Digital Commons Network^™

Hydrogeochemical And Redox Controls On Nitrate And Arsenic Co-Occurrence In The Western Kansas High Plains Aquifer (Usa): A Composite Health Risk Assessment And The Case For Risk-Informed Private Well Governance, Jonathan Kuffour Owusu

Master's Theses or Doctor of Nursing Practice

Fifty-one private domestic wells across western Kansas were sampled to quantify nitrate and arsenic occurrence, identify geochemical controls, and evaluate carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic health risks for adult and child receptors in a region where groundwater serves as the primary drinking water source with no routine regulatory oversight. Samples were analyzed for major ions, nutrients, and trace elements by ICP-MS, ion chromatography, and UV-Vis spectrophotometry. Shapiro-Wilk testing confirmed non-normal distributions for both contaminants; inter-county comparisons were therefore conducted using Kruskal-Wallis tests with Dunn's post-hoc correction. Health risk was quantified via chronic daily intake (CDI), hazard quotient (HQ), HQ-based Water Quality Index …

News From The States, Blake Denton

The Southeastern Librarian

No abstract provided.

Association Of Serotonin And Ergot Alkaloids On Tissue Partitioning And Contractile Response Of Bovine Blood Vessels, Eriton E. L. Valente, David L. Harmon, John May, Huihua Ji, Ronald J. Trotta, James L. Klotz

Animal and Food Sciences Faculty Publications

Ergot alkaloids can bind serotonin (5-HT) receptors interfering with many physiological functions. However, the mechanism has not been completely established. The objective was to evaluate whether the association of 5-HT and the ergot alkaloid, ergovaline, in a 24-h pre-incubation can affect vascular tissue partitioning and contractile responses. Cross-sections of saphenous veins from five steers were used. In the tissue partitioning experiment, the treatments were the combination of three levels of ergovaline (2.01 × 10⁻⁸ M, 2.01 × 10⁻⁷ M and 2.01 × 10⁻⁶ M) with three levels of 5-HT and a control (5 × 10⁻⁸ M, …

Value Perception: Contrasting Priorities On The Choice Of Foreign Language Study, Lesley Machimbidza, David Mukuruva

Research Papers and Posters from ASCL 60.20: Languages and Scripts of Gender, Class, and Nation

This study examines the factors influencing the popularity of Chinese as a foreign language over Japanese at Dartmouth. On average, across US colleges and universities, Japanese language programs tout higher enrollment when compared to their Chinese counterparts. Dartmouth College subverts this trend, as the Chinese language program has higher overall enrollment compared to the Japanese program. This study aims to understand the motivating factors underlying Dartmouth students’ choice of foreign language in the context of the study of East Asian languages. The study design employed a quantitative survey and qualitative interview to probe the factors students considered when choosing their …

Abca12 Frameshift Deletion In Domestic Cats With Ichthyosis Fetalis, Jeanna M. Blake, Melissa P. Swan, Kari J. Ekenstedt

Veterinary Science Faculty Publications

Background: Ichthyosis fetalis (IF), also known as harlequin ichthyosis, is a rare and often fatal autosomal recessive congenital skin disorder. It is characterized by thickened, hard skin plaques and deep skin fissures that limit mobility and cause malformations of the eyes, lips and ears. Affected individuals are highly susceptible to life-threatening infections due to the disruption of the skin's protective barrier. To date, IF and its genetic basis have not been described in domestic cats.

Objectives: To characterize the gross clinical, histopathological and genetic features of IF in two stray, random-bred domestic short-hair (DSH) littermates.

