Digital Commons Network^™

Determining The Role Of Environmental Variability On Marine Megafauna Abundance Trends: A Case Study Of Cocos Island, Costa Rica, Julia Saltzman

Master's Theses and Capstones

Despite being economically, ecologically, and culturally important many species of marine megafauna are threatened with extinction. The reasons for the imperiled state of many marine megafauna include overfishing, habitat loss, pollution, and climate change. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are often proposed as a management tool for marine megafauna. However, it is difficult to monitor the efficacy of marine protected areas when it is unclear if abundance trends are due to management or environmental variability. Indeed, many studies to date on the efficacy of MPAs fail to account for environmental variability, or account for limited covariates. In this thesis, I examine …

Characterizing The Traditional Fisheries Of Salary, Madagascar Within A Marine Protected Area, Caitlin R. Shanahan

Master's Theses and Capstones

Protected Areas are a tool used by the International Union Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to limit changes to and preserve important and fragile ecosystems, allowing varying permissible activities within their boundaries. Locally Managed Marine Areas (LMMAs) are a similar tool, but with a higher emphasis of community engagement in the planning process with community-based ownership and regulation. In Madagascar, there are both IUCN Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) and LMMAs established to help conserve their high marine biodiversity and healthy reef systems. While the LMMAs and some of the MPAs permit sustainable fishing, it is unknown if the traditional, small-scale fisheries …

Phenylboronic Ester-Modified Polymeric Nanoparticles For Promoting Trp2 Peptide Antigen Delivery In Cancer Immunotherapy, Qiyan Wang, Zhipeng Dong, Fangning Lou, Yunxue Yin, Jiahao Zhang, Hanning Wen, Tao Lu, Yue Wang

Dermatology Articles

The tremendous development of peptide-based cancer vaccine has attracted incremental interest as a powerful approach in cancer management, prevention and treatment. As successful as tumor vaccine has been, major challenges associated with achieving efficient immune response against cancer are (1) drainage to and retention in lymph nodes; (2) uptake by dendritic cells (DCs); (3) activation of DCs. In order to overcome these barriers, here we construct PBE-modified TRP2 nanovaccine, which comprises TRP2 peptide tumor antigen and diblock copolymer PEG-b-PAsp grafted with phenylboronic ester (PBE). We confirmed that this TRP2 nanovaccine can be effectively trapped into lymph node, uptake by dendritic …

Round Goby (Neogobius Melanostomus) Seasonal Diet, Drift Impacts, And Influence On Stream Connectivity In Great Lakes Tributary Streams, Kyle R. Glenn Mr

Biology Theses

Seasonality, energy recruitment, and food web position dictate the degree of impact fish impose on their surrounding environment. In the Great Lakes, the round goby (Neogobius melanostomus) is known to out-migrate from nearshore habitat to offshore depths in the winter months. However, in Great Lake tributaries, round goby populations were found up to 25 km upstream during winter months, and distance upstream was a predictor of out-migration propensity; populations farthest upstream did not out-migrate. Seasonal resources shaped the diet and condition of these fish thus creating inland populations with different average lengths, diets, and body condition compared to …

The Effects Of Endogenous And Exogenous Progesterone On Ingroup Affiliative Bias, Abby Sibson

Psychological Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Millions of women use hormonal contraceptives around the world and though the physical side effects are thoroughly described in the literature and clinical setting, the psychological effects have been largely ignored until recently. Recent studies have found that the use of hormonal contraceptives has an effect on women’s hormones and psychological well-being. The goal of the present research was to expand the current knowledge of the effect of hormonal contraceptives on women’s hormones and social behavior by examining how women with differing levels of progesterone due to menstrual cycle fluctuations (follicular or luteal phase) or using hormonal contraceptives (birth control …

Nitrification Inhibitor, Nitrogen Source, And Herbicide Effects On Soil Nitrogen Transformations And Corn Yield, William Neels

