Digital Commons Network^™

Improved Model For Neurodegeneration In C. Elegans, Jean-Pierre Arditi

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

During Alzheimer's disease (AD), insoluble amyloid beta (AP) peptides accumulate to form extracellular aggregates (plaques). The direct cause of neuronal dysfunction observed in AD has been broadly investigated. The amyloid hypothesis states that AP plaques are neurotoxic, but recent studies support the AP oligomer hypothesis, which states that intracellular AP (iAP) is neurotoxic. To test this hypothesis, I used CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing to generate two transgenic Caenorhabditis elegans (C. elegans) strains. I generated a strain (RSLl 11) using the rab-3 promoter to co-express GFP in neurons, which showed no gross behavioral changes but had a 50% reduced egglaying rate. RSLl …

Dual-Task Interaction Between Vestibular Function And Cognitive Processing Using The P300 Event-Related Potential, Laurel Elise Money-Nolan

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Previous research has established links between vestibular function and cognitive processing, aging and cognitive function, and aging and vestibular function. Theories of cognitive resource allocation discuss how cognitive resources, such as attention, are devoted towards and divided between tasks when multitasking. This dual-task study, utilizing a balance task and a listening/cognitive task, across the young- and middle-aged adult age range, aimed to evaluate potential relationships between vestibular function, cognition, and age, and to examine how cognitive resources might be allocated under dual-task conditions.

The dual-task protocol in this study utilized an oddball paradigm with tonal stimuli to measure the P300 …

Twim #243: Beef And Bacillus, Sakiem Winston, Madison Wolford, Rebecca Seipelt-Thiemann, Angela Wilson

School of Medical Diagnostics & Translational Sciences Publications

Podcast annotation TWiM #243: Beef and Bacillus from the weekly podcast series "This Week in Microbiology" (TWiM), a podcast where experts in microbiology discuss academic papers in their field in an informal way.

The Rider (2025-12-01), Daniela Martinez Salazar

The Rider Archives

Vol. 11, No. 13

Calibration And Validation Of Cyclic Stretching Platform For Stiffness Testing Of Engineered Heart Tissue, Jillian Welsh

Chemical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Cardiac fibrosis (CF) is a major contributor to the high mortality rate of heart failure which affects over 23 million people worldwide. CF involves cardiac fibroblasts depositing extracellular matrix, made primarily of collagen type I, which stiffens the heart walls over time. As testing new drugs for CF is deterred by the high cost and time required for animal and clinical trials, this research helps to solve the problem by providing an in vitro platform to study fibrosis.

The work involved creating tissues containing human cardiac fibroblast (HCFB) cells. Spring testing was conducted to determine the force applied by the …

Utilization Of Mushroom Stems As A Feed Resource For Sustainable Poultry Production, Kayla Stamps

All Theses

Soybean meal (SBM) is the primary protein source in poultry diets; however, its escalating cost and the environmental impact of soybean cultivation underscore the need for sustainable alternatives. Mushroom stems are generated at large volumes as agricultural waste, yet contain bioactive compounds and essential nutrients that may benefit poultry health and productivity. Despite these attributes, limited research has evaluated their potential as feed ingredients across different poultry species. This study addressed this gap by investigating whether mushroom stem powder can partially replace SBM in poultry diets while improving performance, health, and environmental outcomes.

Specifically, four experiments were conducted to evaluate …

Real Time Markerless 3d Hand Tracking For Intuitive Robotic Arm Control, Dylan G. Featherson

Master's Theses

This thesis presents a real-time, markerless motion-capture system for intuitive control of a multi-degree-of-freedom robotic arm. Using two synchronized RGB cameras and stereo-vision triangulation, the system reconstructs the three-dimensional position of a user’s hand without the need for physical markers or wearable sensors. The reconstructed 3D coordinates are mapped directly to the end-effector position of the Quanser QArm, a four-degree-of-freedom educational manipulator. Developed entirely in Python, the system integrates stereo camera calibration, 3D hand tracking with MediaPipe, coordinate transformation, and inverse kinematics into a unified real-time control pipeline operating at approximately 200 Hz. Calibration is performed through a checkerboard-based stereo …

