Digital Commons Network^™

Cumulative Lifetime Stressor Exposure Assessed By The Strain Predicts Economic Ambiguity Aversion, Candace M. Raio, Benjamin B. Lu, Michael Grubb, Grant S. Shields, George M. Slavich, Paul Glimcher

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Uncertainty is inherent in most decisions humans make. Economists distinguish between two types of decision-making under non-certain conditions: those involving risk (i.e., known outcome probabilities) and those that involve ambiguity (i.e., unknown outcome probabilities). Prior research has identified individual differences that explain risk preferences, but little is known about factors associated with ambiguity aversion. Here, we hypothesized that cumulative exposure to major psychosocial stressors over the lifespan might be one factor that predicts individuals’ ambiguity aversion. Across two studies (Study 1: n = 58, M_age = 25.7; Study 2: n = 188, M_age = 39.81), we used a …

Large-Scale Integrative Analysis Of Soybean Transcriptome Using An Unsupervised Autoencoder Model, Lingtao Su, Chunhui Xu, Shuai Zeng, Li Su, Trupti Joshi, Gary Stacey, Dong Xu

Biomedical Sciences

Plant tissues are distinguished by their gene expression patterns, which can help identify tissue-specific highly expressed genes and their differential functional modules. For this purpose, large-scale soybean transcriptome samples were collected and processed starting from raw sequencing reads in a uniform analysis pipeline. To address the gene expression heterogeneity in different tissues, we utilized an adversarial deconfounding autoencoder (AD-AE) model to map gene expressions into a latent space and adapted a standard unsupervised autoencoder (AE) model to help effectively extract meaningful biological signals from the noisy data. As a result, four groups of 1,743, 914, 2,107, and 1,451 genes were …

Honors College Retention In The College Of Agriculture, Food And Environmental, Sadie Vander Wal

Honors Capstone Projects

The College of Agriculture, Food and Environmental Sciences (CAFES) at South Dakota State University (SDSU) has the second lowest Honors College student enrollment compared to all other colleges in the university. This study explores factors that deter CAFES students from enrolling or continuing with Honors and potential opportunities to encourage enrollment and retention. A QuestionPro survey and focus groups were utilized in collecting responses from first-year CAFES students on their awareness of the Honors College’s automatic enrollment, factors that deter students from pursuing Honors, and opportunities. Survey responses (n=59) were reported as percentages. Randomized focus groups were created from the …

Unmet Legal Needs As Health Injustice, Yael Cannon

University of Richmond Law Review

In Part I, this Article examines the health justice framework through which laws are understood as determinants of health equity. In Part II, this Article argues that when unaddressed for low-income individuals, legal needs serve as social determinants of health. Applying the health justice framework, the Article examines the major domains of social determinants of health (“SDOH”) and identifies areas of law for which unmet legal needs contribute to poor health and health inequity. Specifically, it analyzes how the five major domains of SDOH of the Healthy People 2030 paradigm of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (“HHS”) …

On A Scale From 1 To 1557, How Much Justice Is Too Much Justice For Healthcare Entities Evading Disparate Impact Accountability?, Vanessa Giunta

Hofstra Labor & Employment Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Global Education In Stem And Healthcare: Implications Of Covid-19, Jessica Hallet, Santanu De

Biology Faculty Articles

The Coronavirus Infectious Disease 2019 (COVID-19) was declared a pandemic in March of 2020. Since then, most schools, colleges, and universities across the globe stopped delivering classes face-to-face and transitioned into virtual modalities of instruction. This reformation of academics has had an impact on every field of study, especially those students in the areas of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM), and in the realm of healthcare education. Ranging from middle/high school to undergraduate and graduate programs, STEM degrees require intensive curricula integrating extensive lectures on theoretical topics and laboratory exercises to apply those concepts in a practical setting. Likewise, …

Factors Contributing To The Recognition Of A Potential Nonsexual Multiple Relationship, Nikki Patel

