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Physical Activity And Exercise With Blood Flow Restriction As Medicine During The Covid-19 Pandemic And Beyond, Isaac J. Wedig

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

During the COVID-19 pandemic, physical activity levels have decreased and sitting time has increased. This is a major concern as physical inactivity increases the risk for severe COVID-19 outcomes. Evidence also indicates that COVID-19 survivors can experience reduced physical function (i.e., ability to complete daily living activities) long after acute illness. Currently, there are no evidence-based guidelines for recovering physical function following COVID-19 infection. Exercise with blood flow restriction (BFR) presents a promising rehabilitation strategy as the benefits of traditional exercise can be achieved using lower intensities. However, several barriers such as cost, access to equipment, and lack of standardized …

Direct Recycling Of Lithium-Ion Battery Materials Using Physical Separation Methods., Tinuade Ololade Folayan

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The increased demand for Lithium-ion batteries for Electric vehicles has influenced worldwide interest in the research and development of methods for recycling end-of-life Lithium-ion batteries. Direct recycling method has gained more attention in recent times as a method that is low-cost with the ability to recover all Lithium-ion battery materials without changing the chemical and structural properties of the recycled materials.

A lithium-ion battery contains a complex mixture of materials with significantly different physical properties. This work develops physical separation techniques as Direct recycling methods to recycle individual battery components without damaging the functional integrity of the recycled materials. In …

Establishing Degradation Of The C. Elegans Dream Complex In The Germline, Christina M. Boody

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The highly conserved Dp, Rb, E2F, and MuvB (DREAM) complex is responsible for the transcriptional repression of cell cycle genes. The DREAM complex has been extensively studied in somatic (non-reproductive) cells, but there is a gap in knowledge regarding how the DREAM complex may function in germ (reproductive) cells. To demonstrate loss-of-function of DREAM in the germline, we used the auxin-inducible degron (AID) system to establish degradation of LIN-54, a subunit of DREAM’s MuvB subcomplex, and the Retinoblastoma-like pocket protein LIN-35 in C. elegans. Using transgenic lines that express the Arabidopsis thaliana TIR1 E3 ubiquitin ligase ubiquitously through all …

Feeding Our Local Communities-The Benefits Of Food Assistance Programs At Local Farmers Markets, Courtney A. Archambeau

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Living in a rural area can make finding food that is good and affordable difficult, especially for those who rely on assistance from the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program or SNAP. Federal incentive programs assist those with SNAP benefits to purchase fresh produce. I studied three farmers markets in Houghton County in Michigan’s western Upper Peninsula to identify how rural farmers markets are integrating these programs to increase access to fresh produce. Specifically, I asked: 1) How might farmers markets work to be more inviting and make their food more accessible to those of lower socioeconomic status?; 2) By studying these …

Developing A Regional Scale Landslide Early Warning System In A Data-Sparse Region Using Remote Sensing, Geostatistics, And Google Earth Engine, Vishnu Chakrapani Lekha

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The Landslide Early Warning System (LEWS) is a non-structural approach to mitigate landslide risk by alerting vulnerable communities at an early stage. This study aimed to develop a regional LEWS for rain-induced shallow landslides in Idukki, a mountainous district in India with sparse rainfall data. The landslide model consists of a rainfall component and a slope stability component. Satellite precipitation data can be used in data-sparse regions, but they must be calibrated because they tend to underestimate rainfall. To improve the accuracy of satellite data, this study used a geostatistics-based multi-criteria approach to identify optimal locations to install new rain …

An Entropy-Based Risk Index (Eri) Of Mining Health And Safety Using Clustering And Statistical Methods, Dharmasai Eshwar Reddy Sirigiri

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Over the last decade, the mining industry has seen a significant reduction in the number of fatalities in the United States. However, the annual employee hours have also decreased during the same period. Therefore, it is crucial to evaluate the historical mining data and identify the potential risks of a mine through the mine risk index. The risk indicators also describe the severity of accidents and injuries at mine sites. The variables such as citation, order, significant & substantial citations, lost time, and no lost time injuries and penalties are considered for the determination of the risk index. However, using …

