Digital Commons Network^™

Nanostructured Functional Materials For Advanced Three-Dimensional (3d) Solar Cells, Jared Jaksik, H. Justin Moore, Tarek Trad, Okenwa Okoli, M. Jasim Uddin

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Chemistry)

Advancements in dye-sensitized solar cell (DSSC) technology are occurring at an ever-increasing rate, as the development of novel carbon-based materials, the increasing research into new 3D surface morphologies and cell design, and the focus on the development of new sensitizers and electrolytes have allowed many new possibilities for DSSCs. Solar cells that are three-dimensionally structured offer significant advantages over traditional crystalline / semi-crystalline panels in that they can convert incident photons that strike them at large incident angles, can be flexible / used in applications which require non-rigid materials, and can be substantially cheaper to produce than traditional panels, especially …

Magnetic Nanoformulations For Prostate Cancer, Pallabita Chowdhury, Allison M. Roberts, Sheema Khan, Bilal B. Hafeez, Subhash C. Chauhan, Meena Jaggi, Murali M. Yallapu

School of Medicine Publications

Magnetic nanoparticles (MNPs) play a vital role for improved imaging applications. Recently, a number of studies demonstrate MNPs can be applied for targeted delivery, sustained release of therapeutics, and hyperthermia. Based on stable particle size and shape, biocompatibility, and inherent contrast enhancement characteristics, MNPs have been encouraged for pre-clinical studies and human use. As a theranostic platform development, MNPs need to balance both delivery and imaging aspects. Thus, this review provides significant insight and advances in the theranostic role of MNPs through the documentation of unique magnetic nanoparticles used in prostate cancer, their interaction with prostate cancer cells, in vivo …

Winter Diet Of Bobolink, A Long-Distance Migratory Grassland Bird, Inferred From Feather Isotopes, Rosalind B. Renfrew, Jason M. Hill, Daniel H. Kim, Christopher Romanek, Noah G. Perlut

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Effective conservation of migratory bird populations depends on advancements in our understanding of processes throughout the life cycle. Fundamental information about wintering ecology (e.g., habitat use and diet composition) remains limited, which limits assessment of threats to populations during winter. Bobolink (Dolichonyx oryzivorus) is a year-round grassland obligate and Nearctic-Neotropical migrant that undergoes 2 complete molts each year, including a complete prealternate molt on the South American wintering grounds. This unusual winter molt provides a rare opportunity to examine, using stable isotope analysis, the timing and contribution of foraging resources in the Bobolink diet prior to northbound migration from disparate …

Arginine Vasotocin And Neuropeptide Y Vary With Seasonal Life-History Transitions In Garter Snakes, Ashley R. Lucas, Daelyn Y. Richards, Lucy M. Ramirez, Deborah Lutterschmidt

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Transitions between life-history stages are often accompanied by dramatic behavioral switches that result from a shift in motivation to pursue one resource over another. While the neuroendocrine mechanisms that regulate such behavioral transitions are poorly understood, arginine vasotocin (AVT) and neuropeptide Y (NPY) are excellent candidates because they modulate reproductive and feeding behavior, respectively. We asked if seasonal changes in AVT and NPY are concomitant with the seasonal migration to and from the feeding grounds in red-sided garter snakes (Thamnophis sirtalis parietalis). Male and female snakes were collected in different migratory states during both the spring and fall. The total …

Lived Experiences Of Mothers Raising Children With Autism Spectrum Disorder In Nigeria, Joyce Itseme Ulofoshio

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Autism has no cure, but early and appropriate diagnosis and intervention may increase outcomes for individuals affected. The level of awareness, acceptance, and support for autism spectrum disorder (ASD) in Nigeria is very low. There is a gap in the literature regarding a detailed account of the experiences of parents raising children with ASD within the Nigerian environment and culture. The purpose of this phenomenological study was to explore the perceptions and lived experiences of mothers raising children with ASD in Nigeria including the impact of Nigerian culture on their experiences. Bronfenbrenner’s ecological systems theory was the guiding conceptual framework …

