Digital Commons Network^™

Phytotoxicity Of Silver Species To Egeria Densa And Applications To Phytoremediation, Leonard James Bernas

Theses and Dissertations

Silver species pose a significant threat to aquatic ecosystems because the use of silver nanoparticles (AgNps) for industrial applications is significantly increasing, as are discharges into waterways. The effects have only been studied on select fish and aquatic plants, so more research is needed to understand the risks associated with silver species in the environment. Egeria densa (E. densa, also known as Elodea densa), a common freshwater submerged macrophyte, was exposed to 0-1.25 ppm silver cations and 2 and 15 nm AgNps in an aqueous environment for 7 days. E. densa was chosen for this study because it is a …

The Future Of Web Citation Practices, Robin Camille Davis

Publications and Research

Citing webpages has been a common practice in scholarly publications for nearly two decades as the Web evolved into a major information source. But over the years, more and more bibliographies have suffered from “reference rot”: cited URLs are broken links or point to a page that no longer contains the content the author originally cited. In this column, I look at several studies showing how reference rot has affected different academic disciplines. I also examine citation styles’ approach to citing web sources. I then turn to emerging web citation practices: Perma, a “freemium” web archiving service specifically for citation; …

Fleeing To Fault Zones: Incorporating Syrian Refugees Into Earthquake Risk Analysis Along The East Anatolian And Dead Sea Rift Fault Zones, Bradley Wilson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The influx of millions of Syrian refugees into Turkey has rapidly changed the population distribution along the Dead Sea Rift and East Anatolian Fault zones. In contrast to other countries in the Middle East where refugees are accommodated in camp environments, the majority of displaced individuals in Turkey are integrated into local cities, towns, and villages—placing stress on urban settings and increasing potential exposure to strong earthquake shaking. Yet, displaced populations are not traditionally captured in data sources used in earthquake risk analysis or loss estimations. Accordingly, this study presents a district-level analysis assessing the spatial overlap of earthquake hazards …

A Bifunctional Nanocomposites Based Electrochemical Biosensor For In-Field Detection Of Pathogenic Bacteria In Food, Meng Xu

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research focused on the application of electrochemical biosensors for the rapid detection of pathogenic bacteria, Escherichia coli O157:H7 and Salmonella Typhimurium, in foods. The possible presence of pathogenic bacteria in foods has always been a great threat to the wellbeing of people and the revenue of food companies. Therefore, the demand for rapid and sensitive methods to detect foodborne pathogens is growing. In this research, an impedimetric immunosensor was first developed for the rapid detection of E. coli O157:H7 and S. Typhimurium in foods. It was based on the techniques of immunomagnetic separation, enzyme labelling, and electrochemical impedance spectroscopy …

Effects Of Mars Regolith Analogs, Uvc Radiation, Temperature, Pressure, And Ph On The Growth And Survivability Of Methanogenic Archaea And Stable Carbon Isotope Fractionation: Implications For Surface And Subsurface Life On Mars, Navita Sinha

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mars is one of the suitable bodies in our solar system that can accommodate extraterrestrial life. The detection of plumes of methane in the Martian atmosphere, geochemical evidence, indication of flow of intermittent liquid water on the Martian surface, and geomorphologies of Mars have bolstered the plausibility of finding extant or evidence of extinct life on its surface and/or subsurface. However, contemporary Mars has been considered as an inhospitable planet for several reasons, such as low atmospheric surface pressure, low surface temperature, and intense DNA damaging radiation. Despite the hostile conditions of Mars, a few strains of methanogenic archaea have …

A Content Analysis Of Advertising On Children’S Television Networks, Demarius Davis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This content analysis study on licensed characters in advertising collected data in summer 2015 from three children’s cable networks: Cartoon Network, Disney Channel and Nickelodeon. Using Social cognitive theory and based on past research (Barcus, 1975; Atkin, 1976; Calcott & Lee, 1994; Stitt & Kunkel, 2008; LoDolce et al., 2013; Castonguay et al., 2013), the study examined whether the use of licensed characters and emotional appeals varied in advertising for healthy or unhealthy foods, mass media genre and the character’s gender. The study found licensed characters are more likely to be used to promote unhealthy foods, originate from movies and …

