Digital Commons Network^™

Isolated Splenic Infarction: An Initial Manifestation Of Postoperative Atrial Fibrillation., Chaitra Janga, Kimberley Okoyeze, Vincent Chan

Division of Internal Medicine Faculty Papers & Presentations

Splenic infarction is an uncommon cause of abdominal pain. In this article, we present a case of isolated splenic infarction presenting with severe abdominal pain, nausea, and with associated generalized weakness. Computed tomography (CT) abdomen and pelvis with contrast revealed multiple splenic infarctions of the entire lower pole with occlusion of the branch splenic arteries, while CT abdomen without contrast was unremarkable. Etiology was later revealed to be thromboembolism secondary to atrial fibrillation. It was managed with anticoagulation. To our knowledge, this is the second case of splenic infarction presenting as an initial manifestation of atrial fibrillation (AF), reported in …

America’S New Death Sentence: Lack Of Action To Protect Incarcerated People From Covid-19 Amounts To Cruel And Unusual Punishment, Jane Manwarring

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

Laddy Curtis Valentine is a 69-year-old man suffering from high blood pressure, hypertension, nerve damage from a stroke, atrophy and weakness in the upper-left extremity, and limited ability to grip with his left hand. Richard Elvin King is a 73-year-old man with diabetes, high blood pressure, chronic kidney failure, hyperlipidemia, and kidney disease. Mr. Valentine and Mr. King are just two of the 1,132 men imprisoned in the Wallace Pack Unit (“the Pack Unit”) in Grimes County, Texas. Like Mr. Valentine and Mr. King, approximately 800 incarcerated men housed in the Pack Unit are over the age of sixty-five, and …

Stereotyping Evidence: The Civil Exception To The Federal Rape Shield Law And Its Embedded Sexual Stereotypes, Ramona Albin

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

No abstract provided.

Evolving Beyond Reasonable Accommodations Towards "Off-Shelf Accessible" Workplaces And Campuses, Karla Gilbride

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

One of the hallmarks of the Americans with Disabilities Act (“ADA”), which prohibits discrimination in the workplace on the basis of disability, is that it defines “discrimination” to include “not making reasonable accommodations to the known mental or physical limitations of an otherwise qualified individual with a disability.” This concept of reasonable accommodation was seen as innovative in two ways. It recognized that employers must sometimes take affirmative steps or make adaptations to afford individuals with disabilities an equal opportunity to apply for and perform jobs. And it identified the failure to take such affirmative steps as a type of …

Denouncing The Revival Of Pre-Roe V. Wade Abortion Bans In A Post-Dobbs World Through The Void Ab Initio And Presumption Of Validity Doctrines, Nora Greene

American University Journal of Gender, Social Policy & the Law

The United States Supreme Court voted to overturn Roe v. Wade in a leaked draft of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. Written by Justice Alito and joined by four of the other conservative justices, the decision describes Roe as “egregiously wrong from the start” and blatantly overrules the landmark holding and its prodigy, Planned Parenthood v. Casey. In their state codes, nine states—Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas Michigan, Mississippi, Oklahoma, Texas, West Virginia, and Wisconsin— have unrepealed criminal abortion bans enacted before Roe. These bans prohibit abortion at any point in pregnancy unless to preserve the life of the pregnant person …

High-Quality Reconstruction Of China’S Natural Streamflow, Chiyuan Miao, Jiaojiao Gou, Bojie Fu, Qiuhong Tang, Q Duan, Z Chen, Huimin Lei, J Chen, J Guo, Alistair G.L. Borthwick, Wenfeng Ding, X Duan, Yungang Li, Dongxian Kong, X Guo, Jingwen Wu

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Magnetic, Optical And Phase Transformation Properties Of Fe And Co Doped Vo2(A) Nanobelts, Ss Saeidi, B Vaseghi, G Rezaei, H Khajehsharifi, D Jenkins

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

In this work, the effects of Fe and Co dopants on the optical bandgap and structural, morphological, and magnetic properties of VO2(A) nanobelts with rectangular cross-sections were studied. The optimized hydrothermal method with proper parameters was used to synthesize the samples. The XRD analyses show that the hydrothermal method promotes the formation of VO2(B) rather than the usual VO2(A) and causes the tetragonal-monoclinic transformation in VO2. Furthermore, expanding the VO2 lattice constant by dopants reveals that Fe3+ and Co2+ are successfully substituted into the lattice sites of V4+. Also, obtained results indicate the optical band gap increment with dopants and …

