Digital Commons Network^™

Exploration Of Carbon-Oxygen And Carbon-Nitrogen Bond Formation Utilizing Trichloroacetimidates And Investigations Of New Reactions Mediated By Oxoammonium Salts, Rowan Meador

Dissertations - ALL

Mono-O-alkylated 1,1′-bi-2-naphthols (BINOLs) are often used as the source of chirality for catalysts or ligand systems that are employed in asymmetric organic transformations. However, these BINOLs can be hard to synthesize. The O-alkylation of BINOL can be accomplished with primary and secondary alkyl halides or under Mitsunobu conditions, the yields of these alkylations with tertiary halides or alcohols are very low. A new protocol was developed utilizing trichloroacetamide electrophiles to install bulky groups onto one of the phenolic oxygens. Trichloroacetimidates are also shown to be useful reactions for the synthesis of esters. These reagents proceeded through a symbiotic activation pathway. …

The Poverty Of Simplicity: Austerity, Alienation, And Tiny Houses, Brian Richard Hennigan

Dissertations - ALL

Tiny houses – stand-alone, fully functional dwellings generally between 100 and 400 square-feet – are increasingly popular in the United States. The degradation of working class life wrought through neoliberal policy and then punctuated by the Great Recession propels this popularity. Next to traditional houses, tiny houses are significantly cheaper. Those among the middle stratum of the working class have sought out tiny houses as a means to ease their financial anxiety. Rather than merely a newer form of cheaper housing, an entire lifestyle movement has emerged around tiny houses. Anti-consumerism is the keystone to this lifestyle movement. For enthusiasts, …

Policy And Polity: Space, Boundaries, And Governance In Early Modern London, 1580-1640, Michael Britton

Dissertations - ALL

The kingdom's principal city for law, governance, trade, and consumption, early modern London experienced a period of rapid growth and sprawl from the mid-sixteenth century. This nurtured more dense and frequent mobility and produced a dynamic, kinetic city. For civic authorities, however, boundaries took on greater urgence. Drawing on theories and principles of border studies, this dissertation treats the city's boundaries as processes forged and transformed by engagement, by the interplay between popular activity, political programs, and perceptions of space and authority. Policy and Polity, Space, Boundaries, and Governance in Early Modern London, 1580-1640 examines bordering at London Bridge, the …

The Phase Behavior Of Ubqln Proteins And Implications For Protein Quality Control, Yiran Yang

Dissertations - ALL

The ubiquitin-proteasome system (UPS) and autophagy are essential pathways for maintaining protein quality control (PQC) in cells. Misfolded proteins and large aggregates are cleared by UPS and autophagy signaled by ubiquitin (Ub) or polyubiquitin (polyUb) chains. Shuttle proteins facilitate cargo transporting by interacting with both ubiquitin and degradation machineries. Previously, our lab discovered that the shuttle protein Ubiquilin-2 (UBQLN2) is recruited to stress granules in cells and undergoes liquid-liquid phase separation (LLPS) in vitro. LLPS is a biophysical process by which proteins separate themselves from the surrounding aqueous solution by forming protein-rich droplets. The overarching goals of this work are …

Adsorption Of Organic Iodides On Reduced Silver Functionalized Silica Aerogel, Siqi Tang

Dissertations - ALL

In the nuclear waste reprocessing, radioactive iodine is released in both organic and inorganic forms into off-gas streams. Due to its properties of long half-life and accumulation in human bodies, the radioactive iodine is required to be removed by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC). In this presented work, the removal of organic iodides is studied particularly. Unlike that of inorganic iodine, the organic iodides were not well studied because of the low concentrations and the corresponding technical difficulties. Most of the studies on the organic iodides are semi-quantified, focusing on the performances of the adsorption …

Not Appropriate For Children: A Look At The Composition Practices And Rhetorical Strategies Of Single Moms In Academia, Alexandria Margethe Hanson

Dissertations - ALL

This dissertation explores how single mothers in higher education across geographic locations, academic ranks, disciplines, and identities build support systems and draw on rhetorical strategies derived from their embodied knowledge to survive and navigate in academia. Single mother experiences are underrepresented in scholarship about parenting in higher education. This absence is evidenced in policies, systems, and structures that prioritize the needs of heteronormative family units. The lived experiences and material realities of single mothers reveal how their lives outside academia shape and are shaped by their lives within it, including scholarly activity, interactions with colleagues, and relationships with their children. …

