Digital Commons Network^™

Tracing Matters Of Scale By Walking With Minerals, Petra Lilja

Nordes Conference Series

Most practices of design are dependent on materials, and an anthropocentric way of thinking matter as mere resource ready to exploit, dominates. This text attempts to counteract that mode of thinking about matter, by walking and thinking-with stones, minerals and fossils in a disused limestone quarry in southern Sweden. The text is folding together thoughts from philosophy of science and vital materialism with insights from the lithic, spatio-temporal scales of sedimented fossil archives of the quarry and situated experiential explorations taking place there. What emerged from the learnings of the minerals, and what this text contributes with, is a proposal …

(Un)Weaving (Un)Sustainability, Sheida Amiri-Rigi, Despina Christoforidou

Nordes Conference Series

The spatio-temporal scale of design for sustainability has come full circle. What started within a technology-oriented global outlook, later evolving into a people-oriented and local view on change, now urges for a holistic, broad extent and multilevel design for sustainability. This paper enquires into the theories of social change that govern different approaches within the field, and positions the adhesion of socio-technical system innovation and transition design to classical modern theory, against an emergent design paradigm anchored in practice theory. By drawing on the literature of the field and comparing various models, a conceptual framework is suggested where "practice" serves …

Design For Noticing With Biodiversity Logbooks, Liz Edwards, Serena Pollastri, Linda Linda Linda, Robert Barratt

Nordes Conference Series

This paper introduces the use of design to improve noticing skills in order to address environmental issues at a variety of physical and temporal scales. We illustrate the application of ‘design for noticing’ through Biodiversity Logbooks – a pilot project intended to reduce ‘plant blindness’ amongst primary school children. Plant blindness is the inability to recognise, appreciate and value plants and it has far reaching social, environmental and economic implications. In this project, we designed pedagogical tools and processes to foster the skills of noticing plants in their environments, and connecting the small-scale of their individual features to large-scale systems. …

A Tale Of A Wise City: A Speculation On Entanglements Of Non-Humans And Humans In An Urban Space., Inna Zrajaeva

Nordes Conference Series

This paper proposes methods for imagining a future which includes non-human stakeholders. The particular scenario is built on the concept currently known as Smart City. This exploration proposes a speculative fiction of a future where technologies in a Smart City are serving human and non-human citizens. The final outcome is a fictional documentary that illustrates life in the city from the viewpoint of its human citizens. To develop the concept of the city one of the primary challenges was to coordinate the many different scales, from the entire city structure to the interactions between the individual citizens. To address this, …

Farmers' Perspectives On Local Feedstuffs And Introduced Forages: Case Study Of Four Villages In Northern Nigeria, G.-E. Akouègnon, Volker Hoffmann, R. Schultze‐Kraft

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

No abstract provided.

Eng 3009g-600: Myth And Culture, Christopher Wixson

Fall 2021

No abstract provided.

Platelet-Rich Plasma Vs. Traditional Surgical And Nonsurgical Interventions For Rotator Cuff Tendinopathies, Nick Slingerland

Theses and Graduate Projects

Background: Rotator cuff tendinopathies present as one of the most common musculoskeletal injuries of the upper extremity. The rotator cuff consists of four muscles: the supraspinatus, infraspinatus, teres minor, and subscapularis with the supraspinatus the most injured of the group. Over time, variations regarding treatment through surgical or nonsurgical interventions have remained constant. In recent years, the use of platelet-rich plasma (PRP) as an additional alternative has become popular to promote healing and improve functionality of the shoulder. The purpose of this clinical review using various study designs is to assess if the platelet-rich plasma injections are more effective when …

In Patients With Cardiac Arrest, Does Early Defibrillation Reduce Mortality?, Nicholas Lueddecke

Theses and Graduate Projects

Background: Cardiac arrest is a devastating disorder that affects millions of people each year. Often having a sudden onset, cardiac arrest is almost certainly lethal if prompt treatment is not started. In hopes to both better understand how treatment of cardiac arrest has evolved and to quantitatively measure the outcome of defibrillation, multiple pieces of literature have been reviewed.

