Digital Commons Network^™

Hamiltonian Models For The Propagation Of Long Gravity Waves, Higher-Order Kdv-Type Equations And Integrability, Rossen Ivanov

Book chapter/book

A single incompressible, inviscid, irrotational fluid medium bounded above by a free surface is considered. The Hamiltonian of the system is expressed in terms of the so-called Dirichlet-Neumann operators. The equations for the surface waves are presented in Hamiltonian form. Specific scaling of the variables is selected which leads to a KdV approximation with higher order nonlinearities and dispersion (higher-order KdV-type equation, or HKdV). The HKdV is related to the known integrable PDEs with an explicit nonlinear and nonlocal transformation.

Fusion And Integration Pipelines For Optical And Chemical Imaging Data For Clinical Interpretation In Ex-Vivo Diagnosis, Mohd Rifqi Rafsanjani, Karin Jirstrom, Arman Rahman, Jochen H.M. Prehn, William Gallagher, Aidan D. Meade

Conference Papers

In the realm of ex-vivo diagnosis, the integration of optical and chemical imaging data has emerged as a transformative approach, offering a comprehensive understanding of biological specimens at a molecular level. Chemical imaging of human tissue specimens provides an all-digital label-free approach to imaging in objective histopathology, though it requires reference to gold standard pathological (e.g. haematoxylin and eosin (H+E) stained) images for pathological interpretation. Optical imaging techniques, such as microscopy and spectroscopy, provide detailed spatial information, capturing morphological features with high resolution. Concurrently, chemical imaging methods, including mass spectrometry and Raman spectroscopy, offer insights into molecular composition. The challenge …

Preliminary Evaluation Of An Automated Autoencoder-Unet Pipeline For Chemical Image Segmentation And Compression With Reference To Serial Ground Truth Pathology, Mohd Rifqi Rafsanjani, Thomas Mcbrien, Karin Jirstrom, Arman Rahman, Jochen H.M. Prehn, William Gallagher, Aidan D. Meade

Conference Papers

The rapid advancement of imaging technologies in pathology has ushered in an era of data-intensive diagnostic workflows, generating large volumes of data that demand sophisticated segmentation and compression techniques. Chemical imaging approaches offer an all-digital objective approach to pathological analysis, though image segmentation is required for efficient computation. Convolutional autoencoders are highly connected deep learning networks which can learn salient features within imaging data for the purposes of compression, data recovery, development of classifiers and/or segmentation. In this study an objective analysis of a U-Net convolutional autoencoders for unsupervised image segmentation is conducted with respect to haematoxylin-eosin based ground-truth diagnostic …

Scat Dna As A Non-Invasive Method For Estimating The Abundance Of The Vulnerable Mala (Lagorchestes Hirsutus), Shannon Treloar, Cheryl Lohr, Anna J. Hopkins, Kym Ottewell, Shelley Mcarthur, Robert A. Davis

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Context: Population-monitoring programs often use direct (e.g. live capture or spotlighting) or indirect (e.g. scats sightings) observations to estimate population abundance. Such methods, however, are often inadequate for rare, elusive, or cryptic species due to the difficulty in achieving sufficient encounters or detection rates. The mala (Lagorchestes hirsutus), a small native Australian macropod, listed as Vulnerable by the IUCN, is difficult to capture, susceptible to capture myopathy, and not easily sighted in their dense habitat; consequently, the population size cannot always be estimated. The use of molecular markers to identify individual genotypes from non-invasively collected samples is increasingly being used …

Spectroscopic Serology For The Quantitative Screening Of Carotenoid Compounds In Human Blood – Correlation With Clinical Macular Pigment Factors, Joy Udensi

Doctoral

Carotenoids represent a wide range of naturally occurring pigmented compounds with an obvious presence in many plants and some animals. They constitute an important component of the human diet and have been widely recognised for their antioxidant and vision protection advantages.

