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2023

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The Construction Of Dandelion Jars, Koree Schueler Dec 2023

The Construction Of Dandelion Jars, Koree Schueler

English Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

The Construction of Dandelion Jars is a collection of short stories that have been complied over two years. The stories in this collection explore a variety of forms including modular, formalism, and surrealism. While there are eleven stories in this collection that all range through a variety of themes, some of the overarching themes found in this collection include: relationships, beauty in the mundane or ugly, corruption of the environment, and an awareness of being observed by an outsider. Several stories also explore an unsentimental version of motherhood. This collection explores the hoy and excitement in a world full of …

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The Organizational Outcomes Of Supervision In Settings Addressing Violence Against Women: A Scoping Review, Margaret Janse Van Rensburg, Maria Peddle, Karen Sewell, Claire Mcmenemy, Heather Macdonald Dec 2023

The Organizational Outcomes Of Supervision In Settings Addressing Violence Against Women: A Scoping Review, Margaret Janse Van Rensburg, Maria Peddle, Karen Sewell, Claire Mcmenemy, Heather Macdonald

Faculty and Staff Publications

Violence against women (VAW) is a prevailing social issue which requires human service organizations to provide a range of services to survivors. Workplace-based supervision in settings that seek to address VAW is an essential component of quality service. This scoping review of seven studies maps the available evidence of supervision in settings that seek to address VAW. Research studies were identified through sub-sampling literature identified in a scoping review on the organizational outcomes of supervision in the human services summarizing the evidence published between 2011 and 2022 including all articles which specifying a VAW setting. Guided by scoping review methodology, …

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Liz Lochhead And The Fairies: Context And Influence In Grimm Sisters And Dreaming Frankenstein, William Donaldson Dec 2023

Liz Lochhead And The Fairies: Context And Influence In Grimm Sisters And Dreaming Frankenstein, William Donaldson

Studies in Scottish Literature

Examines the Scottish poet Liz Lochhead's period of North American travel and her response to American second-wave feminist poetics, particularly to the anthology No More Masks! (1973) and the poetry of Adrienne Rich and Anne Sexton, the treatment of myth by J.G. Frazer and Robert Graves, and the perspective on Scottish fairy tales offered by folklorists, to explore Lochhead's creative reworking of both fairy tale and classical myth in her collections Grimm Sisters (1981) and Dreaming Frankenstein (1984).

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Variables Affecting The Extraction Of Antioxidants In Cold And Hot Brew Coffee: A Review, Brian Yust, Frank Wilkinson, Niny Rao Dec 2023

Variables Affecting The Extraction Of Antioxidants In Cold And Hot Brew Coffee: A Review, Brian Yust, Frank Wilkinson, Niny Rao

College of Life Sciences Faculty Papers

Coffee beans are a readily available, abundant source of antioxidants used worldwide. With the increasing interest in and consumption of coffee beverages globally, research into the production, preparation, and chemical profile of coffee has also increased in recent years. A wide range of variables such as roasting temperature, coffee grind size, brewing temperature, and brewing duration can have a significant impact on the extractable antioxidant content of coffee products. While there is no single standard method for measuring all of the antioxidants found in coffee, multiple methods which introduce the coffee product to a target molecule or reagent can be …

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Diversity And Bioactive Potential Of Leaf-, And Root Sediment-Associated Bacteria From Zostera Marina In The Yealm Estuary, Southwest England, Eva Capps Dec 2023

Diversity And Bioactive Potential Of Leaf-, And Root Sediment-Associated Bacteria From Zostera Marina In The Yealm Estuary, Southwest England, Eva Capps

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Increasing antimicrobial resistance (AMR) among human pathogenic bacteria demands urgent efforts to uncover novel natural products for developing new antibiotic drugs. Since terrestrial sources of natural products are overmined, attention in biodiscovery is shifting towards marine microbial ecosystems which are subject to unique environmental stressors. Resulting metabolic adaptations provide potential for potent antibacterial compounds. Thus, the microbiomes of seagrass components in Zostera marina, and the activity of culturable isolates against human pathogens, were explored in this study. The sample site used was in the Yealm Estuary, Southwest England, a location previously unexplored in this context. Seagrass leaves at 20cm and …

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Assessing The Spatial And Temporal Distribution Of Microplastics Within The Sediment Of Plymouth Sound, Keira N. Lintin Dec 2023

Assessing The Spatial And Temporal Distribution Of Microplastics Within The Sediment Of Plymouth Sound, Keira N. Lintin