Balance Right In Multiple Sclerosis (Brims): A Guided Self-Management Programme To Reduce Falls And Improve Quality Of Life, Balance And Mobility In People With Secondary Progressive Multiple Sclerosis: A Protocol For A Feasibility Randomised Controlled Trial, H. Gunn, J. Andrade, L. Paul, L. Miller, S. Creanor, C. Green, J. Marsden, P. Ewings, M. Berrow, J. Vickery, A. Barton, B. Marshall, J Zajieck, J. A. Freeman

School of Health Professions

No abstract provided.

Characteristics Of Ex-Racing Greyhounds In New Zealand And Their Impact On Re-Homing, Jb Thomas, Nj Adams, Mj Farnworth

School of Biological and Marine Sciences

© 2017 Universities Federation for Animal Welfare The Old School, Brewhouse Hill, Wheathampstead. A small proportion of greyhounds surplus to the racing industry are entered into specialist re-homing organisations to be re-purposed as pets. Records of 835 greyhounds, from New Zealand Greyhounds as Pets, were used to investigate whether pre-adoption characteristics (age, sex, racing record, reason entered) and management factors (temperament test result, foster and trainer effects) had a bearing on re-homing success, and comparisons were made with shelter studies. Re-homing greyhounds as pets is very successful with 85.5% ultimately successfully re-homed. Only 2.9% fail as a result of failed …

The Role Of Omics In The Application Of Adverse Outcome Pathways For Chemical Risk Assessment, Ek Brockmeier, G Hodges, Th Hutchinson, E Butler, M Hecker, Ke Tollefsen, N Garcia-Reyero, P Kille, D Becker, K Chipman, J Colbourne, Tw Collette, A Cossins, M Cronin, P Graystock, S Gutsell, D Knapen, I Katsiadaki, A Lange, S Marshall, Sf Owen, Ej Perkins, S Plaistow, A Schroeder, D Taylor, M Viant, G Ankley, F Falciani

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Exploitation Of Land And Labor In Appalachia: The Manipulation Of Men In Ann Pancake's Strange As This Weather Has Been, Britani W. Baker

Master's Theses

Ecofeminism is traditionally interested in the relationship between patriarchal domination of women and nature. Ann Pancake’s novel Strange As this Weather Has Been critiques the way the coal mining industry has affected the Appalachian people and land. The novel reflects natural ecofeminism, which views the connection between women and nature in essentialist terms. This outdated mode of ecofeminism leads to a reinforcement of gender stereotypes and a misrepresentation of the relationship between gender, nature, and culture. This study of Pancake’s novel employs a material ecofeminist approach to both critique and develop the novel’s gender politics. Material ecofeminism, even as it …

Sedimentary Characteristics And Nutrient Sequestration Of Embanked Floodplains Along The Lower Mississippi River, Mississippi And Louisiana, R M Malitha Rathnayake

Master's Theses

The Mississippi River Basin is the largest river basin in North America and the third largest river basin in the world. Most of the corn, soybeans, wheat, cattle, and hogs harvested in the United States come from the Mississippi River Basin and about 58% of the entire drainage basin is croplands. Runoff from these lands carries sediments and nutrients, and the Mississippi River transports these downstream and ultimately deposits them in the Gulf of Mexico. The northern Gulf of Mexico is one of largest human-caused hypoxic zones in the world. Hypoxia is the phenomena where the dissolved oxygen level decreases …

Solitary And Social Object Play In The Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops Truncatus), Briana M. Cappiello

Master's Theses

Many comparative studies have focused on the emergence of solitary and social play in early development. However, few consider observer and parallel forms of solitary play. In this study, use of video analysis revealed that there is a significant difference between the frequency of solitary, observer, parallel, and social object play states, in calf, juvenile, subadult, and adult bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus). While juveniles engaged in solitary play significantly more than any other age group, both juveniles and calves engaged in observer and social play significantly more than adults and subadults. Within their own age group, calves, juveniles, …

