Digital Commons Network^™

Refining The Use Of Stable Isotope Analysis In Detecting Wildlife Laundering, Kevin Guilfoyle

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The international wildlife trade has caused significant declines in wild populations. Captive breeding can reduce the pressure on wild populations caused by overcollection, but if not properly monitored, wildlife laundering can lead to further population declines. Improving the forensic ability to detect wildlife laundering will assist in monitoring the wildlife trade and enforcing regulations, thereby aiding recovery of wild populations. Stable isotope analysis has grown in importance as a forensic tool, but improvements are needed. Here, stable isotope analysis (δ13C) on eggshells of captive bred and wild sourced island apple snails (Pomacea maculata) distinguished between the two; eggshells of captive …

Variation In Genetic Structure And Dispersal Of Juvenile Green Turtles, Gustavo Stahelin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Sea turtles are long-lived, globally distributed animals with a complex life-history. Individuals from different populations often share the same foraging areas (mixed stock aggregations). Understanding patterns of dispersal and connectivity between reproductive populations and mixed stock aggregations is fundamental for the development of effective conservation plans. Recently, green sea turtle (Chelonia mydas) populations in several reproductive areas have increased, providing an opportunity to evaluate how demographic changes in reproductive areas impact dispersal to, and the composition of, mixed stock aggregations. In this dissertation, I evaluated how dispersal from reproductive populations in the Greater Caribbean to mixed stock aggregations may have …

Lived Experience At Plinkaigalis, Lithuania: An Integrated Approach Using Stable Isotope, Spatial, And Statistical Analyses, Alexandria Orozco

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

The Migration period (4th-7th century AD) represents a time of major sociopolitical change, but relatively little is known about this time in Lithuania's history (Bliujien?, 2013; Jankauskas & Kozlovskaya, 1999). The focus of this dissertation is to understand the lived experiences of individuals interred in the Migration Period cemetery at Plinkaigalis, Lithuania, through integrated analyses of stable isotope, statistical and spatial methods to assess 253 human bone/tooth samples. Isotopic analysis included assessments of stable carbon, nitrogen, and oxygen stable isotope values. Statistical analysis included a MANOVA (Multivariate Analysis of Variance) test. Spatial methods included buffers, kernel density, spatial statistics (Moran's …

Coalition Formation And Beamsteering Optimization For Directional Software-Defined Radios, Sayanta Seth

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Dynamic Spectrum Access (DSA), also known as Dynamic Spectrum Management, is the method of utilizing a set of spectrum techniques in real time to provide the ability to share wireless channels between Primary (or licensed) users (PUs) and Secondary (or unlicensed) users (SUs). The system is so designed that under normal circumstances, the PUs always get priority, but DSA enables the SUs to use the licensed bands as long as they do not create any interference on the PUs. Hence, the goal of utilizing the spectrum more efficiently can be achieved. Though DSA has been researched extensively as a new …

Painting And Fear: The Creation Of Death's Visage, Mark A. Felbinger

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Death's Visage is a feature film that was created from an idea developed due to a personal relationship with an artist, who was a professional illustrator and painter. The film follows a young woman who becomes entrapped in a demonic sphere and time zone where her fear is the demon's gratification. She questions the events that are unfolding, which creates herpsychological turmoil, while taking place in the family home that is in an older established middle-class neighborhood.

Death's Visage was a micro-budgeted film produced for $20,778. The capital needed for this film meets the University of Central Florida Feature Film …

The Stench Of Miasma And The Fragrance Of Daffodils: Reconstructing Historical Scentscapes In Mesopotamia, Samantha N. Levy

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

My thesis interrogates the role that the sense of smell plays in the experience of place, arguing that scent has been virtually ignored in public history contexts. The thesis will review the foundational scholarship on the history of the senses and relate the findings of interdisciplinary research that demonstrates how the senses alter one's understanding of the environment and even the formation of memories. This work is relevant to the field of public history since smell can be used to captivate the public in a memorable—and potentially more authentic—engagement with the Mesopotamian past. To address gaps in the present scholarship, …

The Ghost Of Dunhill: How Commercial Activity Silently Escaped The Act Of State Doctrine, Gabriel D. Kaufman

Case Western Reserve Journal of International Law

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Feasibility Of Machine Learning Techniques In Recognizing Complex Human Activities, Shengnan Hu

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

This dissertation introduces several technical innovations that improve the ability of machine learning models to recognize a wide range of complex human activities. As human sensor data becomes more abundant, the need to develop algorithms for understanding and interpreting complex human actions has become increasingly important. Our research focuses on three key areas: multi-agent activity recognition, multi-person pose estimation, and multimodal fusion.

