Digital Commons Network^™

Ensemble And Single Particle Studies Of Cation Exchange In Cuins2/Zns Qds And Their Application In Super-Resolution Imaging, Anh Tue Nguyen

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Colloidal quantum dots (QDs) have great potential in many applications such as bioimaging, light emitting diodes, solar cells and lasers. However, a great number of studies have been focused on Cd based (II-VI) and Pb (IV-VI) based materials which are not suitable for mass production. Therefore, alternative types of QD containing less toxic materials have been introduced, including CuInS2 QDs. This I-III-VI semiconductor nanocrystals also attract lots of attention due to their large Stock shift, long fluorescence lifetime and high defect tolerance, making them attractive emitters for applications in bioimaging, photovoltaics and light emitting diodes.

In the first project, we …

Effects Of Terrestrial Weathering On Rare Earth Element Concentrations And Sulfur Isotopic Signatures Of Carbonaceous And Ordinary Chondrites, Ruby Virginia Patterson

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Understanding the effects of weathering of chondrites is essential to gaining accurate and useful information about the formation of our solar system, as well as a more detailed account of the mobilization of chondritic compounds when they encounter terrestrial conditions. Elemental concentrations and stable isotope analyses of chondrites, considered to be the most primordial material in the solar system, are two tools which help unlock the weathering patterns of these specimens when they enter the earth system. However, it is not currently known exactly how time spent in the field alters rare earth element (REE) concentration or δ34S signatures within …

Heat And Mass Transfer In Parboiled Rice During Heating With 915 Mhz Microwave Energy And Impacts On Milled Rice Properties, Deandrae L.W. Smith

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Microwave (MW) heating offers an energy-efficient, fast method to dry high moisture content (MC) parboiled rice to safe storage MC. However, there is limited research that describes the fundamentals of heat and mass transport in rice kernels exposed to MW energy at 915 MHz, the most promising heating frequency for industrialized processing. This information is vital to explain the implications of MW technology on dried rice quality. The overall objective of this study was to develop a microwave heating technology that can sufficiently dry high MC parboiled rough rice kernels in one pass using a 915-MHz industrial microwave system. An …

Genetics Of Physiological Traits Associated With Drought Tolerance In Soybean (Glycine Max), Sumandeep Kaur Bazzer

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Soybean (Glycine max L.) is one of the major row crops in the United States, and its production is often limited by drought stress. Physiological traits from exotic germplasm that confer drought tolerance may be useful in improving commercial soybean production. For example, carbon isotope ratio (δ13C) is positively correlated with water use efficiency (WUE), and nitrogen isotope ratio (δ15N) is negatively correlated with N2 fixation; canopy temperature (CT) is an indicator for genetic variation in transpiration and stomatal conductance. Therefore, the objectives of this research were to identify the genomic regions associated with: (1) δ13C and δ15N using a …

A Macroevolutionary View On Extinction In Aves, Chiroptera, And Odonata, Peter Hasik

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A central goal of conservation biology is to identify and understand the factors that lead to extinction. The Earth is currently undergoing a 6th mass extinction event, in large part because of human activity. In the last century, rates of extinction have increased anywhere from 8-100 times the background rate of 2 extinctions per 10,000 species every 100 years. However, there remains a debate over whether certain species are predisposed to a higher extinction risk. In particular, it is not known if the macroevolutionary history of a lineage is a major contributor to the probability of extinction, nor is it …

Effects Of Broccoli And Carrots On Fecal Microrna Expression In Infants: A Short-Term Feeding Study, Kaleigh E. Beane

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Diets, through multiple mechanisms, cause significant impact on human health and disease etiology; proposed modes of action include modulation of non-coding RNAs and influences on the gut microbiome. Specifically, phytochemicals change human miRNA expression thereby impacting gut microbiome and/or increasing host immune functions. Apiaceous and cruciferous vegetables have been linked to decreased chronic inflammation, which is closely related with the host immune system, yet it is not investigated how these two classes of vegetables influence the colonic miRNA profile. In this study, therefore we aimed to determine the effects of short-term feeding of broccoli and carrot to infants on fecal …

Nutritional Strategies For Feeding Broiler Breeders On Hen And Progeny Performance, Antonio Beitia

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the last 60 plus years, broiler breeders have been under an incredible amount of genetic pressure. This genetic pressure comes from the continually increasing consumer demand for poultry products. The objective of this dissertation is to understand the effects of different nutritional and management practices on broiler breeder’s performance. The first series of experiments investigate the impact of broilerization on hen and early progeny performance. Broilerization is a process only used by genetic companies. The results from these experiments showed the adverse effects of broilerization on chick quality and hen performance. Follow up trials were performed to determine the …

