Digital Commons Network^™

Parameter Estimation And Sensitivity Analysis Through Mathematical Modeling Of Colon Cancer, Achyuth Manoj

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

We formulated a new and efficient method to propose a personalized treatment platform for colorectal cancer. A mathematical model of colon cancer was used and is comprised of a system of differential equations, which model various cell dynamics. The dynamics are dependent on patient-specific parameters that are unknown which we estimate given patient data in form of cell measurements. We approached this estimation as an inverse problem based on an optimization framework and developed computational optimization techniques created on non-linear conjugate gradient methods to solve for the optimal set of parameters for a specific patient. These optimal parameters are then …

New Experience: An Ethnographic Study Of Students Who Transfer From A Low-Performing Public School District To A Better-Performing Public School District In Missouri, Yolanda J. Campbell

Dissertations

School districts in Missouri are responsible for public K-12 education and must be accredited to educate children. As a result, there is an evoking interest, demanding attention in Missouri public schools' quality and the students who transfer from unaccredited, critically low-performing schools to accredited, significantly betterperforming schools. These students have a higher risk of failing academically or dropping out of school and transitioning successfully into adulthood. Therefore, through this study, students, parents/guardians, and teachers tell their stories to empower the public to work together to raise all students' achievement in school, close the poverty and opportunity gap in education, and …

About The Mcnair Scholars Program, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

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

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Building A Scalable, High-Performance Cluster For Deep Learning, Jose A. Cortes

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Electroluminescent Signals And Cosmogenicbackgrounds In High Pressure Xenon Gas Timeprojection Detectors, Leslie Rogers

Physics Dissertations - Archive

The NEXT collaboration is developing a sequence of high pressure xenon gas time projection chambers with the aim of creating a ton-scale, very low background neutrinoless double beta decay search. Finding evidence of neutrinoless double beta decay would give insight into the origins of the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the universe, the smallness of neutrino mass, and the symmetry structure of the Standard Model. My research involves addressing critical challenges on the path to realization of high pressure xenon gas detectors for ton-scale, very low background neutrinoless double beta decay searches. While most aspects of this technology are easily scalable, some …

Aqueous-Based Associated Solvents For Protein And Peptide Fractionation And Protein Purification, Sajad Tasharofi

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

The focus of this dissertation is studying capabilities of a novel two-phase system in enhancing protein identification in the whole-cell proteomics studies. In this document, two types of biphasic systems have been used for two different purposes. The first type of biphasic system is formed by the addition of 1,1,1,3,3,3-Hexafluoro-2-propanol (HFIP) to the aqueous solutions of water-miscible organic solvents. A combination of HFIP, organic solvent, and water forms a two-phase system in spite of the fact that every solvent pair in the three-component system is miscible and forms homogeneous solutions in water. This biphasic system is called Fluoroalcohol-Organic Associated Solvent …

Total Synthesis Of Imidazole-Containing Β-Carboline Alkaloids And Pyrrole-Imidazole Alkaloids, Moumita Singha Roy

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

The first part in this dissertation focuses on the development of an enantioselective total synthesis of villagorgin A, from another natural product haploscleridamine. Haploscleridamine was targeted first as it was thought that a successful approach to this family member would permit access to the other congeners through minor modifications, including conversion to villagorgin A. Moreover, villagorgin A has just one additional carbon atom compared to haploscleridamine, the introduction of which can be envisioned through a Pictet-Spengler reaction with formaldehyde. On completion of the haploscleridamine synthesis, attention was turned to the brominated congener, lissoclin C. Lissoclin C can be accessed from …

Evaluation Of Geotechnical Parameters Of Soil Using Electrical Resistivity Imaging, Md Asif Akhtar

Civil Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Electric resistivity imaging (ERI) is an effective non-destructive and rapid measuring way of obtaining continuous soil subsurface resistivity profiles. An ERI technique can be used to identify moisture variations and soil heterogeneities in an area. Thus, ERI is becoming a popular tool in geotechnical (FHWA, 2015)engineering; however, it only provides qualitative information at the current time. Using qualitative images, it is challenging to extract quantitative geotechnical information, such as the type of soil, moisture content, degree of saturation, and atterberg limit, of the subsurface. Several studies have described the electrical resistance of soil as a function of pore fluid conductivity …

Petrophysical Studies Of Well Cuttings From A Continues Geological Profile In Hockley County, Texas, Tristan N. Tom

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

The Permian Basin currently leads the oil production in the United States; however, with increasing concerns for the global climate, it is crucial for oil and gas companies to operate as economically and efficiently as possible. This is where the use of well cuttings comes in, as they allow for more geological formations in the subsurface to be analyzed in depth and are cheaper to achieve than core samples. Well cuttings can be obtained from most drilling operations, and they can save on analysis time and even be analyzed on site. Before using well cuttings, it is important to ensure …

