Digital Commons Network^™

Pittsburg State University Annual Commencement, Dec 2015, Pittsburg State University

Commencement, 1903-Present

Program of undergraduate and graduate commencement exercises at Pittsburg State University on December of 2015

Capstone Revival, Mary Mesele, Ruochen Lu, Quilin Jiang

School of Professional Studies

The capstone project is a culminating experience whereby students choose to research a topic that is relevant in their field of study and have been highly regarded as important learning activities. The capstone allows students to use research, analytical, problem solving and evaluation skills they have learned in the course of the graduate program. McGill indicates the benefit of the completion of a capstone project not only in gaining knowledge in capstone but also in learning how to apply the knowledge gained in other courses in the major (McGill, 2012). Currently, COPACE (College of Professional and Continuing Education) has three …

The Bacterial Colonization Of Commonly Used Dental Implant Occluding Materials., Brandon G. Katz

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Title: The Bacterial Colonization of Commonly Used Dental Implant Occluding Materials.  Purpose: To determine the bacterial communities inhabiting commonly used materials intended to block/occlude the screw access channel of dental implant crowns/restorations. To aid in the prevention of peri-implantitis, a material that harbors less pathogenic red and orange complex microbes would be potentially beneficial when microleakage is occurring. A superior material for the purpose of the occlusion of screw access channels in implant-supported prostheses is a material that may provide a surface to which bacteria may not colonize. The choice of an occluding material that is less favorable for bacterial …

Numerical Study Of Periodic Adiabatic Rapid Passage Sequences, He Zhang

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Laser cooling refers to the techniques that cool atomic and molecular samples down to near absolute zero through the interaction with laser fields. Atoms absorb a photon and the transferred momentum generates force to lower the atom's velocity. The Doppler shift is associated with the motion of the atom, in which a moving atom always observes a slightly different frequency than the laser at rest. Based on the two-level system theory, this thesis studied the process of multiple sequences of adiabatic rapid passage by simulating the process of the interaction between optical forces and helium atoms. By studying the force …

Denitrifying Bioreactors: A Solution To Groundwater Nitrate Pollution At The Forge River?, Christine Jean Gurdon

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Denitrifying bioreactors are an approach to remediate groundwater contaminated with nitrate. Their popularity as a remediation system has increased due to their unnecessary maintenance, low cost, and longevity. While field trials on their performance have been conducted, few have been completed in a marine coastal environment. In this study, a denitrification wall was designed to be installed and monitored along the shore of a coastal environment, namely, the Forge River, New York. Prior to the design phase, a groundwater plume of elevated nitrate-nitrite concentrations needed to be identified. Groundwater nitrate-nitrite concentrations ranged from 0.01-17.68 mg/L along Riviera Drive, a road …

Development Of Carbon Sequestration Options By Studying Carbon Dioxide-Methane Exchange In Hydrates, Kristine Nicole Horvat

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Gas hydrates form naturally at high pressures (>4 MPa) and low temperatures (<4 oC) when a set number of water molecules form a cage in which small gas molecules can be entrapped as guests. It is estimated that about 700,000 trillion cubic feet (tcf) of methane (CH4) exist naturally as hydrates in marine and permafrost environments, which is more than any other natural sources combined as CH4 hydrates contain about 14 wt% CH4. However, a vast amount of gas hydrates exist in marine environments, which makes gas extraction an environmental challenge, both for potential gas losses during extraction and the potential impact of CH4 extraction on seafloor stability. From the climate change point of view, a 100 ppm increase in atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) levels over the past century is of urgent concern. A potential solution to both of these issues is to simultaneously exchange CH4 with CO2 in natural hydrate reserves by forming more stable CO2 hydrates. This approach would minimize disturbances to the host sediment matrix of the seafloor while sequestering CO2. Understanding hydrate growth over time is imperative to prepare for large scale CH4 extraction coupled with CO2 sequestration. In this study, we performed macroscale experiments in a 200 mL high-pressure Jerguson cell that mimicked the pressure-temperature conditions of the seafloor. A total of 13 runs were performed under varying conditions. These included the formation of CH4 hydrates, followed by a CO2 gas injection and CO2 hydrate formation followed by a CH4 gas injection. Results demonstrated that once gas hydrates formed, they show “memory effect†in subsequent charges, irrespective of the two gases injected. This was borne out by the induction time data for hydrate formation that reduced from 96 hours for CH4 and 24 hours for CO2 to instant hydrate formation in both cases upon injection of a secondary gas. During the study of CH4-CO2 exchange where CH4 hydrates were first formed and CO2 gas was injected into the system, gas chromatographic (GC) analysis of the cell indicated a pure CH4 gas phase, i.e. | all injected CO2 gas entered the hydrate phase and remained trapped in hydrate cages for several hours, though over time some CO2 did enter the gas phase. Alternatively, during the CH4-CO2 exchange study where CO2 hydrates were first formed, the injected CH4 initially entered the hydrate phase, but quickly gaseous CO2 exchanged with CH4 in hydrates to form more stable CO2 hydrates. These results are consistent with the better thermodynamic stability of CO2 hydrates, and this appears to be a promising method to sequester CO2 in natural CH4 hydrate matrices. The macroscale study described above was complemented by a microscale study to visualize hydrate growth. This first-of-its-kind in-situ study utilized the x-ray computed microtomography (CMT) technique to visualize microscale CO2, CH4, and mixed CH4-CO2 hydrate growth phenomenon in salt solutions in the presence or absence of porous media. The data showed that under the experimental conditions used, pure CH4 formed CH4 hydrates as mostly spheres, while pure CO2 hydrates were more dendritic branches. Additionally, varying ratios of mixed CH4-CO2 hydrates were also formed that had needle-like growth. In porous media, CO2 hydrates grew, consistent with known growth models in which the solution was the sediment wetting phase. When glass beads and Ottawa sand were used as a host, the system exhibited pore-filling hydrate growth, while the presence of liquid CO2 and possible CO2 hydrates in Ottawa sand initially were pore-filling that over time transformed into a grain-displacing morphology. The data appears promising to develop a method that would supplant our energy supply by extracting CH4 from naturally occurring hydrates while CO2 is sequestered in the same formations. | 303 pages