Supporting Adequate Sleep In Patients Hospitalized With Psychiatric Illness Through A Nurse-Driven Protocol, Mary Perez

Doctor of Nursing Practice Scholarly Projects

Sleep is growing in recognition for its part in overall health. Sleep is essential to optimal functioning in all people. Its link to psychiatric illness makes it especially important to those in recovery. As we learn more about sleep and its effects, it is important for nurses and nurse leaders to become more acquainted with how sleep affects health and what can be done to initiate good sleep. Since sleep is complex and supporting sleep must be individualized to each person, having a good understanding of both subjects is necessary. Sleep hygiene is a set of environmental and behavioral interventions …

Consumption Of Traditional Alaska Native Foods As It Relates To Health, Hunter Marshall

Theoretical Foundation in Advanced Practice Nursing

No abstract provided.

Phytochemistry Literature: An Altmetrics Analysis, Radhakrishnan S, Baskaran C

Library Philosophy and Practice (e-journal)

This article analyses the articles on Phytochemistry Literature with the tools of Altmetric. For this study, 10 articles on phytochemistry literature were taken for the analysis. This study also compares the Citations received by a publication against the Altmetric score. The study shows that the most of the Publications are shared by the social media Twitter. Moreover readers prefer to read the articles through Reference Manager Mendeley. The study discovers that there is a moderate correlation between Citation and Altmetric Score. Only one paper obtains citation and Altmetric score equally. Another paper gets citation and Altmetric score in near equal. …

Recent Advances In Deep Learning For Object Detection, Xiongwei Wu, Doyen Sahoo, Steven C. H. Hoi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Object detection is a fundamental visual recognition problem in computer vision and has been widely studied in the past decades. Visual object detection aims to find objects of certain target classes with precise localization in a given image and assign each object instance a corresponding class label. Due to the tremendous successes of deep learning based image classification, object detection techniques using deep learning have been actively studied in recent years. In this paper, we give a comprehensive survey of recent advances in visual object detection with deep learning. By reviewing a large body of recent related work in literature, …

Factors Affecting A Riparian Cottonwood Stand Die-Off Along The Rio Grande Pueblo Of Santa Ana New Mexico, Usa, Hannah A. Varani

Water Resources Professional Project Reports

Negative effects of river control include altered sediment and biotic processes, leading to channel incision and discordance between water delivery and the evolved physiology of seed dispersal. In forests where tree regeneration is inhibited due to such altered processes, tree mortality is of utmost importance guiding forest management. I compared cottonwood ring-widths between adjacent live and dead forest patches in a nested plot design along the regulated Rio Grande, New Mexico. Particle size in the associated sediments, competition, and age were analyzed as contributing factors. The entire stand had declining growth between 2002 and 2015. Tree growth correlated strongest with …

Dean's Research Newsletter, Summer 2020, Jerry L. Nadler

SOM Dean's Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Dean's Update, Summer 2020, Jerry L. Nadler

SOM Dean's Research Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Astroalign: A Python Module For Astronomical Image Registration, Martin Beroiz, Juan B. Cabral, Bruno Sanchez

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present an algorithm implemented in the Astroalign Python module for image registration in astronomy. Our module does not rely on WCS information and instead matches three-point asterisms (triangles) on the images to find the most accurate linear transformation between them. It is especially useful in the context of aligning images prior to stacking or performing difference image analysis. Astroalign can match images of different point-spread functions, seeing, and atmospheric conditions.

Louis Justement And Mary-Ann Bjornsti Begin Leadership Roles At Faseb, Jeff Hansen

Browse All News

No abstract provided.

Frontal Vehicle Illumination Via Rear-Facing Lighting Reduces Potential For Collisions With White-Tailed Deer, Travis L. Devault, Thomas W. Seamans, Bradley Blackwell

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

nimal–vehicle collisions cause many millions of animal deaths each year worldwide and present a substantial safety risk to people. In the United States and Canada, deer (Odocoileus spp.) are involved in most animal–vehicle collisions associated with human injuries. We evaluated a vehicle-based collision mitigation method designed to decrease the likelihood of deer–vehicle collisions during low-light conditions, when most collisions occur. Specifically, we investigated whether the use of a rear-facing light, providing more complete frontal vehicle illumination than standard headlights alone, enhanced vehicle avoidance behaviors of white-tailed deer (O. virginianus). We quantified flight initiation distance (FID), the likelihood …

Underrepresentation Of Female And Minority Students In Science, Technology, Engineering, And Mathematics Academies In Texas, Darnisha Lanette Carreathers