Generalized Detection Of Animal Behavior Using Accelerometers, Alexander J. Arrieta

Master's Theses

Animal mounted sensors are becoming increasingly used to passively monitor both domestic and wild animals. Advances in lightweight accelerometer and GPS technology have allowed many animals to be fitted with high accuracy sensors for extended periods of time. This leads to new opportunities to study animal behavior without direct observation. However, interpreting the raw data is difficult due to the high volume and missing context of the information. Machine learning techniques excel at extracting information from raw data streams and are excellent candidates for processing the sensor data. However, due to large variance in how different animals execute the same …

Per- And Poly-Fluoroalkyl Substances Fate Across California Wastewater Treatment Plants: A Meta-Analysis Of Formation, Distribution, And Persistence, Elizabeth Reineke

Master's Theses

Per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are persistent contaminants that move through municipal and industrial wastewater systems with limited attenuation. As a result, they are increasingly detected in drinking water supplies. Despite growing regulatory concern, a systems-level understanding of PFAS behavior across multiple treatment facilities and watershed settings remains incomplete. This study compiled influent, effluent, and biosolids datasets from more than one hundred California wastewater treatment plants to evaluate PFAS occurrence, transformation, and partitioning across diverse treatment configurations. Analytical steps included calculating removal efficiencies, assessing precursor-to-product oxidation, evaluating co-contaminant correlations, and grouping facilities by process design to quantify configuration-specific fate patterns. …

Associations Between Feed Efficiency And Feeding Behavior In Yearling Angus Bulls In A Competitive Environment, Amelia Katz

Master's Theses

Feed efficiency in beef cattle is a complex trait shaped by physiological, behavioral, and social factors that influence how animals access and utilize feed resources. This study examined feed efficiency classification and how it is influenced by feeding behavior, competitive interactions, and bunk approach patterns in yearling Angus bulls housed in a drylot over two years. Bulls were grouped into high and low feed efficiency categories using residual feed intake and feed conversion ratio within pen and year (n = 40 per year; n = 40 per treatment). Continuous electronic monitoring quantified feeder visitation, feeding duration, intake, and rate. A …

Serum Concentrations Of Inflammatory Markers And Selected Nutrient Metabolites In Holstein And Jersey Cows Across The Transition Period, Avery Orr

Master's Theses

The transition period, spanning the weeks surrounding parturition, requires dairy cows to undergo synchronized metabolic, endocrine, and immunological adjustments that support the onset of lactation but also heighten disease susceptibility. Although individual inflammatory or metabolic biomarkers have been extensively studied, the integrated immunometabolic dynamics that occur across this period and the difference between breeds is not fully understood. The objective of this study was to characterize longitudinal patterns in key nutrient metabolites and inflammatory markers in Holstein and Jersey cows and assess how these systems interact across the transition period.

A total of 63 Holstein and Jersey cows were sampled …

The Impact Of Eyewear On Early And Mid-Latency Erp Components Of Face Processing, Alewa T. Anaya

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Facial recognition plays an important role in human survival and social communication. It relies on fast and efficient visual processing in the brain, as reflected by the P100 and N170 event-related potential (ERP) components. These ERPs are early and mid-latency stamps of facial recognition that reflect visual detection and structural processing of faces. Previous studies have shown that the N170 is sensitive to disruptions in facial configuration, such as inversion or partial face obscuration caused by masks. The present study, however, examines a common yet overlooked visual addition that may influence the N170: eyewear. Specifically, this study investigates how regular …

Characterization Of A New Domestic Feline Macrophage Cell Line To Study Molecular Mechanisms Of Feline Coronavirus, Adam Espinoza

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Feline Coronavirus (FCoV) is a veterinary pathogen common in domestic cats. FCoV is transmitted via the fecal-oral route, results in mild enteric symptoms, and is considered feline enteric coronavirus (FECV). During infection the virus may transition from infecting host enteric epithelial cells to infecting host macrophages, resulting in a lethal systemic disease, and the virus is now considered feline infectious peritonitis virus (FIPV). FIPV arises in an infected individual, is not shed in the feces, and is not transmitted from cat to cat. There is limited research defining the host molecular mechanisms driving FCoV lethal outcomes, with few feline cell …

