Digital Commons Network^™

Bio-Inspired Flow Fields For Pem Fuel Cells- Decoupling Pressure And Distribution Effects On Performance And Identifying Design Opportunities, Joshua David Heck

Masters Theses

"The performance of Polymer Electrolyte Membrane Fuel Cells (PEMFCs) is significantly impacted by flow distributor geometry. The effects of flow distributor geometry on PEMFCs was explored in two ways in this study. Firstly, the relative effects of pressure and distribution characteristics of different flow fields on fuel cell unit and system level performance were considered. A method of decoupling these effects was proposed and demonstrated by application to the traditional serpentine and parallel flow field designs.The performance of these two designs were modeled computationally and it was shown that, of the 17% better performance of the serpentine design, 12% was …

Cloth-Air Partitioning Of Oxybenzone, Jonathan T. Hill

Masters Theses

"Clothing has been proven to be a significant accumulator of chemicals from the air. Semi-volatile organic compounds (SVOCs) have a high affinity towards textiles, and measuring the equilibrium partition coefficient between cloth and air (K_cloth-air) for SVOCs is crucial in predicting human exposure to these compounds. This study aims to quantify K_cloth-air for oxybenzone to contribute to a larger human exposure experiment carried out at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU). K_cloth-air for oxybenzone was calculated using data collected from the exposure chamber at DTU and from performing extractions of oxybenzone in fabric samples from the …

Vegetation Based Assessment And Monitoring Tools For Landfill Leachate Treatment And Fugitive Plumes, Rahul Sukharia

Masters Theses

"Solid waste and leachate generation from solid waste landfills has a legacy of detrimental and toxic impacts on the environment. Disposal practices are expensive, failure prone and have not been able to keep up with the pace of disposal of toxic compounds. In general, a landfill acts as a "bathtub" with infiltration of water through the landfill cover into the landfill, reacting with the waste and transferring toxic components into the leachate. Irrigating the evapotranspiration (ET) covers with leachate collected from the landfill has been developed and applied. Such methods can keep the leached pollutants in a loop, which reduces …

Developing Restoration Schemes For A Road Transportation Network In The Event Of A Disaster, Ebin Antony

Masters Theses

"Transportation systems such as rail, road, and waterways are key component of critical infrastructure systems, providing connectivity between other components to enable the production and distribution of goods and services. During large scale disasters such as earth quakes and floods, this connectivity is disrupted, restricting or completely halting the flow of goods and services. To ensure that the connectivity between the different modes of transportation are restored in an aftermath of these disruptions, the interdependence between them and the importance of individual elements to the overall connectivity have to be studied and formulated to develop a system-level restoration plan. This …

Nuclei Segmentation Using Level Set Method And Data Fusion For The Cin Classification, Ravali Edulapuram

Masters Theses

"This paper deals with the automation of the detection of the cervical cancer through histology images. This process is divided into two parts, corresponding to segmentation and data fusion. The segmentation and classification of the cervical epithelium images is done using hybrid image processing techniques. The digitized histology images provided have a pre-cervical cancer condition called cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN) by expert pathologists. Previously, image analysis studies focused on nuclei-level features to classify the epithelium into the CIN grades. The current study focuses on nuclei segmentation based on the level set segmentation and fuzzy c-means clustering methods. Morphological post-processing operations …

Nuclei Segmentation Of Histology Images Based On Deep Learning And Color Quantization And Analysis Of Real World Pill Images, Sudhir Sornapudi

Masters Theses

"Medical image analysis has paved a way for research in the field of medical and biological image analysis through the applications of image processing. This study has special emphasis on nuclei segmentation from digitized histology images and pill segmentation. Cervical cancer is one of the most common malignant cancers affecting women. This can be cured if detected early. Histology image feature analysis is required to classify the squamous epithelium into Normal, CIN1, CIN2 and CIN3 grades of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia (CIN). The nuclei in the epithelium region provide the majority of information regarding the severity of the cancer. Segmentation of …

Bioaccessibility Of Lead From Lead-Contaminated Soil Upon Phosphate Amendment Using A Physiologically-Based Extraction Test, Samantha Jo Dicenso

Masters Theses

"Lead is known to cause health problems in humans, especially children, and an effective in‐situ remediation option has been sought for years. Adding phosphoric acid (PA) to contaminated soil causes a reaction that binds the lead to phosphate to produce pyromorphite (Pb₅(PO₄)₃Cl), a form of lead believed to be non‐bioavailable; however, field trials have given varied results (Bosso et al 2008; Munksgaard and Lottermoser 2011; Tang et al. 2009). One explanation for these results might be the impact of the agent used to raise pH after phosphoric acid addition. In order to examine this explanation soil was collected from the …