Analysis Of Multiple Degree-Of-Freedom Oscillatory Aquatic Propulsion, Seth Alan Brooks

Dissertations - ALL

Propulsive performance and flow field data were experimentally measured for a two degree-of-freedom fish platform. The fish platform was designed and constructed based on the yellowfin tuna (\textit{Thunnus albacares}) that is known to be both fast and efficient. This work extends the current understanding of oscillatory aquatic propulsion to a three-dimensional fish platform with full volume flow field data and propulsive performance. A parametric sweep of trailing-edge amplitude of the caudal fin ($A$), heave-to-pitch ratio ($h^*$), and phase offset between the two degrees-of-freedom ($\phi$) was used to explore a parameter space that encompasses and extends beyond the known biological domain. …

Exploiting Building Demand Flexibility Through Machine Learning For Building-To-Grid Integration, Hannah Charlene Fontenot

Dissertations - ALL

Demand flexibility – the ability to adjust a building's load profile across different timescales – is a key aspect of the ongoing effort to increase interconnectivity between buildings and the power grid. By harnessing their demand flexibility, buildings can provide significant benefits to the grid and bolster grid resilience and reliability. To facilitate the transition toward the "smart grid", new and intelligent control approaches are required that can seamlessly integrate building, occupant, and grid data and effectively control multiple building assets to provide grid services while maintaining occupants' required thermal comfort levels and reducing the building's overall energy consumption and …

Algorithm Hardware Codesign For High Performance Neuromorphic Computing, Haowen Fang

Dissertations - ALL

Driven by the massive application of Internet of Things (IoT), embedded system and Cyber Physical System (CPS) etc., there is an increasing demand to apply machine intelligence on these power limited scenarios. Though deep learning has achieved impressive performance on various realistic and practical tasks such as anomaly detection, pattern recognition, machine vision etc., the ever-increasing computational complexity and model size of Deep Neural Networks (DNN) make it challenging to deploy them onto aforementioned scenarios where computation, memory and energy resource are all limited. Early studies show that biological systems' energy efficiency can be orders of magnitude higher than that …

Direct Single Molecule Imaging Of Enhanced Diffusion For Enzymes And Enzyme-Conjugated Dna Origami, Mengqi Xu

Dissertations - ALL

Enzymes have been shown to diffuse faster in the presence of their substrates. Recently, we revealed new insights into this process of enhanced diffusion using single-particle tracking (SPT) with total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy. We found that the mobility of individual enzymes was enhanced three-fold in the presence of the substrate, and the motion remained Brownian. We showed that the relative increase in diffusion is independent of the total enzyme concentrations; and the oligomerization state of enzymes did not change during the catalytic turnover. These experiments ruled out the possibility that the enhanced enzyme diffusion was caused by the …

A Graduatte Level Immersive-Simulattion Program For Teaching And Assessing Fundamental Skills In Entry Level Clinical Perfusionists., Bruce Searles

Dissertations - ALL

Background: The clinical perfusionist is a member of the open-heart-surgery team and responsible for operating the life support equipment that replaces the function of the patient's heart and lungs and arrests and restarts the patient's heart in the course of a Cardiopulmonary Bypass (CPB) procedure. In the perfusionists scope of practice, the consequence of unskilled actions, inaccurate understanding or delayed decision making may result in significant patient morbidity or even death. Historically, perfusion students have learned and practiced their skills within a clinical preceptorship program in which an experienced clinician allows the novice student to operate the life support equipment …

Antimicrobial Susceptibility Of P. Aeruginosa Clinical Isolates, Tian Gao

Theses - ALL

Long-term infection caused by P. aeruginosa poses a major threat to personal and public health, and causes billions of dollars in medical expenses. To develop more effective controls, it is important to accurately evaluate antibiotic susceptibility of clinical isolates and understand how susceptibility changes during the course of infection. Conventional drug susceptibility tests using nutrient-rich media have been questioned regarding their relevance due to the difference between the model in vivo test conditions and the environment in the patients. Here, we report that 27 clinical strains of P. aeruginosa isolated from cystic fibrosis patients showed higher drug resistance in Artificial …

2012 December University Of Memphis Commencement Program

Commencements

Program for the Fall convocation of the 101st commencement of the University of Memphis at Memphis, Tennessee, held at the FedEx Forum on December 16, 2012.