Voices Of The Feis Ceoil: An Exploration Of The Association’S Operational And Choral Networks, 1897–1932, Helen Doyle

Doctoral

The Feis Ceoil or ‘festival of music’ is a large-scale annual competitive music event. It has provided huge stimulus to all facets of Irish musical life in its almost 130-year lifespan. This study examines the first four decades of the festival which was inaugurated during the Gaelic Revival, a period of cultural nationalism that saw the development and celebration of Irish art, literature, language, and music. As this is the first sustained project centred upon the Feis Ceoil archival collection, detailed excavation of which has not been undertaken before now, it draws on a large amount of previously unexplored primary …

Gpt Assisted Annotation Of Rhetorical And Linguistic Features For Interpretable Propaganda Technique Detection In News Text, Kyle Hamilton, Luca Longo, Bojan Božić

Conference papers

While the use of machine learning for the detection of propaganda techniques in text has garnered considerable attention, most approaches focus on “black-box” solutions with opaque inner workings. Interpretable approaches provide a solution, however, they depend on careful feature engineering and costly expert annotated data. Additionally, language features specific to propagandistic text are generally the focus of rhetoricians or linguists, and there is no data set labeled with such features suitable for machine learning. This study codifies 22 rhetorical and linguistic features identified in literature related to the language of persuasion for the purpose of annotating an existing data set …

Towards Fairer Nlp Models: Handling Gender Bias In Classification Tasks, Nasim Sobhani, Sarah Jane Delany

Conference papers

Measuring and mitigating gender bias in natural language processing (NLP) systems is crucial to ensure fair and ethical AI. However, a key challenge is the lack of explicit gender information in many textual datasets. This paper proposes two techniques, Identity Term Sampling (ITS) and Identity Term Pattern Extraction (ITPE), as alternatives to template-based approaches for measuring gender bias in text data. These approaches identify test data for measuring gender bias in the dataset itself and can be used to measure gender bias on any NLP classifier. We demonstrate the use of these approaches for measuring gender bias across various NLP …

Radiobiological Applications Of Vibrational Spectroscopy: A Review Of Analyses Of Ionising Radiation Effects In Biology And Medicine, Jade F. Monaghan, Hugh J. Byrne, Fiona M. Lyng, Aidan D. Meade

Articles

Vibrational spectroscopic techniques, such as Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) absorption and Raman spectroscopy (RS), offer unique and detailed biochemical fingerprints by detecting specific molecular vibrations within samples. These techniques provide profound insights into the molecular alterations induced by ionising radiation, which are both complex and multifaceted. This paper reviews the application of rapid and label-free vibrational spectroscopic methods for assessing biological radiation responses. These assessments span from early compartmentalised models such as DNA, lipid membranes, and vesicles to comprehensive evaluations in various living biological models, including tissues, cells, and organisms of diverse origins. The review also discusses future perspectives, highlighting …

Psychosocial Factors Associated With Physical Activity In People With Dementia: A Pilot Cross-Sectional Study, Nicolas Farina, Uzma Niazi, Riona Mc Ardle, Johanna Eronen, Ruth Lowry, Sube Banerjee

Peninsula Medical School

Objectives: To understand how psychosocial factors associated with physical activity differ based on disease severity in people with dementia, and how these factors are associated with physical activity participation. Methods: Eighty-seven people with dementia, alongside their family carer were asked to complete a series of questions related to physical activity participation, including barriers, motivators, and facilitators. Regression models were developed to understand how psychosocial factors were associated with physical activity participation in the cohort. Results: In the final models, only the absence of intrapersonal barriers was associated with overall physical activity and regular moderate-to-vigorous physical activity. Feelings of relatedness were …

The Mini-Cog: A Community Screening Tool For Dementia In Indonesia, Yuda Turana, Nicolas Farina, Imelda Theresia, Tara Puspitarini Sani, Ika Suswanti, Fasihah Irfani Fitri, Emiliano Albanese, Adelina Comas-Herrera, Martin Knapp, Sube Banerjee

Peninsula Medical School

Background: Early detection of dementia enables more effective planning and can enable access to treatment and support. The Mini-Cog is a widely used screening instrument in Indonesia; however, this instrument has never undergone a translation and cultural adaptation process. Currently, there is no data on how accurate the tool is against diagnostic criteria, particularly in low-education. Methods: Embedded within the community-based dementia prevalence study was the Strengthening Responses to Dementia in Developing Countries (STRiDE) project; older adults (aged ≥ 65 years) were randomly recruited from sites in Jakarta and North Sumatra, Indonesia. All participants were asked to complete the Mini-Cog …