Methods: Articles were found that were pertinent by using PubMed and Google Scholar. Literature was obtained that researched a wide spectrum of topics relating to defibrillation and cardiac arrest that did not focus on traumatic cardiac arrests as it is beyond …

Small Hall Effect Thruster With 3d Printed Discharge Channel: Design And Thrust Measurements, Ethan P. Hopping, Wensheng Huang, Kunning G. Xu

PRC-Affiliated Research

Citation: Hopping, E.P.; Huang, W.; Xu, K.G. Small Hall Effect Thruster with 3D Printed Discharge Channel: Design and Thrust Measurements. Aerospace 2021, 8, 227. https:// Abstract: This paper presents the design and performance of the UAH-78AM, a low-power small Hall effect thruster. The goal of this work is to assess the feasibility of using low-cost 3D printing to create functioning Hall thrusters, and study how 3D printing can expand the design space. The thruster features a 3D printed discharge channel with embedded propellant distributor. Multiple materials were tested including ABS, ULTEM, and glazed ceramic. Thrust measurements were obtained at the …

Small Hall Effect Thruster With 3d Printed Discharge Channel: Design And Thrust Measurements, Ethan P. Hopping, Wensheng Huang, Kunning G. Xu

PRC-Affiliated Research

Citation: Hopping, E.P.; Huang, W.; Xu, K.G. Small Hall Effect Thruster with 3D Printed Discharge Channel: Design and Thrust Measurements. Aerospace 2021, 8, 227. https:// Abstract: This paper presents the design and performance of the UAH-78AM, a low-power small Hall effect thruster. The goal of this work is to assess the feasibility of using low-cost 3D printing to create functioning Hall thrusters, and study how 3D printing can expand the design space. The thruster features a 3D printed discharge channel with embedded propellant distributor. Multiple materials were tested including ABS, ULTEM, and glazed ceramic. Thrust measurements were obtained at the …

Climate Crisis & Fashion Leaders: A Patagonia Case Study, Gianna Ferrara

Research Papers by TMD Undergraduate Students

This paper examines the apparel industry's contributions to climate change. It then provides a case study of Patagonia, explaining how the company is attempting to reduce climate change through innovative production methods and through its buy-back programs.

Phenotyping And Preclinical Meta-Analysis Of Behavioral Outcomes From Complete Freund’S Adjuvant-Induced Inflammatory Pain In The Rodent Hind-Paw, Dominika J. Burek

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Pain and opioid use disorder prevalence, diagnoses of mental health disorders, and rate of suicide have all skyrocketed over the last 30 years as a matrix of public health crises. Each reduces quality of life and installs risk of the others; together, they have burdened our country with nearly unmanageable healthcare challenges. Although the critical demand for novel and more effective therapeutics has been clear for decades, relatively little progress has been made to address pain and its comorbidities. Repeated clinical trial failures have called into question the preclinical evidence upon which they are based. Preclinical models of pain-induced negative …

Copper-Mediated Regulation Of A Traditional Iron Uptake System In Uropathogenic Escherichia Coli., George Lwanga Katumba

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Transition metals constitute an important part of the host-pathogen interface. Iron is an essential nutrient that functions as a cofactor for numerous bacterial and host proteins, as either a ligand for oxygen in carrier proteins or an enzyme catalytic site due to its natural redox properties. As part of the innate immune response, infected hosts sequester iron from pathogens to limit their growth, a phenomenon known as nutritional immunity. On the other hand, copper ions are deployed at infection sites as a potent antimicrobial agent to kill bacteria. The ability to survive within multiple, often harsh, microenvironments is fundamental to …

The Evolutionary History Of Camelina Crantz (Brassicaceae) And Domestication Of The Biofuel Crop, C. Sativa (L.) Crantz, Jordan Brock