Environmentally-Driven Variation In The Population Dynamics Of Gulf Menhaden (Brevoortia Patronus), Grant D. Adams

Master's Theses

Gulf Menhaden (Brevoortia patronus) is an abundant forage fish distributed throughout the Northern Gulf of Mexico (NGOM). Gulf Menhaden support the second largest fishery, by weight, in the United States and represent a key linkage between upper and lower trophic levels. Variation in the population dynamics can, therefore, pose consequences for the ecology and economy in the NGOM. Here we aim to understand variation in the individual and population dynamics of Gulf Menhaden throughout ontogeny and how such variation relates to environmental processes. We utilized a suite of fishery-dependent and –independent, remote sensing, modeled, and in situ data …

Biodiversity And Phenology Of The Epibenthic Macroinvertebrate Fauna In A First Order Mississippi Stream, Jamaal Bankhead

Master's Theses

I used Hester-Dendy multiplate samplers and stick and leaf samples to collect the aquatic insects of Granny Creek, a first-order perennial stream in southern Mississippi, on twelve sampling dates from March 2014 to June 2015. The dominant insect/invertebrate group in Granny Creek was the dipteran family Chironomidae. Forty-two distinct taxa of chironomid larvae were collected over the duration of my study. Two of the dominant chironomid subfamilies in my samples, the Orthocladiinae and the Chironominae, displayed a phenological pattern in which the Orthocladiinae were more prevalent, both in terms of number of species and in abundance of individuals, in the …

Black And Blue: Competing Social Constructions Of Police On Instagram And Twitter, Mary Frances Thornhill

Master's Theses

Mass media outlets newspapers and television were traditionally where individuals gathered their news information; however, with the growth of new media platforms like Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram, individuals are now co-producers of the content that is seen by the public. Previous research indicated that media-generated images of the police influence public perception and that new media outlets are becoming increasingly influential, particularly in regards to social and political conflicts. This means that research on the role of new media outlets in socially constructing reality is essential, though not much of this research has yet been completed. This current analysis fills …

Starch-Entrapped Microsphere Fibers Improve Bowel Habit But Do Not Exhibit Prebiotic Capacity In Those With Unsatisfactory Bowel Habits: A Phase I, Randomized, Double-Blind, Controlled Human Trial, Heather E. Rasmussen, Bruce Hamaker, Kumar B. Rajan, Ece Mutlu, Stefan J. Green, Michael Brown, Amandeep Kaur, Ali Keshavarzian

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Approximately one-third of individuals in the United States experience unsatisfactory bowel habits, and dietary intake, especially one low in fiber, could be partly responsible. We hypothesized that intake of a fermentable fiber (starch-entrapped microspheres, SM) that has a delayed, slow fermentation profile in vitro would improve bowel habit while exhibiting prebiotic capacity in those with self-described unsatisfactory bowel habits, all with minimal adverse effects. A total of 43 healthy volunteers completed a 3-month,double-blind, parallel-arm randomized clinical trial to assess the ability of a daily dose (9 or 12 g) of SM vs. psyllium (12 g) to improve bowel habit, including …

The Effect Of Field Application Through Compost And Uncompost Fertilizers On Major Chickpea Insect Pests And Natural Enemies, Sahand K. Khidr, Srwa M. Khalil

Polytechnic Journal

The current study was conducted to evaluate the impact of organic and inorganic compound fertilizers on some insect populations associated with chickpea crop via using four different levels of admixed compost (poultry litter-wheat straw) and four levels of the compound fertilizer (NPK) were applied into the soil. Parameters studied included insect pests’ numbers and their natural enemies, biological yield, growth and grain yields of chickpea crop. Results indicated that soil amended with chemical fertilizers were more susceptible to pest attack than the compost fertilizer counterparts. As a result, highest population density (1.2/ plant), (7.96/ plant) and (2.72/ net) for the …