The Visualization Of Wireless Network Data In Augmented Reality, Tiffany Frias

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The visualization of wireless networks has been a research topic so computer scientists can understand what cannot be seen with the naked eye and advance in specialized fields such as data visualization, cyber security, and computer networking. Flying a drone with a microcontroller around a building, signal strength and location data points of wireless networks can be collected and uploaded into a cloud database like AWS (Amazon Web Services), or Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. On the Unity platform used for game development, developers can create a program that pulls such data from the cloud in real-time. Using this data, they …

Liutex Analysis By Pod And Dmd In Turbulent Flow After/ In Micro Vortex Generator, Xuan My Trieu

Mathematics Dissertations - Archive

Although vortex has been studied more than one hundred year, we still have not had universally accepted definition. A few well-known vortex identification methods are introduced ��,∆, ��2,������ criteria to identify coherent vortex structures the last three decades. A new Omega vortex identification method, which is defined as a ratio of the vorticity tensor norm squared over the sum of the vorticity tensor norm squared and deformation norm squared, was proposed in 2016. Two year later, the new vortex vector named Liutex (previously called Rotex) was proposed by Liu et al. with direction of local rotation axis (an eigenvector of …

An Investigation Of A Teacher Education Program And The Hiring Of Newly Certified Teachers In At-Risk And Non-At-Risk Schools, William Lancaster

Dissertations

Research has shown teachers are the most important factor when determining student success, even with the field of education in a constant state of uncertainty. Schools all over the nation are struggling to acquire quality teachers into their buildings, and teacher preparation programs are having a difficult time producing enough teacher candidates. This study investigated what initial jobs students choose to take in their first year after completing an educational degree from one study university’s teacher preparation program, through numerous secondary data points and a participant survey. The quantitative data suggests that recent graduates are just as likely to go …

On Preserving The Behavior In Software Refactoring: A Systematic Mapping Study, Eman Abdullah Alomar, Mohamed Wiem Mkaouer, Christian D. Newman, Ali Ouni

Articles

Context: Refactoring is the art of modifying the design of a system without altering its behavior. The idea is to reorganize variables, classes and methods to facilitate their future adaptations and comprehension. As the concept of behavior preservation is fundamental for refactoring, several studies, using formal verification, language transformation and dynamic analysis, have been proposed to monitor the execution of refactoring operations and their impact on the program semantics. However, there is no existing study that examines the available behavior preservation strategies for each refactoring operation.

Objective: This paper identifies behavior preservation approaches in the research literature. Method: We conduct, …

Mif But Not Mif-2 Recruits Inflammatory Macrophages In An Experimental Polymicrobial Sepsis Model, Pathricia Veronica Tilstam, Wibke Schulte, Thomas Holowka, Bong-Sung Kim, Jessica Nouws, Maor Sauler, Marta Piecychna, Georgios Pantouris, Elias Lolis, Lin Leng, Jürgen Bernhagen, Günter Fingerle-Rowson, Richard Bucala

Pacific Faculty Work

Excessive inflammation drives the progression from sepsis to septic shock. Macrophage migration inhibitory factor (MIF) is of interest because MIF promoter polymorphisms predict mortality in different infections, and anti-MIF antibody improves survival in experimental models when administered 8 hours after infectious insult. The recent description of a second MIF superfamily member, D-dopachrome tautomerase (D-DT/MIF-2), prompted closer investigation of MIF-dependent responses. We subjected Mif^-/- and Mif-2^-/- mice to polymicrobial sepsis and observed a survival benefit with Mif but not Mif-2 deficiency. Survival was associated with reduced numbers of small peritoneal macrophages (SPMs) that, in contrast to large peritoneal macrophages …

Identification Of Disease-Linked Hyperactivating Mutations In Ube3a Through Large-Scale Functional Variant Analysis, Kellan P. Weston, Xiaoyi Gao, Jinghan Zhao, Kwang Soo Kim, Susan E. Maloney, Jill Gotoff, Sumit Parikh, Yen Chen Leu, Kuen Phon Wu, Marwan Shinawi, Joshua P. Steimel, Joseph S. Harrison, Jason J. Yi

College of the Pacific Faculty Articles

The mechanisms that underlie the extensive phenotypic diversity in genetic disorders are poorly understood. Here, we develop a large-scale assay to characterize the functional valence (gain or loss-of-function) of missense variants identified in UBE3A, the gene whose loss-of-function causes the neurodevelopmental disorder Angelman syndrome. We identify numerous gain-of-function variants including a hyperactivating Q588E mutation that strikingly increases UBE3A activity above wild-type UBE3A levels. Mice carrying the Q588E mutation exhibit aberrant early-life motor and communication deficits, and individuals possessing hyperactivating UBE3A variants exhibit affected phenotypes that are distinguishable from Angelman syndrome. Additional structure-function analysis reveals that Q588 forms a regulatory site …