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Clinical psychologists encounter situations for which no prescriptive professional standards exist, necessitating therapists’ judgment to determine an appropriate course of action. This study examines the first step of therapists’ decision-making process—recognition of the potential for a nonsexual multiple relationship. Based on the existing literature and previous empirical findings, our hypotheses are that (1) therapist sex (female), higher scores on the PAQ Expressivity (femininity) scale, higher scores on the VIA-IS-V3 Self-control scale, and participants’ ranking Nonmaleficence as the most important ethical principle would be significantly (positively) predictive of Recognition scores, (2) higher scores on the PAQ Instrumentality (masculinity) scale, higher scores …

Harnessing Blood Clot Removal Mechanisms After Germinal Matrix Hemorrhage, Jerry J. Flores

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Germinal matrix hemorrhage (GMH) is one of the leading causes of morbidity, mortality, and acquired infantile hydrocephalus in preterm infants in the United States, with little progress made in its clinical management. Blood clots have been shown to elicit secondary brain injury after GMH, by disrupting normal cerebrospinal fluid circulation and absorption after germinal matrix hemorrhage causing post-hemorrhagic hydrocephalus development. Current evidence suggests that rapid hematoma resolution is necessary to quickly improve neurological outcomes after hemorrhagic stroke. N-formyl peptide receptor 2 (FPR2), a G-protein-coupled receptor, has been shown to be neuroprotective after stroke. FPR2 activation has been associated with the …

Extracellular Vimentin Modulation Of Human Dendritic Cell Activation, Mary Beth Yu

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Vimentin is traditionally considered to be an intracellular protein with a primarily structural role. Evidence suggests that extracellular vimentin can be found in cancer, tissue injury, and autoimmunity. Extracellular vimentin has already been shown to alter innate immunity by increasing monocyte and macrophage ability to kill bacteria, but also decreasing neutrophil infiltration into inflamed tissue. How extracellular vimentin affects initiation of adaptive immunity has not been previously studied. To initiate adaptive immunity, antigen presenting cells prime naïve T cells. Since the most effective antigen-presenting cells are dendritic cells (DCs), the DCs are important in immune responses against cancer, self, and …

Evaluating The Effect Of The Protector Cap Technique For Castable Implant Abutments On Reverse Torque Values, Mohammed Alfaifi

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Statement of problem: The most common mechanical complication reported regarding the implant abutment is screw loosening attributed to masticatory forces and insufficient preload torque.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to evaluate the differences in reverse torque value between UCLA abutments with no casting performed, UCLA abutments cast using a conventional manner, and UCLA abutment cast using protection caps and pegs.

Material and methods: Thirty implants with a standard diameter (4.3 mm) conical connection (NobelReplace Tapered Groovy 4.3 × 13 mm; Nobel Biocare) and thirty premachined 4.3 mm gold UCLA abutments (Branemark System™ Nobel Biocare, Inc) were used in …

African-American Pastors' Mental Health Literacy, Leadership And Counsel: A Systematic Review, Michelle A. Townsend

Social Work Doctoral Dissertations

The African-American pastor is a trusted provider of leadership and counseling within the Black church and community. Pastors and ministry leaders are often the first responders of mental health issues faced by their congregants and community members. As a trusted and sought-after source for counseling, the African-American Pastor is a mental health provider to a community who often does not pursue professional mental health counseling. Although the community is susceptible to the same mental illness as other ethnic groups, there is mistrust for the medical and mental health community and inequality in the available resources. This study 1) examined what …

The Perfect Storm: Substance Abuse, Mental Illness, And Rural America, Bailey D. Barnes

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

No abstract provided.

Aged 539 Graduate Internship Report- Washington Union High School, Manuel Torres Jr.