Reducing The Salinity Risks On Shaqlawa Calcareous Soil By Adding Sulfur, Dawod R. Keya, Hemn O. Salih, Ismail A. Saeed

Polytechnic Journal

The experiment was carried out at the Khabat Technical Institute - Erbil Polytechnic University in the summer of 2015 to evaluate the effect of adding Sulfur to reduce the risks of using saline water in calcareous soil. Four levels of Sulfur (S1, S2, S3 and S4) were applied under three salinity irrigation water levels (EC1, EC2 and EC3). Factorial design with three replications was used under controlled conditions. The aim of this study was to find a method to reduce of soil pH and evaluate the effect of adding sulfur on plant germination process (corn) and soil properties. The results …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Single Electrodeposited Ferromagnetic Nanowires, Musaab Salman Sultan

Polytechnic Journal

In this paper, electrodeposition technique has been successfully utilized to fabricate arrays of ferromagnetic nanowires in different templates with various compositions and dimensions. These templates were dissolved by some chemical solutions and the nanowires were released in dilute suspensions using sonication bath. The dilute suspensions were then spilled onto silicon substrates using a pipette to create single ferromagnetic nanowires. The results of this study have been investigated using scanning electron microscopy. The concentration of the solutions and the period of time required to dissolve these templates were chosen according to successive experiments. To understand the effect of sonication time on …

Prevalence Of Urinary Tract Infection And Its Effect On The Immunological Parameters Among Erbilian Women, Najat Jabbar Ahmed Berwary, Hoshyar Amin Ahmed

Polytechnic Journal

Urinary tract infection (UTI) is one of the most common bacterial infections resulting in high direct health care expenditure. There are hypotheses suggest that recurrent UTI related to host immunity. Five hundred seventeen pregnant women comprising 388 pregnant and 33 non- pregnant women, aged between 20 - 55 years, were selected randomly. The aim of this study is to compare between the level of C3 complement component, immunoglobulins (IgG, IgM, and IgA), hs-CRP among patients who are suffering from UTI and women with no of UTI. The results show the significant differences in the Mean ± SD for IgG, IgM …

Recent Case Decisions

Oil and Gas, Natural Resources, and Energy Journal

No abstract provided.

On The Long-Repetition-Free 2-Colorability Of Trees, Joseph Antonides, Claire Kiers, Nicole Yamzon

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal

A word w =uu is called a long square if u is of length at least 3; a word w is called long-square-free if w contains no sub-word that is a long square. If there exists a k-coloring of the vertices of a graph G such that, for any path P in G, the word generated by the coloring of P is long-square-free, then G is called long-repetition-free} k-colorable. We show that every rooted tree of radius r <= 7 is long-repetition-free 2-colorable. We also show that there exists a class of trees which are not long-repetition-free 2-colorable.

Rawls On Abortion: Adapting His Theory Of Justice To The Controversy, Douglas Dreier

Episteme

Rawls does not have to be explicit about gender or sex issues to be on the pro-choice side of the abortion debate. If we examine Rawls’ principles of justice and his veil of ignorance, we recognize that his logic rips through much of the usual justification for pro-life legality, even in the famous Supreme Court case Roe v. Wade. Since a person behind the veil might be a pregnant woman, cannot rely on specific moral beliefs, and must be able to have self-respect when the veil is lifted; Rawls is unmistakably pro-choice. Furthermore, in terms of other in vogue political …

Design And Evaluation Of A Problem-Based Learning Environment For Teacher Training, Laura Hemker, Claudia Prescher, Susanne Narciss

Interdisciplinary Journal of Problem-Based Learning

Problem-based learning can have a great impact on the acquisition of practical knowledge, which is a central learning aim in the field of teacher education. Therefore, we implemented a problem-based learning approach in four seminars on educational assessment. In this paper, we outline our didactic design and discuss the results of the first evaluations, which explored acceptance of the approach, learning results, and expected applicability of the acquired knowledge.