Combination Of Bmp-2 And Relaxin To Induce Osteogenesis In Vivo, Sahitya Injamuri

Masters Theses

"Bone grafts are a common procedure for treating craniofacial injuries such as trauma, surgery, and reconstruction. Autografts and allografts have limitations which encourages the use of synthetic bone grafts. While synthetic bone grafts, such as hydroxyapatite (HA) microspheres, are advantageous for their cost and reproducibility, they lack the cells and growth factors needed for proper osteoinduction. Bone morphogenetic protein-2 (BMP-2) has been shown to increase the osteoinduction of grafts but the effective dose is above physiological levels and causes undesired effects on the body. Relaxin has been shown to enhance BMP-2's ability to induce bone formation in vitro and thus …

3d Bioprinting A Pcl/13-93b3 Glass Composite And Its Potential Use As A Bio-Ink, Caroline Blair Murphy

Masters Theses

"A major limitation of using synthetic scaffolds in tissue engineering is little growth of incorporated cells in the interior of the scaffold, resulting in insufficient angiogenesis in the scaffold interior. Recently, cells have been 3D bioprinted concurrently with biomaterials to produce a cellularized, bioactive, angiogenic 3D environment. This thesis describes a novel solvent-extrusion method for printing polycaprolactone (PCL)/bioactive borate glass composite as a biomaterial for a cell-laden scaffold.

Bioactive borate glass was added to a mixture of PCL and organic solvent to make an extrudable paste, creating scaffolds measuring 10×10×1 mm³ in overall dimensions with pore sizes ranging from …

Transgressing Gender Norms In Addiction Treatment: Transgender Rights To Access Within Gender Segregated Facilities., Sara Matsuzaka

Department of Social Work and Child Advocacy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Despite having disproportionately high rates of substance use disorder and co-occurring health and mental health issues compared to the general population, transgender individuals experience significant barriers to accessing and engaging in addiction treatment programs. Inpatient addiction treatment centers were originally designed to treat substance-dependent heterosexual cisgender populations and, as such, feature gender-segregated housing, bathrooms, and treatment sessions. The heteronormative structural and programmatic barriers, combined with exposures to stigmatic and prejudicial attitudes, may dissuade transgender populations from benefiting from the addiction treatment they so direly need. The purpose of this article is to examine the current policy debate surrounding the rights …

When Technology Is Too Hot, Too Cold Or Just Right, Jonathan Howell

The Emerging Learning Design Journal

Many instructors acknowledge the importance of quantitative literacy in non-STEM fields and may themselves use advanced tools for data analysis, statistics and visualization. But how, if at all, does an instructor introduce quantitative methods into the classroom without overwhelming and disengaging students who may have been drawn to the field precisely because it has not traditionally required any skill or interest in science, technology, engineering or math? I present a model of iterative assignment design illustrated by the evolution of a phonetic exercise in which students are asked to measure vowels from their own speech and to plot their measurements …

Acanthurus Albimento, A New Species Of Surgeonfish (Acanthuriformes: Acanthuridae) From Northeastern Luzon, Philippines, With Comments On Zoogeography, Kent E. Carpenter, Jeffrey T. Williams, Mudjekeewis D. Santos

Biological Sciences Faculty Publications

Acanthurus albimento is described as a new surgeonfish from northeastern Luzon from six specimens collected during extensive fish-market surveys in the Philippines. The new species is characterized by a distinctive white band below the lower jaw; many irregular, wavy, thin, blue lines on the head; a brown-orange pectoral fin with a bluish tinge on the outer membrane of the rays and a dark band on the posterior margin; a narrow rust-orange stripe along the base of the dorsal fin; and a large blackish caudal spine and sheath with the socket broadly edged in black. An analysis using the mitochondrial cytochrome …

Assessing Survival And Grading The Severity Of Complications In Octogenarians Undergoing Pulmonary Lobectomy., Andrew Feczko, Elizabeth Mckeown, Jennifer L Wilson, Brian E Louie, Ralph W Aye, Jed A Gorden, Eric Vallières, Alexander S Farivar

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

No abstract provided.