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The mustard family, Brassicaceae, is a large and economically important group of plants comprising ~350 genera and ~4060 species. Within the family, one genus, Camelina, has been neglected and nearly forgotten until recent decades. This genus comprises between 7 – 9 species, and includes Camelina sativa, an ancient oilseed crop cultivated for thousands of years in Europe. An allohexaploid, C. sativa contains high levels of omega-3 fatty acids and a seed oil composition amenable for production of aviation jet fuel. With a short generation time and ability to be cultivated on marginal soils with few inputs, C. sativa is set …

Testing Janzen’S Physiological Barrier Hypothesis Through Experimental Evolution And Biogeographic Studies On Sister Species Pairs, Vincent John Fasanello

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Background: Janzen’s physiological barrier hypothesis suggests that variation in the effectiveness of physiological barriers to dispersal underlies global patterns of speciation and biodiversity. He noted that because a species’ physiology often evolves to match the range of conditions it has experienced in evolutionary history, it is likely that lineages that occupy habitats with wider ranges of temperature variation will tend to be better at dispersing across thermal gradients and will therefore be less likely to speciate as a result of mountain barriers. Despite decades of research into different aspects of this fundamental hypothesis, its assumptions and predictions remain largely untested.Methods: …

Concentrations Of Lead, Mercury, Arsenic, Cadmium, Manganese, And Aluminum In The Blood Of Pakistani Children With And Without Autism Spectrum Disorder And Their Associated Factors, Mohammad H Rahbar, Shahnaz H Ibrahim, Syed Iqbal Azam, Manouchehr Hessabi, Fatima Karim, Sori Kim, Jing Zhang, Nasreen Gulzar Ali, Katherine A Loveland

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

BACKGROUND: Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is a neurodevelopmental disorder with early onset in utero or childhood. Environmental exposure to six metals (Pb, Hg, As, Cd, Mn, Al) is believed to be associated with ASD directly or interactively with genes.

METHODS: We enrolled 30 ASD cases, age 2-12 years old, and 30 age- and sex-matched typically developing (TD) controls in Karachi, Pakistan. We assessed associations of ASD status with various factors using Conditional Logistic Regression models. We also used General Linear Models to assess possible interaction of blood Mn and Pb concentrations with the three GST genes in relation to ASD …

Mechanisms For Osteoblast And Osteocyte Initiation And Sustainment Of Bone Formation In Young-Adult And Aged Mice, Taylor Lynn Harris

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The cellular mechanisms for loading-induced bone formation, from osteocyte mechano-sensation to osteoblast-directed bone formation, are not well understood. Elucidating these mechanisms and identifying any processes that are disrupted in aged mice can aide in the development of new anabolic drugs for treating diseases like osteoporosis. This thesis begins by investigating the genes expressed by osteocytes following loading at an early mechanosensitive (4-hr) timepoint, and later at a bone-forming (day 5) timepoint. We demonstrated increases in Ngf and Wnt1 in osteocyte-enriched intracortical bone by laser capture microdissection and microarray analysis. These results were important in demonstrating the presence of Ngf in …

Attachment Of Fibrous Materials In Nature And Surgical Repair, Ethan Daniel Hoppe

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Mother nature is the ultimate problem solver. Often by brute force and necessity for survival, the organism that has the best solution to a problem is the one to proliferate. One of these problems for which nature provides an elegant solution is the attachment of dissimilar materials. This dissertation explores the strengthening and relaxation of interactions between soft and hard materials, typically with one of the two being fibrous in character, with the goal of identifying strategies for improving the surgical reattachment of tendon to bone. The work begins with a study of the plant Harpagonella palmeri, which the dissertation …

Human Ipsc Tissue-Engineered Cartilage For Disease Modeling Of Skeletal Dysplasia-Causing Trpv4 Mutations, Amanda R. Dicks