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Nitrogen fertilizer management continue to be challenging due to potential nitrogen losses under variable weather conditions. The objective of this was to evaluate the performance of nitrification inhibitors, nitrogen sources and herbicides on in-season nitrogen availability and agronomy indicators. A two site-year field experiment was conducted in silty clay loam soil in corn phase of the corn-soybean rotation at Central Nebraska. The treatments included three herbicide (no pre-emergence, Acuron, Resicore) and five nitrogen treatments: 1) control, 2) anhydrous ammonia, 3) anhydrous ammonia without nitrification inhibitor, 4) urea with nitrification inhibitors, and 5) urea without nitrification inhibitors. Results indicated that nitrogen …

Addressing Challenges Of Dryland Production Of Sunflowers And Corn In The Semi-Arid High Plains Of Nebraska, Zhan Orazov

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Corn and sunflower are value crops for America. Cultivation of corn and sunflower often vary depending on growing environment. Selecting appropriate planting dates, hybrids and plant density frequently concerns farmers. This concern is understandable because the decision made directly impacts final income. The objectives were to evaluate interaction of corn and sunflower planting dates and hybrid maturity and evaluate interaction of corn flex hybrids and plant density under conditions of western Nebraska. Nine corn hybrids with relative maturity ranging from 86 to 105 days were sown between early May and late June in first and between late April and early …

Deciphering The Genetic Architecture Of Key Female Floral Traits For Hybrid Wheat Seed Production, Juan David Jimenez

Department of Agronomy and Horticulture: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) is a staple cereal that provides 20% of the calories and proteins in human intake (Ray et al., 2013). Global population is projected to increase to 9.7 billion by 2050. Food production must increase by 70% to feed this future population. Wheat production is in crisis due to political and environmental challenges and is projected to decline by 0.8% in 2022 (FAO, 2022). To ensure food security yield genetic gain must increase by around 1.4% annually. Taking advantage of heterosis, hybrid wheat has the potential to boost grain yield. However, hybrid wheat seed production systems …

The Fathers' Veto And Fatherhood As Property, Yvonne Lindgren

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Developing The Who's Pandemic Treaty To Facilitate Global Solidarity And International Accountability, Sonam K. Shah

North Carolina Law Review

No abstract provided.

Conflicts Between Ghg Accounting Methodologies In The Steel Industry, John Biberman, Perrine Toledano, Baihui Lei, Max Lulavy, Rohini Ram Mohan

Columbia Center on Sustainable Investment

Accurate, verifiable, and comparable greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions data throughout supply chains in the materials sector are necessary to drive decarbonization. This is particularly the case for the steel supply chain, a major source of GHG emissions with untapped potential for reduction. However, emissions accounting methods used by the steel industry suffer from gaps and misalignment, resulting in significant differences in reported GHG emissions. The result is a patchwork reporting landscape vulnerable to manipulation and miscommunication, generating little actionable data for policymakers, producers, customers, and investors. These shortcomings highlight the need for a harmonized carbon accounting framework for the steel …

Spatial Models Can Improve The Experimental Design Of Field-Based Transplant Gardens By Preventing Bias Due To Neighborhood Crowding, Andrii Zaiats, Juan M. Raquena-Mullor, Matthew J. Germino, Jennifer S. Forbey, Bryce A. Richardson, T. Trevor Caughlin

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Field-based transplant gardens, including common and reciprocal garden experiments, are a powerful tool for studying genetic variation and gene-by-environment interactions. These experiments assume that individuals within the garden represent independent replicates growing in a homogenous environment. Plant neighborhood interactions are pervasive across plant populations and could violate assumptions of transplant garden experiments. We demonstrate how spatially explicit models for plant–plant interactions can provide novel insights on genotypes' performance in field-transplant garden designs. We used individual-based models, based on data from a sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) common garden, to simulate the impact of spatial plant–plant interactions on between-group differences in plant …

College Of Graduate Programs And Honors Studies Newsletter - December 2022, College Of Graduate Programs And Honor Studies, Wright State University

College of Graduate Programs and Honors Studies Newsletter

A six page newsletter created by the College of Graduate Programs and Honors Studies at Wright State University. This newsletter includes a upcoming events, message from the dean, and more.

