Digital Commons Network^™

(R1523) Abundant Natural Resources, Ethnic Diversity And Inclusive Growth In Sub-Saharan Africa: A Mathematical Approach, Juliet I. Adenuga, Kazeem B. Ajide, Anthonia T. Odeleye, Abayomi A. Ayoade

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

The sub-Saharan African region is blessed with abundant natural resources and diverse ethnic groups, yet the region is dominated by the largest number of poor people worldwide due to inequitable distribution of national income. Existing statistics forecast decay in the quality of lives over the years compared to the continent of Asia that shares similar history with the region. In this paper, a-five dimensional first-order nonlinear ordinary differential equations was formulated to give insight into various factors that shaped dynamics of inclusive growth in sub-Saharan Africa. The validity test was performed based on ample mathematical theorems and the model was …

Effects Of Dietary Probiotic Supplementation On Growth, Rumen Development And Selected Blood Metabolites Of Growing Calves, Tarek Abbas, Abd El-Hady Orma, Tarek Ibrahim, Amr Abd El-Wahab

Mansoura Veterinary Medical Journal

Objective: The present study was carried out to evaluate the effects of probiotic in diets of growing calves on performance, blood metabolites and rumen metabolism parameters. Design: Descriptive study. Animals: Twelve Holstein calves (~151 kg) were divided randomly into three groups of four animals and were reared in clean well-ventilated boxes for 3 months. Procedure: In the treatment groups, probiotic (ANKOR ONE)® contained Saccharomyces cerevisiae, Aspergillus oryzae and Kluyveromyces marxianus was supplemented with concentrate mixture at the rate of 0.5 g/kg and 1 g/kg feed. All the calves were offered diet contained roughage and concentrate separately. Results: The average daily …

Apache Science Team, Denise L. Jameson

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

Sanger High school has the unique opportunity to offer a wide array of classes and pathways for students to take so that they can meet their educational goals of graduation the move on to higher education or starting a career right out of high school. Students have all these opportunities and benefits to have a strong start out of high school, but ultimately students are unaware of what jobs are related to those choices or pathways that they have decided to take part in. Apache Science Team allows for students to experience and learn about many different careers and opportunities …

Fragments Of The Self, Jessica Swank

All Theses

This body of work addresses humanity’s relationship with digital technology from a personal perspective. Through constructed photography and sculptural work, I point to the connections between humans, machines, and nature, emphasizing the blurred lines between each of these entities. By revealing overlaps and associations between them, I seek to reconcile digital connection and emotional connection. I believe reconciliation may come through the acknowledgment of digital technology’s influence, and the subversion of convenience for the sake of quality human connections.

The images within this series reside at the intersection of self-portraiture and documentary. A dialogue is formed between the subjects through …

Aged 539 Graduate Internship Report - Grace M. Davis Agriculture Department, Joshua S. Aguilar

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

This internship and project report includes validation documents required in meeting the quality criteria for secondary-level programs of instruction in agriculture. The supporting material includes information to receive state and local funding, outlines the goals and objectives of the program, along with an overview of Grace M. Davis High School, the agriculture program, and the community.

Natively Implementing Deep Reinforcement Learning Into A Game Engine, Austin Kincer

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Artificial intelligence (AI) increases the immersion that players can have while playing games. Modern game engines, a middleware software used to create games, implement simple AI behaviors that developers can use. Advanced AI behaviors must be implemented manually by game developers, which decreases the likelihood of game developers using advanced AI due to development overhead.

A custom game engine and custom AI architecture that handled deep reinforcement learning was designed and implemented. Snake was created using the custom game engine to test the feasibility of natively implementing an AI architecture into a game engine. A snake agent was successfully trained …

Natural Asset-Based Community Development In The Nebraska Community Foundation Network, Kristen Ohnoutka

Community and Regional Planning Program: Theses

As rural communities explore new ways to stimulate growth and development in their place, one of the biggest challenges they face is reinventing what rural community development is and has been. The conventional way of thinking goes communities must attract new businesses to attract new workers to grow a community’s population. However, population growth and industry attraction are not always equivalent to progress, especially not in rural communities. For decades, rural communities have withstood the boom and bust of industry and economy, whether it be agricultural, industrial, manufacturing, etc. These industries and more have demanded the extraction of rural communities’ …