Animals: Two deceased female neonatal …

Art As Medicine: Exploring The Intersection Of African Cultural Practices And Art Therapy To Examine Its Efficacy In Pain Management And Healing Among Black Women With Lupus, Kandace I. Simmons

Art Therapy | Master's Theses

This thesis examined the intersection of chronic illness and systemic inequities faced by Black women living with lupus. These women often encountered unique challenges in managing their health and well-being, exacerbated by both the physical and sociocultural implications of the disease. Through a Black Feminist/Womanist theoretical lens, this research investigated the potential of art therapy to serve as a transformative instrument for pain management and healing when infused with culturally relevant practices. Employing a narrative approach and qualitative methodology, this study explored the lived experiences of African American women with lupus, incorporating their art and personal stories to inform the …

The Institutions Of Exceptions: Justification In Trade And Investment Treaties, Julian Arato

Michigan Journal of International Law

International economic law binds states in the interest of liberalizing markets, including in cross-border trade in goods and services (trade) and capital (investment). The treaty regimes for both trade and investment do this by disciplining states through legal rules, while preserving a modicum of governmental authority over domestic policy. The preservation of policy space in these regimes usually involves a process of exceptions-based justification – through formal exceptions clauses in most trade treaties and some investment agreements, and also through informal exceptions-style reasoning by adjudicators in the investment treaty regime more generally. This “exceptions paradigm” of justification has worked well …

Escape Probability: Rethinking Wartime Protection Of Nuclear Facilities, Pearle M. Lipinski

Michigan Journal of International Law

The 2022 Russian attacks on the Chernobyl and Zaporizhzhia nuclear facilities in Ukraine shocked the international community. Claims that the attacks constituted war crimes immediately entered the public consciousness, and a flurry of opinions were set forth on the international humanitarian law (“IHL”) protections afforded to nuclear plants, focusing on Article 56 of Additional Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, which provides special protection to nuclear electrical generating stations. These opinions primarily focused on the immediate applicability and shortcomings of Article 56 on the attacks at hand, often operating on the presumption that a massively consequential environmental and humanitarian disaster …

Wise Beyond Our Years: Menopause, Negative Body-Image, And Art As A Catalyst To Self-Acceptance, Nicole Lea

Art Therapy | Master's Theses

This mixed methods study examined the impact of menopause on women’s body image and self-acceptance through an arts-based group intervention. Quantitative data was collected using the Body Image Self-Compassion Scale, and qualitative data was gathered through art-making, group discussion, and individual interviews. Participants were (n=5) menopausal women aged 46-52 from the Bay Area who reported negative body image related to menopause. The intervention consisted of four one-hour open studio workshops with a fifth meeting added in which participants created altered books while engaging in peer support and discussion. Descriptive statistics indicated an increase in mean body image self-compassion scores from …

Lift And Drag Benefits Of Morphing Aircraft, Joseph Lombardi

Master’s Theses

Aircraft use the ability to change the geometry of their wings to produce lift and drag as needed to maintain flight conditions. While the wings themselves are not physically changing shape, flaps and ailerons are used to alter the lift and drag coefficients experienced. Flaps have been used and changed over the years in order to produce better lift to drag ratios. The most commonly used flaps have been plain, slotted, and double slotted. Each type features slightly different mechanical structures, thus producing differing amounts of lift and drag. The introduction of new materials allow for a morphing flap to …

The Long And Short Of It: Exploring The Essential Dynamics Of Select Geophysical Flows, Adhithiya Sivakumar

Doctoral Dissertations

Geophysical flows are central to important climatological processes, yet their strong turbulence and additional complexities -- density stratification, wave-current interaction, and phase change -- make analytical prediction and direct numerical simulation infeasible in many regimes. This dissertation adopts a reductionist approach in which simplified representations -- often inspired by observed scale disparities -- are utilized to isolate and investigate the organizing mechanisms of these complex flows. Within this framework, three distinct but thematically connected problems are studied.

We first study Langmuir turbulence in the open ocean, in which surface gravity waves interact with wind-driven currents to organize the mixed layer …

Electronic Bills Of Lading And Blockchain Technology: A Regulatory Perspective, Hsin-Hua Tsai

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Information and communications technology (ICT) systems are increasingly relevant to the maritime sector. Regarding the revolution of the bill of lading, many shipping lines and other technology startups have been looking into developing viable electronic transport documents that have the same functions as paper bills of lading to reduce supply chain risks. The limitations of the paper-based process have become increasingly visible in the COVID-19 crisis. The main purpose of the article is to analyze the application of blockchain bills of lading, which utilizes computational logic to create the digital ledger, and users can set up algorithms and rules to …

Visually Guided Landing System On Ship Deck For Multicopter, Dong-Lin Li, Shih-Kai Lee, Tzu-Hsiang Chou

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Traditionally, high-value fish have been located at sea using helicopters. However, with advancements in technology, maritime drones have become increasingly important in recent years. Compared to traditional helicopter-based methods, drones offer significantly lower operational costs, making them cost-effective. However, the challenging sea conditions, including strong winds and the swaying motion of vessels, pose significant challenges for drone landings.