The Effects Of Using Cinnamon Leaf And Bark Essential Oils On Listeria Monocytogenes (L.M.), Salmonella Typhimurium (S.T.), In Model System, Strawberry Shake And Fresh Celery, And Sensory & Shelf Life Studies, Wafaa Brnawi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Essential oils derived from the bark and leaves of the cinnamon plant have long been used as natural preservatives and flavoring agents in different types of foods. In this study, we evaluated the antimicrobial effects of cinnamon essential oils (CEOs), obtained from cinnamon leaf or bark, against two foodborne pathogens i.e., Salmonella Typhimurium (S.T.) and Listeria monocytogenes (L.m.). Two different concentrations of microbial loading were used i.e.,109 and 104, cultured in nutrient media broth, strawberry shakes, and on celery sticks. Both CEOs of leaf and bark at 0.5% and 1% were found to completely inhibit S.T. and L.m., immediately after …

Scaffold And Tissue Based Therapies To Improve Skeletal Muscle Regeneration After Volumetric Muscle Loss, Benjamin Kasukonis

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Volumetric muscle loss (VML) is an injury to skeletal muscle characterized by a loss of more than 20% of a muscles volume. The combination of the bulk loss of tissue, transection and separation of myofibers proximal and distal to the injury, loss of innervation and blood supply, and the depletion of muscle progenitor cells results in permanent fibrosis and functional deficits due to loss of contractile tissue. Scaffolds, cells, and engineered constructs have been explored as potential therapeutic interventions to induce myogenesis at the site of a VML injury in animal models, in addition to limited clinical trials. This dissertation …

Query Theory Applications: Choice Experiments Under Oath, Attendance To Attributes, And Genetically Modified Food Labeling Policy, Nathan Paul Kemper

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, there has been an intensifying campaign by some stakeholders regarding concern over genetically modified (GM) foods in the U.S. As a result, the issue of labeling has entered into the federal agenda. This research uses Query Theory to provide a deeper understanding of the demand for GM foods and the preferences for GM policy. Query theory is first applied to the formation of hypothetical bias in the estimation of consumers’ willingness-to-pay. To address this, the honesty oath is used as an ex-ante technique to reduce hypothetical bias.

Paper one using Query Theory in a discrete-choice experiment (DCE) …

Immunotherapeutic Strategies To Reverse Tumor Associated Immunosuppression In Breast Cancer, Sruthi Ravindranathan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Heterogenous cancers such as breast carcinoma, would highly benefit from personalized vaccine approaches such as autologous tumor cell vaccines (ATCVs). By using cancer cells that are isolated from self, this approach has the potential to generate a polyclonal immune response against tumor antigens, that are specific to the individual. However, so far, ATCVs against breast cancers have not had any clinical success due to the poor immunogenicity of the malignant cells.

In this study, for the first time, we determined tumor derived G-CSF to play a major role in affecting immune response against breast cancer ATCVs. By using CRISPR/Cas9 genome …

A Portable And Automatic Biosensing Instrument For Detection Of Foodborne Pathogenic Bacteria In Food Samples, Zhuo Zhao

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Foodborne diseases are a growing public health problem. In recent years, many rapid detection methods have been reported, but most of them are still in lab research and not practical for use in the field. In this study, a portable and automatic biosensing instrument was designed and constructed for separation and detection of target pathogens in food samples using nanobead-based magnetic separation and quantum dots (QDs)-labeled fluorescence measurement. The instrument consisted of a laptop with LabVIEW software, a data acquisition card (DAQ), a fluorescent detector, micro-pumps, stepper motors, and 3D printed tube holders. First, a sample in a syringe was …

Measuring Nonlinear Properties Of Graphene Thin Films Using Z-Scan Technique, Thekrayat Hassan Al Abdulaal

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The nonlinear studies of two-dimensional (2D) nanomaterials, specifically graphene, are very significant since graphene is finding its usefulness in handling the enormous heat in nanoscale high-density power electronics. Graphene has emerged to be a promising nanomaterial as an excellent heat spreader due to its high thermal conductivity. However, the experimental nonlinear study of graphene materials and their application in developing future optoelectronic devices demands for more developed research.