Quantitative Raman Analysis Of Human Blood Serum Of Glaucoma Patients Supplemented With Macular Pigment Carotenoids., Joy Udensi, Ekaterina Loskutova, James Loughman, Hugh J. Byrne

Datasets

Carotenoids have been widely studied for their high dietary, antioxidant, and vision protection roles in the human body. Blood contains all major dietary carotenoids and hence presents as a suitable and efficient substrate for the estimation of dietary carotenoids in vivo. Following the 18-month supplementation of open angle glaucoma patients with macula pigment carotenoids (Lutein, Zeaxanthin and Meso-Zeaxanthin) in the European Nutrition in Glaucoma Management (ENIGMA) trial, Raman spectroscopic analysis of the pre-supplementation baseline and 18-month supplemented blood serum carotenoids from participants was carried out, to investigate the systemic impact of supplementation in the blood and explore a more direct …

The Cost Of Providing Care By Family And Friends (Informal Care) In The Last Year Of Life: A Population Observational Study, Miriam J. Johnson, David C. Currow, Jade Chynoweth, Helen Weatherly, Gamze Keser, Ann Hutchinson, Annie Jones, Laurie Dunn, Victoria Allgar

Peninsula Medical School

Introduction: Little is known about replacement costs of care provided by informal carers during the last year of life for people dying of cancer and non-cancer diseases. Aim: To estimate informal caregiving costs and explore the relationship with carer and decedent characteristics. Design: National observational study of bereaved carers. Questions included informal end-of-life caregiving into the 2017 Health Survey for England including estimated recalled frequency, duration and intensity of care provision. We estimated replacement costs for a decedent’s last year of life valuing time at the price of a substitutable activity. Spearman rank correlations and multivariable linear regression were used …

Magnetic Separation Of Lunar Regolith Simulants With Applications To In Situ Resource Utilization On The Moon, Peter Bachle, Jeffrey Smith, Fateme Rezaei, David Bayless, William Schonberg, Daoru Han

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The development of in situ resource utilization (ISRU) for metal extraction is imperative as a steppingstone for habitation construction in lunar and non-terrestrial environments. Separation of minerals by chemical composition is important to optimize metal and oxygen liberation from lunar ore. to this effect, devices capable of separating aluminum bearing minerals from iron-bearing minerals from the lunar regolith simulants have been developed. Twenty-eight different simulants have been used in this study. a dual-belt separator was designed to reduce middlings. Para-magnetic minerals were reliably separated using a neodymium N52-magnet-separator system. Effective separation of aluminum-bearing minerals from iron-bearing minerals was greater than …

A 30-Year Time Series Analysis Of The Impact Of Climate Change On Corn Yield In Iowa Using The Autoregressive Distributed Lag Model – 1992 To 2022, Tesleem Ajisafe

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Climate change poses significant socio-economic challenges globally, notably altering weather patterns and increasing the frequency and severity of extreme weather events (Seneviratne et al. 2021). This study investigates the impact of climate change on corn yield in Iowa from 1992 to 2022, using the autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) model to analyze time series data on temperature, precipitation, and corn yield at the county level. Iowa, the leading corn producer in the US (Xu, Twine, & Girvetz 2016), has experienced an 8% increase in precipitation from 1873 to 2008, with notable effects in the eastern region (“Climate Change,” n.d.). A detrending …

The Cancellation Station Podcast: The Controversies Of Canceling, Quinn Rauchenecker

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The term “Cancel Culture” has had a firm grasp on mainstream culture and disagreements about whether it is doing more harm than good. While the initial intention of the widespread term was created for good, it is now in a space of critique. For my thesis, I use the creative means of podcasting to explore cancel culture and its controversies.

What Is Working And How Do We Know? Examining The Literacy Curriculum In An Elementary School After Years Of Filling The Holes: A Qualitative Study In Improvement Science, Kimberly Graven

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Administrators and teachers are overwhelmed with initiatives and expectations that they are supposed to juggle on a daily basis. When a problem of practice is identified, how do they know what to do about it? In this study, an administrator and leadership team members of a small, rural elementary school use Improvement Science as a framework to tackle their problem of practice.