Ultrafast Comparison Of Personal Genomes Via Precomputed Genome Fingerprints., Gustavo Glusman, Denise E Mauldin, Leroy E Hood, Max Robinson

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

We present an ultrafast method for comparing personal genomes. We transform the standard genome representation (lists of variants relative to a reference) into "genome fingerprints" via locality sensitive hashing. The resulting genome fingerprints can be meaningfully compared even when the input data were obtained using different sequencing technologies, processed using different pipelines, represented in different data formats and relative to different reference versions. Furthermore, genome fingerprints are robust to up to 30% missing data. Because of their reduced size, computation on the genome fingerprints is fast and requires little memory. For example, we could compute all-against-all pairwise comparisons among the …

Siam Data Mining "Brings It" To Annual Meeting, Jeremy Kepner, Sanjukta Bhowmick, Aydın Buluç, Rajmonda Caceres, R. Jordan Crouser, Vijay Gadepally, Ben Miller, Jennifer Webster

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

The Data Mining Activity Group is one of SIAM's most vibrant and dynamic activity groups. To better share our enthusiasm for data mining with the broader SIAM community, our activity group organized six minisymposia at the 2016 Annual Meeting. These minisymposia included 48 talks organized by 11 SIAM members on - GraphBLAS (Aydın Buluç) - Algorithms and statistical methods for noisy network analysis (Sanjukta Bhowmick & Ben Miller) - Inferring networks from non-network data (Rajmonda Caceres, Ivan Brugere & Tanya Y. Berger-Wolf) - Visual analytics (Jordan Crouser) - Mining in graph data (Jennifer Webster, Mahantesh Halappanavar & Emilie Hogan) - …

A Narrative Analysis Of Resilience And Coping In Persons Diagnosed With Multiple Sclerosis, Mildred Christian Alford

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A Narrative Analysis of Resilience and Coping in

Persons Diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis

by

Mildred C. Alford

Ph.D., Ed., Berne International Graduate University, 1998

M.S. Ed., Texas A & M University, Commerce, 1989

B.S., Psychology, University of Houston, 1976

Dissertation Submitted in Partial Fulfillment

of the Requirements for the Degree of

Doctor of Philosophy

Health Psychology

Walden University

June 2017

The Potential Scientist’S Dilemma: How The Masculine Framing Of Science Shapes Friendships And Science Job Aspirations, G. Robin Gauthier, Patricia Wonch Hill, Julia Mcquillan, Amy N. Spiegel, Judy Diamond

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

In the United States, girls and boys have similar science achievement, yet fewer girls aspire to science careers than boys. This paradox emerges in middle school, when peers begin to play a stronger role in shaping adolescent identities. We use complete network data from a single middle school and theories of gender, identity, and social distance to explore how friendship patterns might influence this gender and science paradox. Three patterns highlight the social dimensions of gendered science persistence: (1) boys and girls do not differ in self-perceived science potential and science career aspirations; (2) consistent with gender-based norms, both middle …

Bi-Cultural Dynamics For Risk And Protective Factors For Cardiometabolic Health In An Alaska Native (Yup'ik) Population, Jacques Philip, Toves K. Ryman, Scarlett E. Hopkins, Diane M. O'Brien, Andrea Bersamin, Jeremy Pomeroy, Kenneth E. Thummel, Melissa A. Austin, Bert B. Boyer, Kirk Dombrowski

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Alaska Native people experience disparities in mortality from heart disease and stroke. This work attempts to better understand the relationships between socioeconomic, behavioral, and cardiometabolic risk factors among Yup'ik people of southwestern Alaska, with a focus on the role of the socioeconomic, and cultural components. Using a cross-sectional sample of 486 Yup'ik adults, we fitted a Partial Least Squares Path Model (PLS-PM) to assess the associations between components, including demographic factors [age and gender], socioeconomic factors [education, economic status, Yup'ik culture, and Western culture], behavioral factors [diet, cigarette smoking and smokeless tobacco use, and physical activity], and cardiometabolic risk factors …

Academic Freedom As The Freedom To Do Academic Work, David Moshman

Department of Psychology: Faculty Publications

Academic freedom is defined as the freedom to do academic work. It follows that academic freedom (1) includes freedoms of teaching, learning, and inquiry; (2) is a type of intellectual freedom; (3) is specific to academic roles and contexts; (4) is crucial at all levels of education and in all other academic contexts; (5) is individual, collective, and institutional; and (6) is central to the academic integrity of any academic endeavor or institution. This conception, which coordinates multiple traditions and literatures, enables us to explain the nature and limits of academic freedom and to justify it as a necessity for …

Aging And Disability Among Hispanics In The United States: Current Knowledge And Future Directions, Marc A. Garcia, Brian Downer, Michael Crowe, Kyriakos S. Markides

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Background and Objectives: Hispanics are the most rapidly aging minority population in the United States. Our objective is to provide a summary of current knowledge regarding disability among Hispanics, and to propose an agenda for future research.

