Digital Commons Network^™

Revision Total Hip Femoral Stem Micromotion And Statistical Shape Modeling Of The Knee, William Fugit

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The first purpose of this thesis was to compare the amount of micromotion seen in the femoral stem in a revision total hip arthroplasty between simple loading conditions and loading conditions derived from activities of daily living, through the use of experimental and computational methods. The amount of micromotion at the bone-implant interface was larger for activities of daily living, with ranges of 200μm more than the largest simple loading conditions. The second purpose of this thesis was to compare measurements of accuracy in a statistical shape model between individual bone and joint-level models, specifically for the knee. Using computational …

Design Of Human Inspired Feet For Mithra, A High-Performance Humanoid Robot, Spencer Lyle Brewster

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the foot design for the new humanoid robot Mithra, with the goal to improve impact mitigation, natural gait throughout the gait cycle and balance. Using human gait parameters, a stiff aluminum foot was designed to emulate human center of pressure rollover trajectories. In addition, a 2D dynamic Finite Element Analysis (FEA) of the gait cycle was created in Abaqus to rapidly prototype foot designs. Data from the FE model provided impact forces, parameters for distal foot power evaluation and maximum lean angles. From this model a flexible nylon foot was optimized for the given design objectives. The …

An Investigation Into The Plate Fixation For Periprosthetic Femoral Fractures, Xiang Chen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Periprosthetic femoral fractures are the third most reason for reoperation after the total hip arthroplasty with an incident rate of approximately 6%. The Vancouver type B periprosthetic femoral fractures account for over 70% of all cases, while the sub-type B1 fracture (when the total hip stem is stable) has remained a clinical challenge due to incidences of severe complications after the standard plate-screw fixation. To seek biomechanically sound fixations for the Vancouver type B1 fracture, this dissertation developed a combined modeling and testing framework to investigate the efficacy of fixation for a Vancouver type B1 fracture using different construct lengths …

Contact Simulation For Evaluating Patient Specific Surgical Guide Stability, Vincent Nierste

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This study proposes a novel computational method to quantify guide stability for Patient Specific Instrumentation (PSI) guides. A finite element contact model was used to analyze the final position of PSI guides on a femur across a range of loading parameters representing forces applied by a surgeon during operative use. Separate segmentation methods were used for the guide and bone geometry to represent differences between segmentation and actual patient geometry. The region of loading parameters over which the guide exhibited a consistent final position was measured and reported as Guide Stability Score. The model was verified using cadaver specimens for …

Exploring State Department Of Education Grading Guidance During Covid-19: A Model For Future Emergency Remote Learning, Matt Townsley, Joshua Kunnath

Faculty Publications

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, many United States brick-and-mortar schools in Spring 2020 rapidly transitioned to emergency remote learning. School leaders grappled with how grades ought to fit within the many unknowns of K-12 remote education. In some cases, schools modified their grading scales to give students greater flexibility to pass courses, and in other situations, schools offered incomplete grades in lieu of failures. During this time, state departments of education (DOEs) provided a variety of guidance documents to their school districts. The purpose of this study was to explore the components of state DOE grading guidance during the Spring …

Discerning Users Of Information: A Qualitative Analysis Of Student Inquiry, Karla Steege Krueger, Joan Bessman Taylor

Faculty Publications

A shift is needed in information and digital literacy instruction and assessment led by elementary and secondary school librarians with an emphasis on the evaluation of information sources. The need is in response to widespread societal sharing of mis- and disinformation related to political news including the politicizing of scientific understandings of a disease and the ensuing distrust of the messages of public health officials during the COVID-19 global pandemic. In this article, I create an instructional framework for information evaluation that is grounded in data derived from a qualitative content analysis of published research, standards, and theoretical perspectives and …

Lowering The Stakes Of The Employment Contract, Aditi Bagchi

Faculty Scholarship

Every country has to make hard choices about the distribution of entitlements. But employers control the entitlements that individual Americans enjoy to a far greater extent than those in other rich democracies. In this Essay, I argue that, in the absence of the political consensus necessary to deliver state solutions to political questions, employers here are assigned an exaggerated role in employees’ lives. Government incentives for and directives to employers have become a strategy of political deflection. The effect has been to raise the stakes of employment well beyond the scope of those terms and conditions that relate to attracting …

Platform Realism, Informational Inequality, And Section 230 Reform, Olivier Sylvain

Faculty Scholarship

Online companies bear few duties under law to tend to the discrimination that they facilitate or the disinformation that they deliver. Consumers and members of historically marginalized groups are accordingly the likeliest to be harmed. These companies should bear the same, if not more, responsibility to guard against such inequalities.