Fluency reading proficiency scores have been on a slow decline at South Falls CSD over the past five to six years. Educators have been attempting to identify the holes in the curriculum and “filling the gaps” with various …

Spatiotemporal Variance Image Reconstruction For Thermographic Inspections, Logan M. Wilcox, Emily M. Johnson, Emma T. Bohannon, Catherine E. Johnson, Kristen M. Donnell

Mining Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Active microwave thermography (AMT) is a nondestructive testing and evaluation (NDT&E) technique that utilizes a radiating antenna to induce a thermal increase on or within a specimen under test (SUT). The radiated power density is spatially nonuniform and therefore results in a spatially nonuniform thermal excitation, which may result in missed or false indications of defects. To this end, this work proposes a novel image reconstruction technique for nonuniform excitation/heating and is referred to as Spatiotemporal Variance Reconstruction (STVR). STVR utilizes the spatial and temporal variance of the surface thermal profile. STVR is advantageous in that it does not require …

How Rural Identity, Self-Reliance, And Stoicism Relate To Attitudes Toward Mental Health Help-Seeking Among Iowans, Taylor Brown

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Rural residents tend to seek help for psychological concerns at lower rates than urban residents (Caldwell et al., 2004; Kirby et al., 2019) despite similar rates of mental illness (Morales et al., 2020). Elevated stoicism and a preference for self-reliance may explain this decrease in help-seeking behaviors, as people in these communities may have a more self-reliant and stoic self-image and therefore be less willing to seek help. Thus, I designed a study to investigate whether rural identity correlated with self-reliance, stoicism, or attitudes toward psychological help-seeking and whether the relation between rural identity and help-seeking attitudes was mediated by …

Positioning Paperback Books As Americana: Cultural And Historical Impacts Of The Wadle Pocket Book Collection, Jake Volk

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The first book in the form of a codex was bound around 300 BCE, but the earliest material used to record writing appeared around 3000 BCE. From these documents recording proto-writing of human history, people have sought to analyze and preserve writing, which continues as a contemporary work of scholars across multiple disciplines to form the field of the history of the book. As the book changed physical form from illuminated manuscripts on vellum to cheaply produced, paperback books, which appeared in the early 1800s, historians have documented these changes; however, more analysis is needed to categorize and interpret how …

Retrospective Analysis On The Impact Of Increased Set Volume On Back Squat And Bench Press One Repetition Maximums In Freshman Ncaa Di Fcs American Football Players, Colin T. Klatt

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Title: Retrospective Analysis on the Impact of Increased Set Volume on back squat and bench press one repetition maximums in Freshman NCAA DI FCS American Football Players

Introduction: American football is the most popular sport in the United States. Over the past few decades, American football has experienced a notable transformation, with a growing emphasis on the necessity for increased strength and power gains. The evolving physical demands in American football underscore the importance of players adapting to these changing conditionings to thrive in the sport. With American football being a sport linked to physical attributes such as size and …

Teacher Use Of Rubrics To Assess Claim, Evidence And Reasonings In The High School Science Classroom, Brianna Finnegan

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This qualitative study examines how high school science teachers in an eastern Iowa high school utilize rubrics to assess students’ claims, evidence, and reasoning (CER) in the science classroom. The research investigates the methodology teachers employ in assessing student proficiency using their own rubrics they have created. Data were collected through think-aloud interviews with participating teachers as they evaluated and scored CER examples. Analysis of interview data involved inductive coding to identify common themes and categories, shedding light on teacher’s scoring practices, rubric construction, and perceptions of student proficiency and rubric validity.

Findings reveal that teachers often weigh evidence and …

Dog-Training Programs For Incarcerated Women, Susan Grover

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Prison dog-training programs are a fairly new rehabilitative practice in women’s prisons. This study seeks to identify the effects dog-training programs have on women while incarcerated and then once reintegrated back into their family and community. This study includes an analytic literature review of the research on animal training programs and dog training programs in general. Most of the existing research, however, focuses on men and boys and shows that while prison-based dog-training programs are largely beneficial, they are less so for boys and do create unique vulnerabilities in men’s prisons. This study extends the previous research by examining the …

Traumatic Brain Injury And Public Stigma: The Effect Of Perceived Responsibility, Mackenzie Grenko

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

No abstract provided.