This paper proposes a stable approach for multicopter landing on ships at sea, incorporating improved marker detection, enhanced wind resistance control, and more accurate deck motion prediction. In the marker detection phase, we introduce a method to improve the accuracy of ArUco …

Leveraging Virtual Reality And Haptics To Teach Surgical Skills: A Usability Study On Retropubic Midurethral Slings, Lauren Siff, Ginger S. Watson, Jerome Dixon, Moshe Feldman, Franklin Bost, Philippe J. Giabbanelli

VMASC Publications

Traditional methods to learn soft-tissue surgical procedures rely on cadaver labs or patient-based learning, which are costly and geographically limited, and raise ethical questions. Virtual reality (VR) with haptic feedback offers a scalable alternative, but most current platforms emphasize bone-based rather than soft-tissue procedures learned by feel. We developed a VR+haptic simulation for preoperative training of retropubic midurethral sling (MUS) surgery. This study examines the usability of this platform with thirteen expert urogynecologic surgeons and subsequently makes improvements (e.g., in haptics) to evaluate the platform with twelve trainees based on the NASA Task Load Index for workload and a UTAUT-informed …

Comparative Law: Cases, Text, And Materials, Francesca Bignami

GW Law Faculty Publications & Other Works

This new casebook offers a contemporary approach to the teaching of comparative law.  By integrating an up-to-date set of cases, code texts, and scholarly materials drawn from the civil law and common law traditions, as well as from Islamic law and customary law, it captures today’s dynamic legal landscape.  Beyond the western jurisdictions that typically feature in the general comparative law course, the book gives sustained attention to Brazil, Pakistan, South Africa, and Ethiopia. Subject areas covered are private law, procedural law, labor law, administrative law, digital law, and constitutional law.  Looking to professional life after graduation, this book equips …

Government Agencies In The United States Are Obstructing Native Species Restoration, Creating Regulatory Pits For Wildlife, Jeremy T. Bruskotter, L. Mark Elbroch, John Vucetich

Michigan Tech Publications

No abstract provided.

Telling God’S Story, Growing Families

Books

No abstract provided.

Autonomous Uav Mission Planning Under Threat Using Model Predictive Control With Proportional-Navigation Pursuers, Mehmet B. Ozcelik

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses

Autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) operating in contested environments must

complete mission objectives while avoiding restricted regions, radar exposure, and pos-

sible interception. This thesis develops a MATLAB-based simulation framework for

two-dimensional UAV mission planning under threat using model predictive control and

proportional-navigation chasers. The mission requires the UAV to travel from a start

location to a goal while visiting required checkpoints and avoiding no-fly zones and radar

regions. A chaser attempts to intercept the UAV using either a basic pure-pursuit-style

law or a proportional-navigation guidance law.

The framework integrates environment generation, augmented visibility-graph rout-

ing, waypoint management, UAV kinematic …

A Neo-Kuyperian Approach To Mathematics, Calvin Jongsma, Kevin Vander Meulen

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

This chapter develops a Reformational perspective on the discipline of mathematics that stems from the seminal ideas of Kuyper, Dooyeweerd, Wolters, Clouser, and others. The implications of the Biblical motif of Creation-Fall-Redemption is explored for the task of Christian scholarship in general and for the field of mathematics in particular, drawing upon relevant developments in the history and philosophy of mathematics.

Coerced Corporate Consent, Jason J. Jarvis

Emory Law Journal

Corporations are not human beings, but they have rights, including the constitutional right of due process. The United States Supreme Court recently held in Mallory v. Norfolk Southern Railway Co. that due process is satisfied when a state requires that a corporation consent to personal jurisdiction before it can conduct business in that state. The Court did not analyze, however, whether such business registration statutes can be coercive and, if so, when. These unanswered questions expose corporations to previously unexplored risks.