A Pilot Study Exploring The Relationship Between Urban Greenspace Accessibility And Mental Health Prevalence In The City Of San Diego In The Context Of Socioeconomic And Demographic Factors, Alexis Wilderman, Marcus Lam, Zhi-Yong Yin

Environmental and Ocean Sciences: Faculty Scholarship

The connection between urban greenspace and mental health is a robust but unsettled area of research in the public health and urban planning literatures. Inconsistent findings in prior studies are mostly due to differences in greenspace measurements and interrelations with socio-demographic factors. This study examines the relationships of mental health prevalence (MHP) with health prevention, socioeconomic and race-ethnicity factors, and proximity to greenspace at the census-tract level in the City of San Diego, California, using data from the CDC 500 Cities Project and US Census Bureau. We considered three greenspace proximity measures: distances to specified vegetation types, parks, and tree …

Proactive Public Libraries For Community Resilience And Ecological Sustainability, Alex Crowley

Student Theses

Public libraries are key institutions for dealing with crises in communities. In the midst of a devastating global pandemic and a continual wave of social uprisings, it is necessary for library workers to more seriously reckon with the need for drastic changes in the ways that public libraries respond to and operate within these conditions. It is unclear to what extent libraries have adopted significant changes recommended by organizations and professionals in the field to become resilient and ecologically sustainable. These changes include the abandonment of neutrality discourse, a democratic restructuring of workplaces, and the relocalization of library programs and …

Realistic Additions To Matlab Simulation Of Active Particles In An Acoustic Field, Emily Ma

Mechanical Engineering and Materials Science Independent Study

Acoustic microfluidics provides a contact-free method of manipulating active particles; however, versatile and quick performance quantification of these methods is needed to further apply acoustofluidic techniques in broader settings. Motile Chlamydomonas reinhardtii algae cells continuously swim and redistribute as they are subject to an acoustic field. For performance quantification, this eliminates the tedious procedure of resetting the experiment after each trial, which is necessary when using passive particles as probes. Thus, this method of calibration using active particles is more efficient than using passive particles. Utilizing an accurate simulation of physical active particle experiments is helpful in quickly predicting how …

Impact Of Medical Blog Reading And Information Presentation On Readers' Preventative Health Intentions: Mixed Methods, Multistudy Investigation, Kimberly A. Taylor Dnp, Rn, Nea-Bc, Cnor, William F. Humphrey

Publications

Background:

Medical blogs have become valuable information sources for patients and caregivers. Most research has focused on patients’ creation of blogs as therapy. But we know less about how these blogs affect their readers and what format of information influences readers to take preventative health actions.

Objective:

This study aimed to identify how reading patient medical blogs influences readers’ perceived health risk and their intentions to engage in preventative health actions. Further, we aimed to examine the format of the medical blog and the reader’s response.

Methods:

We surveyed 99 university participants and a general-population, online panel of 167 participants. …

Exploring The Therapeutic Effect Of Children's Picture Books, Yunfan Chen

Theses - ALL

This thesis discusses the phenomenon of left-behind children in China amid the country's urbanization, revealing the psychological state of these children in the countryside.

In this thesis, some psychological research sources have proven how picture books relieve children's emotions and attain therapeutic effects on children's psychology. Then, this thesis analyzes two examples of children's books depicting how picture books help children to manage their negative feelings and having a therapeutic effect on the child.

This thesis claims that bibliotherapy through children's independent reading of books can effectively alleviate left-behind children's negative emotions.

Sexual Dysfunction In Schizophrenia: A Narrative Review Of The Mechanisms And Clinical Considerations, Amber N. Edinoff, Catherine A. Nix, Juliana M. Fort, Jeanna Kimble, Ryan Guedry, George Thomas, Elyse M. Cornett, Adam Kaye, Alan D. Kaye

Pacific Faculty Work

Psychiatric disorders, in general, have a high prevalence of sexual problems, whether from the psychopathology of the disorder itself, pre-existing or co-morbid sexual disorder or from side effects of the treatment for mental disorders. Many patients report an already existing sexual dysfunction at the onset of diagnosis. The risk association for developing sexual dysfunction in patients with schizophrenia includes antipsychotic use and resulting hyperprolactinemia, age, gender, and disease severity. Medication side effects lead to nonadherence, and relapses lead to structural changes in the brain, treatment resistance, and worsening of symptoms. Findings in certain studies propose serum prolactin and thyroid-stimulating hormone …