Validation Of Landsat 8 High Resolution Sea Surface Temperature Using Surfers, Quinton Vanhellemont, Robert J. W. Brewin, Philip J. Bresnahan, Tyler Cyronak

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Nearshore coastal waters are highly dynamic in both space and time. They can be difficult to sample using conventional methods due to their shallow depth, tidal variability, and the presence of breaking waves. High resolution satellite sensors can be used to provide synoptic views of Surface Temperature (ST), but the performance of such ST products in the nearshore zone is poorly understood. Close to the shoreline, the ST pixels can be influenced by mixed composition of water and land, as a result of the sensor’s spatial resolution. This can cause thermal adjacency effects due to the highly different diurnal temperature …

Complete Modeling Of The Chondrogenic Environment Under Continuous Low-Intensity Ultrasound, Heather Newell

Department of Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Articular cartilage is an avascular tissue that requires therapeutic intervention methods. This work answers the following: determine transducer operation to optimize the bioeffects; calculate the magnitude of pressure exerted on chondrocytes at an injury site; and confirm the theoretical findings by an animal model.

Earlier work has shown that cellular response to US is maximized at the resonance frequency of the cells. Resonance frequencies were calculated for chondrocytes in various layers. The latter configuration closest resembles in vivo conditions and the resonance occurred at 3.8±0.3 ������. The 3D model of US propagation in a rabbit knee was constructed from MRIs …

Uncloaking The Invisible Hand: Reintroducing Fairness To Antitrust Analyses, Jennifer Coté

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

Antitrust doctrine adopted the Chicago School’s narrow consumer welfare and economic efficiency analysis in the early 1970s. Since then, enforcement has drastically reduced, and market concentration has substantially increased. But the Chicago School is not true to either the intent of the original antitrust legislation – the Sherman Act – nor to the ‘economist’ they adopted as their ultimate advocate, Adam Smith. The Chicago School has cherry picked Adam Smith’s written works to support market deregulation and the existence of a perfectly efficient, rational marketplace, but this is not an accurate rendition of his works. Rather, Adam Smith was a …

Creche Herald Vol. 25, No. 4, Rita B. Bocher

Creche Herald

The Winter 2021 publication features nativity sets and personal reflections from members in the organization; information about nativities and nativity exhibits; and information about the Friends of the Creche annual meeting.

Implications Of Condition Shifts On Shallow Lakes, Alicia Skolte

Biology Graduate Theses

Shallow lakes have undergone condition shifts throughout time by natural causes, management actions, or a combination of the two. Because shallow lakes are especially vulnerable to shifts towards turbid conditions, management actions on shallow lakes have focused on water level/retainment, biomanipulations, the management/removal of non-native species, and land-use changes. This review compiles a summary on ecosystem shifts including a discussion on the frequency of shifts historically and the importance and causes of those shifts, trophic cascades, and the influence of introduced species in shallow lakes. This review will then examine case-studies of management-linked shifts and explain current shift theory. Next, …

Feeding Patterns And Diet Overlap Of Muskellunge And Co-Occurring Piscivores In Minnesota Lakes, Kamden Glade

Biology Graduate Theses

Muskellunge Esox masquinongy are the largest member of the family Esocidae found in Minnesota and are managed for trophy angling opportunities with large minimum size requirements, limited harvest, and stocking to support existing populations or expand angling opportunities. While Muskellunge impacts at the community level appear minimal based on available literature, relatively little is known about Muskellunge diets, eat the le particularly in Minnesota. In this study, we used gastric lavage to examine gut contents of Muskellunge, Northern Pike Esox lucius, Walleye Sander vitreus, and Largemouth Bass Micropterus salmoides. Diets were quantified using an index of relative importance (IRI) and …

Adaptive Human-Robot Motion Transfer For Complete Body Imitation, Francisco Villa

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Programming robot systems to perform certain tasks is a big challenge especially if such programming is to be performed by persons who are not experts in robotics. For example, when programming a robot to serve as an exercise trainer, the person defining the motions might more naturally be a person in the exercise domain rather than a robotics expert. To address this, this thesis investigates programming by demonstration or teleoperation using full direct body motion. The goal is to reproduce gaits, gestures, and postures on a humanoid robot from observed human demonstrations. Fine motor movements such as movement of fingers …