Exploring The Role Of Interferons In Adenovirus Replication And Establishment Of Persistent Infection In Normal Human Cells, Yueting Zheng

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Adenoviruses (Ad) are ubiquitous pathogens that infect a wide range of vertebrates and have been recognized in recent years as significant pathogens in immunocompromised patients. Interferons (IFNs) are cytokines that have pleiotropic effects and play important roles in innate and adaptive immunity. IFNs have broad antiviral properties and function by different mechanisms. IFNs fail to inhibit wild-type Ad replication in established cancer cell lines. In this study, I analyzed the effects of IFNs on Ad replication in normal human cells. The results demonstrated that both IFNα and IFNγ blocked wild-type Ad5 replication in primary human bronchial epithelial cells (NHBEC) and …

¿Fronteras Móviles? El Desierto En Lucio Victorio. Mansilla, César Aira Y Dino Buzzati, Michele Giua

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

El propósito de este trabajo es analizar los cambiantes significados que adoptan las ideas de frontera y desierto (y también las relaciones entre ambas ideas), en tres textos: Una excursión a los indios ranqueles, (1870) de Lucio V. Mansilla, Ema, la cautiva, (1981) de César Aira, y finalmente Il deserto dei tartari, (1940) de Dino Buzzati. El análisis se concentrará en estos puntos principales: 1. La frontera como espacio y lugar 2. La frontera como un espacio a defender. 3. La frontera como expresión de poder. 4. La frontera como un espacio a conquistar. La manera de proceder no sigue …

Juan Josã© Saer Desde Juan Josã© Saer: Un Escritor Sin Orillas | Juan José Saer Desde Juan José Saer: Un Escritor Sin Orillas, Luis Alberto Garcia

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This dissertation analyzes the work of the writer Juan José Saer (Serodino, Argentina 1937-Paris, France 2005) by identifying the correlation between his essayistic and narrative work, and thus focusing on the convergence zone between these two fields. Saer's writings demonstrate a constant tension between the massive circulation and consumption of cultural products, including the genre of novel, and certain marginalized literature. Specifically, the thesis analyzes aspects that involve his conception of the theory of novel, the fiction as an anthropological speculation, the cultural industry, the role of mass media in literature, and the binomial concept of the reader and public, …

On Using Risk-Benefit Analysis To Assess And Manage Controversial Research, Daniel Rozell

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Science research in the twenty-first century increasingly results in powerful and rapidly disseminated technologies that raise concerns over technological risk and public safety. A common recommendation for assessing and managing controversial research is to perform a quantitative risk-benefit analysis (RBA) in order to help determine an appropriate course of action. However, these recommendations lack guidelines on how to perform such an assessment. This dissertation lays out a detailed argument why a quantitative RBA should not be used as a basis for making complex policy decisions. Rather, RBA should be regarded as a tool for exploring the impacts of technology on …

The Roles Of Sox2 And Canonical Wnt Signaling Pathway In Fate Specification Of Tailbud Bipotential Stem Cells, Yu-Jung Tseng

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

During vertebrate development, formation of the head -to-tail body axis is shaped by a group of unspecified cells at the caudal region of the embryo. The undifferentiated tail bud stem cells are capable of adopting mesodermal or neural cell fates as the embryo develops, but the mechanism of this patterning process remains largely unknown. Our previous studies confirm that Wnt signaling is required in tail bud stem cells to repress the neural transcription factor sox2 and induce mesodermal fate. However, it is unclear if sox2 repression at the cell-autonomous level is the critical factor required for Wnt mediated mesoderm induction. …