The research objective is first to build a precise, and sensitive technique to investigate and understand the thermal nonlinear properties, including nonlinear refractive index (n2), nonlinear absorption coefficient (β), and thermo-optic coefficient …

Ecological Approaches To Modernism, The U.S. South, And 20th Century American Literature, Justin Ford Tinsley

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This project seeks to draw from the insights of the emerging scholarly discipline known as ecocritism, study of the relationship between human and nonhuman in all arts and in all diverse forms, and apply them to the study of a specific regional art, that of the U.S. South. As an interrogation of the human / nonhuman binary, ecocriticism is intrinsically intertwined with the concept of place. Southern studies—having long explored the diversity (in terms of both human experience and geographical terrain) characterizing the region—offers ecocriticism a ripe testing ground for theoretical mergers and analytic applications. Both fields celebrate hybridity, multiplicity, …

Bioorthogonal Reactions: Synthesis And Evaluation Of Different Ligands In Copper Catalyzed Azide-Alkyne1,3-Dipolar Cycloaddition (Cuaac), Zainab Abdullah Almansaf

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Copper CatalyzedAzide-Alkyne1,3-Dipolar Cycloaddition (CuAAC) reaction has unique features that qualify it to be one of the best click reactions. Its applications have been shown in different aspects and for multiple purposes. The oxidative degradation of biological systems (labile proteins and live cells) is, however, generally recognized as the major problem when using this reaction in living systems. Reactive oxidation species can be easily produced in the presence of copper(II), ascorbate and air, and this is the main cause of toxicity. However, the uses of ligands have shown a major impact on reducing copper toxicity, protecting Cu(I) from the redox …

Extracellular Matrix Remodeling And The Inflammatory Response During Skeletal Muscle Regeneration In Sarcopenic Obese Mice, Lemuel Arthur Brown

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

AIM: Sarocpenic obesity is a national concern within the United States because this metabolic syndrome is tied with reduced mobility and quality of life. Both obesity and aging are associated with insulin-resistance, chronic low-grade inflammation and muscle weakness. Skeletal muscle regeneration is a process that involves the coordinated effort of myogenic regulatory factors (MRFs), inflammatory signaling, and extracellular matrix (ECM) remodeling for optimal regeneration. It has been demonstrated that obesity and aging have a reduction in muscle regeneration. It has not been examined if sarcopenic obesity will further reduce muscle mass and the regenerative process. The purpose of this study …

Effects Of Fermentation By Yeast And Amylolytic Lactic Acid Bacteria On Grain Sorghum Protein Content And Digestibility, Christina Day

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Grain sorghum is an underutilized crop despite many advantages to its cultivation. A drought-tolerant plant with many pest-resistant cultivars, its applications are limited by problems with nutrient availability, particularly protein digestibility. Digestibility of grain sorghum protein is reduced by antinutritional compounds in the grain like tannins and phytates, and by moist-heat cooking. Some of these concerns can be mitigated by how the grain is processed. Fermentation is one processing method that can improve digestibility. Fermentation can also concentrate protein in a substrate. In this experiment, grain sorghum was subjected to different treatments and used as a substrate for yeast fermentation. …

Perceptions Of Division I Athletic Director Career Paths, Eric A. Wood

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is increased information about the profile of current collegiate athletic directors as it relates to education, age, race, and gender. However, there is a gap in the knowledge of the career paths of the modern day Division I collegiate athletic director position compared to the athletic directors studied over 20 years ago. There is also a gap in the knowledge of the skills necessary to be an effective athletic director from the perspective of Division I athletic directors. The purpose of this study was to use the Perceptions of Division I Athletic Director Career Paths (PADCP) scale to determine …

