Digital Commons Network^™

The Role Of The Avian Medial Hippocampal Formation In High-Similarity Spatial Discrimination, Alexandre Lebel

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Similar stimuli can create spatial-perceptual challenges, thus leading to errors in recall. To combat this interference, organisms rely on processes within the hippocampal formation (HF) that support the discrimination of highly similar memories. In mammals, memory interference is thought to be reduced by decreasing the correlation between traces of similar events; a process termed pattern separation, often by the dentate gyrus. The extent to which birds, which have granule cells (GCs) but lack a dentate gyrus, utilize HF-dependent mechanisms to mitigate memory retrieval errors remains unclear. This study investigates the role of the triangular region and area V (proposed homologs …

Find My Friends: Investigating Peer Direction In The Degu Retrosplenial Cortex, Angela T.N. Le

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

In most species, social interaction depends on spatial proximity and the dynamics of approach can signal intention. While representations of others’ spatial locations have been found in areas like the hippocampus, we still have a limited understanding of how the brain uses these to guide social movement. The retrosplenial cortex (RSC) integrates spatial information from both hippocampus and posterior parietal cortex and may help link this information with motor control systems. We recorded neuron activity from the RSC of degus while they freely interacted with one or two peers. Similar to other species, we identified a robust population of head-direction …

Endogenous Light In The Brain: Investigating Sources, Propagation, And State-Dependent Emission, Emre Cicek

Theses and Dissertations (Comprehensive)

Ultraweak photon emission (UPE), and by extension light, has long been thought to be a modality of communication in nature. Prior studies have already identified that UPE can depend on cell type and can be used to discern between malignant and benign cells. However, besides theoretical models, not much effort has been made to identify possible biological structures that would allow for light to be used as a method of communication in the human body. According to the framework set by Shannon’s Information Theory, for communication to be possible at minimum a transmitter, a transmission channel, and a receiver are …

Optimizing Human Fcrn Mouse Models To Improve Pharmacokinetic Evaluation Of Antibody Drug Candidates., Gregory J. Christianson, Zachary M Howard, Samantha Kenney, Emily Lowell, Nijaguna Bethur, Derry C. Roopenian, Elena Gonzalo-Gil

Faculty Research 2026

The use of animal models that can reliably predict drug performance in human patients is critical to antibody therapeutic development. Along with assessing toxicity and efficacy, determining the pharmacokinetic (PK) properties of therapeutics in Tg32 and Tg276 mice is essential to preclinical characterization. While Tg32 mice have been well established as indispensable in their ability to model the PK properties of antibody therapeutics, their intact immunity leaves them capable of mounting anti-drug antibody responses that interfere with PK interpretation. Here, we demonstrate the negative impact anti-drug responses can have on PK parameters derived from Tg32 mice, and provide strong evidence …

Optimizing Human Fcrn Mouse Models To Improve Pharmacokinetic Evaluation Of Antibody Drug Candidates., Gregory J. Christianson, Zachary M Howard, Samantha Kenney, Emily Lowell, Nijaguna Bethur, Derry C. Roopenian, Elena Gonzalo-Gil

Faculty Research 2026

The use of animal models that can reliably predict drug performance in human patients is critical to antibody therapeutic development. Along with assessing toxicity and efficacy, determining the pharmacokinetic (PK) properties of therapeutics in Tg32 and Tg276 mice is essential to preclinical characterization. While Tg32 mice have been well established as indispensable in their ability to model the PK properties of antibody therapeutics, their intact immunity leaves them capable of mounting anti-drug antibody responses that interfere with PK interpretation. Here, we demonstrate the negative impact anti-drug responses can have on PK parameters derived from Tg32 mice, and provide strong evidence …

Sustainable – Low-Cost - Upgrade Of Activated Sludge Process For Nitrogen And Phosphorus (N&P) Removal From Wastewater, Abanoub N. Basta

Theses and Dissertations

Many municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) in developing countries were designed primarily for organic matter and suspended solids removal and therefore face increasing difficulty in meeting modern nitrogen (N) and phosphorus (P) discharge requirements. Conventional biological nutrient removal upgrades commonly require additional reactor volume, recirculation systems, aeration energy, and capital investment. Accordingly, sustainable retrofit strategies that improve nutrient removal within existing treatment footprints are increasingly needed, particularly in water-scarce and land-constrained regions.