Fine Scales, Broad Consequences: Drivers And Effects Of Microclimatic Variation In Great Smoky Mountains National Park, Jordan Rebecca Stark

Theses - ALL

Climate is highly variable at scales that are not captured by most weather and climate models due to local effects of topography and living systems. This variation in microclimate has been noted for many decades but has been difficult to incorporate into quantitative understanding of ecological systems and processes due to the large amount of data and complex models required to adequately describe fine-scale patterns across complex landscapes. In recent years, models of thermal microclimate variation have been developed using low-cost temperature sensors, but few of these models have been used to predict the effects of microclimatic variation on ecological …

First Measurement Of B(Ξc0 → Π−Λ+C ), Michael Kent Wilkinson

Dissertations - ALL

The first measurement of the branching fraction of the Ξc0 baryon in its decay to π− and Λ+c hadrons, B(Ξc0 → π−Λ+c ), is presented. This measurement was conducted with the LHCb detector, located on the Large Hadron Collider, using 13 TeV proton-proton collisions. There have been a number of theoretical predictions for the size of this branching fraction, spanning more than an order of magnitude; this large difference is primarily due to differing assumptions about the internal interactions contributing to the decay. The branching fraction measured here provides the first experimental evidence for the nature of these interactions; it …

A Solid-State Phase Camera For Advanced Gravitational Wave Detectors, Erik Muniz

Dissertations - ALL

I present a novel way of wavefront sensing using a commercially available, continuouswavetime-of- ight camera with QVGA-resolution. This CMOS phase camera is capable of sensing externally modulated light sources with frequencies up to 100 MHz. The high-spatial-resolution of the sensor, combined with our integrated control electronics, allows the camera to image power modulation index as low as -62 dBc/second/pixel. The phase camera is applicable to problems where alignment and mode-mismatch sensing is needed and suited for diagnostic and control applications in gravitationalwave detectors. Specically, I explore the use of the phase camera in sensing the beat signals due to thermal …

Observation Of Ω Contribution In The C1(3872) → Π+Π−J/Ψ Decays, Baasansuren Batsukh

Dissertations - ALL

Resonant structure in the dipion mass spectrum produced via \decay{\Bu}{\X\Kp}, \decay{\X}{\jpsi \pip \pim}, with \decay{\jpsi}{\mu^+\mu^-} is analyzed using Run 1 and Run 2 data samples from the LHCb experiment. The spectrum is dominated by $\rhoz\to\pi^+\pi^-$, but cannot be described by this contribution alone. A significant $\omega\to\pi^+\pi^-$ contribution, interfering with $\rhoz$, is observed for the first time. This is a more significant observation ($>7.1\sigma$) of $\X\to\omega\jpsi$ decays, than previously achieved with $\omega\to\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0$ decays. The relative contribution of $\omega$ to the total $\X\to\pi^+\pi^-\jpsi$ rate is at the level expected from the measured $\X\to(\omega\to\pi^+\pi^-\pi^0)\jpsi$ rate, if the interference between the $\rho^0$ and …

Aging Study Of Silver-Exchanged Mordenite And Silver-Functionalized Silica Aerogel In Dry Air, Humid Air, No And No2, Seungrag Choi

Dissertations - ALL

Iodine-129 (129I) is one of the volatile radioactive species in the off-gas streams generated from the spent nuclear fuel reprocessing system, and it is essential to remove 129I vapor because 129I has a long half-life (1.6 x 107 years) and can be fatal to the human body if released to the environment. Radioactive iodine vapor can be effectively captured by silver containing adsorbents such as silver exchanged mordenite (Ag0Z) and silver functionalized silica aerogel (Ag0-aerogel) used in this study. However, the aging impact of off-gas streams on the adsorbents is one of major issues in the removal of radioactive iodine …

The Effects Of Cannabidiol And Analgesic Expectancies On Experimental Pain Reactivity In Healthy Adults: A Balanced Placebo Design Trial, Martin De Vita