Involuntary consent is an oxymoron. Consent must be knowing and voluntary, and consent extracted by threat is coerced and …

Renormalizing The Nondelegation Doctrine, Ronald J. Krotoszynski, Jr., Hon. A. Richard M. Blaiklock

Emory Law Journal

In West Virginia v. EPA, the Supreme Court held that with respect to regulations that involve “major questions”—meaning questions of “great political or economic significance”—the agency seeking to regulate a major question must successfully identify “clear congressional authorization” for its actions. The major questions doctrine (MQD) essentially creates a new nondelegation doctrine rule. The nondelegation doctrine requires that Congress provide an “intelligible principle” when it delegates policymaking authority to a federal administrative agency; the MQD, in turn, enforces the nondelegation doctrine by requiring Congress plainly and directly to authorize an agency to regulate major questions. It is difficult to …

Elevated Temperatures Disrupt Wolbachia-Induced Feminisation And Reshape Microbial Community Dynamics Across Generations In A Spider Host, Virginija Mackevicius-Dubickaja, Jennifer A. White, Ellen E. Williams, Eyal Klement, Yuval Gottlieb, Matthew R. Doremus

Entomology Faculty Publications

Longitudinal microbial interactions within a host are challenging to study, leading to a focus on constructed microbial communities in vitro settings. Here, we take advantage of a naturally defined microbial community within a spider host to study how elevated temperatures influence microbial dynamics and phenotypes across host generations. The spider Mermessus fradeorum hosts up to five endosymbionts, including a Wolbachia strain, W1, which induces feminisation, causing genetic males to develop as phenotypic females, skewing sex ratios and promoting symbiont spread. Despite this, Wolbachia 1 persists at intermediate frequencies in wild populations. We hypothesised that elevated temperatures might reduce penetration of …

Evolutionary Transitions In Social Behavior Are Associated With Convergent And Partially Reversible Expansions Of Transcription Factor Binding Sites, Savanna G. Ploessl, Beryl M. Jones

Entomology Faculty Publications

The evolution of sociality involves shifts in physiology and behavior, most notably the emergence of a reproductive division of labor. Within social colonies, these distinct behavioral phenotypes arise from differential regulation of a shared genome. Changes in transcription factor (TF) binding motifs are one potential mechanism underpinning this plasticity, with prior studies suggesting that social species exhibit expansions in TF binding sites. However, it remains unclear whether motif expansions are reversed when sociality is lost. Here we analyze predicted TF motif occurrences across gene promoters in 42 bee species spanning millions of years of evolutionary divergence and multiple independent gains …

Variability In Mountain Pine Beetle (Coleoptera: Curculionidae) Gene Expression In Response To Increasing Concentrations Of Species-Specific Double-Stranded Rna, Kylie J. Bickler, Zachary Bragg, Flávia Pampolini, Bethany R. Kyre, Lynne K. Rieske

Entomology Faculty Publications

Sensitivity to double-stranded RNA (dsRNA)-induced gene silencing has been observed in multiple coleopterans. Initial work with mountain pine beetle, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins, determined that specific ubiquitously expressed essential genes can cause mortality when silenced by carefully designed dsRNAs. However, current dsRNA production methods are not economically feasible for production at scale. Therefore, identifying the minimum efficacious dose is a critical step to deployment. To investigate the relationship between dsRNA dose and subsequent gene expression, adult mountain pine beetles were fed either a target or control dsRNA across a gradient of concentrations, including 2.5, 1.0, 0.25, and 0.025µg/µl, and relative gene …

Defamation, Privacy, And The First Amendment: Cases & Problems (3rd Ed.), George Biashvili

Books

I created this resource in anticipation of teaching my Torts II class, which will primarily explore defamation and privacy torts. Though I searched for a suitable coursebook, I found that none contained all of the opinions I consider essential for teaching the nuances and complexities of these subjects. Additionally, I wanted to spare my students the exorbitant price tags associated with traditional law school texts. Hence, I assembled a collection of relevant privacy and defamation cases that align with the objectives of my course. Each case is accompanied by a set of questions to further stimulate class discussion. Where I …