Bmp-2 Gene Delivery Using Electrospun Collagen/Plla Scaffold With Surface Adsorbed Transfection Complexes For Bone Formation, Xia Zhao

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Bone tissue engineering provides an alternative to bone grafting. Our laboratory previously developed two different types of electrospun scaffolds for bone tissue engineering, including a DNA containing PLGA/PELA scaffold for delivering genes and a collagen/PLLA scaffold for delivering cells. For this dissertation research, we firstly fabricated a DNA containing PLGA/PELA electrospun scaffold using the same method as previously developed, with the intent of delivering osteogenic growth factor genes for bone regeneration. However, the scaffold shrunk severely after being submerged into aqueous environment and failed to achieve high transfection efficiency in vitro. Subsequently, we used the collagen/PLLA scaffold (originally developed for …

Scalable End-To-End Data I/O Over Enterprise And Data-Center Networks, Yufei Ren

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Data-intensive applications in commercial cloud and scientific computing demand ultra-high-speed end-to-end data access capability between data storage and computing locations. Meanwhile, advancements in hardware systems continuously change the landscape of data centers’ core capabilities, i.e. | computing, networking, and storage. The two trends expose new research and development challenges and opportunities to bring the bare-metal capacity and performance of state-of-the-art hardware to the rising needs for high performance by applications. Simply deploying and tuning existing software and services on state-of-the-art platforms does not necessarily ensure expected performance due to the overhead on data-copy in OS kernel functions and conservative network …

The Power Of Advocacy In Bridging The Ideological Divide: The Campaign For Human Rights And Corporate Responsibility In The Cocoa Industry 2001-2014, Robin Ann Deluca-Acconi

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

A cornerstone of social work’s mission is to advocate for practices that create social justice. This study encourages social workers to broaden their advocacy efforts into the global arena and educate them about Transnational Advocacy Networks (TANs) that are fighting for equitable globalization policies. This longitudinal case study (2001-2014) explores the public debate surrounding human rights abuses in the cocoa industry. Qualitative framing analysis is employed to explore the stakeholders’ discourse surrounding both the causes of and solutions to the Worst Forms of Child Labor (WFCL). This study analyzes press releases from human rights activists, the cocoa industry, and the …

Contention And Control: Violent Protest Policing In Democratic Argentina, Fernanda R. Page Poma

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Beginning in 1990s, Latin American countries have witnessed a dramatic emergence in collective action by unemployed and informal workers. Yet, the rise in mobilizations was coupled with a depiction of protests as violent and dangerous by authorities and the media and was followed by high levels of police violence, control, and imprisonment of protesters. Furthermore, according to human rights groups, police were more violent and repressive at protest by marginal groups. Drawing on an original database of newspaper reports on contentious collective action events from 1997 to 2007 and qualitative data, this research looks at the case of Argentina to …

Huntsman Alumni Magazine, Fall 2015, Usu Jon M. Huntsman School Of Business

Huntsman Business Magazine

Alumni magazine for the Jon M. Huntsman School of Business at Utah State University.

Hunting And The Second Amendment, Joseph Blocher

Notre Dame Law Review

Debates about the meaning and scope of the Second Amendment have traditionally focused on whether it protects the keeping and bearing of arms for self-defense, prevention of tyranny, maintenance of the militia, or some combination of those three things. But roughly half of American gun-owners identify hunting or sport shooting as their primary reason for owning a gun. And while much public rhetoric suggests that these activities fall within the scope of the Second Amendment, some of the most committed gun-rights advocates insist that the Amendment “ain’t about hunting” and that, no matter their heritage and value, such activities are …

Rehabilitation And Cancer Survivorship, Matthew Denning, Samantha Fisk, Alyssa Grigware, Mary Leopold, Erika Lopez, Margaret Masiak, Sebastian Stoltzfus, Ashley Tomaswick

Disease Prevention and Health Promotion Resources

Presentation given at Central Maine Medical Center on December 4, 2015, to build awareness of the role of rehabilitation services in cancer survivor management and discuss strategies to address existing needs. This presentation was based on a project undertaken to determine which physical distress screening tools are most appropriate to trigger a wellness or rehabilitation referral when it is warranted for a survivor. The use of effective screening tools will assist in directing cancer survivors, who experience physical and emotional burdens caused by the disease and subsequent treatment, to access services that will continue to improve their overall quality of …

Contrast Nephropathy, Elizabeth Messer

Kidneycentric

No abstract provided.