Cover Crop Establishment And Potential Benefits To Arkansas Farmers, Ashley Elizabeth Humphreys

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Soybean farmers in Arkansas need best management practices (BMPs) that maximize the benefits of using cover crops including planting date and fertilization recommendations. An evaluation of cover crop species, planting dates, seeding rates, fertilizer rates, and N accumulation aids in providing these BMPs. The first objective of this research is to assess the effect of planting date on biomass production, as well as looking at the interaction of seeding rate or fertilizer rate for legumes or non-legumes, respectively, using Austrian winter pea (Pisum sativum), cereal rye (Secale cereale), black oats (Avena strigosa), wheat (Triticum aestivum), and tillage radish (Raphanus sativus). …

A Christmas Carol (December 1-3, 2016), Charles Dickens

Student Theatre Programs

Program for A Christmas Carol.

To view the photos from this production of A Christmas Carol, please click here.

Meta-Emotions In Daily Life: Associations With Emotional Awareness And Depression, Natasha Haradhvala

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Meta-emotions are emotions that occur in response to other emotions (e.g., guilt about anger). Although preliminary evidence indicates that depression is associated with a greater likelihood of meta-emotions, much remains unknown about meta-emotions, including how regularly they are experienced and whether emotional awareness constructs (including attention to and clarity of emotion) influence their occurrence. In the present study, we aim to establish norms for meta-emotions in everyday life, determine whether increased emotional awareness is associated with a greater likelihood of meta-emotions, and examine whether negative emotions about negative emotions (negative-negative meta-emotional experiences) are associated with depressive severity. We recruited an …

The Uses Of Religious Identity, Practice, And Dogma In 'Soft' And 'Hard' Counterterrorism, Aziz Huq

Public Law and Legal Theory Working Papers

No abstract provided.

Rapamycin Increases Length And Mechanosensory Function Of Primary Cilia In Renal Eptihelial And Vascular Endothelial Cells, Rinzhin T. Sherpa, Kimberly F. Atkinson, Viviana P. Ferreira, Surya M. Nauli

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Primary cilia arebiophysically-sensitive organelles responsible for sensing fluid-flow and transducing this stimulus into intracellular responses. Previous studies have shown that the primary cilia mediate flow-induced calcium influx, and sensitivity of cilia function to flow is correlated to cilia length. Cells with abnormal cilia length or function can lead to a host of diseases that are collectively termed as ciliopathies. Rapamycin, a potent inhibitor of mTOR (mammalian target of rapamycin), has been demonstrated to be a potential pharmacological agent against the aberrant mTOR signaling seen in ciliopathies such as polycystic kidney disease (PKD) and tuberous sclerosis complex (TSC). Here we look …

Carriers For The Tunable Release Of Therapeutics: Etymological Classification And Examples, Vuk Uskoković, Shreya Ghosh

Pharmacy Faculty Articles and Research

Introduction—Physiological processes at the molecular level take place at precise spatiotemporal scales, which vary from tissue to tissue and from one patient to another, implying the need for the carriers that enable tunable release of therapeutics.

Areas Covered—Classification of all drug release to intrinsic and extrinsic is proposed, followed by the etymological clarification of the term “tunable” and its distinction from the term “tailorable”. Tunability is defined as analogous to tuning a guitar string or a radio receiver to the right frequency using a single knob. It implies changing a structural parameter along a continuous quantitative scale and …

Photoluminescence Studies Of Amorphous Boron Carbide And Tungsten Diselenide Thin Films, David M. Allendorfer

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

For many years scientists and engineers have been researching semi-conducting materials for use in a broad array of electronic devices. With the growing demand for faster, smaller and more efficient electronics, new materials must be characterized and their properties quantified. The focus of this thesis is to develop a system to measure photoluminescence in opto-electronic materials. Photoluminescence measurements are important because it can give researchers valuable information about a material’s band structure. This thesis begins by presenting the carrier recombination mechanisms and how they apply to photoluminescence. A system was developed to measure photoluminescence spectroscopy. This system was tested with …