Dissertations - ALL

Experimental pain trials have been unable to determine whether cannabinoid analgesia is attributable to intoxication, analgesic expectancies, and/or pharmacological action. One approach to resolving this issue involves testing the effects of analgesic expectancies and cannabidiol (CBD), a non-psychoactive cannabinoid, on human pain reactivity using a balanced placebo design. Despite its frequent use for pain relief, no experimental research has tested the analgesic effects of CBD in humans. Using a within-subjects 2 x 2 balanced placebo factorial design, we experimentally tested the effects of CBD and expectancies for receiving CBD on pain reactivity (i.e., pain threshold, tolerance, intensity, unpleasantness, conditioned pain …

Utilizing Parity Violating Electron Scattering As A Probe To Measure The Neutron Radius Of 208-Pb, David Eric King

Dissertations - ALL

The Lead Radius Experiment 2 (PREX-II) and Calcium Radius Experiment (CREX) carried out in Hall A of the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility were designed to measure the neutron skins of 208-Pb and 48-Ca nuclei by measuring the parity-violating asymmetry APV of the elastic scattering of polarized electrons on 208-Pb and 48-Ca targets. In order to achieve a precision measurement of the neutron skins of 208-Pb and 48-Ca it is imperative to maintain precise control over many experimental parameters–one of which is a precision measurement of the electron beam polarization (which is the largest contributor to experimental error making control …

Formation Of Pyrroloindolines And Alkylation Of N-Heterocycles With Trichloroacetimidates And Synthesis Of Quinoline Based Small Molecule Inhibitors Of Ghrelin O-Acyltransferase (Goat), Bhaskar Joshi

Dissertations - ALL

Pyrroloindolines and related systems are present in a large number of complex natural products. These core structures have generated considerable synthetic interest, as many of the compounds possess challenging, elaborate structures and interesting biological properties. Recently we have focused on using trichloroacetimidates for the synthesis of these fascinating molecules. Trichloroacetimidates can be used an electrophilic source of an alkyl group to form the pyrroloindoline directly from tryptamine derivatives. In this manner trichloroacetimidates provide a flexible solution to accessing highly functionalized pyrroloindoline core structures, needing only a catalytic amount of a Lewis acid to effect the requisite transformations.

Isatin (1H-indol-2,3-dione) based …

Rational Design Of Supported Metal Catalysts For Carbonyl Reduction During Biomass Upgrading, Xin Gao

Dissertations - ALL

Ketone hydrogenation:A model system of carbonyl (ketone) hydrogenation, acetone hydrogenation over supported Pt catalysts in the gas-phase fixed bed reactor was investigated to understand both the mechanism and rate controlling steps in a fundamental level. The experiments and outcomes include the detailed macro- and micro-kinetic analysis of hydrogenation of acetone. The apparent reaction orders of hydrogen and acetone, apparent activation energies, and observed kinetic isotope effects over a large range of temperatures and concentrations (compound partial pressures) are reported in this document. Generally speaking, the ketone hydrogenation over metal surfaces in vapor phase comply with the mechanism that hydrogen atoms …

Instructional Scaffolding In Internships: Supporting Future Professionals In Family Science, Katy Gregg, Meghan K. Dove, Nikki Digregorio

Human Ecology: Faculty Publications

Internships are known for being a valuable, albeit time consuming, opportunity for students, supervisors, and faculty in many fields. As undergraduate programs consider their current and future internship programs, we suggest the processes an intern takes to secure and complete an internship are key to furthering their learning and increasing their career marketability. In this article, we use scaffolding and self-efficacy theories as the foundation to developing an intentional internship program in the family science field. We share the steps faculty take to prepare students for the internship, use graduated guidance to support student learning, and to assess learning during …

Control Flow Integrity For Real-Time Embedded Systems, Yuqian Huo

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Devices built on embedded systems are widely used in our daily lives. Nowadays, firmware typically uses C and C++ for efficiency and durability. However, those languages are unsafe which can lead to many software and system security issues. Attackers can easily corrupt a system by issuing various memory corruption attacks on a vulnerable program. Control-flow integrity is one of the most prevalent mechanisms used to protect against memory corruption. Most research papers and prototypes focus on using CFI on high-performance chips such as Intel and ARM Cortex-A. However, many embedded systems targeting time critical services are built on resource constrained …