Mixture Toxicity Of Tio2 Nps And Tetracycline At Two Trophic Levels In The Marine Ecosystem: Chlorella Sp. And Artemia Salina, V Thiagarajan, R Seenivasan, D Jenkins, N Chandrasekaran, A Mukherjee

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Anomaly Detection With Vision-Based Deep Learning For Epidemic Prevention And Control, Hooman Samani, Chan Yun Yang, C Li, Chia Ling Chung, S Li

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

During the COVID-19 pandemic, people were advised to keep a social distance from others. People’s behaviors will also be noticed, such as lying down because of illness, regarded as abnormal conditions. This paper proposes a visual anomaly analysis system based on deep learning to identify individuals with various anomaly types. In the study, two types of anomaly detections are concerned. The first is monitoring the anomaly in the case of falling in an open public area. The second is measuring the social distance of people in the area to warn the individuals under a short distance. By implementing a deep …

Quantifying Multiple Uncertainties In Modelling Shallow Water-Sediment Flows: A Stochastic Galerkin Framework With Haar Wavelet Expansion And An Operator-Splitting Approach, Ji Li, Zhixian Cao, Alistair G.L. Borthwick

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Correct Generation Of The Bound Set-Down For Surface Gravity Wave Groups In Laboratory Experiments Of Intermediate To Shallow Depth, William Mortimer, Alison Raby, Alessandro Antonini, Deborah Greaves, Den Bremer T Van

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

No abstract provided.

On Wave Impact Pressure Variability, Alison Raby, Geoffrey Bullock, Philip Jonathan, David Randell, Colin Whittaker

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

The variability of the largest wave impacts, where nominally identical waves produce significantly different pressures, is widely known. However, the mechanisms are not well understood. Here we provide a review and investigation of factors affecting the variability of wave impact pressures on steep walls, quantifying the range of parameters that have been used in the literature. We then present two investigations: (i) Setup 1 on the effect of structure slope and (ii) Setup 2 on the effects of kinematics variability on pressure variability. Firstly, wave impacts arising from about 250 focused wave groups interacting with three values of wall steepness …

Continuous-Flow Synthesis Of Mesoporous Sba-15, Christopher M.A. Parlett, Hamidreza Arandiyan, Lee J. Durndell, Mark A. Isaacs, Antonio Torres Lopez, Roong J. Wong, Karen Wilson, Adam F. Lee

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Supercarriers Of Antibiotic Resistome In A World’S Large River, Jiawen Wang, Rui Pan, Peiyan Dong, Shufeng Liu, Qian Chen, Alistair G.L. Borthwick, Liyu Sun, Nan Xu, Jinren Ni

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Abstract Background Antibiotic resistome has been found to strongly interact with the core microbiota in the human gut, yet little is known about how antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) correlate with certain microbes in large rivers that are regarded as “terrestrial gut.” Results By creating the integral pattern for ARGs and antibiotic-resistant microbes in water and sediment along a 4300-km continuum of the Yangtze River, we found that human pathogen bacteria (HPB) share 13.4% and 5.9% of the ARG hosts in water and sediment but contribute 64% and 46% to the total number of planktonic and sedimentary ARGs, respectively. Moreover, the …

Drone-Based Large-Scale Particle Image Velocimetry Applied To Tidal Stream Energy Resource Assessment, Iain Fairley, Benjamin J. Williamson, Jason Mcilvenny, Nicholas King, Ian Masters, Matthew Lewis, Simon Neill, David Glasby, Daniel Coles, Ben Powell, Keith Naylor, Max Robinson, Dominic E. Reeve

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Resource quantification is vital in developing a tidal stream energy site but challenging in high energy areas. Drone-based large-scale particle image velocimetry (LSPIV) may provide a novel, low cost, low risk approach that improves spatial coverage compared to ADCP methods. For the first time, this study quantifies performance of the technique for tidal stream resource assessment, using three sites. Videos of the sea surface were captured while concurrent validation data were obtained (ADCP and surface drifters). Currents were estimated from the videos using LSPIV software. Variation in accuracy was attributed to wind, site geometry and current velocity. Root mean square …

Adaptation Of The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (Rusle) To Soil Loss Modeling In A Semi-Arid Watershed: A Case Study From Western High Atlas, Morocco, Latifa Bou-Imajjane, Mhamed Alaeddine Belfoul, Martin Stokes, Abdenbi Elaloui, Adnane Labbaci, Ayady H El, Yassine Ez-Zaouy

School of Geography, Earth and Environmental Sciences

No abstract provided.