Guidance Laws For N-Mobile Agents To Grip A Moving Target, Pranay Gadiya

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

In this thesis, we consider the problem of n mobile agents carrying a gripper, with the objective of gripping a moving circular target. The target may move with constant velocity, or even maneuver. We develop guidance laws by which the agents can first cage the target and subsequently grip it. These guidance laws are developed based on a collision cone framework, using which the mobile agents cooperatively steer their velocity vectors in an appropriate fashion to meet their objective. It is assumed that each of the mobile agents are equipped with a lidar sensor, using which they obtain the range …

Designing And Advancing Contrast Agents For Ultrasound-Switchable Fluorescence Imaging, Yang Liu

Bioengineering Dissertations - Archive

Fluorescence imaging is a remarkable tool for molecular targeting and multicolor imaging, but it suffers from poor resolution in centimeters-deep tissues. The recently developed ultrasound-switchable fluorescence (USF) imaging has overcome this challenge and achieved in vivo imaging with the help of the indocyanine green (ICG)-encapsulated poly(N-isopropylacrylamide) (ICG-PNIPAM) contrast agent. As USF imaging advances, there is a great demand to expand the contrast agent bank so that applications can be achieved using different types of contrast agents. Also, there is a need to improve the current ICG-PNIPAM nanogel. This study focused on improving the ICG-PNIPAM nanogel, formulating a novel contrast agent, …

Assessment Of Stormwater Infrastructure For Mitigating Flooding And Non-Point Source Pollution, Helia Farzaneh

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

Flooding is the top natural hazard impacting coastal and inland communities in Texas. Beyond its destructive impact on rising waters in communities, flooding-induced stormwater negatively affects the quality of large bodies of water. Stormwater runs over land, washes off pollutants, and deposits them into rivers which causes water quality issues in bays and estuaries. In addition, the stormwater increases nutrients, sediments, oxygen-demanding substances, pathogens, and toxins which results in hypoxia in the aquatic system. During the last 5-6 years, severe storm events such as Tropical Storm Beta (September 2020), Tropical Storm Imelda (September 2019), Hurricane Harvey (August 2017) have caused …

Spatiotemporal Variability Of Fishery‐Dependent Indices For The Declining Louisiana Southern Flounder Fishery, David R. Smith, Michael A. Dance, Joe West, Stephen R. Midway

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Body Size, Trophic Position, And The Coupling Of Different Energy Pathways Across A Saltmarsh Landscape, Friedrich W. Keppeler, Jill A. Olin, Paola C. López‐Duarte, Michael J. Polito, Linda M. Hooper‐Bùi, Sabrina S. Taylor, Nancy N. Rabalais, F. Joel Fodrie, Brian J. Roberts, R. Eugene Turner, Charles W. Martin, Olaf P. Jensen

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Terrapin Station: Individual, Sex, And Site Factors Related To Turtle Growth Variability, Leigh Anne Harden, Stephen R. Midway, J. Whitfield Gibbons

Faculty Publications

For many turtle species, life history traits such as body size, age at maturity, and somatic growth rate can vary among individuals and habitats and between the sexes. Therefore, it is important to consider factors that may influence growth when modeling (somatic) growth for turtles. Long-term capture-mark-recapture studies lend themselves to studying somatic growth in turtles due to the repeated measurements of individuals over time. We used a long-term dataset to examine growth patterns of philopatric Diamondback Terrapins (Malaclemys terrapin) on Kiawah Island, South Carolina, USA. We used a hierarchical three-parameter von Bertalanffy model to estimate individual growth of 44 …

Shark Side Of The Moon: Are Shark Attacks Related To Lunar Phase?, Lindsay A. French, Stephen R. Midway, David H. Evans, George H. Burgess

Faculty Publications

Animals across taxa have shown behaviors linked to moon phase (or the proxy of lunar illumination), and marine organisms are well-documented to calibrate certain activities with the moon. Few studies have looked at a possible connection between moon phase and shark attacks on humans, and the results have been preliminary or lacking relationships. We used nearly 50 years of shark attack data from across the globe to test for a relationship between shark attacks and moon phase. We examined factors of geography, shark species, and outcome of attack. From 12 relationships that we tested (totaling 120 comparisons), we found 12 …

The Comparison Of Data Collection Methods In Evaluating Drivers’ Responses To Speed Message Signs, Abigail Musser