Paths To Downstream Innovation, Janet Freilich

Faculty Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Rna Nanovaccine Protects Against White Spot Syndrome Virus In Shrimp, Yashdeep Phanse, Supraja Puttamreddy, Duan Loy, Julia Vela Ramirez, Kathleen A. Ross, Ignacio Alvarez-Castro, Mark Mogler, Scott Broderick, Krishna Rajan, Balaji Narasimhan, Lyric C. Bartholomay

School of Veterinary and Biomedical Sciences: Faculty Publications

In the last 15 years, crustacean fisheries have experienced billions of dollars in economic losses, primarily due to viral diseases caused by such pathogens as white spot syndrome virus (WSSV) in the Pacific white shrimp Litopenaeus vannamei and Asian tiger shrimp Penaeus monodon. To date, no effective measures are available to prevent or control disease outbreaks in these animals, despite their economic importance. Recently, double-stranded RNA-based vaccines have been shown to provide specific and robust protection against WSSV infection in cultured shrimp. However, the limited stability of double-stranded RNA is the most significant hurdle for the field application of these …

Your Best Estimate Is Fine. Or Is It?, Jerry Timbrook, Kristen Olson, Jolene D. Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Providing an exact answer to open-ended numeric questions can be a burdensome task for respondents. Researchers often assume that adding an invitation to estimate (e.g., “Your best estimate is fine”) to these questions reduces cognitive burden, and in turn, reduces rates of undesirable response behaviors like item nonresponse, nonsubstantive answers, and answers that must be processed into a final response (e.g., qualified answers like “about 12” and ranges). Yet there is little research investigating this claim. Additionally, explicitly inviting estimation may lead respondents to round their answers, which may affect survey estimates. In this study, we investigate the effect of …

Comparing Readability Measures And Computer-Assisted Question Evaluation Tools For Self-Administered Survey Questions, Rachel Stenger, Kristen Olson, Jolene Smyth

Department of Sociology: Faculty Publications

Questionnaire designers use readability measures to ensure that questions can be understood by the target population. The most common measure is the Flesch-Kincaid Grade level, but other formulas exist. This article compares six different readability measures across 150 questions in a self-administered questionnaire, finding notable variation in calculated readability across measures. Some question formats, including those that are part of a battery, require important decisions that have large effects on the estimated readability of survey items. Other question evaluation tools, such as the Question Understanding Aid (QUAID) and the Survey Quality Predictor (SQP), may identify similar problems in questions, making …

Mr. Clover Goes To Washington: Land, Water, And Fraud In The Mono Basin, 1910-1945, Robert B. Marks

Eastern Sierra History Journal

The water woes of the Mono Basin of the Eastern Sierra region of California did not begin when Los Angeles' Department of Water and Power began to purchase water rights there in the early twentieth century. Robert Marks argues persuasively that James B. Clover's water schemes predated, and in a sense, opened the way for Los Angeles later to tap Sierran snowmelt and funnel it down to Southern California.

Immunogenicity And Protective Efficacy Of A Recombinant Pichinde Viral-Vectored Vaccine Expressing Influenza Virus Hemagglutinin Antigen In Pigs, Sushmita Kumari, Jayeshbhai Chaudhari, Qinfeng Huang, Phillip Gauger, Marcelo Nunes De Almeida, Yuying Liang, Hinh Ly, Hiep Vu

Nebraska Center for Virology: Faculty Publications

Influenza A virus of swine (IAV-S) is an economically important swine pathogen. The IAV-S hemagglutinin (HA) surface protein is the main target for vaccine development. In this study, we evaluated the feasibility of using the recombinant tri-segmented Pichinde virus (rPICV) as a viral vector to deliver HA antigen to protect pigs against IAV-S challenge. Four groups of weaned pigs (T01–T04) were included in the study. T01 was injected with PBS to serve as a non-vaccinated control. T02 was inoculated with rPICV expressing green fluorescence protein (rPICV-GFP). T03 was vaccinated with rPICV expressing the HA antigen of the IAV-S H3N2 strain …

Accidental Wiretaps: The Implications Of False Positives By Always-Listening Devices For Privacy Law & Policy, Lindsey Barrett, Ilaria Liccardi

Oklahoma Law Review

No abstract provided.