Schelling & Spinoza, Michael Vater

Philosophy Faculty Research and Publications

Schelling is notorious for having a fluid vision of systematic philosophy and its methods. In an age where philosophy is expected to result in one or two books, not years of discussions with students and colleagues--and certainly not a distillation of one’s way of life--Schelling’s thought has been called protean or restless, or in Hegel’s snarky verdict “an education pursued in public.” The same could be said of Socrates. But there is a truth in these comments; it is difficult to find in fifty-six years of publications, addresses and abandoned manuscripts the single argument that is Schelling’s philosophy. What provokes …

Hall Current And Nth Order Chemical Reaction Effects On Unsteady 3d Mhd Williamson Nanofluid Flow With Thermophoresis And Brownian Motion Over An Inclined Stretching Sheet, Polavarapu Sudheer, Ramachandra Reddy Vaddemani, Raghunath Kodi

Mansoura Engineering Journal

This study examines the influence of Hall current and nth-order chemical reaction on unsteady three-dimensional magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) Williamson nanofluid flow over an inclined stretching sheet. The model incorporates thermal radiation, heat source, Brownian motion, and thermophoresis effects. The governing nonlinear partial differential equations are transformed into a system of ordinary differential equations using similarity transformations and solved numerically using the shooting method with a fourth-order Runge–Kutta scheme. The results indicate that an increase in the magnetic parameter significantly reduces velocity profiles while enhancing temperature and concentration distributions. The Hall parameter reduces surface drag and improves heat transfer, while decreasing mass …

Optimization Of Mechanical Properties Of Copper Nanofiller Reinforced Banana Fiber Polyester Composites Using Grey–Taguchi Method, Nikhil Janardan Rathod, Mayur Jayant Gitay, Markala Karthik, Harshwardhan Ghongade, Upendra Rajak, Rajendra Sopan Narkhede

Mansoura Engineering Journal

Mechanical performance of banana fiber-reinforced polyester composites maximized using a composite Taguchi and a Grey Relational Analysis (GRA) process. This will aim at enhancing dispensation limits to enhance better tensile, flexural and impact belongings. The hand lay-up method was used to create composites by variable three key limits and they included banana fiber content (30 wt%), copper nanoparticle content (15 wt%), and curing temperature (80 o C). Trial design and mechanical properties were being measured in form of ASTM values on a L9 orthogonal array.

The multi-response optimization was performed with the help of the Grey Relational Analysis, which was …

Remote Sensing-Based Rice Detection: Novel Indices From Optical And Sar Synergy, Kaifi Chomani

Mansoura Engineering Journal

Accurate rice mapping is challenging due to the lack of a simple, efficient approach and the complexity and limited ability of existing methods to distinguish rice fields from non-rice fields. This study proposes two novel indices: the Multispectral Rice Detection Index (MRDI), which utilises optical imagery, and the OptiRadar Rice Index (ORRI), which incorporates both optical and Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) data. Ground-truth data from the Cropland Cropping Systems (CROS) were used to assess the performance of both indices. The findings indicated that MRDI achieved an overall accuracy of 97.97% with perfect recall (100%) but lower precision (78.65%). However, the …

Optimizing The Lightweight Steel Fibre Reinforced Bacterial Concrete With Nano-Silica And Coconut Shell Aggregates Using Taguchi Method, Damodaran Pooja, Mayilsamy Yuvaperiyasamy

Mansoura Engineering Journal

Concrete is essential for construction due to its high strength and durability. It supports most modern infrastructure globally. Cement production is a major source of CO₂ emissions, posing serious environmental concerns. Additionally, the rising demand for concrete is straining the limited supply of essential raw materials, such as aggregates. Researchers are examining alternative materials to improve Sustainability while maintaining structural strength to address these issues. This research aims to improve concrete performance by enhancing cement durability with nano-silica. Coconut shell, an agricultural by-product, functions as an eco-friendly alternative to conventional coarse aggregates, alleviating their scarcity. Microbiologically induced calcium carbonate precipitation …