Divergent Responses Of Branched-Chain And Straight-Chain Lipid Membranes To Butanol Stress Revealed By All-Atom Molecular Dynamics Simulations, Joshua Olaf Aggrey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Membrane integrity under chemical stress is critical to cellular survival and industrial microbial bioproduction, yet the molecular basis of bilayer resilience remains poorly understood. Using all-atom molecular dynamics simulation, we compare the effect of increasing concentrations of 1‑butanol on membranes composed of straight-chain (1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, DPPC) and branched-chain (1-anteiso-palmitoyl-2-palmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, APPC) lipids, which differ in the point of attachment of a single methyl group. In the absence of butanol, both membranes exhibit well-ordered architectures consistent with experimental benchmarks; however, under increasing solvent stress, their behaviors diverge markedly. DPPC membranes display gradual thinning, modest area per lipid …

Immersive Learning In Action: A Qualitative Case Study Of High School Teachers’ Experiences With Prisms Learning In Science And Mathematics, Hilary A. Cassidy

Dissertations

The use of virtual reality (VR) in the secondary STEM educational space is increasing as costs to access VR technology decrease. There is a current lack of research supporting the efficacy of virtual reality use in the secondary space to improve student success criteria, particularly for specific VR-based instructional products like Prisms. The purpose of this study was to explore the impact of Prisms VR curriculum from the teacher perspective, with specific attention to student engagement, conceptual understanding, and instructional practices. The goal of the study was to contribute to existing research about the paradigm shift toward active student participation …

Using The Time We Have: Exploring Collaborative Instructional Planning For 8th Grade Georgia Studies In A Title I School, Bambara Timmerman

Dissertations

Teacher collaboration in middle schools is often emphasized in educational research and policy, yet content-specific collaboration, specifically for Georgia Studies (GAS), remains underexplored. This participatory qualitative case study explored how middle school GAS teachers perceive the influence of collaborative planning on their self-efficacy, the obstacles they face when attempting to collaborate, and what they perceive would foster a culture that supports ongoing collaborative planning. Grounded in constructivist theory, including social learning theory, situated learning, and social constructivism, this study focused on teachers in a rural Title I middle school. Data collection included demographic questionnaires, interviews, observations, document analysis, and researcher …

Factors Affecting Diet Selection In Sheep Fed Endophyte-Infected Toxic Fescue, Jordan Thomas

Animal Science Undergraduate Honors Theses

Tall fescue infected with endophyte‑producing fungi can induce fescue toxicosis in grazing ruminants, reducing performance and altering forage intake. Isoflavones—such as biochanin A, a major compound in red clover (Trifolium pratense)—have been proposed to mitigate these effects through improved palatability and vascular relaxation. This study examined whether inclusion of ground red clover (GRC)—either directly or combined with hydroxypropyl methylcellulose (HPMC) and polyethylene glycol (PEG)—affected voluntary diet selection in lambs offered toxic fescue.

Thirty‑two lambs were housed individually and assigned randomly to one of four diets: (1) toxic fescue silage (CONT), (2) silage + 5% GRC (RC5), (3) silage + 10% …

Engineered An Ultrasmall Curcumin Oral Nanoformulation Restores Intestinal Integrity And Gut Microbiota Dysbiosis, Vivek Sharma, Prateeksha Prateeksha, Balwant Paliya, Sateesh Gupta, Sarvendra Singh, Anand Anunay, Sushil Agrahari, Shailendra Singh, Chandana Rao, Saroj Barik, Brahma Singh

Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology Faculty Papers

Antibiotic therapy for bacterial infections often disrupts gut microbiota (GM) and intestinal integrity, inducing chronic inflammation and inflammatory bowel diseases. An effective therapeutic intervention is urgently needed to alleviate the aforementioned adverse effects of antibiotics. Curcumin (CUR) reveals great potential to restore intestinal integrity and GM dysbiosis due to its strong antiinflammatory and prebiotic effects. However, the weak solubility and stability of CUR result in limited bioavailability and a short half-life, which restricts its clinical uses. An ultra-small CUR oral nanoformulation was created using a carboxylated galactomannan (cGM), facilitated by hydrogen bonding between the phenolic hydroxyl groups of CUR and …