Input From Torus Longitudinalis Drives Binocularity And Spatial Summation In Zebrafish Optic Tectum, Alexander L. Tesmer, Nicholas P. Fields, Estuardo Robles

Neuroscience: Faculty Publications

Background: A continued effort in neuroscience aims to understand the way brain circuits consisting of diverse neuronal types generate complex behavior following sensory input. A common feature of vertebrate visual systems is that lower-order and higher-order visual areas are reciprocally connected. Feedforward projections confer visual responsiveness to higher-order visual neurons while feedback projections likely serve to modulate responses of lower-order visual neurons in a context-dependent manner. Optic tectum is the largest first-order visual brain area in zebrafish and is reciprocally connected with the torus longitudinalis (TL), a second-order visual brain area that does not receive retinal input. A functional role …

Modulation Of Non-Diffracting Hermite Gaussian Beams And Nonlinear Optical Microscopy For Nanoscale Sulfur Imaging, Gilberto Navarro

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Hermite Gaussian beams are the solutions of the scalar paraxial wave equation in Cartesian coordinates. A method was developed to modulate the intensity profile of non-diffracting Hermite Gaussian (HG) beams. The original HG beamâ??s intensity profile consists of high intense corner lobes and low intense central lobes which is not ideal for structured illumination in light-field microscopy. The modulated HG beams were generated by multiplying the original HGâ??s beam envelope by a super-Gaussian envelope to modify the intensity profile to attain equal intensity lobes. The propagation of the original HG beam and modulated HG beam were compared to determine that …

Rational Design Of Precisely Tailored Electrocatalysts For Efficient And Durable Electrocatalytic Devices, Mohmed Sanad Noufal

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Due to their superior conversion efficiency, high power density, and green nature, sustainable energy technologies such as Fuel cells and Zinc-air batteries, once installed to produce green hydrogen fuel as well as energy storage devices, are expected to play an essential role in reducing the environmental effect of human transportation by replacing fossil fuels. However, the current bottleneck for the low-temperature polymer membrane fuel cells that dominate the fuel cell vehicle market is the sluggish kinetics of the oxygen reduction reaction (ORR) at the cathode. The slow ORR kinetics significantly reduce the efficiency of chemical-electrical energy conversion. Similarly, hydrogen production …

Authigenic Clay Mineral Evidence For Restricted, Evaporitic Conditions During The Emergence Of The Ediacaran Doushantuo Biota, Shujun Han, Stefan C. Lӧhr, April N. Abbott, Andre Baldermann, Martin Voigt, Bingsong Yu

Marine Science

The Ediacaran Period witnessed major environmental change and an expansion of eukaryotic life following the Marinoan glaciation. The Doushantuo Formation of south China has furnished much of our understanding of Earth System and biosphere evolution during this period, but its depositional setting–marine or non-marine–is still debated. Here we conduct mineralogical, petrographic and geochemical analyses of samples from the lower Doushantuo Formation in order to determine the origin of saponite clay minerals which are abundant in this interval. We find that the morphology and distribution of the saponite clays suggest they are of pre-compaction, authigenic origin. We infer that the lower …

Nutritional Status, Health Risk Behaviors, And Eating Habits Are Correlated With Physical Activity And Exercise Of Brazilian Older Hypertensive Adults: A Cross-Sectional Study, Leonardo Santos Lopes Da Silva, Daniel De Freitas Batalhão, Anderson Dos Santos Carvalho, Lucimere Bohn, Nilo César Ramos, Pedro Pugliesi Abdalla

Teacher Education

Background: Nutritional status, health risk behaviors, eating habits, and other comorbidities (such as diabetes) may be associated with recommended amounts of physical activity (PA) and exercise (EX) in healthy older adults. However, these associations are still unclear for older hypertensive adults, who require greater care from health professionals. The purpose of this study was to associate the nutritional status, health risk behaviors, eating habits, and the presence of diabetes with recommended amounts of physical activity and exercise practice of older hypertensive adults. Methods: Ten thousand seven hundred eighty-nine older hypertensive adults (70.9 ± 7.4 years) from the VIGITEL telephone survey …

Social Equity Is Key To Sustainable Ocean Governance, Katherine M. Crosman, Edward H. Allison, Yoshitaka Ota, Andrés M. Cisneros-Montemayor, Gerald G. Singh, Wilf Swartz, Megan Bailey, Kate M. Barclay, Grant Blume, Mathieu Colléter, Michael Fabinyi, Elaine M. Faustman, Russell Fielding, P. Joshua Griffin, Quentin Hanich, Harriet Harden-Davies, Ryan P. Kelly, Tiff Annie Kenny, Terrie Klinger