This study investigated the integration of water hyacinth (Eichhornia crassipes) into the aeration stage of an activated sludge process as a hybrid nature-based enhancement for nitrogen and phosphorus …

Steroid Receptor Coactivator 3-Deficient Regulatory T Cells Eradicate Multiple Solid Tumors In Syngeneic Mouse Models, Nuri Sung, Eunsu Kim, Yosef Gilad, Yuri Park, Adam M Dean, Yan Xia, Jianming Xu, Clifford C Dacso, David M Lonard, Sang Jun Han

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Steroid receptor coactivator 3 (SRC-3) is highly expressed in regulatory T cells (Tregs) and is important for their immunosuppressive activity. Recently, we demonstrated that disrupting SRC-3 expression in Tregs eliminates triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) and prostate cancer in syngeneic animal models by generating an anti-tumor immune microenvironment without inducing immune-related adverse events (irAEs). Further analysis of these mice revealed that SRC-3 knockout (KO) Tregs infiltrated breast tumors and facilitated the infiltration of CD8

Port And Vessel Communication Traffic Intrusion Detection: A Variational Autoencoder‑Enhanced Multilayer Perceptron Approach, Chien-Lin Chiang, Hsien-Cheng Chou, Ming-Yuan Peng, Yi-Yuan Chiang, Yu-Shun Liu

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Port and vessel networks increasingly operate on IP/Ethernet backbones with high‑noise, high‑dimensional traffic. We present a lightweight hybrid intrusion‑detection model that couples a variational autoencoder (VAE) with a multilayer perceptron (MLP) and augments training with a boundary‑oriented latent‑space mixup strategy. The VAE models the distribution of normal traffic and identifies anomalies through reconstruction errors. Subsequently, it generates robust latent vectors, enabling the MLP to perform highly accurate supervised classification. On the UNSW‑NB15 dataset, the proposed pipeline attains ≥97% accuracy and an outstanding recall of 99.56% in binary intrusion detection, and visualization of the latent space (PCA) together with reconstruction‑error analyses …

Sar Ship Detection Based On Shallow Feature Guidance, Chenxu Xia, Peng Chen, Ya Zhang, Ying Li

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Maritime ship detection is of great significance for both military security and civilian applications. Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR), with its all-weather and all-day imaging capability, plays a vital role in maritime surveillance. Nevertheless, SAR ship targets typically appear small in scale, embedded in complex backgrounds, blurred at boundaries, and easily confused with near-shore features, which pose substantial challenges for accurate detection. To address these issues, we propose a SAR ship detection network that integrates dual enhancements of small-object representation and edge information. The network introduces two key components: the Small Target Refine Pyramid (STRP) to strengthen shallow feature representation for …

The Hemostatic Properties Of Green Plasma, David J. Sun

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

Knowledge, Attitudes, And Practices (Kap) Of Parents Regarding The Prevention And Control Of Childhood Iron Deficiency Anemia In Egypt: A Cross-Sectional Study, Omnia Soliman

Theses and Dissertations

Childhood Iron Deficiency Anemia (IDA) remains a major public health challenge in Egypt, where its persistently high and rising prevalence carries substantial consequences for child growth, cognitive development, immunity, and long-term health outcomes. Globally, approximately 40% of children aged 6–59 months are affected by anemia (World Health Organization, 2025), and Egypt mirrors this burden, with national data showing a worsening trend in recent years. In Egypt, national strategies have traditionally focused on biomedical interventions such as iron supplementation and food fortification, while less attention has been directed toward behavioral and household-level determinants, particularly parental knowledge, attitudes, and practices (KAP) related …

The People, The Branches, And The Pearl Of Independence, Brian C. Murchison

Hofstra Law Review

What will be the fate of the independent agencies? Since 1887, Congress has seen fit to address an array of contemporary issues by creating expert federal agencies, such as the Interstate Commerce Commission, the Federal Trade Commission, the National Labor Relations Board, and others. The principal officers of these agencies are appointed by the President on advice and consent of the Senate, serve limited staggered terms, are bipartisan in the sense that only a bare majority of the agency’s officers can be members of the same political party, and are “independent” in the sense that the officers are removable only …

Methods For Tagging Whale Sharks: Insights Into Performance And Best Practices With A Focus On Clamp Attachments, Freya C. Womersley, Sofia Green, Alberto Garcia-Baciero, Ronan Conlon, Amy L. Jeffries, Matt J. Waller, Sara S. Ratão, Nuno Queiroz, Pedro Afonso, Gonzalo Araujo, Adam Barnett, Christine Barry, Michael L. Berumen, Farukhkha Bloch, Ginevra Boldrocchi, Camrin D. Braun, Ryan Caillouet, Constance Chapman, Jesse E.M. Cochran