Agricultural Education: Graduate Internship Reports

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

Mapping Sustainable Development In Investment Treaties: An Analysis Of Asean States' Practice, Mark Mclaughlin

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

The interaction between sustainable development and international investment treaties is of growing concern. Could investment protection stymie health regulation? Will States be sued for introducing measures to tackle climate change? A growing body of sustainability-related case law is evidence that arbitral tribunals balance investment obligations against States’ ability to regulate for national security, health, the environment, labour rights, transparency, and corporate social responsibility. Against this background, this paper maps sustainable development issues in 371 bilateral investment treaties (hereinafter “BITs”) concluded by the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) States. It finds that only 26% of these treaties make any reference …

0876: Lloyd Kiff Ornithology Collection, 1872-1997, Marshall University Special Collections

Guides to Manuscript Collections

Lloyd Kiff graduated from Marshall University in 1964 and later taught as instructor in Zoology in the late 1960s. Kiff has worked as an ornithologist for more than 50 years. His father earned a master’s degree in organic chemistry and his mother earned a master’s degree in both biology and Library Science at Marshall. Kiff’s mother was also the editor for Bird Calls, a periodical issued by the Huntington Bird Club.

Lloyd Kiff has also published various works included in this collection, such as Birds of the Lower Ohio River Valley in West Virginia (1960 and 1986) that can be …

Racialized Disablement And The Need For Conceptual Analysis Of “Racial Health Disparities”, Desiree Valentine

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

It is well established that racial health disparities are impacted by structural racism, but the imbrication of racialization processes with processes of disablement remains underdeveloped. This essay advocates for a conceptual lens that looks historically and politically at the co-constitution of “race” and “disability.” Racism and ableism intersect in ways that manifest what I call racialized disablement, a key heuristic for building a fuller understanding of “race” and “racial health disparities.” This terminology, I propose, helps illuminate the following about race and racism in healthcare: first, racialized disablement seeks to denaturalize both race and disability to focus on their political …

Continuum Dynamics And Statistical Correction Of Compositional Heterogeneity In Multivalent Idp Oligomers Resolved By Single-Particle Em, Barmak Mostofian, Russell Mcfarland, Aiden Estelle, Jesse Howe, Elisar J. Barbar, Steve L. Reichow, Daniel M. Zuckerman

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Multivalent intrinsically disordered protein (IDP) complexes are prevalent in biology and act in regulation of diverse processes, including transcription, signaling events, and the assembly and disassembly of complex macromolecular architectures. These systems pose significant challenges to structural investigation, due to continuum dynamics imparted by the IDP and compositional heterogeneity resulting from characteristic low-affinity interactions. Here, we developed a modular pipeline for automated single-particle electron microscopy (EM) distribution analysis of common but relatively understudied semi-ordered systems: 'beads-on-a-string' assemblies, composed of IDPs bound at multivalent sites to the ubiquitous ∼20kDacross-linking hub protein LC8. This approach quantifies conformational geometries and compositional heterogeneity on …

Oncosuppressive Roles Of Decorin Through Regulation Of Multiple Receptors And Diverse Signaling Pathways., Christopher Xie, Dipon K Mondal, Mikdat Ulas, Thomas Neill, Renato V Iozzo

Department of Pathology, Anatomy, and Cell Biology Faculty Papers

Decorin is a stromal-derived prototype member of the small leucine-rich proteoglycan gene family. In addition to its functions as a regulator of collagen fibrillogenesis and TGF-β activity soluble decorin acts as a pan-receptor tyrosine kinase (RTK) inhibitor. Decorin binds to various RTKs including EGFR HER2 HGFR/Met VEGFR2 TLR and IGFR. Although the molecular mechanism for the action of decorin on these receptors is not entirely elucidated overall decorin evokes transient activation of these receptors with suppression of downstream signaling cascades culminating in growth inhibition followed by their physical downregulation via caveosomal internalization and degradation. In the case of Met decorin …

Measurable Microcystin In Ozark Streams Was Rare During Summer 2018 Baseflow Conditions, Bradley J. Austin, Brian E. Haggard