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Female and minority student groups are underrepresented in science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) programs and careers. Researchers have attributed this disparity to many factors; however, the primary factors are motivation and self-efficacy beliefs emerging during middle school. The purpose of this study was to examine why female and minority students enrolled and persisted in designated Texas-STEM academies by identifying themes related to Eccles’s expectancy-value model. In this qualitative case study, the researcher classified nine students from designated Texas Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (T-STEM) academies in a North Texas school district as persisters or nonpersisters. The researcher used interviews, …

A Novel, Reliable Protocol To Objectively Assess Scar Stiffness Using Shear Wave Elastography, Helen Dejong, Steven Abbott, Marilyn Zelesco, Katrina Spilsbury, Lisa Martin, Rowan Sanderson, Melanie Ziman, Brendan F. Kennedy, Fiona M. Wood

Research outputs 2014 to 2021

© 2020 The Authors The aim of this research was to investigate the use of shear wave elastography as a novel tool to quantify and visualize scar stiffness after a burn. Increased scar stiffness is indicative of pathologic scarring which is associated with persistent pain, chronic itch and restricted range of movement. Fifty-five participants with a total of 96 scars and 69 contralateral normal skin sites were evaluated. A unique protocol was developed to enable imaging of the raised and uneven burn scars. Intra-rater and inter-rater reliability was excellent (intra-class correlation coefficient > 0.97), and test–retest reliability was good (intra-class correlation …

The Contribution Of Multiple Barriers To Reproduction Between Edaphically Divergent Lineages In The Amazonian Tree Protium Subserratum (Burseraceae), Tracy M. Misiewicz, Tracey S. Simmons, Paul V.A. Fine

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Disentangling the strength and importance of barriers to reproduction that arise between diverging lineages is central to our understanding of species origin and maintenance. To date, the vast majority of studies investigating the importance of different barriers to reproduction in plants have focused on short-lived temperate taxa while studies of reproductive isolation in trees and tropical taxa are rare. Here, we systematically examine multiple barriers to reproduction in an Amazonian tree, Protium subserratum (Burseraceae) with diverging lineages of soil specialist ecotypes. Using observational, molecular, distributional, and experimental data, we aimed to quantify the contributions of individual prezygotic and postzygotic barriers …

Making Meaning Of Mindfulness In The Lives Of Law School Students: A Phenomenological Study, Lisa Benjamin Mitchell

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this study phenomenological study was to understand how law school students make meaning of mindfulness as it relates to stress during law school. The Monitoring and Acceptance Theory guided this research study to understand the meaning of mindfulness and stress associated with law school. The Self-determination Theory tenet of autonomy also increased the ability to understand a mindfulness approach to managing stress. The central question of the study is: What are the lived experiences of law students and their mindfulness practice? The phenomenological study was grounded in constructivist methodology and viewed the truth as relative, and values …

Mental Illness And Demonic Influence: The Difference Between Them And The Difference It Makes, Alton Kawan Parks

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

This thesis project presented how mental illness and demonic possession were viewed by and how counseling was beneficial for the members of Samaritan Missionary Baptist Church. The gathered information was used for an informed outlook on the subject matter, and research was gathered through surveys. This process was designed to increase knowledge, consideration, and understanding of the subject matter to promote an in-depth basis for development.

Keeping The Faith: A Phenomenological Study Exploring Intellectually-Gifted Adults Who Remain Practicing Christians, Deborah Jean Glynn

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The purpose of this phenomenological study is to explore the life experiences of intellectually-gifted adults in the United States who persist in their Christian beliefs. At this stage in the research, an intellectually-gifted adult will be generally defined as an individual who has scored at least two standard deviations above the mean (minus the standard error of measure) on a standardized intelligence test (Ohio Department of Education, 2017). The primary theory guiding this study will be Vygotsky’s (2011) theory of cognitive development. It is appropriate for this study because it will shed light on Jesus as a possible more knowledgeable …

Exopolysaccharide From Mycelium Of Ganoderma Lucidum As A Potential Additive For Juvenile Red Hybrid Tilapia (Oreochromis Sp.), Pajaru Rahman Janathu Ferdaus

Student Works (2020-2029)

Functional feed additives are added during feed preparation to improve the growth performance and cellular defense for the fishes. Interaction of cellular biomolecules and dysfunction of red hybrid tilapia (Oreochromis sp.) could be avoided by strengthening the antioxidant defense with antioxidant rich sources. As for this, a bioactive polysaccharide of Ganoderma lucidum was found to have its antioxidant bioactivities. Thus the potential of exopolysaccharide (EPS) extracted from the mycelium of G.lucidum as feed additive for red hybrid tilapia was evaluated in this research. In this experiment, one hundred twenty (120) juveniles were randomly divided into four groups and designated with …

Fermented Mycelial Biomass Of Ganoderma Lucidum As A Potential Additive For Juvenile Red Hybrid Tilapia (Oreochromis Sp.), Subramaniam Kumeera