Faculty Publications

Background: Biologging and telemetry have transformed our understanding of marine megafauna movement ecology. Yet, methodological constraints continue to limit data quality and deployment duration. Devices recording whale shark (Rhincodon typus) behaviours and movements have been used for decades, but they remain challenging to deploy and vary in success. Recently, spring-loaded clamp-based systems have emerged as one of the most widely used approaches to attach electronic tags to the fins of this globally endangered species. Currently, however, no consensus guidelines exist as to how to optimise this approach, potentially leading to continued underperforming deployments limiting analysis potential. Here, we synthesise experiences …

The Willing And The Compelled: How Power And Place Shape Human-Bison Coexistence In Poland And The United States, Patrick Orville Kelly

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Wildlife recovery programs depend not just on animals, but on how people feel about living with them. The degree to which people accept the disruptions wildlife brings to their lives, known as social tolerance, can determine whether a recovery program succeeds or fails, yet it remains understudied and underapplied in management plans. This dissertation studies how people in Poland and the western United States feel about living with the two living species of bison, the largest land animals in Europe and North America. In Poland, we surveyed 242 residents living at different distances from European bison habitat. Surprisingly, the most …

Wildfire And Fuel Treatments In Utah: A Practical Guide And Outcomes From An Oak-Maple Ecosystem, Annie E. Prescott

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Wildfire is a natural part of Utah’s landscapes, but as wildfires become more extreme and communities continue to expand into wildland areas, it is increasingly important to understand how wildfires behave and how their negative effects can be mitigated. One way to reduce wildfire risks and protect life, property, and ecosystem services is through fuel treatments — actions that reduce the amount and arrangement of flammable vegetation through mechanical removal, wildland fire, or other methods.

Information on wildfire behavior and fuel treatments is abundant but often scattered, ecosystem-specific and difficult to access. In addition, most research in the Western U.S. …

Infestation By Phorid Flies Disrupts Behavior And Immune Function In Honey Bees Monitored By Radio-Frequency Identification, Gloria Ruiz-Guzmán, Oliverio Delgado-Carrillo, Francisco J. Balvino-Olvera, María De Jesús Aguilar-Aguilar, Violeta Patiño-Conde, Paulo De Souza, Ulises Olivares-Pinto, Mauricio Quesada

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Honey bees (Apis mellifera Linnaeus) are important pollinators in natural and agricultural ecosystems and play a key role in global food production. However, colonies are increasingly affected by multiple stressors, including emerging parasites, which can compromise their health and performance. Among these, phorid flies (Diptera: Phoridae) have been observed in association with weak or collapsing honey bee colonies in various regions in Mexico, yet their effects on honey bee behavior and immune function under field conditions remain poorly understood. In this study, we investigated the impact of a phorid fly infestation on the behavior, survival, and immune defense of A. …

The Relationship Between Dietary Sodium Intake And Cognitive Function: A Narrative Review, Samantha L. Gardener, M. Fu, L. Morini, T. Schwartzkopff, G. Savage, R. N. Martins, S. R. Rainey-Smith

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Purpose of Review: This narrative review provides discussion on current evidence regarding the relationship between sodium intake and cognitive function in animal and human studies, as well as potential mechanisms underlying this relationship. Recent Findings: Recent evidence suggests high sodium intake is associated with development of cognitive impairment and neural dysfunction. Additionally, studies have proposed that high sodium intake is associated with increased aggregation of Aβ-amyloid and that hypertension (for which high sodium intake is a risk factor) modulates the relationship between Aβ-amyloid and development of cognitive impairment and Alzheimer’s disease. However, while animal studies demonstrate a consistent relationship between …

Sarcomerogenesis: Evidence, Context And Key Stimuli—Response To The Commentary By Power Et Al., Anthony J. Blazevich, Walter Herzog, João Pedro Nunes

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

No abstract provided.

Weathering The Divide: Social Determinants, Neighborhood Context, And Systemic Lupus Erythematosus Among African American Women, Vanessa Cl Morman

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Background: Systemic lupus erythematosus (SLE) disproportionately affects African American women and contributes to racial health disparities in the United States. Although genetic susceptibility influences disease risk, growing evidence suggests that social determinants of health (SDOH), including neighborhood conditions, structural racism, and socioeconomic disadvantage, contribute to disease development and progression. Epigenetic mechanisms may provide a biological pathway linking adverse social conditions to chronic disease disparities. This dissertation examined the influence of SDOH on SLE disparities through evidence synthesis and empirical investigation to inform public health practice and policy.