White Horse Village: A Northern Utah Ufo Narrative, Melissa Petersen

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

In the early 1960's a group of UFO believers, called Christ Brotherhood Inc., established themselves in Smithfield Canyon, UT and called their commune White Horse Village. A main house was built where the leader of the group lived and two or three smaller cabins were erected for the believers. Without running water they used an outhouse among them and built a small church where they would meet for lectures. Their beliefs centered around the popular movement of New Age spirituality of the time, which included scientific explanations for Christian beliefs including a belief in benevolent aliens as modern angels. Their …

The Depositional Environment Of The Triassic Cow Branch Formation, Dan River Basin Of Virginia And North Carolina Through Petrographic Study And Geochemical Analysis, And In Relation To Taphonomic Processes And Vertebrate Morphology, Gina M. Workman

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

The Upper Triassic Cow Branch Formation of the Dan River Basin, located in southern Virginia and northern North Carolina, has long captivated generations of geoscientists. Since the 1970s, researchers have sought to unravel the mystery surrounding the depositional environment of this ancient lake system. This world-class lagerstätte hosts a diverse assemblage of fossil fauna and flora, with a notable preservation bias toward fossil vertebrates, most prominently the archosauromorph, Tanytrachelos ahynis. The geology of the Cow Branch strata continues to evoke a persistent question: Are these sediments representative of a shallow or deep lake?

I undertook a petrographic and geochemical study …

Privacy Rights: Their Evolution, Expansion, And Narrowing, Rebecca Nichole Ivans

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Privacy rights in the United States have evolved significantly through judicial interpretation, with reproductive rights playing a central role in their expansion and contraction. This paper examines how the Supreme Court's treatment of reproductive rights has shaped the broader understanding of constitutional privacy rights, focusing on landmark cases from Griswold v. Connecticut (1965) to Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization (2022).

The analysis begins by exploring how the Court first established privacy rights through "penumbras" found within various constitutional amendments, particularly in Griswold's protection of contraceptive access for married couples. The paper traces the expansion of these rights through subsequent …

Bundled For The Beyond: Material Analysis Of A Canine Mummy Bundle For Contextualizing And Conserving Legacy Objects, Sascha Anna-Rose Baldauf

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Legacy collections¹ and objects with little context are often untapped opportunities for both museums and museum studies students. The purpose of this study is to display how students can utilize object research to engage in experiential learning and develop their skillset in scientific methodologies and disseminating findings, while also offering museums the opportunity to develop relationships with research facilities and benefit from student research findings. This study demonstrates the utility of student research by investigating an Egyptian canid mummy bundle, dating to the Late Period² or early Ptolemaic Period³, received by the Museum of Anthropology at …

Bundled For The Beyond: Material Analysis Of A Canine Mummy Bundle For Contextualizing And Conserving Legacy Objects, Sascha Anna-Rose Baldauf

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Legacy collections¹ and objects with little context are often untapped opportunities for both museums and museum studies students. The purpose of this study is to display how students can utilize object research to engage in experiential learning and develop their skillset in scientific methodologies and disseminating findings, while also offering museums the opportunity to develop relationships with research facilities and benefit from student research findings. This study demonstrates the utility of student research by investigating an Egyptian canid mummy bundle, dating to the Late Period² or early Ptolemaic Period³, received by the Museum of Anthropology at …

Intelligent Predictive Frameworks Under Data Scarcity And Uncertainty, Solayman Hossain Emon

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Modern predictive systems frequently operate under conditions of limited annotated data, high uncertainty, and the need for reliable decision-making. When the predictive models expand across heterogeneous data types (e.g., spatial, temporal streams), the challenge lies not only in accurate prediction but also in adapting in data distributions shifts or label scarcity. To address these issues, this thesis explores an Intelligent Predictive Framework that operates robustly under data scarcity and uncertainty across two distinct domains: medical imaging (spatial) and time-series forecasting (temporal). In the first part of this work, a semi-supervised mean teacher (MT) paradigm is tailored for medical image segmentation …