Genetically Altered Bovine Milk Exosomes (Bmes) Evade Elimination Bymurine Bone Marrow-Derived Macrophages (Bmdms), Alice Ngu, Janos Zempleni

Department of Nutrition and Health Sciences: Faculty Publications

Objectives: To develop BMEs that evade elimination by BMDMs.

Conclusions: The elimination of BMEs UNL1 and UNL2 is significantly reduced compared unmodified BMEs in BMDM cultures. This is of great importance when using BMEs for delivering therapeutics.

Construction Of A Peridynamic Model For Viscous Flow, Jiangming Zhao, Adam Larios, Florin Bobaru Ph.D.

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

We derive the Eulerian formulation for a peridynamic (PD) model of Newtonian viscous flow starting from fundamental principles: conservation of mass and momentum. This formulation is different from models for viscous flow that utilize the so-called “peridynamic differential operator” with the classical Navier- Stokes equations. We show that the classical continuity equation is a limiting case of the PD one, assuming certain smoothness conditions. The PD model for viscous flow is calibrated to the classical Navier-Stokes equations by enforcing linear consistency for the viscous stress term. Couette and Poiseuille flows, and incompressible fluid flow past a regular lattice of cylinders …

Ultrathin Coding Metasurface For Underwater Wave Focusing, Branching And Self-Bending Generation With One Single Actuator, Lixie Song, Zhong Chen, Mehrdad Negahban, Lei Liang, Zheng Li, Zheng Wu

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

A novel metasurface is proposed that aims to generate underwater acoustic waves with various functions by only one actuator. Each metasurface unit consists of an air cavity sandwiched on one side by a vibration plate and connecting rubber supports. By properly selecting the ratio of the plate to unit lengths, a phase shift of π can be attained to constitute a binary coding metasurface. Three demonstrations, including focusing, branching and self-bending waves, are chosen to validate the functionality of the design. The design is also shown to work over a wide frequency range through changing the ratio. In addition, the …

Machine Learning Assisted Metamaterial‑Based Reconfigurable Antenna For Low‑Cost Portable Electronic Devices, Shobhit K. Patel, Jaymit Surve, Vijay Katkar, Juveriya Parmar

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Antenna design has evolved from bulkier to small portable designs but there is a need for smarter antenna design using machine learning algorithms that can meet today’s high growing demand for smart and fast devices. Here in this research, main focus is on developing smart antenna design using machine learning applicable in 5G mobile applications and portable Wi-Fi, Wi-MAX, and WLAN applications. Our design is based on the metamaterial concept where the patch is truncated and etched with a split ring resonator (SRR). The high gain requirement is met by adding metamaterial superstrates having thin wires (TW) and SRRs. The …

Symmetric Or Asymmetric Glide Resistance To Twinning Disconnection?, Mingyu Gong, Houyu Ma, Kunming Yang, Yue Liu, Jian-Feng Nie, Jian Wang

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Successive gliding of twinning disconnections (TDs) creates three-dimensional twins in parent crystal and accommodates shear deformation. It is generally recognized that TD is subject to the same Peierls stress as it glides forward or backward because of its dislocation character and the twofold rotation symmetry of the twin plane. Based on atomistic simulations, we demonstrate that the glide of TDs may be subject to a symmetric or asymmetric resistance corresponding to step character, symmetric resistance for A/A type steps but asymmetric resistance for A/B type steps, where A and B represent crystallographic planes in twin and matrix. Furthermore, we experimentally …