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Cartilage is essential to joint development and function. However, there is a variety of cartilage diseases, ranging from developmental (e.g., skeletal dysplasias) to degenerative (e.g., arthritis), in which treatments and therapeutics are lacking. For example, specific point mutations in the ion channel transient receptor potential vanilloid 4 (TRPV4) prevent proper joint development, leading to mild brachyolmia and severe, neonatally lethal metatropic dysplasia. Tissue-engineered cartilage offers an opportunity to elucidate the underlying mechanisms of these cartilage diseases for the development of treatments. Human induced pluripotent stem cells (hiPSCs) are an improved cell source option for cartilage tissue engineering given their minimal …

Nanoparticle T Cell Engagers As A Modular Platform For Cancer Immunotherapy, Kinan Alhallak

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Immunotherapy has advanced significantly in recent years due to its promising clinical outcomes in a variety of malignancies and holds great promise in becoming the “cure” for cancer. Cancer immunotherapy is the treatment that stimulates a person’s own immune system to recognize, target, and eliminate cancer cells. As the field progresses with emerging and novel strategies, the ability to manipulate the immune system while mitigating toxicities is the goal for clinical translation. To control for both efficacy and safety, biomaterials have been incorporated into immunotherapies to achieve tissue- and/or cell-specific immunomodulation, overcome immunosuppression, and address tumor microenvironment heterogeneity.T cell-based immunotherapy, …

Quantitative Flow Cytometry-Guided Protein Biomarker Characterization For Translational Proteomics And Precision Medicine, Yingye Fang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Angiogenesis, the growth of blood vessels from pre-existing vasculature, is primarily regulated by vascular endothelial growth factor receptors (VEGFRs). Dysregulated angiogenesis is associated with cancers, obesity, and over 70 vascular diseases. Upregulated VEGFR protein expressions in diseased vasculature are promising biomarkers for predicting clinical outcomes, as indicated by non-quantitative immunohistochemical studies in patients with impaired vascularization or tumor angiogenesis. While the quantitative characterization of VEGFRs is critical in identifying biomarkers for anti-angiogenic therapies, VEGFR biomarker development presents two particular challenges: (1) The invasive tissue biopsy needed limits the amount of VEGFR data that can be collected from both normal and …

Long-Term Neural Activity Recorders Using Energy-Based Sensing, Compressive Computation And Data Logging, Darshit Mehta

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Insects are ideal candidates for developing bio-robotic systems owing to their ability to thrive in almost any environment. For example, neurons in their exquisite olfactory sensory systems can be tapped to create a sensing platform for standoff chemical monitoring. However, for enabling such cyborg systems, it is vital that the neural activity of a freely behaving organism can be measured for long periods of time. The current state-of-the-art neural recording techniques are power-intensive and they either need batteries, which make them too bulky for insects, or they have to maintain a continuous telemetry link to an external power source which …

Community Detection In Complex Networks, Zhenqi Lu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Network science plays a central role in understanding and modeling complex systems in many disciplines, including physics, sociology, biology, computer science, economics, politics, and neuroscience. By studying networks, we can gain a deep understanding of the behavior of the systems they represent. Many networks exhibit community structure, i.e., they have clusters of nodes that are locally densely interconnected. These communities manifest the hierarchical organization of the objects in systems, and detecting communities greatly facilitates the study of the organization and structure of complex systems.

Most existing community-detection methods consider low-order connection patterns, at the level of individual links. But high-order …

Co-Registered Photoacoustic And Ultrasound Tomographic Imaging Of Human Colorectal And Ovarian Cancer: Light Delivery, System Development, And Clinical Study, Guang Yang

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Ovarian cancer remains the deadliest of all the gynecological malignancies. Conventional screening tests, including pelvic examination, transvaginal ultrasound (TVUS), and blood testing for cancer antigen 125 (CA-125), lack sufficient specificity for early ovarian cancer diagnosis. Imaging modalities such as computed tomography (CT), positron emission tomography (PET), and magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) have been used for surgical guidance. However, all of these modalities have limitations in detecting small lesions. Globally, colorectal cancer is the second most commonly diagnosed malignancy and the fourth most common cause of cancer mortality. Accurate staging and post-treatment surveillance of this prevalent disease are critical because treatment …