Honors College Faculty Publications

Calls to address social equity in ocean governance are expanding. Yet ‘equity’ is seldom clearly defined. Here we present a framework to support contextually-informed assessment of equity in ocean governance. Guiding questions include: (1) Where and (2) Why is equity being examined? (3) Equity for or amongst Whom? (4) What is being distributed? (5) When is equity considered? And (6) How do governance structures impact equity? The framework supports consistent operationalization of equity, challenges oversimplification, and allows evaluation of progress. It is a step toward securing the equitable ocean governance already reflected in national and international commitments.

Guest Editorial: Reflections On Course-Based Undergraduate Research, Diana Cheng, John Gonzalez

The Mathematics Enthusiast

No abstract provided.

Bringing A Cure Into A Discrete Mathematics Course And Beyond, Lipika Deka, Peri Shereen, Jeffrey Wand

The Mathematics Enthusiast

Course-based Undergraduate Research Experiences (CUREs) have been well developed in the hard sciences, but math CUREs are all but absent from the literature. Like biology and chemistry, math programs suffer from a lack of research experiences and many students are not able to participate in programs like REUs (Research Experiences for Undergraduates). CUREs are a great alternative, but the current definition of CURE (see [1]) has potential barriers when applied to mathematics (e.g. time, novelty of project). Our solution to these barriers was to develop a math CURE pathway in which students complete "Math CUREs" in targeted courses. After finishing …

Factors Affecting Teacher Satisfaction And Retention In Small Rural School Districts In Arkansas, Toni Hopkins

College of Education Dissertations

The purpose of this dissertation was to determine by teacher certification level the effects of 0-9 years of experience versus 10 years or more of experience on the perceptions of pay, supervision, colleagues, and working conditions as measured by the Lester Teacher Job Satisfaction Questionnaire. Understanding teachers’ perceptions of job satisfaction may increase teacher retention. The theoretical framework was Maslow’s theory of motivation and the hierarchy of needs. A stratified random sample of 144 teachers from five small rural school districts in West-Central Arkansas was used for the study. Data analysis involved the use of 2 x 2 factorial ANOVAs. …

Single Low-Dose Targeted Bevacizumab Infusion In Adult Patients With Steroid-Refractory Radiation Necrosis Of The Brain: A Phase Ii Open-Label Prospective Clinical Trial, Shervin R. Dashti, Robert J. Kadner, Bradley S. Folley, Jason P. Sheehan, Dong Y. Han, Richard J. Kryscio, Mary B. Carter, Lisa B. E. Shields, Brian M. Plato, Renato V. La Rocca, Aaron C. Spalding, Tom L. Yao, Justin F. Fraser

Sanders-Brown Center on Aging Faculty Publications

OBJECTIVE There is an unmet need for safe and rapidly effective therapies for refractory brain radiation necrosis (RN). The aim of this prospective single-arm phase II trial was to evaluate the safety and efficacy of a single low-dose targeted bevacizumab infusion after blood-brain barrier disruption (BBBD) in adult patients with steroid-refractory brain RN.

METHODS Ten adults with steroid-refractory, imaging-confirmed brain RN were enrolled between November 2016 and January 2018 and followed for 12 months after treatment. Bevacizumab 2.5 mg/kg was administered as a one-time targeted intra-arterial infusion immediately after BBBD. Primary outcomes included safety and > 25% decrease in lesion volume. …

Evaluation Of Practice Patterns And Outcomes After Implementing Smart For Pancreatic Cancer, Eric Schaff, Parag J. Parikh, Pin Li, Rupen Shah, Gazala Khan, Farzan Siddiqui, Benjamin Movsas, David Kwon

Radiation Oncology Meeting Abstracts

Purpose/Objective(s): Stereotactic MRI-guided adaptive radiation therapy (SMART) enables safe dose escalation for locally advanced, borderline resectable, and medically inoperable pancreatic cancer and has shown favorable toxicity and survival outcomes. In late 2018, our institution commissioned SMART for these patients, making it available to all patient referrals. We wanted to review changes in our patient population and differences in clinical outcomes for patients before and after the implementation of SMART.