Student Works (2020-2029)

The presence of antibiotic compounds in aquaculture is gaining higher interest worldwide due to the emergence as dangerous pollutants of the environment and to human health. However, feed additive play an important role in agriculture to reduce the usage of antibiotics and aquaculture productive performance. Therefore, the polysaccharide produced by Ganoderma lucidum is recognised due to its essential biological activities. Growing biomass from mycelium of Ganoderma lucidum (MGL) through submerged liquid fermentation (SLF) has been a fast and straightforward alternative compared to fruiting bodies. The study aims to observe the inclusion of biomass from MGL as a dietary supplement on …

Nitrogen-Doped Graphene-Based Metal Composites For The Non-Enzymatic Detection Of Hydrogen Peroxide, Tajabadi Poor Mohammad Taghi

Student Works (2020-2029)

Recently, much attention has been devoted to detecting hydrogen peroxide (H2O2) because of its extensive range of applications in chemical synthesis, the textile industry, food production, fuel cell devices, and even in many oxidative biological reactions. Among the various methods of detection of H2O2, electrochemical sensors has many advantages, such as simplicity, high efficiency and sensitivity, as well as good selectivity., To improve the sensitivity of non-enzymatic sensors, noble metal nanoparticles with particular electrocatalytic activities can be utilized. The present research is aimed to design a hybrid approach for the development of novel nanostructures for non-enzymatic detection of H2O2. Herein, …

Synthesis And In Vitro Studies Of Polycaprolactone-Coated Superparamagnetic Iron Oxide Nanoparticles For Magnetic Hyperthermia Therapy, Nasab Ziba Hedayat

Student Works (2020-2029)

Research has garnered a great interest in utilization of superparamagnetic iron oxide nanoparticles (SPIONs) as magnetic nano-heating agents in hyperthermia cancer therapy by profiting from high apoptosis vulnerability of cancer cells at elevated temperatures. However, low oxidation resistance and high agglomeration tendency negatively affect magnetic characteristics of nanoparticles and subsequently their clinical efficiency. Particle surface modifications are potential approaches to endow SPIONs a range of desirable properties including high colloidal dispersity, low aggregation tendency, cytocompatibility, and high oxidation resistance. Currently, polymer coating has led to decrease magnetic hyperthermia efficiency through formation of intermediate layer between nanoheating agents and targeted cells. …

Establishment Of Mucuna Bracteata As A Platform For The Production Of Anti-Toxoplasma Immunoglobulin, Abd Aziz Nazrin

Student Works (2020-2029)

Production of recombinant proteins using plant system has gained a continuous momentum in the past decade. Traditionally, recombinant proteins are commercially produced through mammalian cell lines and microbial fermentation. These conventional platforms have intricate scalability, safety issues and costly. On the other hand, plants are easily scalable, economically competitive and do not harbor animal or human pathogens. As eukaryote, plants are capable to carry out complex post-translational modifications that are necessary for functional biological activities such as disulphide bridging and glycosylation. The aim of this study is to establish a new platform for the production of recombinant pharmaceutical protein in …

Photosynthetic Activity And Yield Of Pegaga (Hydrocotyle Bonariensis) Grown Under Natural And Artificial Light, Narayanan Indiran Nair

Student Works (2020-2029)

Large leaf pennywort (Hydrocotyle bonariensis) also known as Pegaga in Malaysia, is an herb belonging to the family Araliaceae and commonly used as a culinary leafy vegetable and in preparation of traditional medicines to treat various symptoms of ophthalmic diseases and eczema. The plant is also used as an emetic, diuretic and laxative. With the increasing demand for H. bonariensis by the herbal industry, sourcing plant materials from natural habitats is no longer an economically viable or environmentally sustainable proposition. H. bonariensis is highly sensitive to direct sunlight exposure and water scarcity, which makes successful farming dependent on weather conditions …

Identification Of Peptide Sequence To Block Dengue Virus Transmission Into Cells Via In Silico And In Vitro Assays, Arumugam Aathe Cangaree

Student Works (2020-2029)

Dengue virus (DV) infection has become main public wellbeing concerns, affecting approximately 390 million people worldwide. This fact was reported by the World Health Organization. Yet, there is no commercial antiviral treatment for DV infection. Therefore, the development of potent and non-toxic anti-DV, as a complement for the existing treatment strategies, are urgently needed. Herein, we investigate a series of low molecular weight peptides inhibitors by aiming the cellular entry process as the promising approach to block DV infection. The peptides were designed based on previously reported peptide sequence, DN58opt (TWWCFYFCRRHHPFWFFYRHN), to identify minimal effective inhibitory sequence via molecular docking …