Research Design and Methods: A literature review was conducted to identify major areas of research. A life course perspective and the Hispanic Paradox were used as frameworks for the literature review and for identifying future areas of research.

Results: Four research areas were identified: (1) Ethnic disparities in disability; (2) Heterogeneity of the U.S. older Hispanic population; (3) Risk factors for disability; and …

Prediction Of Human Dietary Δ15N Intake From Standardized Food Records: Validity And Precision Of Single Meal And 24-H Diet Data, Frank Hülsemann, Karsten Koehler, Jürgen Wittsiepe, Michael Wilhelm, Annett Hilbig, Mathilde Kersting, Hans Braun, Ulrich Flenker, Wilhelm Schänzer

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Natural stable isotope ratios (δ15N) of humans can be used for nutritional analyses and dietary reconstruction of modern and historic individuals and populations. Information about an individual’s metabolic state can be obtained by comparison of tissue and dietary δ¹⁵N. Different methods have been used to estimate dietary δ¹⁵N in the past; however, the validity of such predictions has not been compared to experimental values. For a total of 56 meals and 21 samples of 24-h diets, predicted and experimental δ¹⁵N values were compared. The δ¹⁵N values were predicted from self-recorded food intake …

Hepatocyte Abca1 Deletion Impairs Liver Insulin Signaling And Lipogenesis, Chia-Chi C. Key, Mingxia Liu, C. Lisa Kurtz, Soonkyu Chung, Elena Boudyguina, Timothy A. Dinh, Alexander Bashore, Peter E. Phelan, Barry I. Freedman, Timothy F. Osborne, Xuewei Zhu, Lijun Ma, Praveen Sethupathy, Sudha B. Biddinger, John S. Parks

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Plasma membrane (PM) free cholesterol (FC) is emerging as an important modulator of signal transduction. Here, we show that hepatocyte-specific knockout (HSKO) of the cellular FC exporter, ATPbinding cassette transporter A1 (ABCA1), leads to decreased PM FC content and defective trafficking of lysosomal FC to the PM. Compared with controls, chow-fed HSKO mice had reduced hepatic (1) insulin- stimulated Akt phosphorylation, (2) activation of the lipogenic transcription factor Sterol Regulatory Element Binding Protein (SREBP)-1c, and (3) lipogenic gene expression. Consequently, Westerntype diet-fed HSKO mice were protected from steatosis. Surprisingly, HSKO mice had intact glucose metabolism; they showed normal gluconeogenic gene …

Development Of Known-Fate Survival Monitoring Techniques For Juvenile Wild Pigs (Sus Scrofa), David A. Keiter, John C. Kilgo, Mark A. Vukovich, Fred L. Cunningham, James C. Beasley

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Context. Wild pigs are an invasive species linked to numerous negative impacts on natural and anthropogenic ecosystems in many regions of the world. Robust estimates of juvenile wild pig survival are needed to improve population dynamics models to facilitate management of this economically and ecologically important invasive species. Despite this critical knowledge gap, to date no successful known-fate study of wild piglet survival (age) has been conducted, due to a lack of appropriate method for this species.

Aims. To aid in locating and tagging neonates, we piloted the use of vaginal implant transmitters (VITs) in adult wild pigs and …

Evidence Of Leptospirosis In The Kidneys And Serum Of Feral Swine (Sus Scrofa) In The United States, K. K. Pedersen, T. D. Anderson, S. N. Bevins, K. L. Pabilonia, P. N. Whitley, D. R. Virchow, T. Gidlewski

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Leptospirosis is the most widespread zoonosis in humans worldwide. In the United States, widespread detection of antibodies to leptospirosis have been identified in feral swine (Sus scrofa) with the highest detection of serovars, Bratislava, Icterohaemorrhagiae, and Pomona. Over the past few years, feral swine populations have expanded their geographical range and distribution in the United States with reports in at least 39 of 50 states. Since feral swine serve as reservoirs for serovars that can infect humans, it is important to understand the risk of transmission. In order to learn more about the probability that feral swine shed infectious …

Comparison Of A Micro-Neutralization Test With The Rapid Fluorescent Focus Inhibition Test For Measuring Rabies Virus Neutralizing Antibodies, Todd G. Smith, Amy T. Gilbert