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

Commentary: The Past, Present, And Future Of The Global Raptor Impact Network, James R. Belthoff, Julie A. Heath

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Most raptor populations are declining and nearly a fifth are threatened with extinction; thus there is a need to increase collaboration to ensure efficient and effective research, management, and conservation. Here, we introduce the Global Raptor Impact Network (GRIN; www.globalraptors.org), a tool to enhance collaboration and conservation impact of the raptor research community. We provide an overview of the history and current state of GRIN, including plans for expansion. Predecessors to GRIN include The African Raptor DataBank, which was launched in 2012 to ascertain the conservation status of raptors across Africa; and the Global Raptor Information Network, which was launched …

The Journey Towards Critical Self-Authorship For Native Lacrosse Athletes At Ncaa Division I Institutions., Brandon C. Joseph

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is an examination of contemporary collegiate lacrosse as a symptom of settler colonialism and the experiences of Native lacrosse athletes at NCAA Division I historically white institutions. It begins with a brief historical overview of Native lacrosse and Native education through a lens of settler colonial theory and Tribal Critical Race Theory. It uses Critical Indigenous Research Methods to examine the experiences of contemporary Native collegiate lacrosse players and their journey towards critical self-authorship. The ultimate goal was to explore the extent to which Native lacrosse athletes felt they could show up as their authentic Native self in …

One Pint At A Time: Documenting The Black Experience In American Craft Beer, Aaron Hose

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

One Pint at a Time is a documentary feature by Aaron Hosé, created as part of the requirements for earning a Master of Fine Arts in Feature Film Production from the University of Central Florida. This is the first documentary film in history to focus exclusively on the stories of African American beermakers and brewery owners, their ties to ancient Egyptian and African brewing traditions, and how they are trying to make their mark within the business of craft beer; a multi-billion-dollar industry in which merely one percent of breweries are Black-owned and operated. Following the guidelines of UCF's program, …

A Proposed Study To Explore The Relationships Of Methionine Restriction, The Mitochondrial Upr, And Animal Lifespan Determination, Joanne Mai

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The determination of chronological age is complex and can be influenced by both genetic and environmental factors. Mitochondria, essential organelles that generate the vast amount of cellular energy, are closely associated with the aging process. While many studies have been performed, we still lack a complete understanding of how animal lifespan is determined. In the following research proposal, a strategy is outlined to uncover the mechanism of the mitochondrial unfolded protein response (UPRmt) and extended lifespan resulting from restriction of the amino acid methionine. The model organism Caenorhabditis elegans and a forward genetic screening strategy will be used to identify …

Collected Data And Research Into Turtle Populations In The Fort Worth Area, My Dung Nguyen

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The turtle population within Fort Worth has been observed to be in danger. Turtles of all species were washing up on lakes and rivers deceased or incapacitated, often diseased and lacking any sense of innate self-preservation that would otherwise be present in the species. The research conducted aimed to trap and track the turtle population using Passive Integrated Transponders, or PITs. These techniques were utilized to further solidify any potential new disease outbreak or trend in turtle deaths so that further action could be taken in the future. The turtles were each measured for circumference, weight, and sex while the …

A Practical Moral Theory The Failed State Of Normative Ethics, Gage Martinez

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Normative ethics can be described as the investigation into how one ought to act, morally speaking. The state of contemporary normative ethics is, essentially, a split between consequentialist (the idea that things are morally right or wrong based on their consequence) and non-consequentialist thought. Yet in practice, no one seems to be able to live by these moral theories, and I argue that it would be bizarre to do so as well. I examine reasons to believe that neither theory provides a complete account of real moral life, and how they fail at being prescriptive in practice. I provide a …

Personality Assessment In Cloned Equines, Alexis Erickson

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The nature versus nurture debate of personality has been widely researched, yet it has seldom used cloned animals. Since cloned animals are genetically identical to their donors, this avenue of research provides a unique opportunity to understand the genetic and environmental factors of personality. To explore these influences of personality, a donor polo pony and her cloned offspring were analyzed. The trainers of the horses rated each horse based on its personality traits and physical characteristics. A positive correlation was found between the personality of the donor horse and her cloned offspring. Moreover, the personality of the donor positively predicted …

Photobiomodulation Enhances Blood Oxygenation And Tissue Metabolism By Near Infrared Laser And Light Emitting Diode, Caroline Carter

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.