Methods: This integrated learning experience consisted of three complementary manuscripts. Aim 1 was …

Leveraging Mammal Mycophagy To Determine Environmental Drivers Of Truffle Diversity, Brittany Hartsock

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many mycorrhizal fungi are hypogeous (truffle-forming), producing underground fruiting bodies. Studying truffles is inherently challenging due to their hidden nature. However, mycophagous mammals provide a unique opportunity to study hypogeous fungi because they rely on truffles as a food source. Although several truffle species have recently been described in the southern Appalachian region, their fruiting patterns remain poorly understood. To address this, we quantified truffle richness and spore loads from 670 Peromyscus scat samples collected across 42 sites spanning an environmental gradient during 2024 in the Blue Ridge Mountains of East Tennessee. We found that truffle richness and spore abundance …

Implementation And Effectiveness Of A Food Education Intervention To Promote Plant-Based Foods: A Partially Cluster-Randomized Controlled Trial, Henna Vepsäläinen, Satu Kinnunen, Sari Niinistö, Leena Forma, Suvi T. Itkonen, Tuuli E. Korhonen, Liisa Korkalo, Heli Kuusipalo, Jelena Meinilä, Kaija Nissinen, Susanna Raulio, Ros Sambell, Mari Åkerlund, Suvi M. Virtanen, Maijaliisa Erkkola

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: Legumes can substitute for meat and are thus a particularly important food group for environmental sustainability. As the use of legumes among Finnish children is marginal, there is potential for a substantial increase in their consumption. However, food education delivered through early childhood education and care (ECEC) settings has rarely focused specifically on environmentally sustainable foods, such as legumes. This study describes the implementation and effectiveness of an ECEC-delivered food education intervention within the FoodStep study. Methods: The partially cluster-randomized FoodStep intervention aimed to increase the supply of vegetables, legumes, fruits, berries, and sustainable fish while reducing the provision …

Study Of Fast Switching Metastable-State Photoacids And Controlled Drug Release From Polycaprolactone (Pcl) Vascular Scaffold, Rana Salman Abbood Abbood

Theses and Dissertations

Metastable-state photoacid (mPAH) has become a common tool for controlling and driving chemical processes with light. mPAHs with fast reverse reactions are desirable for precise temporal control or generating quick pulses of proton concentration. In this work, different approaches towards fast reversing mPAHs are studied. Experimental and computational results showed that stabilizing the charge–transfer intermediate is an effective way to increase the rate. A novel mPAH with a reverse reaction ≈500 times faster than the most widely used mPAH in methanol has been developed. Another water-soluble mPAH exhibited a reverse reaction with a rate constant of 7.8 s−1, the fastest …

A Critical Review Of Pharmaceutical Pollutants In Soil And Air: Ecotoxicological Impacts On Animal, Plant And Microbial Communities - Health Hazards And Waste Management, Md Faisal Amin, Md. Saydur Rahman

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences Faculty Publications

Pharmaceutical contamination in soil and air has become a critical environmental concern due to its widespread sources, complex behavior, and long-lasting ecological impacts. This review comprehensively explores the presence, fate, and effects of pharmaceutical compounds in soil, highlighting their entry routes, environmental persistence, and biological consequences. Pharmaceuticals infiltrate terrestrial and aquatic environments through various pathways, including agricultural application, pharmaceutical manufacturing waste, sewage sludge, hospital and household discharges, irrigation with contaminated water, and atmospheric deposition. A wide range of drug classes, such as antibiotics, analgesics, non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drugs, antidepressants, anticancer drugs, and hormones, have been identified in both soil and air …

Individual And Household Factors Associated With Tungiasis In A Marginalized Population In Karamoja, Northeastern Uganda, Lynne Elson, Abneel K. Matharu, Berrick Otieno, Hermann Feldmeier, Charles Waiswa, Amina Abubakar, Jürgen Krücken, Ulrike Fillinger, Francis Mutebi

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Background: Tungiasis is a neglected tropical skin disease caused by adult female fleas which burrow into the skin of people and animals, causing considerable pain and itching. The distribution of the disease is heterogeneous, with Napak district, Karamoja sub-region of northeastern Uganda having the highest disease burden recorded globally. We aimed to determine the factors associated with this high prevalence to inform future intervention strategies. Methods: We conducted a cross-sectional study to identify factors associated with infection of individual children and adults, and a nested case–control study to identify factors for whole households (families). Infected children were identified through mass-screening …