A Global Agenda For Advancing Freshwater Biodiversity Research, Alain Maasri, Sonja C. Jähnig, Hendrik Freitag, 93 Co-Authors

Biology Faculty Publications

Global freshwater biodiversity is declining dramatically, and meeting the challenges of this crisis requires bold goals and the mobilisation of substantial resources. While the reasons are varied, investments in both research and conservation of freshwater biodiversity lag far behind those in the terrestrial and marine realms. Inspired by a global consultation, we identify 15 pressing priority needs, grouped into five research areas, in an effort to support informed stewardship of freshwater biodiversity. The proposed agenda aims to advance freshwater biodiversity research globally as a critical step in improving coordinated actions towards its sustainable management and conservation.

Local Feature Selection For Multiple Instance Learning With Applications., Aliasghar Shahrjooihaghighi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Feature selection is a data processing approach that has been successfully and effectively used in developing machine learning algorithms for various applications. It has been proven to effectively reduce the dimensionality of the data and increase the accuracy and interpretability of machine learning algorithms. Conventional feature selection algorithms assume that there is an optimal global subset of features for the whole sample space. Thus, only one global subset of relevant features is learned. An alternative approach is based on the concept of Local Feature Selection (LFS), where each training sample can have its own subset of relevant features. Multiple Instance …

Drone Location And Scheduling Problems In Humanitarian Logistics., Zabih Ghelichi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly referred to as drones, are a promising technology for the last-mile delivery of medical and aid items in humanitarian logistics. In emergency scenarios, like disasters, where transportation networks are destroyed and people are stranded, drones can accelerate the delivery of urgently needed items, e.g., food and water, insulin shots and blood pressure pills, to those trapped in the disaster-affected areas. Drones can also provide logistics services in many non-emergency situations by delivering medical items, e.g., vaccine shots and lab specimens, to remote communities and hard-to-access locations. The contribution of using UAVs goes beyond merely having …

A Remote Sensing Perspective: Mapping The Human Footprint In The Zambezi Region Of Namibia., Ariel E Weaver

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The “human footprint” can be used as a general proxy to estimate human activities across the landscape. The human footprint in the Zambezi Region of Namibia is critically important for regional management of conservation efforts and land use planning. The land covers in the Zambezi Region are characteristically difficult to separate spectrally, due to a highly heterogeneous savanna landscape. Object Based Image Analysis (OBIA) and Random Forest (RF) methods are notable for their ability to improve classification accuracies of remotely sensed imagery. In this study, I investigate the extent of the human footprint in the Zambezi Region of Namibia, using …

First Principle Studies Of The Effects Of Alkali-Metal Intercalation On Structural Transition From Black To Blue Phosphorene And The Adsorption Of N2h4 On Ws2 Layers., Md Rajib Khan Musa

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A comprehensive density functional theory calculation has been conducted to seek a potential structural transition from black to blue phosphorene layers, with a focus on the roles played by alkali-metal intercalation in black phosphorene/phosphorus. This study reveals that at sufficiently high Li concentration and specific, well-defined configurations, a phase transition from black to blue phosphorene can take place. The Li atoms intercalated in black phosphorene could act as a “catalyst” in the“reactive region” of the lone pair of P atoms, leading to a P-P bond breaking and, subsequently, a local structural transformation from an orthorhombic lattice to an assembly of …

Theoretical Investigation Of The Co-C Bond Activation In Methylcobalamin And Adenosylcobalamin-Dependent Systems: Mechanistic Insights., Arghya Pratim Ghosh

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The vitamin B₁₂ derivates, otherwise known as cobalamin (Cbl), are ubiquitous organometallic cofactors. The biologically active forms of Cbl, such as methylcobalamin (MeCbl) and adenosylcobalamin (AdoCbl), act as cofactors in different physiological reactions for both prokaryotes and eukaryotes. A crucial aspect of the Cbl-mediated systems is the activation of the organometallic Co-C bond that plays a critical role in its catalytic activity. One of the most remarkable features of this Co-C bond is its unusual activation in AdoCbl-dependent enzymatic reactions, where a trillion-fold rate acceleration of the Co-C bond cleavage is observed inside the enzyme compared to the isolated …

Decisive Neutrality, Restricted Decisive Neutrality, And Split Decisive Neutrality On Median Semilattices And Median Graphs., Ulf Högnäs