The Plymouth Student Scientist

The pollution of microplastics in the marine environment is a growing issue that impacts us globally. These invasive particles have been discovered in all regions of the world, including human body tissue. It is well understood that microplastics settle within seafloor sediment and hotspots are found close to human activity. However, the way microplastics are distributed both spatially and temporally in urban marine environments, and why this might be, is little known. Using the ‘primary analytical process’, a study was conducted in Plymouth Sound, United Kingdom, to assess how microplastics were distributed within the sediment here. General sediment samples and …

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Bat Activity And Diversity In Plymouth’S Green Spaces: Implications For Future Conservation And Management, Ellie Hawcutt Dec 2023

Bat Activity And Diversity In Plymouth’S Green Spaces: Implications For Future Conservation And Management, Ellie Hawcutt

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Urbanisation and human population growth is a threat to biodiversity at a global scale. Bats in urban green areas are becoming increasingly acknowledged within the literature as we begin to understand their importance as useful bioindicators. Bat activity and diversity was examined through passive acoustic monitoring of four sites in Plymouth (UK) during October 2022 (Central Park, Ham Wood, Radford Lake, Saltram Park). This was completed to compare sites with differing percentages of habitats, and make implications for the future management of urban green spaces to benefit bats. Basic habitat surveys of each site were undertaken, estimating the percentage of …

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The Role Of Colony Morphology And Substratum Inclination On The Distribution Of Eunicella Verrucosa On Shallow Reefs, Luke Thompson Dec 2023

The Role Of Colony Morphology And Substratum Inclination On The Distribution Of Eunicella Verrucosa On Shallow Reefs, Luke Thompson

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Eunicella verrucosa plays an important role in shallow reefs, where they produce a complex 'sheet tree' morphology that supports a variety of benthic-dwelling organisms. E. verrucosa is considered 'vulnerable' by the IUCN Red List, which validates the importance of understanding the biotic and abiotic factors influencing the species morphology and survival. This study analyses how horizontal and vertical slope inclinations influence colony morphology. A population of 115 E. verrucosa colonies were observed at Plymouth's inner breakwater fort at 8–13.8m in depth. The influence of inclination on morphology was investigated by observing colony height, encrusting branch diameter and branch complexity for …

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Impact Of Marine Heatwaves On The Physiological Health Of Two Fucoid Species, Lily Burnet Dec 2023

Impact Of Marine Heatwaves On The Physiological Health Of Two Fucoid Species, Lily Burnet

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Marine Heatwaves (MHWs) are periods of high-water temperature that have become an increasingly significant threat to marine ecosystem biodiversity in recent decades with rising anthropogenic carbon driving greater severity of MHW events. The two intertidal fucoid species, Fucus serratus and Fucus vesiculosus, are keystone primary producers supporting an extensive biodiverse community of associated flora and fauna. As intertidal species, fucoids are adapted to cope with high atmospheric temperatures during exposure at low tide, however, are prone to changes in abundance, distribution, and life cycles during MHW events. Changes to fucoid communities resulting in reduced primary production and habitat biomass will …

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Diversity, Abundance, And Distribution Of Ground Invertebrates In Lower Sharpham Farm, Valeria Zavala Quiroga Dec 2023

Diversity, Abundance, And Distribution Of Ground Invertebrates In Lower Sharpham Farm, Valeria Zavala Quiroga

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Invertebrates constitute the largest group of animals on Earth and represent the bulk of biodiversity. They are responsible for numerous essential ecosystems services and are at the centre of many terrestrial food webs. Due to habitat loss from land use change and conversion to intensive agriculture, they are experiencing a substantial decline in biodiversity, hence conservation approaches such as rewilding have been sought. There are limited studies of invertebrate biodiversity in rewilding projects, therefore the aim of this study is to investigate the diversity and abundance of ground invertebrates at Lower Sharpham Farm and the influences of vegetation structure in …

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An Investigation Into How Tree Characteristics And Species Composition Associated With Veteran And Ancient Trees Influences Invertebrate Species, Brandon Clapp Dec 2023

An Investigation Into How Tree Characteristics And Species Composition Associated With Veteran And Ancient Trees Influences Invertebrate Species, Brandon Clapp

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Veteran and ancient trees have distinctive characteristics that act as microhabitats: such as tree cavities and deadwood. These trees and their microhabitats are keystone features for specialised communities of invertebrates, fungi, and epiphytes. However, due to limited species data, there are still uncertainties around the relative importance of veteran and ancient trees and their associated microhabitats on these invertebrate species. This investigation aims to assess how the tree characteristics of veteran and ancient trees affect the species richness and composition of the three taxa (i) invertebrates, (ii) fungi, and (iii) epiphytes. Epiphytes, fungi, and invertebrates on the tree trunk were …