A Projector-Rank Partition Theorem For Exact Degrees Of Freedom In Experimental Design, K. G. Nagananda

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

In many experimental designs—split-plots, blocked or nested layouts, fractional factorials, and studies with missing or unequal replication—standard ANOVA procedures no longer tell us exactly how many independent pieces of information each effect truly contributes. We provide a general degrees of freedom (df) partition theorem that resolves this ambiguity. For N observations, we show that the total information in the data (i.e., N −1 df) can be split exactly across experimental effects and randomization strata by projecting the data onto each stratum and counting the df each effect contributes there. This yields integer df—not approximations—for any mix of fixed and random …

Mtorc2-Nav1.2 Signaling Drives Early Hyperexcitability In Alzheimer’S Disease Mouse Model, Nolan M Dvorak, Jeffrey L Noebels

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Hyperexcitability is a biomarker of early-stage Alzheimer’s Disease (AD) and hastens cognitive decline later in its course. Mechanistic target of rapamycin (mTOR) signaling contributes to the slope of this trajectory, as evidenced by early increased brain expression and the rescue of hyperexcitability by genetic deletion of mTOR complex 2 (mTORC2); however, a molecular mechanism directly linking mTOR signaling to membrane hyperexcitability in early-stage AD remains elusive. Here, we show that hyperactive mTOR signaling stimulates the voltage-gated Na+ channel 1.2 (Nav1.2), a previously identified downstream phosphorylation target of mTORC2 and a key regulator of membrane electrogenesis. Augmented Nav1.2 channel function induced …

Harnessing Digital Twin (Dt) Technology For Food Security And Climate Resilience In Sub-Saharan Africa (Ssa), Henri E.Z. Tonnang, Francis Chianu, Siyabusa Mkuhlani, Francis Muthoni, John Michael Humphries Choptiany, Franck B.N. Tonle, Bonoukpoe M. Sokame, Mercy Lung’Aho

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) faces chronic food insecurity despite possessing approximately 60% of the world’s uncultivated arable land. Field trials generate evidence but are costly and insufficiently scaled to address accelerating climate and demographic pressures. Digital twin (DT) technology, defined as the continuous, bidirectional virtual replication of physical systems using real-time data, supports monitoring, modelling, and optimisation of agrifood systems. To our knowledge, however, no published synthesis has examined DT agriculture research through the lens of SSA food systems or smallholder farming realities. A PRISMA-compliant systematic review was conducted across bibliographic databases using a pre-defined Boolean search and adapted PICOS eligibility …

Biomechanical Gait Analysis To Classify Neurological Gait Scores In A Spina Bifida Sheep Model, Shreya Pandiri

Summer Research Program Abstracts

No abstract provided.

The Two Fridas: How The Use Of Semiotics Reflects The Social History Of Mexico In Frida Kahlo’S Work, Raquel Maria Botteon Martins

SPARK Symposium Presentations

Frida Kahlo and Diego Rivera are often credited as having played a crucial role in establishing a Mexican avant-garde. According to the Denver Art Museum’s statement for the exhibition Frida Kahlo, Diego Rivera, and Mexican Modernism, their body of work often incorporated portrayals of mexicanidad, an identity born of Mexico’s ancient cultures and its colonial past that projected a visionary future. The use of mexicanidad imagery started with the efforts to create a new national art, following the Mexican revolution, when the country used public and socially effective art to communicate new ideals of identity.  Through the analysis of …

Keyframe Selection From Motion Capture Data With Dual-Agent Reinforcement Learning, Kun Hu, Wang, Clinton Mo, Mingyang Ma, Shaohui Mei, Zebin Chen, Zhiyong Wang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Animation production workflows centered around motion capture techniques require animators to edit motions based on a set of keyframes. However, most existing keyframe selection methods are optimization-based, which suffer from the issues of flexibility and efficiency. In this paper, a novel deep reinforcement learning method with dual agents are proposed for unsupervised keyframe selection. First, an S-Agent and an R-Agent evaluate the actions of selection and refinement, respectively. A deep spatio-temporal network, namely graph keyframe evaluation network (GKEN), is proposed for the agents. Then, an animation specified reward is devised based on reconstruction, which fulfills three important properties of the …