Recent Advances In Biosensors For Detection Of Covid-19 And Other Viruses, Shobhit K. Patel, Jaymit Surve, Juveriya Parmar, Kawsar Ahmed, Francis M. Bui, Fahad Ahmed Al-Zahrani

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

This century has introduced very deadly, dangerous, and infectious diseases to humankind such as the influenza virus, Ebola virus, Zika virus, and the most infectious SARS-CoV-2 commonly known as COVID-19 and have caused epidemics and pandemics across the globe. For some of these diseases, proper medications, and vaccinations are missing and the early detection of these viruses will be critical to saving the patients. And even the vaccines are available for COVID-19, the new variants of COVID-19 such as Delta, and Omicron are spreading at large. The available virus detection techniques take a long time, are costly, and complex and …

A Robot-Assisted Acoustofluidic End Effector, Jan Durrer, Prajwal Agrawal, Ali Ozgul, Stephen C.F. Neuhauss, Nitesh Nama, Daniel Ahmed

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

Liquid manipulation is the foundation of most laboratory processes. For macroscale liquid handling, both do-it-yourself and commercial robotic systems are available; however, for microscale, reagents are expensive and sample preparation is difficult. Over the last decade, lab-on-a-chip (LOC) systems have come to serve for microscale liquid manipulation; however, lacking automation andmulti-functionality. Despite their potential synergies, each has grown separately and no suitable interface yet exists to link macro-level robotics with micro-level LOC or microfluidic devices. Here, we present a robot-assisted acoustofluidic end effector (RAEE) system, comprising a robotic arm and an acoustofluidic end effector, that combines robotics and microfluidic functionalities.We …

Immunomodulatory Functions Of Human Mesenchymal Stromal Cells Are Enhanced When Cultured On Hep/Col Multilayers Supplemented With Interferon-Gamma, Mahsa Letter-Mahsa Haseli, David A. Castilla-Casadiego, Luis Carlos Pinzon-Herrera, Alexander Hillsley, Katherine A. Miranda-Munoz, Srikanth Sivaraman, Adrianne M. Rosales, Raj R. Rao, Jorge Almodovar

Chemical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Human mesenchymal stromal cells (hMSCs) are multipotent cells that have been proposed for cell therapies due to their immunosuppressive capacity that can be enhanced in the presence of interferon-gamma (IFN-γ). In this study, multilayers of heparin (HEP) and collagen (COL) (HEP/COL) were used as a bioactive surface to enhance the immunomodulatory activity of hMSCs using soluble IFN-γ. Multilayers were formed, via layer-by-layer assembly, varying the final layer between COL and HEP and supplemented with IFN-γ in the culture medium. We evaluated the viability, adhesion, real-time growth, differentiation, and immunomodulatory activity of hMSCs on (HEP/COL) multilayers. HMSCs viability, adhesion, and growth …

Emerging Technology’S Language Wars: Smart Contracts, Carla L. Reyes

Faculty Journal Articles and Book Chapters

Work at the intersection of blockchain technology and law represents a highly interdisciplinary area of inquiry. Often, researchers, law-makers, lawyers, and other stakeholders unnecessarily debate issues because of linguistic misunderstandings. As the third of four studies examining the impact of clashes of linguistic meaning on law and policy around emerging technologies, this Essay uses smart contracts as a case study to demonstrate the real legal harm that arises from a failure to communicate. Specifically, this Essay uses techniques from corpus linguistics to reveal the inherent value conflicts embedded in definitional differences and debates as to whether the law should “accommodate” …

Publishing Toolkit For Early Career Academics I And Ii: Lublin Institute Of Technology, April 27, 2022 And May 4, 2022, Sue Ann Gardner

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Libraries: Presentations

Summary

Covers knowledge required of early career academics to create and submit academic publications. A broad range of concerns are addressed covering the entire lifecycle of scholarship including discussion dissertations, considering how to determine where to submit works, preparing and submitting manuscripts, and how to ensure that works are made available openly. The emphasis is on scholarly articles prepared for publication in academic journals, but alternate forms of scholarly communication are also discussed, including posters, conference presentations, computer code, and datasets. Includes a list of supplemental resources for further learning.