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Consensus functions on finite median semilattices and finite median graphs are studied from an axiomatic point of view. We start with a new axiomatic characterization of majority rule on a large class of median semilattices we call sufficient. A key axiom in this result is the restricted decisive neutrality condition. This condition is a restricted version of the more well-known axiom of decisive neutrality given in [4]. Our theorem is an extension of the main result given in [7]. Another main result is a complete characterization of the class of consensus on a finite median semilattice that satisfies the axioms …

Video Error Concealment Using Convolutional Neural Network, Shashi Khanal

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Missing information in the video frames is estimated as close as possible to the actual data during video error concealment process. Blocks or slices of information in the video frames can be missing in the decoder due to various reasons like corrupt media drives, network congestion, etc. which reduces the quality of experience for the viewers. One approach to deal with missing information in the video decoder is to use error concealment techniques to fill the missing information. Until now many of these error concealment techniques were based on conventional methods such as block copy, motion vector prediction, and interpolation. …

Geochemical Investigation Of Monogenetic Volcanoes From The Pribilof Islands, Bering Sea, Alaska, Clayton L. Reinier

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

Small-volume basaltic magmas found at continental intraplate environments have not been as extensively studied compared to their polygenetic counterparts. Specifically, regions such as the Bering Sea basalt province, described as a diffuse igneous province, have commonly been overlooked. Assumptions that these systems are invoked by simple, single batches of magma has subsequently left a gap in understanding the processes responsible for primary magma generation away from plate boundaries with little tectonic influence. The following studies that constitute this thesis focus on an in-depth geochemical investigation at the crystal and sub-crystal scale to evaluate lithospheric mantle heterogeneities, processes that govern primary …

Supporting Teachers Through Standardized Testing: Elementary Teachers' Perceptions Of Administrator Support, Erica Neeves

Dissertations and Theses

In recent years, standardized assessment has played a major role in the American school system. Standardized testing, sometimes referred to as high-stakes testing, is a measure to ensure accountability and equity. One standardized test, the NWEA MAP assessment, is used to measure growth and proficiency. When students complete the assessment, they receive a Rasch UnIT (RIT) score and a prediction of growth for the next time they take the assessment, as well as a projection of whether or not they are on track for that expected growth (NWEA, 2021). The purpose of this study was to explore teacher perceptions of …

Human Behavior In Domestic Environments: Prediction And Applications, Sharare Zehtabian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

A longstanding goal of human behavior science is to model and predict how humans interact with each other or with other systems. Such models are beneficial and have many applications, including designing and implementing assistive technologies, improving users' experiences and quality of life and making better decisions to create public policies. Behavior is highly complex due to uncertainties and a lack of scientific tools to measure it. Hence prediction of human behavior cannot be 100% accurate. However, prediction is also not hopeless because the biological needs, as well as cultural conventions (for instance, regarding meal times) set the general patterns …

Efficient Data Structures For Text Processing Applications, Paniz Abedin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

This thesis is devoted to designing and analyzing efficient text indexing data structures and associated algorithms for processing text data. The general problem is to preprocess a given text or a collection of texts into a space-efficient index to quickly answer various queries on this data. Basic queries such as counting/reporting a given pattern's occurrences as substrings of the original text are useful in modeling critical bioinformatics applications. This line of research has witnessed many breakthroughs, such as the suffix trees, suffix arrays, FM-index, etc. In this work, we revisit the following problems: 1. The Heaviest Induced Ancestors problem 2. …

Framework Of Big Data Analytics In Real Time For Healthcare Enterprise Performance Measurements, Ahmed Mohamed

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Healthcare organizations (HCOs) currently have many information records about their patients. Yet, they cannot make proper, faster, and more thoughtful conclusions in many cases with their information. Much of the information is structured data such as medical records, historical data, and non-clinical information. This data is stored in a central repository called the Data Warehouse (DW). DW provides querying and reporting to different groups within the healthcare organization to support their future strategic initiatives. The generated reports create metrics to measure the organization's performance for post-action plans, not for real-time decisions. Additionally, healthcare organizations seek to benefit from the semi-structured …

Parametric Study Of Orthogonal Pantographic Lattice With Non-Linear Torsional Resistance At Pivots, Mahendra Singh Bisht

All Theses

Pantographic lattices are cellular solids comprised of continuous beam fibers intersecting at periodically spaced pivots. The pivots are simulated in the discrete finite element beam model as torsional springs with varied torsional stiffness across orders of magnitude. An important functional performance feature of pantographic lattices is their ability to undergo large deformation without inducing large stresses at the pivots. There is a need for predictive models of this nonlinear behavior. In this study, parameter studies on the order of magnitude and nonlinear material behavior of the torsional stiffness at the pivots, combined with and without nonlinear geometric beam kinematic behavior …