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Why Are Some Beaches More Conducive To Surfing? Bathymetric Effects On Nearshore Waves At Croyde, Jonathan Bailey Dec 2023

Why Are Some Beaches More Conducive To Surfing? Bathymetric Effects On Nearshore Waves At Croyde, Jonathan Bailey

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Good surfing waves require high peel angles, allowing surfers to ride the face of the wave. However, these waves are not present at every beach, leading to some having better surfing conditions than others. The production of high-quality surfing waves requires preliminary transformations such as refraction, to occur on the nearshore wave field. Mead and Black (2001), previously assessed how various bathymetric combinations, or components, affected the wave field at world-class surfing breaks. More recently, many articles have been published as a result of advancements made in numerical wave modelling, enabling a comprehensive evaluation of the impact these components have …

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The Different Factors Affecting Chiroptera Emergences With A Focus On Pipistrellus Pipistrellus And Pipistrellus Pygmaeus, Hannah Mccabe Dec 2023

The Different Factors Affecting Chiroptera Emergences With A Focus On Pipistrellus Pipistrellus And Pipistrellus Pygmaeus, Hannah Mccabe

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Chiroptera (bats) are important within different ecosystems and biomes due to the different ecosystem services that they provide. The services that they provide to the United Kingdom include organic agricultural pest control and worldwide bats provide pollination and seed dispersal. The rationale for this study is to understand emergence preferences based on natural and anthropogenic factors such as building structure, habitats, and time. Bat roosts are species specific, with urban exploiter species relying on urban habitats such as Pipistrellus pipistrellus and urban-adapter species such as Nyctalus noctule relying on natural roosts. A range of surveys sites were studied across, Hampshire …

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A Statistical Analysis Of The Population Of Barbel In The River Teme Dec 2023

A Statistical Analysis Of The Population Of Barbel In The River Teme

The Plymouth Student Scientist

The focus of this project is on the population of barbel (Barbus barbus) living in the River Teme, over a number of years with the objective of examining the fish population size specifically investigating any temporal trend in fish population numbers and, if found, with the further aim of examining any covariates that may be causing the trend. In order to answer these questions, two datasets were investigated and rigorously analysed in order to ascertain whether stocks of barbel are in decline and, if so, to further examine which covariates could be contributing to their depletion. A number of statistical …

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Photomechanical Properties Of Azobenzene Doped Lcn Films For Surface Healing Applications, Daniel Luis Mojica Dec 2023

Photomechanical Properties Of Azobenzene Doped Lcn Films For Surface Healing Applications, Daniel Luis Mojica

Theses

Azobenzene doped liquid crystal network (LCN) polymers are being well studied for their potential in many applications such as light activated organic actuators, memory materials, and as surfaces capable of complex topographical texture changes. A novel application is explored with azobenzene doped LCN materials being used as a self-healing protective polymer layer capable of healing surface compression damage which alters its original topography. Preliminary studies showed that LCN materials are very capable of healing indentations caused by compression damage. This work delves into understanding how this material can be altered in the manufacturing process to improve its surface healing capabilities. …

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Winning The Imitation Game: Setting Safety Expectations For Automated Vehicles, William H. Widen, Philip Koopman Dec 2023

Winning The Imitation Game: Setting Safety Expectations For Automated Vehicles, William H. Widen, Philip Koopman

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

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Search For Osme Bonds With Π Systems As Electron Donors, Xin Wang, Qingzhong Li, Steve Scheiner Dec 2023

Search For Osme Bonds With Π Systems As Electron Donors, Xin Wang, Qingzhong Li, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The Osme bond is defined as pairing a Group 8 metal atom as an electron acceptor in a noncovalent interaction with a nucleophile. DFT calculations with the ωB97XD functional consider MO4 (M = Ru, Os) as the Lewis acid, paired with a series of π electron donors C2H2 , C2H4 , C6H6 , C4H5N, C4H4O, and C4H4S. The calculations establish interaction energies in the range between 9.5 and 26.4 kJ/mol. Os engages in stronger interactions than does Ru, …

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Artificial Intelligence And The Administrative State: Regulating The Government Use Of Decision-Making Technology, Gordon Unzen Dec 2023

Artificial Intelligence And The Administrative State: Regulating The Government Use Of Decision-Making Technology, Gordon Unzen

Minnesota Journal of Law, Science & Technology

No abstract provided.

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This Land Is Our Land: Tree Planting And Environmental Construction On The Nebraska Prairie, Megan Sue Launchbaugh Dec 2023

This Land Is Our Land: Tree Planting And Environmental Construction On The Nebraska Prairie, Megan Sue Launchbaugh

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

In 1895 the Nebraska Legislature passed a bill officially adopting the nickname the “Tree Planter’s State” on account of the founding of Arbor Day, the Timber Culture Act of 1873, and the “millions of trees planted by early settlers as windbreaks, woodlots, and orchards.” Since that time, Arbor Day and the Timber Culture Act have been the subject of countless historical studies, while the subject of settler tree planting remains largely unexplored. This thesis seeks to begin establishing a place for the stories, experiences, and legacy of settler tree planting within the regional narrative by examining the cultural, physical, and …

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“Storm Of Insanity”: The Chaotic Nature Of Relief Work And Financial Compensation Following The Johnstown Flood Of 1889, Carly N. Marze Dec 2023

“Storm Of Insanity”: The Chaotic Nature Of Relief Work And Financial Compensation Following The Johnstown Flood Of 1889, Carly N. Marze

History Theses, Dissertations, and Student Creative Activity

On May 31, 1889, the South Fork dam ruptured, and the resulting wall of water pummeled through the small town of Johnstown, Pennsylvania, killing over 2,000 people. The cause was negligence by the dam’s proprietors at the South Fork Fishing & Hunting Club. As bodies lay scattered throughout the Conemaugh Valley and Johnstown sat nearly twenty-feet deep in mud and debris, two questions arose: What relief work should be done to restore Johnstown? And how should this relief be financed? Lack of resources and the urgency of the work created a chaotic atmosphere in which constantly shifting procedures and disputes …

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First Destination Survey 2023: For Degrees Awarded December 2022-August 2023, Hart Career Center, Illinois Wesleyan University Dec 2023

First Destination Survey 2023: For Degrees Awarded December 2022-August 2023, Hart Career Center, Illinois Wesleyan University

First Destination Survey

No abstract provided.

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Where I Am From Matters: Factors Influencing Behavioral And Emotional Changes In Autistic Individuals During Covid-19 In Latin America, María Cecilia Montenegro, Ana C. Ramirez, Juventino Hernandez Rodriguez, Bianca T. Villalobos, Gabriela Garrido, Cecilia Amigo, Daniel Valdez, Natalia Barrios, Sebastián Cukier, Cecilia Montiel-Nava Dec 2023

Where I Am From Matters: Factors Influencing Behavioral And Emotional Changes In Autistic Individuals During Covid-19 In Latin America, María Cecilia Montenegro, Ana C. Ramirez, Juventino Hernandez Rodriguez, Bianca T. Villalobos, Gabriela Garrido, Cecilia Amigo, Daniel Valdez, Natalia Barrios, Sebastián Cukier, Cecilia Montiel-Nava

Psychological Science Faculty Publications

Background: The COVID-19 pandemic brought an increased incidence of disease and mortality in the world at large, making it a particularly salient and stressful life event. For those individuals residing in Latin America, the pandemic was met with fragmented healthcare systems, economic downturn, and sociopolitical crisis which puts autistic individuals at risk for more detrimental outcomes. Behavioral and emotional challenges experienced by autistic individuals at the beginning of the pandemic could later develop into more severe symptomatology as the pandemic progresses. The present study aimed to explore changes in dysregulated (overt and internalizing) behaviors and preoccupation with getting sick during …

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Data-Driven Approaches To System Analysis And Control Design, Minh Vu Dec 2023

Data-Driven Approaches To System Analysis And Control Design, Minh Vu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

In this thesis, we study the integration of data and computational methods in nonlinear system analysis and control design. In the first part of this thesis, we develop a constructive framework for designing a set of candidate functions from data such that desired control-theoretic conditions are satisfied. This new design framework is aimed at offering a general data-driven approach to a number of problems in systems and control, including stability analysis, stabilization, and safety-critical control designs. The second half of the thesis focuses on the specific problem of designing a point-to-point steering, which is often considered in many practical control …

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Mechanisms And Prevention Of Antibiotic Resistant Organism Spread In Hospitals, Erin P. Newcomer Dec 2023

Mechanisms And Prevention Of Antibiotic Resistant Organism Spread In Hospitals, Erin P. Newcomer

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Our quest as a species to treat and prevent disease has led us to develop medical care that would have been inconceivable even one century ago. However, as we learn to overcome previous roadblocks, new hurdles that we hadn’t even considered continue to present themselves. Once we learned to understand the germ theory of disease, we sought treatments for infectious diseases, which led us to the development of antibiotics. Antibiotics are responsible for saving countless lives and have ushered in the advances in other fields of medicine like cancer treatment and surgery. Now, antibiotic resistance threatens our ability to treat …