Crop, Soil and Environmental Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Accelerated eutrophication due to human activity has been linked to an increase in the occurrence of cyanobacteria in freshwater systems. The purpose of this study was to document the occurrence of microcystin, a common cyanotoxin, within northwest Arkansas streams. Twenty streams were sampled from May through October 2018, and water and periphyton samples were analyzed for microcystin and chlorophyll-a (CHL-a). Mean microcystin concentrations in water samples were low across sites, ranging from < 0.10 to 0.21 μg L⁻¹. Mean microcystin in the periphyton across sites ranged from 2.6 to 9.9 μg m⁻² and were within values observed in the literature. …

Mitonuclear Mismatch Is Associated With Increased Male Frequency, Outcrossing, And Male Sperm Size In Experimentally-Evolved C. Elegans, Brent W. Bever, Zachary P. Dietz, Jennifer Anne Sullins, Ariana M. Montoya, Ulfar Bergthorsson, Vaishali Katju, Suzanne Estes

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

We provide a partial test of themitonuclear sex hypothesiswith the first controlled study of how male frequencies and rates of outcrossing evolve in response to mitonuclear mismatch by allowing replicate lineages of C. elegans nematodes containing either mitochondrial or nuclear mutations of electron transport chain (ETC) genes to evolve under three sexual systems: facultatively outcrossing (wildtype), obligately selfing, and obligately outcrossing. Among facultatively outcrossing lines, we found evolution of increased male frequency in at least one replicate line of all four ETC mutant backgrounds tested—nuclear isp-1, mitochondrial cox-1 and ctb-1, and an isp-1 IV; ctb-1M mitonuclear double mutant—and confirmed for …

Achieving Racial Unity And Oneness Through Biblical Authority And Application, Nolen Spencer Wood

Doctoral Dissertations and Projects

The problem is that secular models for achieving racial reconciliation threaten the unity of Life Church. The true remedy for unity is found in biblical authority and application. The intervention research project addressed this problem by observing the negative impacts of methodologies such as Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. Seven members of Life Church were recruited to participate in the group study. The first three phases of intervention were replete with survey questions and interviews that ascertained their worldview on understandings of race and how personal experiences have shaped the way they view people. The phase four intervention provided a …

Constructing Prediction Intervals With Neural Networks: An Empirical Evaluation Of Bootstrapping And Conformal Inference Methods, Alexander N. Contarino

Theses and Dissertations

Artificial neural networks (ANNs) are popular tools for accomplishing many machine learning tasks, including predicting continuous outcomes. However, the general lack of confidence measures provided with ANN predictions limit their applicability, especially in military settings where accuracy is paramount. Supplementing point predictions with prediction intervals (PIs) is common for other learning algorithms, but the complex structure and training of ANNs renders constructing PIs difficult. This work provides the network design choices and inferential methods for creating better performing PIs with ANNs to enable their adaptation for military use. A two-step experiment is executed across 11 datasets, including an imaged-based dataset. …

Narrative Analysis Of Open-Source Social Media Activity In The Indopacom Aor, Aaron K. Glenn

Theses and Dissertations

Emotion classification can be a powerful tool to derive narratives from social media data. Recurrent Neural Networks (RNN) can meet or exceed the performance of state-of-the-art traditional machine learning techniques using exclusively open-source data and models. Specifically, these results show that RNN variants can produce more than an 8% gain in accuracy in comparison to Logistic Regression and SVM techniques and a 15% gain over Random Forest when using FastText embeddings. This research found a statistical significance in the performance of a single layer Bi-directional Long Short-Term Memory (Bi-LSTM) model over a 2-layer stacked Bi-LSTM model. This research also found …

Smoothing Of Convolutional Neural Network Classifications, Glen R. Drumm

Theses and Dissertations

Smoothing convolutional neural networks is investigated. When intermittent and random false predictions happen, a technique of average smoothing is applied to smooth out the incorrect predictions. While a simple problem environment shows proof of concept, obstacles remain for applying such a technique to a more operationally complex problem.