Positron Emission Tomography From 1930 To 1990: The Epistemology And Process Of Scientific Instrumentation, Rick Shang

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a groundbreaking detection system that, among many other applications, enabled neuroscience researchers to detect and image physiological changes in the brain associated with cognitive operations as subjects perform a task. This technology helped researchers learn to explore the physiological basis of human cognition in new ways and was the immediate forerunner of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a technology that continues to dominate the neurosciences. PET was also the founding invention of a new field of cognitive science: human functional neuroimaging. Indeed, some would say that PET encouraged a particular way of understanding the brain …

Developing An Induction Protocol And Generating A Selectable Cell Line To Obtain High-Purity V0v Interneuron Cultures From Mouse Embryonic Stem Cells, Jennifer Pardieck

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Spinal cord injury (SCI) leads to loss of motor function among other devastating impairments, with patients having a grim outlook on recovery as currently there are no widely efficacious treatment methods. The native regenerative capacity of the neurons in the central nervous system is limited, thus recovery of the axonal connections between the different components of the complex circuitry that enables motor function is minimal after SCI. Investigators aiming to improve motor function post-SCI approach the problem from different angles, including removing inhibitory elements to axonal regeneration and supporting regeneration through implantation of biomaterials, exposure to pro-regenerative factors, and transplantation …

Elucidating And Leveraging Dynamics-Function Relationships In Neural Circuits Through Modeling And Optimal Control, Sruti Mallik

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

A fundamental research question in neuroscience pertains to understanding how neural networks through their activity encode and decode information. In this research, we build on methods from theoretical domains such as control theory, dynamical systems analysis and reinforcement learning to investigate such questions. Our objective is two-fold: first, to use methods from engineering to identify specific objectives that neural circuits might be optimizing through their spatiotemporal activity patterns, and second, to draw motivation from neuroscience to formulate new engineering principles such as synthesis of dynamical networks for decentralized control applications. We specifically take a top-down, optimization driven approach in our …

Positron Emission Tomography From 1930 To 1990: The Epistemology And Process Of Scientific Instrumentation, Rick Shang

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Positron Emission Tomography (PET) is a groundbreaking detection system that, among many other applications, enabled neuroscience researchers to detect and image physiological changes in the brain associated with cognitive operations as subjects perform a task. This technology helped researchers learn to explore the physiological basis of human cognition in new ways and was the immediate forerunner of functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (fMRI), a technology that continues to dominate the neurosciences. PET was also the founding invention of a new field of cognitive science: human functional neuroimaging. Indeed, some would say that PET encouraged a particular way of understanding the brain …

The Regulation Of Plasmodium Falciparum Metabolism By Haloacid Dehalogenase Proteins, Philip Frasse

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Malaria is an enormous financial and public health burden for much of the world, infecting over 200 million and killing over 400,000 people every year. While much progress has been made combating malaria in the past few decades, those advances have slowed in recent years, partially due to the emergence of resistance to all known antimalarials used to date. To achieve the goal of eliminating malaria as a major global health problem, new therapeutics need to be developed, targeting novel categories of parasite biology. One poorly understood area of parasite biology is the regulation of various metabolic pathways. We have …

Which Task To Choose? The Impact Of Associative Retrieval Of Event Files On Voluntary Task-Switching Performance In Younger And Older Adults, Emily Carole Streeper

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Previous task-switching research has demonstrated how prior experience can impact subsequent task-switching performance (i.e., reaction times, task choice) through associative retrieval, the creation and retrieval of event files. Event files, episodic traces which contain information about the stimulus, prior context, and action performed, can be implicitly retrieved when re-encountering information from the prior experience (e.g., stimulus repetition). The effect of associative retrieval on task-switching performance has been examined in younger adults, but few studies have investigated this effect in older adults. This gap is especially glaring in the voluntary task-switching literature where only one study to date has explored how …