Mi Cuerpo, Mi Salud: A Brief Sexual Health Pilot Intervention For The Promotion Of Latina Sti Testing, Ariana Cervantes-Borges

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Disparate rates of sexually transmitted infection (STI) contraction among Latinas and emerging adults highlight glaring public health issues that warrant brief and digital STI testing interventions to promote service acquisition. Latinas may experience a greater negative impact of STIs compared to men, indicating a need to target this population group. Prior studies have noted STI testing intentions and acquisition in Latina populations to be largely impacted by four components: education, stigma, social support, and self-efficacy. Given recent funding cuts for STI research, a brief and digital intervention may circumvent costs associated with traditional intervention implementation. The current study aimed to …

From Morphology To Machine Learning And Genomics: Understanding Phenotypic Variation In Wild Ducks, Sara Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Understanding the genetic underpinning and distribution of phenotypic variation within and between divergent groups is core towards shedding light into how populations diverge and adapt, as well as how hybridization breaks or builds on these scenarios; and thus, central to evolutionary biology. In wild organisms, however, quantifying and linking phenotypic traits to underlying genetic processes, like mutation, gene expression, epigenetics and allele interactions, remains challenging. This difficulty arises from the complex interplay between morphology, environment, and gene regulation, as well as the logistical barriers of collecting and standardizing large-scale data across individuals and populations. As a result, researchers are increasingly …

Desmadre, Xiomarra Milann Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

My project functions as a collection of poems that each hold stories that tie them into the theme of their assigned subsection and into the greater narrative that each subsection creates, resulting in the takeaway from the overall manuscript. From the first word of the introductory poem, to the final line of the concluding, the poems take you on a journey from a feminine existence that is struggling at the helm of external, oppressive forces leading into a self-reckoning and embracing their own internal power within the systematic chaos and uncertainty that plagues them through the underlying notes of each …

Temporal Associations Between Social Media Use Frequency And Social Media Addiction And Depressive, Anxiety, And Insomnia Symptoms Among Hispanic Emerging Adults: Moderation By Identity Exploration And Instability And Negativity, Miguel Andres Garcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The number of social media users has drastically increased in recent years, and rates of social media use are particularly pronounced among emerging adults and Hispanic groups. Furthermore, emerging adults are at risk for poor mental health and report poor sleep health, and Hispanic groups may experience sleep disparities compared to their non-Hispanic White counterparts. Although many studies have assessed the associations between social media use frequency and social media addiction and depressive, anxiety, and insomnia symptoms, fewer have investigated these associations prospectively. Similarly, few studies have assessed potential moderators of these associations. Thus, the current study investigated the temporal …

A Half Century Of Biophysical Change In Polygonized Tundra On The Coastal Plain Of Northern Alaska, Mariana Mora

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Climate change is amplified in the Arctic. As a result, Arctic tundra landscapes are undergoing physical changes through accelerated thaw and ice-wedge degradation. Understanding the magnitude and direction of these changes in the Arctic is a necessary step toward understanding the response of the Arctic to climate change and feedbacks to the Climate System. Through repeat measurements collected from 1973 through 2018, we were able to assess decadal time scale changes in polygon geomorphology, thaw depth, land surface compression and expansion, and vertical elevation within a highly polygonized tundra system, and their implications when scaled to a regional level. This …

Calibration Of Low-Cost Pm2.5 Sensors Using Data Continuously Generated At A Reference Station In El Paso, Texas, Brenda Lizbeth Hernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Low-cost sensors (LCS) offer a cost-effective way to expand air-quality monitoring networks, but they require strong calibration methods to ensure reliable performance under changing environmental conditions. In this study, Clarity LCSs were co-located with a state reference monitor for 6 months to evaluate fixed-time (2-, 3-, 4-, and 6-week) and rolling (2- and 3-week) calibration approaches. A multivariate regression model using PM1, PM2.5, PM10, and relative humidity was used to generate calibration coefficients for a “base sensor.” Data from two additional sensors were normalized to the base unit using linear regression, and their calibration coefficients were applied across the network. …