The results show benefits of the problem-based learning approach, but also room for improvement. Specifically, the use of problems from multiple contexts (theoretical foundations and direct practical application) and the flexible …

Intuition: Role, Biases, Cognitive Basis, And A Hypothetical Synergistic Explanation Of Intuitive Brain Operations, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This paper explores the characteristics of the intuitive responses that are generated by our brain continuously in an automatic and effortless manner. However, while intuition is a very powerful mechanism, it is also subject to many biasing influences. The author discusses the role of intuition, examines representative examples of biasing influences, compares cognitive theories of intuition advanced by Simon (2002), Klein (2003 and 1999), and Kahneman (2011), and then advances a hypothetical explanation of the neurological operations underlying intuition based on Hebbian rules (Hebb 1949) of plasticity in combination with synergetic principles.

Risk And The Response To Sea Level Rise In South Florida, Galen Treuer

Open Access Dissertations

South Florida’s low elevation, intensive urban development, and delicate ecosystems make it vulnerable to sea level rise. A gap exists between the current policies local governments in South Florida pursue and adaptation that could significantly reduce their exposure to climate change risks. One reason for this gap is that climate adaptation requires a transition away from the status quo, and barriers impede change. This dissertation presents three studies that aim to help communities in the region embrace and address their climate change risks. Chapter 2 reports the findings of an immersive simulation experiment that accelerates South Florida homeowners through thirty-five …

A Being Of Great Order: Reading Lacan In Cormac Mccarthy’S The Crossing, Chamois Summer Holschuh

Theses and Dissertations

Cormac McCarthy’s The Crossing follows Billy Parham on a psychologically taxing series of adventures that leave the teenaged would-be cowboy in utter despair by the end of the novel. His unhappiness and dissatisfaction invite a Lacanian reading. This thesis first explores his efforts to trap a pregnant shewolf as an illustration of Jacques Lacan’s treatment of das Ding and the role of the objet petit a. While the she wolf functions as an objet petit a in the trajectory of Billy’s desire, la matriz, a scent used by hunters to lure wolves, is used as a conceptual depiction of das …

Sympathy For The Devils: An Analysis Of The Villain Archetype Since The Nineteenth Century, Michel Martin Del Campo

Theses and Dissertations

The portrayal of villains has changed dramatically since the late nineteenth century. Modern villains are not necessarily punished, and they are presented as relatable or at the very least sympathetic. An analysis of the major events that shook the Western World in the last century reveals a pattern that links the classical style villain to the modern anti-villain via sociological and cultural changes. The Victorian period showed the West that the British Empire was not eternal and could be threatened. Count Dracula in Bram Stoker’s Dracula represented these fears and forced the Victorians to reexamine everything from their belief in …

Winthrop's Cridland Shares Big South Woman Of The Year Honors, Winthrop University

Winthrop News 2017

• The Big South’s Woman of the Year Selection Committee voted Cridland of Perth, Australia, and Van Noord of Hudsonville, Michigan, the co-honorees among the six candidates nominated for the award.
• The committee used criteria of service and leadership, academic achievement, athletics excellence and a personal statement from each candidate. As the Big South’s Woman of the Year, the two will be nominated as the conference’s candidates for the national NCAA Woman of the Year Award.

Effects Of Fishing Gear Area Restriction And Catch Share Programs On Effort Distribution In Pulley Ridge, Eastern Gulf Of Mexico, Emily D. Starnes

Open Access Theses

Pulley Ridge, located in the Gulf of Mexico on the West Florida Shelf, contains a rare and ecologically valuable mesophotic coral reef ecosystem that provides essential fish habitat for many commercially and recreationally important fish species. The area is currently protected by a Habitat Area of Particular Concern (HAPC), a marine protected area established in 2005 that covers part of the Pulley Ridge area and mandates several fishing gear restrictions. The HAPC prohibits the most environmentally destructive gear types; however, these protections are somewhat limited because they do not encompass the entire Pulley Ridge area, and because they do not …

Gsu View, 2017-07-31, Office Of Marketing And Communications

GSU View

No abstract provided.