Validating Social Media Data For Automatic Persona Generation, Jisun An, Haewoon Kwak, Bernard J Jansen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Using personas during interactive design has considerable potential for product and content development. Unfortunately, personas have typically been a fairly static technique. In this research, we validate an approach for creating personas in real time, based on analysis of actual social media data in an effort to automate the generation of personas. We validate that social media data can be implemented as an approach for automating generating personas in real time using actual YouTube social media data from a global media corporation that produces online digital content. Using the organization's YouTube channel, we collect demographic data, customer interactions, and topical …

‘Tweetboard’ – A Case Study Of Developing A Micro-Blogging Platform For Higher Education, Shao Cheh Joyce Hsu, Gan, Benjamin, Jin Lee, Shu Hui Sheryl Lim, Xie Yan Jeremy Lim, Thomas Menkhoff, Si Xian Sherman Tan, Charles Jason Woodard, Qiu Cheng Yap

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper reports experiences made at an Asian university in developing a social media platform based on Twitter in the context of a final year capstone project where information systems management students get an opportunity to solve ‘a real-world problem for a real client’. In this case study, the challenge was provided by a faculty member’s request for an interactive social media application which engages less outspoken students in class via a social medium they are familiar with: Twitter. We reconstruct the project’s evolution; describe the main features of the application called ‘TweetBoard’ and share lessons learned in developing a …

Efficient Online Summarization Of Large-Scale Dynamic Networks, Qiang Qu, Siyuan Liu, Feida Zhu, Christian S. Jensen

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Information diffusion in social networks is often characterized by huge participating communities and viral cascades of high dynamicity. To observe, summarize, and understand the evolution of dynamic diffusion processes in an informative and insightful way is a challenge of high practical value. However, few existing studies aim to summarize networks for interesting dynamic patterns. Dynamic networks raise new challenges not found in static settings, including time sensitivity, online interestingness evaluation, and summary traceability, which render existing techniques inadequate. We propose dynamic network summarization to summarize dynamic networks with millions of nodes by only capturing the few most interesting nodes or …

Careermapper: An Automated Resume Evaluation Tool, Vivian Lai, Kyong Jin Shim, Richard J. Oentaryo, Philips K. Prasetyo, Casey Vu, Ee-Peng Lim, David Lo

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The advent of the Web brought about major changes in the way people search for jobs and companies look for suitable candidates. As more employers and recruitment firms turn to the Web for job candidate search, an increasing number of people turn to the Web for uploading and creating their online resumes. Resumes are often the first source of information about candidates and also the first item of evaluation in candidate selection. Thus, it is imperative that resumes are complete, free of errors and well-organized. We present an automated resume evaluation tool called 'CareerMapper'. Our tool is designed to conduct …

Domain Identification For Intention Posts On Online Social Media, Thai Le Luong, Quoc Tuan Truong, Hai-Trieu Dang, Xuan Hieu Phan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Today, more and more Internet users are willing to share their feeling, activities, and even their intention about what they plan to do on online social media. We can easily see posts like "I plan to buy an apartment this year", or "We are looking for a tour for 3 people to Nha Trang" on online forums or social networks. Recognizing those user intents on online social media is really useful for targeted advertising. However fully understanding user intents is a complicated and challenging process which includes three major stages: user intent filtering, intent domain identification, and intent parsing and …

Attacking Android Smartphone Systems Without Permissions, Mon Kywe Su, Yingjiu Li, Kunal Petal, Michael Grace

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Android requires third-party applications to request for permissions when they access critical mobile resources, such as users' personal information and system operations. In this paper, we present the attacks that can be launched without permissions. We first perform call graph analysis, component analysis and data-flow analysis on various parts of Android framework to retrieve unprotected APIs. Unprotected APIs provide a way of accessing resources without any permissions. We then exploit selected unprotected APIs and launch a number of attacks on Android phones. We discover that without requesting for any permissions, an attacker can access to device ID, phone service state, …