A New Approach To Career Field Matching For Commissioning Air Force Cadets, Daniel Griffen Laird

Theses and Dissertations

The current method of assigning graduating cadets from the United States Air Force Academy and Reserve Officers' Training Corps (ROTC) detachments to their career fields uses an integer programming model to maximize \global" Air Force utility, subject to several Air Force-defined constraints. This utility evaluates the positive benefit of assigning a certain cadet to a certain career field. This paper discusses the issues with such a model, as well as presents a new, more refined approach to the problem. Rather than provide a one-size-fits-all formulation of this particular assignment problem, a Value-Focused Thinking (VFT) framework is applied, in conjunction with …

Using Generative Adversarial Networks To Augment Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Image Classification Training Sets, Benjamin J. Mccloskey

Theses and Dissertations

A challenging task in computer vision is finding techniques to improve the object detection and classification capabilities of ML models used for processing images acquired by moving aerial platforms. This research explores if GAN augmented UAV training sets can increase the generalizability of a detection model trained on said data. To answer this question, the YOLOv4-Tiny Object Detection Model was trained with aerial image training sets depicting rural environments. The salient objects within the frames were recreated using various GAN architectures, placed back into the original frames, and the augmented frames appended to the original training sets. GAN augmentation on …

Simultaneous Actuation And Sensing Of Electrostatic Mems, Jacob E. Song

Theses and Dissertations

Micro-Electro-Mechanical Systems (MEMS) are devices that play important roles of sensing and actuation in many different industries including automation, electronics, medical, communications, and defense. In order to make full use of these devices, it is important to understand the peripherals that enable these devices. Simultaneous actuation and control of MEMS devices is an important area of research as it enables feedback control of these device and allows devices to maintain performance as devices depreciate over their lifetime. The aim of this thesis is to perform a design space analysis on an electrostatic MEMS simultaneous actuation and sensing circuit that is …

Team Air Combat Using Model-Based Reinforcement Learning, David A. Mottice

Theses and Dissertations

We formulate the first generalized air combat maneuvering problem (ACMP), called the MvN ACMP, wherein M friendly AUCAVs engage against N enemy AUCAVs, developing a Markov decision process (MDP) model to control the team of M Blue AUCAVs. The MDP model leverages a 5-degree-of-freedom aircraft state transition model and formulates a directed energy weapon capability. Instead, a model-based reinforcement learning approach is adopted wherein an approximate policy iteration algorithmic strategy is implemented to attain high-quality approximate policies relative to a high performing benchmark policy. The ADP algorithm utilizes a multi-layer neural network for the value function approximation regression mechanism. One-versus-one …

Classification And Keyword Identification Of Covid 19 Misinformation On Social Media: A Framework For Semantic Analysis, Grace Y. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

The growing surge of misinformation among COVID-19 communication can pose great hindrance to truth, magnify distrust in policy makers and/or degrade authorities’ credibility, and it can even harm public health. Classification of textual context on social media data relating to COVID-19 is an effective tool to combat misinformation on social media platforms. In this research, Twitter data was leveraged to 1) develop classification methods to detect misinformation and identify Tweet sentiment with respect to COVID-19 and 2) develop a human-in-the-loop interactive framework to enable identification of keywords associated with social context, here, being misinformation regarding COVID-19. 1) Six fusion-based classification …

Automated Aircraft Visual Inspection With Artificial Data Generation Enabled Deep Learning, Nathan J. Gaul

Theses and Dissertations

Aircraft visual inspection, which is essential to daily maintenance of an aircraft, is expensive and time-consuming to perform. Augmenting trained maintenance technicians with automated UAVs to collect and analyze images for aircraft inspection is an active research topic and a potential application of CNNs. Training datasets for niche research topics such as aircraft visual inspection are small and challenging to produce, and the manual process of labeling these datasets often produces subjective annotations. Recently, researchers have produced several successful applications of artificially generated datasets with domain randomization for training CNNs for real-world computer vision problems. The research outlined herein builds …