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Interpretable Deep Learning Via Sparse Representation For Protein-Dna Interactions, Shane Kuei-Hsien Chu Dec 2023

Interpretable Deep Learning Via Sparse Representation For Protein-Dna Interactions, Shane Kuei-Hsien Chu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

A central theme in modeling in regulatory genomics is to consider what representation is suited for DNA sequences that give the most helpful information. Traditionally, there are k-mers, position-weight-matrices, parametric statistical models like Hidden Markov models, and, more recently, deep neural network. In this work, we introduce sparse representations as a principled framework for problems in regulatory genomics. We show that sparse representation is a framework that allows us to build techniques to answer challenging inferential questions in regulatory genomics. Leveraging sparse representations, we reveal that gapped and long motifs are prevalent in in-vivo datasets like ChIP-Seq, often corresponding to …

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Improving And Integrating Quantitative Single Cell Spatial Biology For Theranostic Medicine, Peng Lu Dec 2023

Improving And Integrating Quantitative Single Cell Spatial Biology For Theranostic Medicine, Peng Lu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Disease states are the result of a complex interplay of many different cell types interacting in close proximity in the context of often heterogeneous tissues. Alpha particles are drawing intense research and clinical interest because of their potent cytotoxic effects and their short path lengths. Analyzing the dose distribution and tissue micro-environment for alpha therapy plays a key role in predicting the efficacy of this targeted radiotherapy. However, to date there have been no direct on-tissue analytical methods for alpha dose distributions and the corresponding tissue microenvironments. Therefore, we have developed a pipeline to overcome this limitation by utilizing quantitative …

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The Mechanobiology Of Cell Plasticity, Yuan Hong Dec 2023

The Mechanobiology Of Cell Plasticity, Yuan Hong

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The cell is a sophisticated machine, integrating chemical and physical inputs to decide upon the mechanobiological outputs that the body requires every second, in cardiomyocytes that make heartbeats, in fibroblasts that heal wounds, and in sarcomeres that contract muscles. Malfunction of mechanotransduction or mechanical inputs is implicated in diseases such as fibrosis, cancers, and cardiomyopathies, and a pressing quest is underway to unravel the intricacies of how mechanical force orchestrates the activation of cells. This dissertation explores these fundamental mechanisms of cell activation using integrated mathematical and engineered cell culture models. The work begins with the discovery that the directionality …

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Deep Representation Learning For Clinical Predictive Models, Bing Xue Dec 2023

Deep Representation Learning For Clinical Predictive Models, Bing Xue

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

In the era of digital health, Electronic Health Records (EHR) integrate clinical data from various sources, presenting a wealth of information across multiple modalities. While this abundance allows for comprehensive patient characterization, the intricate nature and high dimensionality of EHR data pose challenges for clinicians, particularly in the dynamic landscape of clinical decision-making. This dissertation delves into the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) to automate risk identification and provide decision support in clinical settings. The research unfolds in three key contributions. First, we investigate ML's potential in constructing a multi-modal framework for generating informative risk assessments. …

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Decentralized Computing For Reliable Home Automation, Rahav Dor Dec 2023

Decentralized Computing For Reliable Home Automation, Rahav Dor

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Smart homes are distributed systems that should provide reliable home automation services. Distributed controllers have been used to improve the reliability of smart homes. However, despite the redundancy in controllers, the reliability of smart homes is hindered by the unreliable network infrastructure comprising home Wi-Fi and low-power wireless networks. As a result, smart homes cannot be trusted with much more than casual automation to date. This dissertation identifies the limitations of traditional fault-tolerant approaches that require inter-controller coordination over an unreliable network infrastructure. A new class of decentralized control paradigm named Banyan, with fully autonomous controllers, is introduced by this …

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Investigation Of The Deubiquitinating Enzyme Usp7 In The Brain, Hao Chen Dec 2023

Investigation Of The Deubiquitinating Enzyme Usp7 In The Brain, Hao Chen

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

The development of the nervous system relies on precise control of protein ubiquitination and degradation. Consequently, imbalance in the ubiquitin signaling network is believed to have significant implications for neurological disorders. Recent research has not only detailed the various functions of different ubiquitin ligases in neural development, but has also disclosed the role of deubiquitinating enzyme as an additional regulatory dimension in the ubiquitin signaling network. Specifically, deletion or mutation of the deubiquitinating enzyme USP7 causes the Hao-Fountain syndrome, characterized by developmental delay, intellectual disability, autism, and aggressive behavior. Although USP7 has been studied in proliferating cells in the context …

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