Materials/Methods: In this IRB approved analysis, we retrospectively reviewed 167 consecutive patients from 2015-2021 with locally advanced, borderline resectable, or medically unresectable pancreatic cancer who were treated with radiation therapy. Chemoradiation …

The Impact Of Implementing Hypofractionation Prescription Regimens And Modernizing Delivery Technique On Treatment Resources In Breast Radiotherapy, S. Quirk, Kundan Thind, L. Van Dyke, K. Long, T. Phan, P. Grendarova, K. Martell, W. L. Smith, L. Barbera, M. Roumeliotis

Radiation Oncology Meeting Abstracts

Purpose/Objective(s): To determine the change in treatment resources due to the implementation of hypofractionated prescription regimen.

Materials/Methods: All patients between January 1, 2012 and December 31, 2021 receiving curative intent breast radiotherapy at a tertiary cancer center were included. Plan and patient data were extracted from the patient database with the treatment planning system and direct database query. Treatment plan categorization was completed using data elements to include only curative intent. Treatment plans for seroma boost or supraclavicular irradiation were excluded to ensure this analysis did not double-count regional nodal irradiation contribution or confound boost with hypofractionation. Treatment delivery time …

Egestion Rates Of Microplastic Fibres In Fish Scaled To In Situ Concentration And Fish Density, Loren Hou, Rachel Mcneish, Timothy Hoellein

Biology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Microplastics (particles <5 >mm) are commonly found in aquatic organisms across taxonomic groups and ecosystems. However, the egestion rate of microplastics from aquatic organisms and how egestion rates compare to other rates of microplastic movement in the environment are sparsely documented.We fed microplastic fibres to round gobies (Neogobius melanostomus), an abundant, invasive species in the Laurentian Great Lakes. We conducted two trials where round gobies were fed microplastic-containing food either a single time (1 day) or every day over 7 days.There was no difference in microplastic egestion rates from the 1 day or 7 day feeding trials, suggesting no impact of …

Exploring Risk Factors Of Alzheimer’S Disease Using Mouse Models, Xian Han

Theses and Dissertations (ETD)

Mouse models of Alzheimer’s disease (AD) that accurately recapitulate pathology and molecular changes are crucial for understanding disease mechanisms and subsequent therapeutic development. We examined five commonly used mouse models of AD (5xFAD, J20, APPNL-F, APPNL-G-F, Tau P301S) and compared their whole- and phosphoproteomes with human AD (the integration of three published datasets) to study whether they can mimic protein/RNA expression discrepancies, molecular changes, and enriched pathways found in human AD cases. The mouse models especially 5xFAD and APPNL-G-F show proteomic signatures similar to human AD but lack human-specific AD progressions, such as dysregulation of synaptic pathways and networks. Integration …

Machine Learning-Based Methods For The Segmentation Of Scanning Electron Microscopy Images Of Fine-Grained Shale Samples, Binqian Yin

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations - Archive

The segmentation of scanning electron microscopy (SEM) images is critical yet time-consuming for geological studies, as it will need to differentiate the boundaries for different mineral objects to facilitate subsequent analyses, such as porosity calculation. Recently, machine learning methods, especially convolutional neural networks (CNNs), have been explored to segment SEM images for fine-grained shale samples. However, existing methods fail to address two critical issues in the segmentation of shale rock images---insufficient labeled data and imbalanced objects. To this end, this dissertation has proposed a machine learning pipeline that consists of supervised, semi-supervised, and active learning stages to reduce manual efforts …

Embedding Sustainability And Experiential Learning To Encourage Student-Led, Climate-Resilient Solutions At Bsu, Diana Fox, Wanchunzi Yu, Robert Hellström, Xiangrong Liu

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Virtual Reality And Video Game Gatekeeping, Autumn Franke

Theses

This thesis focuses on the effects of the video game industry being the only influence on the development of virtual reality technology and the hindrance caused by it. The aim of this thesis is to discuss this flaw and recommend a different route to develop the technology through the education and medical fields instead of the video game industry.