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The rapid fluorescent focus inhibition test (RFFIT) is routinely used in the United States to measure rabies virus neutralizing antibodies (rVNA). RFFIT has a long history of reproducible and reliable results. The test has been modified over the years to use smaller volumes of reagents and samples, but requires a 50 μL minimum volume of test serum. To conduct pathogenesis studies, small laboratory animals such as mice are regularly tested for rVNA, but the minimum volume for a standard RFFIT may be impossible to obtain, particularly in scenarios of repeated sampling. To address this problem, a micro-neutralization test was developed …

Strength Testing Of Raccoons And Invasive Wild Pigs For A Species-Specific Bait Station, Nathan P. Snow, Michael J. Lavelle, Joseph M. Halseth, Chad R. Blass, Justin A. Foster, Kurt C. Vercauteren

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

With the development of a toxic bait (HOGGONE®) for the control of invasive wild pig (IWP; Sus scrofa) populations in the United States, there is a need to develop a bait station to mitigate potential effects on nontarget species. Our objective was to identify characteristics of a bait station that can successfully exclude raccoons (Procyon lotor)—a ubiquitous and dexterous nontarget species—while facilitating bait consumption by IWPs that exhibit group-feeding behaviors. We evaluated abilities of captive raccoons (n = 19) and IWPs (n = 41) to open the lids of prototype resistance assessment bait stations (RABS) …

Evaluating The Influence Of Water Developments On The Demography And Spatial Ecology Of A Rare, Desert-Adapted Carnivore: The Kit Fox (Vulpes Macrotis), Bryan M. Kluever, Eric M. Gese

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Constructing water developments to support anthropogenic activities and particular fauna is pervasive across many arid regions of the globe. Despite their prevalence and a predicted increase as a management and conservation tool, water developments may have complex and unanticipated impacts on wildlife. For example, the addition of water developments to the Great Basin Desert in the western United States may have indirectly contributed to a decrease in distribution and abundance of kit foxes (Vulpes macrotis). From 2010 to 2013, we examined survival, relative abundance, and habitat characteristics of kit foxes in relation to water developments on the U.S. …

High Prevalence Of Angiostrongylus Cantonensis (Rat Lungworm) On Eastern Hawai`I Island: A Closer Look At Life Cycle Traits And Patterns Of Infection In Wild Rats (Rattus Spp.), Susan I. Jarvi, Stefano Quarta, Steven Jacquier, Kathleen Howe, Denzi Bicakci, Crystal Dasalla, Noelle Lovesy, Kirsten Snook, Robert Mchugh, Chris N. Niebuhr

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The nematode Angiostrongylus cantonensis is a zoonotic pathogen and the etiological agent of human angiostrongyliasis or rat lungworm disease. Hawai`i, particularly east Hawai`i Island, is the epicenter for angiostrongyliasis in the USA. Rats (Rattus spp.) are the definitive hosts while gastropods are intermediate hosts. The main objective of this study was to collect adult A. cantonensis from wild rats to isolate protein for the development of a blood-based diagnostic, in the process we evaluated the prevalence of infection in wild rats. A total of 545 wild rats were sampled from multiple sites in the South Hilo District of east …

Seasonal Effects Of Wind Conditions On Migration Patterns Of Soaring American White Pelican, Javier Gutierrez Illan, Guiming Wang, Fred L. Cunningham, D. Tommy King

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Energy and time expenditures are determinants of bird migration strategies. Soaring birds have developed migration strategies to minimize these costs, optimizing the use of all the available resources to facilitate their displacement. We analyzed the effects of different wind factors (tailwind, turbulence, vertical updrafts) on the migratory flying strategies adopted by 24 satellite-tracked American white pelicans (Pelecanus erythrorhynchos) throughout spring and autumn in North America. We hypothesize that different wind conditions encountered along migration routes between spring and autumn induce pelicans to adopt different flying strategies and use of these wind resources. Using quantile regression and fine-scale atmospheric …

End-To-End Molecular Communication Channels In Cell Metabolism: An Information Theoretic Study, Zahmeeth Sayed Sakkaff, Jennie L. Catlett, Mikaela Cashman, Massimiliano Pierobon, Nicole R. Buan, Myra B. Cohen, Christine A. Kelley

Department of Biochemistry: Faculty Publications

The opportunity to control and fine-tune the behavior of biological cells is a fascinating possibility for many diverse disciplines, ranging from medicine and ecology, to chemical industry and space exploration. While synthetic biology is providing novel tools to reprogram cell behavior from their genetic code, many challenges need to be solved before it can become a true engineering discipline, such as reliability, safety assurance, reproducibility and stability. This paper aims to understand the limits in the controllability of the behavior of a natural (non-engineered) biological cell. In particular, the focus is on cell metabolism, and its natural regulation mechanisms, and …