Mixing, Metabolism, And Climate Change: A Modeling Case Study Of A Shallow Hypereutrophic, Polymictic Lake, Benjamin C. Reuss

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Globally, lakes are sites of significant carbon cycling, respiring an estimated 0.07 to 0.15 Pg as CO2 and sequestering 0.03 to 0.07 Pg C in sediments annually. These processes can be affected by nutrient availability, with seasonal mixing regulating nutrient transport in monomictic and dimictic systems. However, the effect of intermittent mixing on ecosystem production in polymictic systems has been much less studied. The timing and frequency of lake mixing are expected to be altered by climate change, which has the potential to impact nutrient transport. The first chapter of this thesis introduces lake mixing dynamics and indices of mixing. …

The Rhetorical Art Of Risk Assessment: Lessons From Risk Management In Rural And Tribal Communities, John L. Velat

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Risk assessment, mitigation, and communication rely on data from multiple sources to form a complete understanding of hazards and how to manage them. Experts can use these data to make informed decisions about the nature and extent of risks and inform the public to protect health, the environment, and economic welfare. However, in an effort to objectively make decisions, technical experts and policymakers increasingly rely on quantitative data as the most important determiner of risk, which can alienate the public, limit risk understanding, and delay or miss obvious signals of impending catastrophe. I examine several cases based on my experiences …

Exploring High Performance And Energy Efficient Graph Processing On Gpu, Robert P. Watling

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Parallel graph processing is central to analytical computer science applications, and GPUs have proven to be an ideal platform for parallel graph processing. Existing GPU graph processing frameworks present performance improvements but often neglect two issues: the unpredictability of a given input graph and the energy consumption of the graph processing. Our prototype software, EEGraph (Energy Efficiency of Graph processing), is a flexible system consisting of several graph processing algorithms with configurable parameters for vertex update synchronization, vertex activation, and memory management along with a lightweight software-based GPU energy measurement scheme. We observe relationships between different configurations of our software, …

Exploring Different Mediums For Teaching Programming And Cybersecurity In Primary And Secondary Schools, Andrew R. Youngstrom

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Cybersecurity and programming are becoming more and more prominent in today’s world. It is beneficial to begin teaching these topics to students at a younger age. Additionally, we see students in primary and secondary schools struggling to maintain focus in class as attention spans shrink. This paper looks at different drone models to see if any of them could be sufficient solutions to be implemented into primary and secondary schools to teach cybersecurity and programming topics to students. Besides teaching capabilities, drones must also be affordable for institutions and simple enough to construct, configure, and operate so that a teacher …

Alternative Method For Low Frequency Impact Sound Measurement For Building Field Tests, Sunit Girdhar

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

What do high heels, dog nails, and dragging furniture have in common? They are all frequent sources of noise pollution and annoyance in multi-story buildings. Building codes exist to control and mitigate such noise, but these codes are outdated and fail to protect the residents against noise annoyance. Footstep noise is still the number one cause of complaints among the residents. The impact performance of floor-ceiling assemblies is characterized using a single-number rating called the Impact Sound Rating (ISR). A standard tapping machine is used in pre-defined locations on the floor and the radiated Sound Pressure Level (SPL) is measured …

Stability Of Linicoal-Oxide Electrode Material Under High-Temperature Ceramic Fuel Cell Conditions, Wei Zhang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

LiNi0.8Co0.15Al0.05O2 (LNCA) is an important cathode material for room-temperature operation of lithium-ion batteries (LIBs). As an emerging research area, LNCA was recently applied as electrodes (both cathode and anode) for high-temperature ceramic fuel cells (CFCs) with impressive performances. However, the stability of LNCA electrode material under CFC operating conditions (i.e., reactive atmospheres and high temperatures) remains unknown. In this dissertation: (1) The stability of LNCA in air and H2 atmospheres was systematically evaluated at elevated temperatures (i.e., the operating electrode environments of H2-fueled CFCs). It was found that LNCA exhibited excellent stability in air within a wide temperature range from …