Circling The Drain: The Extinction Crisis And The Future Of Humanity, Rodolfo Dirzo, Gerardo Ceballos, Paul R. Ehrlich

Harold W. Manter Laboratory of Parasitology: Library Materials

Humanity has triggered the sixth mass extinction episode since the beginning of the Phanerozoic. The complexity of this extinction crisis is centered on the intersection of two complex adaptive systems: human culture and ecosystem functioning, although the significance of this intersection is not properly appreciated. Human beings are part of biodiversity and elements in a global ecosystem. Civilization, and perhaps even the fate of our species, is utterly dependent on that ecosystem’s proper functioning, which society is increasingly degrading. The crisis seems rooted in three factors. First, relatively few people globally are aware of its existence. Second, most people who …

Geospatial Distribution Of Age-Adjusted Incidence Of The Three Major Types Of Pediatric Cancers And Waterborne Agrichemicals In Nebraska, Balkissa S. Ouattara, Jagadeesh Puvvula, Azar Abadi, Siddhi Munde, Alan S. Kolok, Shannon Bartelt-Hunt, Jesse E. Bell, Christopher S. Wichman, Eleanor Rogan

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

This study was conducted to examine, at the county level, the relationship between pediatric cancer incidence rate and atrazine and nitrate mean concentrations in surface and groundwater. A negative binomial regression analysis was performed to investigate the association between central nervous system (CNS) tumors, leukemia, lymphoma, and atrazine and nitrate mean concentrations in groundwater. The age-adjusted brain and other CNS cancer incidence was higher than the national average in 63% of the Nebraska counties. After controlling for the counties socio-economic status and nitrate concentrations in groundwater, counties with groundwater atrazine concentrations above 0.0002 μg/L had a higher incidence rate for …

Probability-Based Crack Width Estimation Model For Flexural Members Of Underground Rc Box Culverts, Sang-Hyo Kim, Syed Haider Ali Shah, Sang-Kyun Woo, Inyeop Chu, Chungwook Sim

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Crack control for slabs and beams in current design practices in Korea are based on the Frosch’s model, which is adapted in ACI 318. It is more difficult to have consistent quality control in underground construction sites, such as the RC box culverts used for electric power distribution built below the ground level. There are more discrepancies between the as-built dimensions and the design dimensions provided in drawings in these structures. Due to this variability in construction error, the crack widths measured in such structures have higher potential to have more differences than the calculated values. Although crack control is …

High Throughput Analysis Of Leaf Chlorophyll Content In Sorghum Using Rgb, Hyperspectral, And Fluorescence Imaging And Sensor Fusion, Huichun Zhang, Yufeng Ge, Xinyan Xie, Abbas Atefi, Nuwan Wijewardane,, Suresh Thapa

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

Leaf chlorophyll content plays an important role in indicating plant stresses and nutrient status. Traditional approaches for the quantification of chlorophyll content mainly include acetone ethanol extraction, spectrophotometry and high-performance liquid chromatography. Such destructive methods based on laboratory procedures are time consuming, expensive, and not suitable for high-throughput analysis. High throughput imaging techniques are now widely used for non-destructive analysis of plant phenotypic traits. In this study three imaging modules (RGB, hyperspectral, and fluorescence imaging) were, separately and in combination, used to estimate chlorophyll content of sorghum plants in a greenhouse environment. Color features, spectral indices, and chlorophyll fluorescence intensity …

Mr-Pipa: An Integrated Multi-Level Rram (Hfox) Based Processing-In-Pixel Accelerator, Minhaz Abedin, Arman Roohi, Maximilian Liehr, Nathaniel Cady, Shaahin Angizi

School of Computing: Faculty Publications

This work paves the way to realize a processing-in-pixel accelerator based on a multi-level HfO_x RRAM as a flexible, energy-efficient, and high-performance solution for real-time and smart image processing at edge devices. The proposed design intrinsically implements and supports a coarse-grained convolution operation in low-bit-width neural networks leveraging a novel compute-pixel with non-volatile weight storage at the sensor side. Our evaluations show that such a design can remarkably reduce the power consumption of data conversion and transmission to an off-chip processor maintaining accuracy compared with the recent in-sensor computing designs. Our proposed design, namely MR-PIPA, achieves a frame rate …