Investigation Of Wave-Driven Hydroelastic Interactions Using Numerical And Physical Modelling Approaches, S. A. Brown, N. Xie, M. R. Hann, D. M. Greaves

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

Wave-driven hydroelasticity is of great importance to a wide range of applications within offshore and coastal engineering. Harnessing the benefits of hydroelasticity or minimising its impacts, depending on the application, has recently led to substantial investment in research effort in this field. However, the complex and strongly-coupled nature of the problem generally make the impacts very case specific, highlighting the importance of accurate numerical tools for assessing the impact on a case-by-case basis. Therefore, this study aims to provide novel experimental data to assist with the development of a coupled numerical methodology for simulating fully nonlinear hydroelastic interactions with highly-flexible …

Numerical Design Of Steerable Guidewires, Onkar Prakash Salunkhe

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Biomedical devices are an integral part of the medical industry nowadays. With the increase in cases of heart disease, catheterization procedures are becoming more frequent. Small-scale actuators are needed for the guidance of small-scale catheters and guidewires to remote targets in the human body. Numerical modelling is needed to guide the experiments in developing such steerable devices and to optimize their design. Here, we designed small-scale steerable guidewires by first developing bending actuators and then assembling them with guidewires. The actuators use materials with strain response to electric potential in a very low voltage range that is not harmful to …

Perspectives On New Wilderness Area Designations In Michigan's Upper Peninsula, Olivia Joy D. Ghormley

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Wilderness Act of 1964 designated certain areas denoted as wilderness in the United States of America for the sake of preservation and conservation. In the state of Michigan, 16 designated wilderness areas currently exist, and the Environmental Law and Policy Center (ELPC) is advocating for the addition of four new wilderness designations. The addition of these areas would add about 51,000 acres of federally recognized wilderness areas to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. This paper aims to understand public attitudes and political support or opposition to these new wilderness designations among residents and visitors of the Upper Peninsula of …

The Language Of Development In The Rhetoric Of Liberian Presidents, Tolulope Aina Odebunmi

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation contests the framing of “development” in Liberian presidential discourse — Inaugural and State of the Nation addresses of Ellen Johnson Sirleaf (EJS) and George Weah through Reisigl & Wodak's (2016) Discourse Historical Analysis (DHA) and conceptions of political ideologies (Chilton & Schaffner, 2002; van Dijk, 2006; Fairclough & Wodak, 1997). Aristotelian rhetoric complements my analysis. I turn to Mohanty (1988), Mama (2001), and other theorists of globalization for theorizing the subjectivity of third world subjects, setting up the complex connections between the periphery and global south. Through a linguistic, historical, and rhetorical analysis, I contest the framing and …

A Surrogate Model Of Molecular Dynamics Simulations For Polar Fluids: Supervised Learning Methods For Molecular Polarization And Unsupervised Methods For Phase Classification, Zackerie W. Hjorth

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Molecular Dynamic (MD) simulation is a standard computational tool in soft matter physics. While very powerful, it is computationally expensive, leading to some simulations taking days or even weeks to complete depending on the size of your computer cluster. Finding computationally cheap surrogate models which can learn the output features of MD simulation is therefore highly motivated. In this report I explore the use of deep neural network ensembles as well as support vector machine regressors as surrogate models for MD simulation. From the output of the surrogate models, we can then employ unsupervised learning methods to get insight into …

An Analysis Of Compressive Convolutional Autoencoders For Image Archiving In Medical Informatics, Charles Warren

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Within a given enterprise network, an array of data types needs to be communicated. These network transmissions consist of images, videos, text, and binaries that have unique requirements of bandwidth and computational overhead to transmit. With respect to medical informatics, these include a multitude of varying subjects, standards, and modalities which are communicated to and from imaging equipment, clinicians, and medical archives. To reduce the required bandwidth to transmit, or provide adequate storage capacity for archival purposes, the data may be compressed in such a way that reduces the size of the image when it is transferred or stored. The …

Cancer And Quiescence: Investigating How The Dream Complex And Retinoblastoma Regulate The Cell Cycle, Lydia Rotman

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

An estimated 1.9 million people in the United States will be diagnosed with cancer in 2022. Cancer is characterized by uncontrolled cell growth, resulting from loss-of-function of key cell cycle regulatory proteins. The retinoblastoma protein (pRb) and p130, are two proteins that regulate cellular entry into the cell cycle. Both pRb and p130 repress expression of cell cycle genes, with pRb interacting with and suppressing E2F-DP transcriptional activators and p130 assembling in the DREAM transcriptional repressor complex. When normal cells receive signals to enter the cell cycle, cyclin and cyclin-dependent kinase (CDK) complexes phosphorylate pRb and p130, causing both to …