Study Of Droplets Interactions On Solid Surface For Manufacturing Applications, Menghan Zhao

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Droplet impact behaviors on a solid substrate is a complicated process that involves multiple phenomena on a small scale within a short time. This phenomenon has wide applications in the industrial, medical, and scientific fields. To understand the complicated mechanism, we select the oscillation process as the marked phase to observe and analyze the dynamical balancing between different forces and conservation of energies and compare it to the typical damped harmonic oscillator (DHO) model to examine the character of variables as viscosity, surface tension, and wettability. From the testing results, we created a precise model for post-impact dynamics and described …

Virus Inactivation By Novel Virucidal Materials, Sneha Singh

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

The development of virucidal coatings to inactivate a broad spectrum of viruses has gained popularity. Antiviral coating of personal protective equipment such as facial coverings can reduce the accumulation of viral load and mitigate transmission of airborne illnesses, which occur primarily through direct contact with respiratory aerosols or droplets carrying infectious viruses. Moreover, modification of PPE to inactivate viruses upon contact improves their reusability and reduces waste. Coating high frequency touch surfaces with similar virucidal coatings can reduce the risk of disease transmission associated with contaminated surfaces. This study explores the development of three novel virucidal materials to control the …

Evaluating Geomechanical Uncertainty In Open Pit Mine Planning, Evan Ricchio-Hitchcock

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Open pit mine planning encompasses a variety of uncertainties. Uncertainty due to geomechanics is most critical for a safe operation in an open pit mine. Without sufficient knowledge of the geomechanical properties of the subsurface, a reliability analysis of the slope stability could be challenging. Slope stability is a crucial step in pit optimization since the cash flow analysis of a mine is constrained by a stable slope angle. However, obtaining a stable slope angle with certainty is difficult to achieve as geomechanical parameters are modeled using a very limited number of samples. This thesis proposes a method to integrate …

When Reputation Is At Stake: Honour, Masculinity And Militarism In The Courts Martial Records Of The Marine Corps, 1755 – 1779, Lee-Jane Giles

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

This dissertation examines how the Marine Corps, as a newly formed permanent force, understood and embodied key social ideals such as honour and trustworthiness, respect and deference alongside martial behaviours. It uncovers and analyses the self-sanctioning nature of the marines’ officer corps to impose conforming behaviours during this key period in the Marine Corps’ development. However, this dissertation is equally interested in the non-commissioned and enlisted ranks, and their responses to the imposed conformity to these values. These early cases, linked to ideal behaviour, show a form of self-fashioning as the men of the Corps sought to form their identity …

George Morland (1763-1804) And The Representation Of Social Types, Heather Yeomans

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

George Morland was an eighteenth century artist, who was very popular not only during his lifetime, but in the following hundred years as well. He then fell out of popularity after changes in fashion and trends following the First World War. His paintings contain scenes of rural communities, families, animals, travellers, seaside communities as well as the slave trade, they cover a wide range of eighteenth century social types. Morland lived a ‘bohemian’ lifestyle which allowed him to get to know the people he depicted, living within the communities. His paintings have been analysed in detail in only a few …

The Current State Of South-West Rural Representation In Contemporary Theatre., Ryan Wilce

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

The following thesis will present the current state of South-West rural representation in contemporary theatre and explore who has the right to tell rural communities stories. Using rural proofing as a base framework will present a new framework for theatre makers to inform and influence their creative representations of South-West rural life. To understand the current state of representation and create the framework to improve this, I will be using formalist, actantial and script analysis of select plays, practitioners and theatre companies representing rural life in their work. Equally, my work as a theatre maker will be analysed as I …

Spectral Music; Why Create Compositions With Such A Limited Palette?, Iain Mason

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

Spectral Music: Why create compositions with such a limited palette? The question I am trying to answer is why the composers within the spectral movement of classical music created their compositions with such a limited and challenging palette of sounds. With the extreme wealth of musical knowledge and a rich tapestry of sounds and movements within the classical and contemporary musical world, why was it that the composers in question who I will be investigating; Gerard Grisey, Kaija Saaraiho, and James Tenney chose to write music with a limited palette of sounds? The music to generalise is made up from …

Gender And Literary Form At The Edge Of The Arthurian World: Richard Johnson's Tom A Lincoln And William Rowley's The Birth Of Merlin Re-Examined, Emilia Boone

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

In its close examination of Richard Johnson's popular prose romance Tom a Lincoln, published in two parts in 1599 and 1607, and William Rowley's play The Birth of Merlin or the Childe Hath Found His Father, first performed in 1622, this project aims to explore two key texts which have been previously neglected in discussions of Arthurian and early modern canons. It explores the intersection between canon formation, textual form, and gender to argue that to expand the Arthurian canon is to expand the possibilities critical examination within it. Examining practices of testimonials, language, ventriloquism, and adaptation, this project probes …

I Am A Camera, Subverted: Reflexivity, Sexuality, And Filming Styles In Bob Fosse’S 'Sweet Charity' (1969), 'Cabaret' (1972), And 'All That Jazz' (1979), Steven Downes

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

The musical films of Bob Fosse, 'Sweet Charity' (1969), 'Cabaret' (1972), and 'All That Jazz' (1979) offer a radical alternative to the ‘arcadian’ musical format with edgier and darker themes as a response to the rapidly developing socio-politico climate and the sexual revolution. However, although 'Cabaret' remains well documented, his other musical films 'Sweet Charity' and 'All That Jazz', remain primarily neglected in academia, which I will rectify. Moreover, while many prolific writers and scholars, including Laura Mulvey and Rick Altman, have previously analysed the movie and film musical from a heteronormative male gaze perspective, this is at odds with …

Artificial Intelligence Incorporated Into Audio Analysis Of Electronic Music, Ned Fellenor

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

In recent decades the live music performance and DJ industry has undergone a transition from analog to digital music being the norm. Audio analysis and mixing software is now a necessity for modern DJs and their preferred equipment. However, it still stands that DJs must thoroughly learn their tracks and decide which transition well together in order to produce a smooth mix. This project looks at how machine learning-based systems can aid DJs in this process; it raises questions about the use of artificial intelligence within a heavily subjective form of live performance, and its potential effectiveness in this field. …

What Happened Within The Police Service When The Government Created The Offence Of “Corrupt Or Improper Practice” In Section 26 Of The Criminal Justice And Courts Act 2015?, Brendan Brookshaw

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

Title. What happened within the police service when the government created the offence of “Corrupt or Improper Practice” in section 26 of the Criminal Justice and Courts Act 2015? Author Brendan P. Brookshaw Purpose. This PhD thesis offers explanations for the way in which the offence of Corrupt or Improper Practice by police officers was implemented within the service and is analysed through a framework of the psychology, ethics, and management of implementation. Using autoethnographic data as policing parables, it explores stories of police misconduct and suggests theoretical underpinnings for the drivers of corruption and how the police may react …

Trial By Jury And English Political Radicalism C.1792 – 1825, Richard John Marshall

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

This thesis explores the jury trial in English radical thinking, politics and political culture during the age of revolution. Its significance for radicals and the wider political nation has been underappreciated by scholars, as the ballast stabilising the British constitution and polity. I argue that juries served as a counterweight to repression and surrogate site of power for the underrepresented middling sorts: as jurors checking the power and social dominance of corrupt elites. Radicals recognised the power inherent in independent juries, campaigning to defend their verdicts and bolster their powers. The jury played a critical role in the rhetoric of …

A Chronicle Of Place: Three Novellas And A Critical Dissertation On Compositional Process With A Contextual Analysis Of Annie Proulx's 'Barkskins' And Michael Cunningham's 'The Hours', Helen Chamberlain

School of Law, Humanities and Social Sciences Theses

This thesis is presented in two parts: a work of fiction in the form of three interconnected novellas exploring settler colonialism of Native north-east America (New England), with a critical dissertation as supplement. The research encompasses four main areas: archival; contextual; experiential and the primary field of practice research. Of particular importance to the research was field work conducted in the U.S., which included meetings with Wampanoag educators and artists, and interviews and archival research at the Plimoth Patuxet Museum. The research has been informed by the work of several writers, both historical and contemporary. Primary and secondary historical sources …

