAV flight models assume a form of a quasi-steady approximation of wing aerodynamics based on an infinite wing element model (BEM). An …

Diagnosis And Acute Management Of Patients With Concussion At Children's Hospitals., Jeffrey D. Colvin, Cary Thurm, Brian M. Pate, Jason G. Newland, Matt Hall, William P. Meehan Iii

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

Objectives: To describe the number of hospital admissions for concussion at paediatric hospitals in the USA. To describe the use of imaging and medications for acute concussion paediatric patients.

Design: Cross-sectional study.

Setting: Children's hospitals participating in the Pediatric Health Information System in the USA during a 10-year period.

Patients: All emergency department (ED) visits and inpatient admissions with the primary diagnosis of concussion, defined as International Classification of Diseases, Ninth Revision, Clinical Modification codes for: (1) concussion, (2) postconcussion syndrome or (3) skull fracture without mention of intracranial injury with concussion.

Main outcome measures: The proportion of concussion patients …

Arbor Park, Brett Basnight, Matt Evans, Ellen Mundy, Tina Sul

Master of Real Estate Development

No abstract provided.

Happenings@Hannon, December 2013, William H. Hannon Library

Happenings @ Hannon

No abstract provided.

Is The Law Of Armed Conflict Outdated?, Sibylle Scheipers

The US Army War College Quarterly: Parameters

No abstract provided.

Enhanced Pancreatic Beta-Cells Proliferation And Functionality, Hanan Abdulaziz Alismail

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Biologically functional beta-cells proliferate at an extremely low rate with limited turnover capacity. This cellular property hinders cell-based therapy for clinical applications. Many attempts have been made to develop techniques that allow large quantities of production of clinically relevant islet β-cells in vitro. A line of studies demonstrates that functional beta-cells can proliferate under certain circumstances, providing hope for generating and expanding these cells in vitro and transplanting them into the recipient. In this study, we showed that a membrane substrate offers a better niche for beta cell proliferation and insulin secretion. Mouse beta cells were grown on a tissue …

Perceived Satisfaction Of Equine-Assisted Therapy: A Qualitative Study Of Family Narratives, Morgan N. Carriker

Senior Honors Theses

The present research represents the satisfaction that parents feel with equine-assisted therapy. Equine-assisted therapy is, according to Funk and Smith (2000), the use of horses as a therapy technique that improves the well-being of individuals in all of the following areas: social, cognitive, psychosocial, and physical (2000). Themes were coded from publicized material that contained accounts of parents whose children participated in a specific equine-assisted therapy program in North Carolina. Each testimony was coded for themes that were similar in nature to those that were represented in other accounts as well. Themes that were found were organized into categories and …

The Role Of Youth Program Leaders In The Use Of Technology: Challenges And Opportunities For Youth-Serving Organizations, Mimi Nichter, Lynne Borden, Veronica Przybyl

Journal of Youth Development

Youth-serving organizations offer young people an opportunity to gain skills and advance their knowledge of current and evolving technology through experiential learning. The key to ensuring that young people have meaningful learning experiences is directly related to the youth program leader who is responsible for designing and implementing these programs. Programs conducted by well-trained and well-prepared adults are an essential component of community-based interventions. To date, there is relatively limited research on how technology such as smart phones can be used in community-based programs and the success or failure of this as a strategy for delivering information and engaging young …

Sympathetic Nerve Modulation Of Joint Pathology In Adjuvant-Induced Arthritis, Carlo Anthony Wood

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Background: There is increasing data suggesting a net increase in sympathetic tone plays an important role in rheumatoid arthritis. Several studies have reported altered distribution and density of autonomic nerves in patients with rheumatoid arthritis and animal models for the disease. This provides anatomical evidence that supports a neurally-mediated drive in inflammation and joint destruction. Methods: Adult rats were injected with complete Freund’s adjuvant. At 12 days post immunization, animals were randomly placed into a drug treatment group (SH1293, which interacts with - and ß2-ARs), an adjuvant arthritic group, or a control group. These animals were sacrificed at 14, 21, …

Expression And Function Of Ca2+-Activated K+ Channels In Uterine Arteries, Ronghui Zhu

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Chronic hypoxia during pregnancy is one of the most common insults to the maternal cardiovascular system and fetal development, and is associated with increased uterine vascular tone and heightened risk of preeclampsia and fetal intrauterine growth restriction (IUGR). The present study tested the hypothesis that calcium-activated potassium (KCa) channels play an essential role in uterine vascular adaptation to pregnancy, which is inhibited by chronic hypoxia during gestation. Uterine arteries (UAs) were isolated from nonpregnant ewes (NPUAs) and near-term pregnant ewes (PUAs) that had been maintained at sea level (~300 m) or exposed to high altitude (3,801 m) for 110 days. …

Radiosensitization Of Head & Neck Carcinoma Cells By Linifanib, A Receptor Tyrosine Kinase Inhibitor, Heng-Wei Hsu

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Tumor angiogenesis is a hallmark of advanced cancers and promotes invasion and metastasis. Over 90% of head and neck squamous cell carcinomas (HNSCC) express angiogenic factors such as vascular endothelial growth factor (VEGF). Since radiotherapy is one of the most commonly used treatments for HNSCC, it is imperative to identify the interactions between antiangiogenic therapy and radiotherapy, and to develop combination therapy to improve clinical outcome. The mechanisms between antiangiogenic agents and ionizing radiation are complicated and involve many interactions between the vasculature, tumor stroma and tumor cells. The proliferation and metastasis of tumor cells rely on angiogenesis/blood vessel formation. …

Consequences Of Prenatal Ethanol Exposure And Maternal Stress On Offspring, Miranda C. Staples

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Extensive evidence in humans suggests that exposure to insults during gestation, such as ethanol or maternal stress, can negatively impact the developing fetus in manners which can last into adulthood. These deleterious effects can include various behavioral challenges including cognitive impairments and increases in anxiety. These findings have been replicated in animal models of prenatal ethanol exposure and prenatal stress exposure, but little work has been conducted on measuring the interactive effects of the two prenatal insults in combination. Currently, there is no animal model of combined prenatal ethanol and prenatal stress exposures which has been utilized to systematically evaluate …