Suspected Vs. Diagnosed Mental Illness, Race, And The Ngri Plea, Alexa Roudabush

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

No abstract provided.

Optimized Gadolinium-Do3a Loading In Raft-Polymerized Copolymers For Superior Mr Imaging Of Aging Blood-Brain Barrier, Hunter A. Miller, Aaron Priester, Evan T. Curtis, Krista Hilmas, Ashleigh Abbott, Forrest M. Kievit, Anthony J. Convertine

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The development of gadolinium-based contrast agents (GBCAs) has been pivotal in advancing magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), offering enhanced soft tissue contrast without ionizing radiation exposure. Despite their widespread clinical use, the need for improved GBCAs has led to innovations in ligand chemistry and polymer science. We report a novel approach using methacrylate-functionalized DO3A ligands to synthesize a series of copolymers through direct reversible addition-fragmentation chain transfer (RAFT) polymerization. This technique enables precise control over the gadolinium content within the polymers, circumventing the need for subsequent conjugation and purification steps, and facilitates the addition of other components such as targeting ligands. …

Experimental Investigation Of A Viscoelastic Liner To Reduce Under Helmet Overpressures And Shock Wave Reflections, Cody J.H. Thomas, Fatih Dogan, Catherine E. Johnson

Materials Science and Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Introduction: Shock wave overpressure exposures can result in blast-induced traumatic brain injury (bTBI) in warfighters. Although combat helmets provide protection against blunt impacts, the protection against blast waves is limited due to the observed high overpressures occurring underneath the helmet. One route to enhance these helmets is by incorporating viscoelastic materials into the helmet designs, reducing pressures imposed on the head. This study aims to further investigate this mitigation technique against under-helmet overpressures by adding a viscoelastic liner to the inside of a combat helmet. Methods: The liner's effectiveness was evaluated by exposing it to free-field blasts of Composition C-4 …

Prompt, Accurate, And Noncontact Material Identification Using A Single Microwave Sensor With Machine Learning Analysis, Chen Zhu, Osamah Alsalman, Jie Huang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In This Article, a Novel Approach to Microwave Sensors is Proposed and Demonstrated that Allows for Prompt, Accurate, and Noncontact Material Identification Even with Arbitrary Lift-Off Distances between the Sensor and the Material under Test (MUT). a Multilayer Perceptron (MLP) is Trained to Directly Learn the Relation of the Measured Reflection Spectra of a Homemade Open-Ended Coaxial Cable Resonator Probe with Respect to Different MUTs and Then Achieve One-To-One Mapping between a Measured Spectrum and the MUT. as a Proof-Of-Concept Demonstration, the Performance of the MLP Model is Tested using Easily Accessible Materials, Including Wood, Glass, Water, and Metal. Reflection …

Statistical Eye Diagrams For High-Speed Interconnects Of Packages: A Review, Junyong Park, Donghyun Kim

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An eye diagram, a critical metric in signal integrity analysis for high-speed interconnects such as packages, interposer, and printed circuit boards (PCBs), is generated by superposition of the received waveform. Obtaining an eye diagram is time-consuming, thus signal integrity analysis is inefficient. This article reviews that have been proposed to overcome this limitation. The statistical eye diagram provides a probability distribution depending on a sampling time and voltage, therefore it can be expanded to other metrics, such as the bit-error rate and shmoo plot. This article introduces previous research on statistical eye diagrams applied to complementary metal-oxide-semiconductors (CMOSs), noise, and …

A Segmentation Approach For Predicting Plane Wave Coupling To Pcb Structures, Shengxuan Xia, James Hunter, Aaron Harmon, Ahmed M. Hassan, Victor Khilkevich, Daryl G. Beetner

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Evaluating the far-field radio frequency (RF) susceptibility of electronic devices often depends on extensive testing or full wave simulations. These methods are effective when complete system information is available but require substantial time and resources to evaluate a large number of variations in system configurations, where trace routings, integrated circuit (IC) package styles, trace terminations, arrival angle, and polarization of incoming wave, etc., are varied from one configuration to another. The goal of the following article is to develop simulation techniques for studying the statistical characteristics of coupling to typical printed circuit board (PCB) structures. Simulation time can be reduced …