Testing The Adequacy Of Formal Models Of An Irrational Learning Effect, Lenard Dome

School of Psychology Theses

The inverse base-rate effect (IBRE) is an irrational phenomenon in predictive learning characterized by as a preference for rare, unlikely outcomes in the face of ambiguity. This thesis investigates the adequacy of formal explanations for this puzzling phenomenon. In the first project, I will focus on mechanisms of learning that mathematical models posit underlie this preference. A class of attentional explanation produces a counter-intuitive prediction: the effect disappears under concurrent load. I confirm the prediction, but only when participants were under an obvious time constraint -- irrationality reduces under increased task demands. This suggests that multiple learning mechanisms operate independently …

The Importance Of Multimodal Play And Storytelling In Medtech For Children: A Case Study Of Co-Designing A Mixed Realities Play Kit To Prepare 4 To 10-Year-Olds For An Mri Scan, D Yamada-Rice, S Love, J Thompson, S Thompson, H Mcquillian

School of Art, Design and Architecture

This article examines the research and development of a mixed realities play-kit to prepare children for an MRI scan to be undertaken without the need for a General Anaesthetic. The kit uses three different types of play; augmented, virtual reality and physical to help children become familiar with the look of an MRI scanner, the noises it makes, the role of the radiographer, what to expect when they go to hospital and to practise staying still. We reflect on the initial multimodal research methods that were used to bring children into the first stages of the design and development process. …

The Relationships Between Supervisor-Subordinate Guanxi, Perceived Supervisor Autonomy Support, Autonomous Motivation, And Employee Job Satisfaction: Evidence From International Hotel Chains In China, Jinhua Zhang, Rong Huang, Qian Chen, Guoqing Zhao

Plymouth Business School

This research aims to assess the structural relationships between supervisor-subordinate guanxi, perceived supervisor autonomy support, autonomous motivation, and employee job satisfaction at international hotel chains’ operations in China. The theoretical model was developed and tested by an online questionnaire method. This study administered an online survey to employees working at international hotel chains in China, and a total of 328 valid responses were used for data analysis which was completed through SPSS Statistics 24.0 and SmartPLS 3.3.3. The results reveal that: there is a significant relationship between autonomous motivation and employee job satisfaction; perceived supervisor autonomy support exerts a significant …

Analysis Of Factors Affecting Cross-Boundary Knowledge Mobilization In Agri-Food Supply Chains: An Integrated Approach, Guoqing Zhao, Huilan Chen, Shaofeng Liu, Denis Dennehy, Paul Jones, Carmen Lopez

Plymouth Business School

Agri-food supply chains (AFSCs) link produce from farm-to-fork. Over 80% of businesses operating in AFSCs are small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) that lack the necessary resources to make knowledge accessible and usable to other stakeholders. To enhance AFSCs’ performance, we adopt an integrated approach to analyze factors affecting knowledge mobilization (KMob) across boundaries. Thematic analysis of data collected from interviews reveals 11 KMob factors. We apply total interpretive structural modeling (TISM) to identify influential relationships among these factors, and fuzzy cross-impact matrix multiplication applied to classification (MICMAC) to distinguish each factor’s role in the system. Our results complement previous studies …

The Phonetic Specificity Of British English-Learning Infants’ Word Form Recognition In Their First Year Of Life, Paul Ratnage

School of Psychology Theses

Consonants and vowels have been proposed to have distinct functions in speech perception: a consonant bias for lexical processing and a vowel bias for syntactic/prosodic processing (Nespor et al., 2003). Research in adults has consistently demonstrated that consonants have a privileged role in various lexical-level experiments across most languages. However, cross-linguistic differences have been found in the developmental trajectory of the consonant bias. For example, whilst French-learning infants display a consonant advantage in lexical processing tasks by their first birthday (e.g., Poltrock & Nazzi, 2015), British English-learning infants show an equal sensitivity to consonants and vowels until the age of …