Wind Power Growing Pains, K.K. Duvivier

Sturm College of Law: Faculty Scholarship

The United States loves wind power. Since 2004 alone, U.S. wind capacity has multiplied almost ten times — from about 6.7 gigawatts in 2004 to over 65.9 gigawatts by 2014. This growth in generation potential has been accompanied by a growth in the size of the turbines that deliver that power — from approximately 56 feet in the 1980s to over 300 feet in 2015. As the turbines and meterological or met towers push up into non-surface atmospheric weather layers and navigable airspace over 200 feet, new wake efficiency and competing legal concerns arise.

Présence Francophone, Numéro 85 (2015)

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

No abstract provided.

La Première Couche D’Encre, Abdourahman Waberi

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The author reexamines his engagement with the Rwandan genocide.

Une Poétique De La Mémoire : Lire Matière Grise, Le Film Du Réalisateur Rwandais Kivu Ruhorahoza (2011), Frieda Ekotto

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

The film Grey Matter [Matière grise] (2011) directed by a Rwandan filmmaker Kivu Ruhorahoza, is an attempt to offer psychoanalytic approaches to understanding a 1994 Rwandan genocide within the psychic and the social. This director is interested in representing the impossible, instead, he offers a poetic representation of trauma. It may be just like a dream in his psychic, wondering whether this event really happened and how to make sense of as time settles ? This noiseless film is the first feature length narrative film directed by a Rwandan who gives the world the visual interpretation of the impact of …

La Bande Dessinée À L’Épreuve Du Génocide Au Rwanda : État Des Lieux Critique D’Un Mode D’Expression Original, Markus Arnold, Karel Plaiche

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

20 years after the genocide of the Tutsis, one observes within the artistic production dealing with these traumatic events the presence of several comics (or bande dessinée). Yet is this specific mode of expression which often remains associated with lightness, humour and caricature capable to address in a credible fashion such delicate topics as pain, cruelty and death ? How do comics “translate” this 1994 tragedy for the purpose of critically raising awareness and providing memorial accounts while respecting the reader’s sensitivity ? Is there an “appropriate” depiction and where is the frontier between sensational, reliable and emotionally convincing portrayal …

Le Devoir De Mémoire Ou Une Identité Ravalée Dans Cicatrices D’Alain Kamal Martial, Katharine Hargrave

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article examines the construction of identity in Alain Kamal Martial’s novel, Cicatrices. Conceived during a rape committed by a group of militiamen, the narrator struggles against a sense of obligation to avenge his mother’s assault, as well as a need to liberate himself from this event. However, under the onus of being a proxy witness, he realizes that he cannot forget his duty of memory because he embodies the inherited trauma of past generations. The crude and powerful immediacy of this text forces the reader to reflect upon his or her own role in the remembrance of past injustices.

Libération Sexuelle Ou Aliénation Textuelle : La Subalterne Peut-Elle Parler De Son Corps ?, Carla Calargé, Alexandra Gueydan-Turek

Présence Francophone: Revue internationale de langue et de littérature

This article analyzes two erotic works : L’amande and La traversée des sens. It aims to look at whether the sexual liberation of the female protagonists succeeds in defining a subversive discourse which allows Arab women to escape binary representations made of them or whether, on the contrary the author reproduces such representations. After a quick overview of the difficult situation in which Arab feminists often find themselves both the East and the West, this study examines if Nedjma’s two novels adopt a feminist posture or if they fail to reach the objectives that critics have attributed to them.

Vision, Winter 2015 (2)

Vision

A newsletter published for Deaf Catholics in USA

VisionFinding Aid

Providing Integrated Peer-Support Assistance To Landmine Survivors, Amir Mujanovic

The Journal of Conventional Weapons Destruction

Landmine Survivors Initiatives implemented a three-pronged, peer-support assistance system to meet landmine survivors’ needs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. This practice is the combination of an approach and methodology to provide integrated assistance to landmine survivors.

Eeg-Controlling Robotic Car And Alphabetic Display By Support Vector Machine For Aiding Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis Patients, Quang M. Le

Electrical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis presents the design and experiment of a system that can detect the human thinking such as driving directions and letters using the brainwave signals known as electroencephalogram (EEG) and a machine learning algorithm called support vector machine (SVM). This research is motivated by amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) disease which makes patients seriously lose mobility and speaking capabilities. The developed system in this thesis has three main steps. First, wearing EPOC headset from Emotiv Company, a user can record the EEG signals when he/she is thinking a direction or a letter, and also save the data in a personal …

Umphlett Qci 2015, Natalie A. Umphlett

High Plains Regional Climate Center: Staff Publications

Highlights for the Basin

Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies

Late Hard Freeze

Late Freezes Extended Growing Season

Warm Fall Delays Bird Migrations

Monitoring Water Resources Across the Basin

3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks