Digital Commons Network^™

Effects Of Rumen-Protected Methionine, Choline And Betaine On Dairy Cattle Health And Performance, Yu Zang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Dairy cows experience extensive lipid mobilization in adipose tissue during the transition from gestation to lactation. A high amount of circulating non-esterified fatty acid (NEFA) results in fatty liver that is associated with reduced milk production (Duffield et al., 2009), metabolic diseases (Hammon et al., 2006), and decreased reproductive performance (Walsh et al., 2007). The function of VLDL is to export TAG from liver. Previous work suggested that micronutrients supplemented may elevated VLDL export. Choline has been shown to increase milk production and milk fat yield (Erdman et al., 1991) and decrease triacylglycerol (TAG) in the liver (Pomfret et al., …

Using A Duration-Based Schedule Performance Index To Monitor The Performance Of Projects Including Estimating The Final Cost, Nooshin Yousefi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

One of the main concerns of project managers is monitoring the schedule performance of construction projects. A project manager needs tools to not only understand the status of project schedule performance, but also to find the causes of delays and the corresponding corrective actions. Hence, discovering time deviations from the project plan provides more reliable project schedule control. Applying statistical quality control charts on the project schedule performance index is suggested in this study. The use of quality control charts in this research monitors the process plan and provides first alarms for applying changes by detecting the time deviations over …

Site Characteristics Associated With Conventional And Unconventional Petroleum Development In West Virginia, Frederick Christian Zinkhan Jr.

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Little research has been done on the characteristics of surface disturbance between conventional (C) and unconventional (UC) wells in West Virginia. To understand the impacts of petroleum development in West Virginia, a total of 296 conventional wells and 206 unconventional wells were digitized for the purposes of this study. Using a combination of spatial and resource-related data, the total land area impacted, forest fragmentation characteristics, and forest resource impacts were investigated between conventional and unconventional wells. A metric was developed to understand natural gas production per land area disturbed for both conventional and unconventional wells. The absolute magnitude of the …

Dominant Controls On Organic-Rich Shale Deposition: Geochemical Evidences From The Marcellus Shale In The Appalachian Basin, Ruiqian Chen

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

This dissertation presents new results of the linkages between primary productivity, bottom water redox conditions and clastic input associated with the Acadian orogeny of the Marcellus Shale.;Chapter 1 compares the isotopic and geochemical characteristics of sediments of a liquids-prone well (WV-7) in Wetzel County with a gas-prone well (WV-6) in Monongalia County, northern West Virginia. The difference in organic carbon isotopes indicates that the dominant organic matter preserved in each core is different: delta13Corg values are lighter on average in WV-6 compared with WV-7. A possible explanation is that a larger fraction of terrestrial organic matter was preserved in the …

Developing High Performance And Stable Hetero-Structured Cathodes And Fundamental Understanding Of Oxygen Reduction And Reaction Behavior, Xinxin Zhang

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

New hetero-structured La2NiO4+delta (LNO)/ (La0.6Sr0.4)0.95Co0.2Fe0.8O3-delta (LSCF) SOFC cathodes have been successfully fabricated by the infiltration technique for long-term stability and oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) kinetic consideration. The current comparative study of LSCF and LNO-infiltrated LSCF shows a significant reduction in polarization resistance by one order of magnitude and a 67% increase in maximum power density by using LNO-infiltrated LSCF cathodes at 750°C in air. The electronic conductivity relaxation (ECR) results demonstrate that the remarkable improved oxygen exchange properties of LNO/LSCF hetero-structured cathodes are attributed to not only the increase of surface reaction area, but also the introduction of LNO surface …

Bound Together: Slavery And Democracy In Antebellum Northwestern Virginia, 1815--1865, Adam Zucconi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Since West Virginia's founding in 1863, historians have attempted to understand the forces that shaped the state's creation. Most historians have argued that the Mountain State's admission into the Union represented a grassroots rebellion among democratically-minded mountaineers who had long resisted the rule of eastern slaveholding aristocrats. The tumultuous events triggered by secession and civil war provided the opportunity for westerners to inaugurate their long desired wishes to free themselves from their allegedly tyrannical brethren and abolish the institution that many residents blamed for their woes: chattel slavery.;West Virginia's founding proved more contingent and complex than previously argued. During the …

Effects Of Executive Functioning On False Memory In Children, Pamela Swift Tessier

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Misremembering is a common phenomenon in normal human development that has great potential to become problematic, especially in legal situations. The Deese/Roediger--McDermott (DRM; Deese, 1959; Roediger & McDermott, 1995) model has been commonly used in the literature to uncover mechanisms for why these false memories may occur. Children have only recently begun to be investigated using this paradigm. Some related mechanisms in children for false recollection that have yet to be investigated are child executive functioning and socioeconomic status. In the current study, executive functioning was investigated as a potential mechanism for false recollections using a DRM paradigm. Children completed …

Investigation Of Relationships Among Consumer Perceptions And Brand Preference In Photoshopped And Non-Photoshopped Fashion Advertisements, Kristina A. Smith

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The use of digital alteration software on fashion models in advertising photographs has been used to promote an ideal standard of beauty for women. In an attempt to differentiate the thin ideal, fashion brand Aerie has vowed to not use digital alteration software to alter the physical characteristics of the models in their advertisements, while other companies such as Victoria's Secret continues to utilize digital alteration techniques on their advertisements. This research examined consumer brand preference using Photoshopped Victoria's Secret and non-Photoshopped Aerie fashion advertisements found from an online source. The purpose of this study was to examine college aged …

Using Tree-Ring Data To Analyze The Effects Of Volcanic Eruptions On Climate In Inner Asia From 500 Bce To Present, Jennie Zhu

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Volcanic eruptions have influenced regional and global climate on annual, interannual, decadal, and multi-decadal time scales. However, past studies have largely focused on the response of global temperature to modern eruptions with the aid of satellite records. This approach limits the number of eruptions that can be studied and restricts our knowledge to relatively small events when compared to the volcanic history of the late Holocene. I used modern climate records to evaluate the effect of recent eruptions on Mongolian climate. I then extended my analysis to the last 2500 years by examining existing and new tree-ring data from Mongolia …

Determining The Angle Of Impact From The Analysis Of Bullets Following Perforation With Glass, Roger L. Jeffreys Ii

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

When two objects come into contact with one another, there is a potential for the transfer of material between those objects. The goal of this research was to develop statistical models to aid investigators in the reconstruction of a shooting incident. Specifically, the determination of the direction of fire from the angle of impact of the bullet was addressed by assessing the deformation of the bullet and the transfer of glass onto the bullet. Transfer of material to bullets is an underexploited area of trace evidence. Current research has mainly been observational and no attempt has been made to provide …

If Corporations Are People, Why Can’T They Play Tag?, Cody Jacobs

Faculty Scholarship

The Supreme Court’s decision in Burnham v. Superior Court — despite producing a splintered vote with no opinion garnering a majority of the Court — made one thing clear: an individual defendant can be subject to personal jurisdiction simply by being served with process while he or she happens to be in a forum regardless of whether the defendant has any contacts with that forum. This method of acquiring personal jurisdiction is called transient or “tag” jurisdiction. Tag jurisdiction is older than minimum contacts jurisdiction, and used to be the primary method for determining whether an out of state defendant …

A Study On Immigrant Activism, Secure Communities, And Rawlsian Civil Disobedience, Karen Pita Loor

Faculty Scholarship

This Article explores the immigrant acts of protest during the Obama presidency in opposition to the Secure Communities (SCOMM) immigration enforcement program through the lens of philosopher John Rawls’ theory of civil disobedience and posits that this immigrant resistance contributed to that administration’s dismantling the federal program by progressively moving localities, and eventually whole states, to cease cooperation with SCOMM. The controversial SCOMM program is one of the most powerful tools of immigration enforcement in the new millennium because it transforms any contact with state and local law enforcement into a potential immigration investigation. SCOMM has now been revived through …

Instrumental And Transformative Medical Technologies, Nicole Huberfeld

Faculty Scholarship

This Article considers how medical technologies impact universality in health care. The universality principle, as embodied in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (A CA), eliminated widespread discriminatory practices and provided financial assistance to those otherwise unable to become insured a democratizing federal act that was intended to stabilize health care policy nationwide. This Article posits that medical technology, as with all of medicine, can be universalizing or exclusionary and that this status roughly correlates to its being "instrumental technology" or "transformative technology." Instrumental technology acts as a tool of medicine and often serves an existing aspect of health …

Fairer Uses, Jessica Silbey

Faculty Scholarship

A response to Professor Joseph Liu’s paper on Fair Use, Notice Failure, and the Limits of Copyright as Property, this essay challenges Professor Liu to go even farther in his analysis and protection of the everyday audience of copyright works. In describing and analyzing what I term “fairer uses” on the basis of qualitative data from interviews of artists and authors who make and rely on copyrighted works for their own creativity and professional well-being, I support Professor Liu’s advocacy for maintaining “fuzzy boundaries” of fair use. Based on evidence from grounded practice of professional creators, their expansive application …

Countering The Plaintiff’S Anchor: Jury Simulations To Evaluate Damages Arguments, John Campbell, Bernard Chao, Christopher Robertson, David V. Yokum

Faculty Scholarship

Numerous studies have shown that anchoring strongly effects juries. For scholars and policymakers, this evidence is worrisome for the legitimacy and accuracy of jury decisions, especially in the domain of non-economic damages (e.g., pain and suffering). For litigators, this evidence had led some to believe that “the more you ask for, the more you get.” Others believe that the damage demand must pass the “straight-face” test. But little scholarly literature exist to determine whether an outrageously high request really does undermine the plaintiff’s credibility, and whether this “credibility” effect outweighs the anchoring effect.

Likewise, little scholarly attention considers whether a …

A Tradition At War With Itself: A Reply To Professor Rana's Review Of America's Forgotten Constitutions: Defiant Visions Of Power And Community, Robert L. Tsai

Faculty Scholarship

his essay responds to Professor Aziz Rana's review essay, "The Many American Constitutions," 93 Texas Law Review 1193 (2015).

He contends: (1) my portrayal of American constitutionalism might contain a “hidden” teleological understanding of the development of constitutional law; (2) my notion of "conventional sovereignty" sometimes seems content-free and at other times "interlinked with liberal egalitarianism"; and (3) a focus on failed constitutions "inadvertently tends to compartmentalize the overall tradition."

I answer in the following ways: (1) I reject any sense that constitutional law has moved in an arc of steady progress toward Enlightenment and instead embrace a tradition of …

Law And Politics, An Emerging Epidemic: A Call For Evidence-Based Public Health Law, Michael Ulrich

Faculty Scholarship

As Jacobson v. Massachusetts recognized in 1905, the basis of public health law, and its ability to limit constitutional rights, is the use of scientific data and empirical evidence. Far too often, this important fact is lost. Fear, misinformation, and politics frequently take center stage and drive the implementation of public health law. In the recent Ebola scare, political leaders passed unnecessary and unconstitutional quarantine measures that defied scientific understanding of the disease and caused many to have their rights needlessly constrained. Looking at HIV criminalization and exemptions to childhood vaccine requirements, it becomes clear that the blame cannot be …

Application And Control Aware Communication Strategies For Transportation And Energy Cyber-Physical Systems, Ehsan Moradi Pari

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Cyber--Physical Systems (CPSs) are a generation of engineered systems in which computing, communication, and control components are tightly integrated. Some important application domains of CPS are transportation, energy, and medical systems. The dynamics of CPSs are complex, involving the stochastic nature of communication systems, discrete dynamics of computing systems, and continuous dynamics of control systems. The existence of communication between and among controllers of physical processes is one of the basic characteristics of CPSs. Under this situation, some fundamental questions are: 1) How does the network behavior (communication delay, packet loss, etc.) affect the stability of the system? 2) Under …

Controller Synthesis Of Multi-Axial Robotic System Used For Wearable Devices, Qian Mou

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Wearable devices are commonly used in different fields to help improving performance of movements for different groups of users. The long-term goal of this study is to develop a low-cost assistive robotic device that allows patients to perform rehabilitation activities independently and reproduces natural movement to help stroke patients and elderly adults in their daily activities while moving their arms. In the past few decades, various types of wearable robotic devices have been developed to assist different physical movements. Among different types of actuators, the twisted-string actuation system is one of those that has advantages of light-weight, low cost, and …

Exploiting Random Walks For Robust, Scalable, Structure-Free Data Aggregation And Routing In Mobile Ad-Hoc Networks (Manets), Masahiro Nakagawa

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The focus of this thesis is on the design of scalable data aggregation protocols for Mobile Ad-hoc Networks (MANETs). Data aggregation Protocols that rely on network structures such as trees or backbones are not well suited for MANETs because the underlying topology of MANETs is constantly changing. On the other hand, unstructured techniques such as flooding and gossiping have a high messaging overhead and take a long time to finish. Therefore, in this thesis, we explore the use of random walks as a structure-free alternative for data aggregation in MANETs.;The basic idea is to introduce one or more tokens that …

Gender Estimation From Fingerprints Using Dwt And Entropy, Sneha Nagabhyru

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Gender estimation from fingerprints have wide range of applications, especially in the field of forensics where identifying the gender of a criminal can reduce the list of suspects significantly. Although there have been quite a few research papers in the field of gender estimation from fingerprints most of those experiments used a lot of features but were only able to achieve poor classification results. That being the motivation behind the study we successfully proposed two different approaches for gender estimation from fingerprints and achieved high classification accuracy.;In this study we have developed two different approaches for gender estimation from fingerprints. …

Development Of Polyvinyl Alcohol/Wood-Derived Carbon Thin Films: Influence Of Processing Parameters On Mechanical, Thermal, And Electrical Properties, Nan Nan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The first goal of this research was to explore the potential value of hardwood-derived carbon materials as fillers for reinforcing polymer materials, and investigate the effect of filler content on various properties of reinforced composites. Three loading levels of biochar particles, 2wt%, 6wt%, and 10wt% (by weight) were added to a 10wt% polyvinyl alcohol (PVA) solution (by weight) and composites were formed via the film-casting method. The morphological, tensile, thermal, and dynamic mechanical properties of PVA/biochar composite films were tested and analyzed. Tensile tests indicated that the addition of biochar reduced the tensile strength and elongation at break of the …

The Regulation Of Alternative Pre-Mrna Splicing In Photoreceptor Cells., Daniel P. Murphy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Alternative pre-mRNA splicing provides an important mechanism for generating the diverse array of proteins required to generate complex tissue and cell types from a limited genome. Therefore, the proper regulation of alternative splicing is vital to shape cellular identity and function. As consequence, defects in alternative splicing are associated with disease phenotypes that can range from systemic syndromes to the dysfunction of single cell types. For example, heterozygous mutations in ubiquitously expressed components of the spliceosome lead to photoreceptor specific cell death. This suggests that the topography of alternative splicing in photoreceptors cells may be unique, a notion which is …

Numerical Modeling And Simulations For Techno-Economic Assessment Of Non-Conventional Energy Systems, Manish Nandanwar

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The techno-economic analyses of two non-conventional energy systems -- enhanced geothermal systems (EGS) and natural gas hydrate systems were performed using a numerical simulation approach. These energy systems, which are still in the development stage and not yet commercialized, are characterized by common components, which are surface plant facilities and subsurface fluid flow and heat transfer. This study aims at a better understanding and advanced evaluation of energy potential as well as the economic viability of these systems by the development of new robust numerical models in order to obtain a more realistic representation of the physical systems.;The first part …

Targeting The Peripheral Immune System As A Source Of Precision Stroke Biomarkers: Implications For Clinical Diagnostics And Immunotherapeutics, Grant C. O'Connell

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Early and accurate diagnosis of stroke improves the probability of positive outcome, however the tools available to clinicians for the identification of stroke are limited. It is well established that the peripheral immune system responds robustly to ischemic brain injury, and thus may be a viable source of stroke biomarkers. The objective of this work was to utilize high throughput transcriptomics in combination with machine learning techniques to identify patterns of gene expression in peripheral whole blood with the potential to diagnose ischemic stroke, and to further determine the role of such gene expression patterns within the context of stroke …

Heat Transfer Prediction For Single Droplet Impacts On A Wetted Surface, Venkata Giriteja Punnamaraju

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The decrease in sizes of semiconductors and microelectronic devices, also decreases their ability to eject energy in the form of heat due to their small surface areas, which can lead to their failure. Spray cooling is one of the better high heat flux cooling techniques.;As an initial step, the impact of a single liquid drop on a thin liquid film has been simulated and studied, taking the energy equation into consideration. All the cases have been simulated in 3D with an open source CFD package OpenFOAM using Volume of Fluid (VOF) model. The post-processing of the data done in ParaView …

Grainyhead-Like-2 Inhibits The Co-Activator P300, Suppressing Tubulogenesis And The Epithelial-Mesenchymal Transition, Phillip M. Pifer

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Tumor progression and developmental morphogenesis require transient or stable Epithelial-Mesenchymal transitions (EMT) to modulate epithelial junctional complexes allowing programmed migration, invasion, and anoikis resistance of cells. Grainyhead-like-2 (GRHL2), an epithelial master-regulatory transcription factor, suppresses EMT and causes a mesenchymal-epithelial transition to the default epithelial phenotype. This body of work investigates the role of GRHL2 in kidney cancer, in kidney development using a kidney specific GRHL2 knockout mouse model, and in tubulogenesis using Madin-Darby Canine Kidney (MDCK) cells. In kidney cancer, GRHL2 was not expressed in the normal kidney proximal tubule epithelial cells which are thought to be the progenitors of …

Evaluating A Staff-Child Interaction Therapy Workshop For Home-Based Mental Health Providers: Effects On Therapist Skill Change, Cree Robinson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The current study attempted to evaluated the effectiveness of a one-day training workshop used to train bachelor's level mental health staff in Staff-Child Interaction Therapy (SCIT), a newly developed intervention designed to reduce problem behaviors in children 2- to -9 years of age through the use of behavioral management techniques by home-basedtrained staff. A total of 39 therapists, known as Therapeutic Support Staff (TSS), were involved in this study, 20 who received training in SCIT (i.e., experimental group) and 19 who received received training in Compassion Fatigue (i.e., attention -control group). This study was a part of a larger outcome …

Radioactive Masculinity: How The Anxious Postcolonial Learnt To Love And Live In Fear Of The Nuclear Bomb, Dibyadyuti Roy

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Radioactive Masculinity explores how the Cold War legacy, of nuclear weapons finding resonance in images of white maleness and masculinity, results in anxious hypermasculine performances. These discursive and physical masculine acts contingent on the symbolic and material power of nuclear weapons, I argue, represent radioactive masculinity, a form of hegemonic militarized masculinity, which is intrinsically linked to the concept of nationhood and sovereignty. This idealized masculinity is fluid and cannot be tangibly or materially realized, much like the constantly decaying radioactive bomb on which it is modeled. Through analyzing a wide range of artifacts from America and India, I show …

Challenging Historical Gis Through Unstructured Historical Primary Source Materials: Uncovering Sixteenth-Century St. Vincent, Aosta, Italy, James P. Schindling

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The challenge to Historical GIS examined in this study is how to enable a system to accommodate sparse, unstructured, and spatially ambiguous data. The goal of this research is to take up this challenge by developing an Historical GIS that allows researchers to gain an understanding of a geography of the past. The study area for this research is the town of St. Vincent in what is now the Italian Alps and the time period is the sixteenth century. Three primary criteria were used in the selection of sixteenth-century St. Vincent as the case study for this research. The first …