Building Interest And Knowledge In Geosciences Through Place- & Field-Based Teacher Professional Learning Programs: A Comparative Multi-Case Study, Emily Gochis

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The focus of this study was to develop and evaluate a geoscience professional development model that would improve K-12 teachers’ capacity to effectively build geoscience literacy and interests in students from a variety of settings and cultural groups. The research compared the application of a geoscience professional development model realized through multiple case studies of varying settings and scales. The study investigated the capacity of each approach in improving teachers’ geoscience background knowledge, awareness of local geologically and culturally significant examples, and ability to integrate place-based, field investigations into standards-based curricula. By using both qualitative and quantitative methodologies, the study …

Evolutionary Conservation Of The Dream Subcomplex Muvb, Spencer Snider

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

As the publications of annotated genomes from species representing most domains of life continue to grow exponentially, we are gaining more insight into how proteins, cellular pathways, and protein complexes evolved. We are interested in understanding how each protein in the 8-subunit transcriptional repressor complex called DREAM interacts with each other. DREAM is comprised of 3 main components: an E2F-DP transcription factor heterodimer, a pocket protein, and the highly conserved 5-subunit subcomplex called MuvB. We hypothesize that the mechanism of DREAM’s formation on chromatin dictates how DREAM functions to turn off target gene expression. Unfortunately, many interaction surfaces remain unknown, …

Display Site Selection By Male Ruffed Grouse In The Upper Great Lakes Region, Seth Finkel

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Ruffed Grouse (Bonasa umbellus) is widely known for its characteristic territorial drumming display. In this study, I used ruffed grouse drumming survey data from Minnesota and Michigan, in a series of mixed logistic models, to identify drivers of drumming log selection by reproductive male ruffed grouse. I collected drumming stage data utilizing a paired-random sampling structure. I used information theoretic model selection to examine three sets of a priori mixed logistic models: one for the entirety of my Minnesota dataset, one consisting of stages identified in aspen stands in Minnesota, and one for my Michigan dataset. In …

A Combined Spectral And Energy Morphology Analysis Of Gamma Ray Source Hawc J2031+415 In The Cygnus Constellation, Ian Herzog

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

HAWC J2031+415 is a probable pulsar wind nebula (PWN) located in the Cygnus Cocoon region near a complex OB star cluster. First observed by the High-Energy-Gamma-Ray Astronomy (HEGRA) observatory in the TeV energy regime, the source had no apparent counterpart in lower energy ranges. Previous work using 1343 days of data from the High-Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) Gamma-Ray Observatory has determined that three sources are present in the Region of Interest (ROI): HAWC J2031+415, HAWC J2030+409 (also known as the Cocoon), and 3HWC J2020+403 (associated with the Gamma Cygni supernova remnant) \cite{Ian_01, Binita_01}.

In this work, I use the newest …

Optical And Single Particle Properties Of North Atlantic Free Tropospheric Aerosols And Implications For Aerosol Direct Radiative Forcing, Megan Morgenstern

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Human-induced climate change has steadily become a reality rather than a possibility. One factor that plays into climate change is radiative forcing due to aerosol-radiation interactions (ARI). As such, it is important to understand how aerosols (atmospheric particles) interact with solar radiation. This work looks at seven samples of well-aged aerosols (aerosols traveling in the atmosphere for at least a few days) collected at Pico Mountain Observatory in the summer of 2015. Pico Mountain Observatory is located in a remote, high elevation site in the Azores, in the Eastern-North Atlantic Ocean. The goals of the study were to analyze the …

Development And Validation Of A Force Measuring Device For A Laboratory Wave Tank, Jacob K. Colling

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The ability to predict the hydrodynamic force exerted on floating bodies plays a critical role in creating more effective control strategies for wave energy converters (WECs). Developing a test apparatus capable of directly measuring the forces exerted on a floating body subjected to a wavefield provides the means to validate theoretical prediction methods with experimental results and to develop data-based prediction methods for hydrodynamic forces. This report will discuss the development and validation of a device that measures the total vertical force exerted on a test artifact. The device requirements and design are discussed to examine the factors taken into …

Development And Implementation Of Robot Operating Systems For Undergraduates, Chelsey Spitzner

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The purpose of this project was to create an undergraduate junior lab to teach students about Robotic Operating System (ROS). The labs were designed to highlight the usefulness of ROS and the process used. Designing algorithms, how to send/receive messages, and the hierarchy of how nodes work with each other are emphasized. Taking packages that are open-source then modifying them is also emphasized. This is done so that students can transfer their knowledge from this course to other robot operating systems.