To tackle the problem of monitoring coordinated team activities from spatio-temporal traces, we introduce a new framework that incorporates field of view data to predict team performance. Our framework uses Spatial Temporal Graph Convolutional Networks (ST-GCN) and recurrent …

Clay As A Control Technique For Karenia Brevis: Water Chemistry Dynamics And Physiological Impacts On Benthic Invertebrates, Victoria Devillier

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Clay-based compounds are globally the most advanced and widely used method of direct suppression of marine harmful algal blooms, and are currently undergoing investigation as an option to control Karenia brevis blooms in Florida. Before clay may be accepted for widespread use, there are multiple concerns and challenges that must be addressed regarding the environmental safety of this method, such as effects on water quality, the fate of toxins, and potential impacts of clay treatment to non-target organisms. To contribute to ongoing assessments of clay as a potential control method for K. brevis blooms, we conducted experiments with a formulation …

Understanding The Interactions Between Conservation Agencies And Rangers: A Mixed-Methods Approach, Christina M. Burton

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Research describing conservation agencies has generally been exploratory and limited in the use of theory. Similarly, organizational theories can provide an understanding for how organizations change and adapt to their given environments, but they have not been applied to conservation agencies with unique challenges and strains from other public bureaucracies or private corporations. In expanding this body of literature, not only were these theories applied conservation agencies, but they were also explored in what Powell and Colyvas (2008, p. 276) called "microfoundations" of organizations, which focuses on the interplay between individuals and organizations. To explore this, a convergent mixed-methods design …

Erasing The Past For Marketability: The Effects Of Selling National Myth In Ybor City's Public Historical Narrative, Janine A. Galindo

Graduate Thesis and Dissertation 2023-2024

Ybor City is a historical neighborhood in Tampa, Florida, and a tourist attraction known for its immigrant roots and once-thriving cigar industry. This thesis places Ybor City into the context of the burgeoning heritage tourism market, examining how cities financially reliant on tourism often sanitize their public historical narrative. I identify the main actors involved in Ybor City's marketing and preservation by investigating contemporary newspaper articles and multiple National Park Service documents, thereby uncovering the motivations and decisions that led to Ybor's cultural image of a bustling, relatively peaceful early 20th-century "Latin" community. To correlate Ybor's aestheticized public image with …

Chronic Exercise And The Treatment Of Progressive Disorders, Kristin Ann Richardson

Wayne State University Dissertations

Exercise is a known, beneficial treatment for a variety of normal (aging) and abnormal (disease) declines in health. These benefits can be observed in a range of tissues, including the brain and muscle, and organelles, such as the mitochondria. Many of the mechanisms through which exercise can promote health in these contexts have recently come to light. However, how these mechanisms can be targeted to promote health in sedentary populations is still under investigation. In Drosophila, stimulation of octopaminergic neurons provides the benefits of endurance exercise to sedentary flies. Neuroplasticity following exercise is one possible mechanism for how octopaminergic activation …

Lanthanide-Based Responsive Contrast Agents For Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Md Mamunur Rashid

Wayne State University Dissertations

This thesis is a collection of seven chapters that discuss the contributions to the field oflanthanide-based contrast agents for magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), particularly in the context of imaging hypoxia and extracellular pH. These physiological changes play a significant role in life-threatening conditions such as cancer, making it essential to develop effective imaging tools to aid in diagnosis and treatment. The thesis provides insights for the rational development of lanthanide-based contrast agents for MRI. A comprehensive review of divalent europium as a tool for imaging hypoxia using magnetic resonance imaging and how coordination chemistry can be used to tune the …

Investigation Of Biomechanical Thresholds Of Mild To Severe Brain Injury Using An Anisotropic Visco-Hyperelastic Finite Element Head Model: Model Development And Simulation Of Impact Injury And Blast Injury, Ding Lyu

Wayne State University Dissertations

Traumatic Brain Injury (TBI) is a significant cause of death and disability in the United States, with approximately 2.5 million emergency department visits, 288,000 hospitalizations, and 56,800 deaths reported to be related to TBI. The majority of TBIs are caused by blunt impacts resulting from falls and motor vehicle crashes. The head injury criterion is the only standard used to assess the safety related to vehicles, personal protective gear, and sports equipment. A new brain injury criterion assessing rotation velocity effect was recently proposed by the US government. Unfortunately, it derivation from animal data scaled to a computer model of …

Meaningful Access To Justice For Customers In The Gig Economy, Andrea Jakubas

Chicago-Kent Law Review

No abstract provided.

Understanding Inflammation, Immunity, And Infection, Jeff Vasiloff, Md, Mph

OHIO Open Faculty Textbooks

Inflammation, immunity, and infection explained by Jeffrey Vasiloff, MD, MPH, Associate Clinical Professor, PA Program; Adjunct Professor, PT Program, College of Health Sciences and Professions, Ohio University Dublin Medical Campus; Physician Consultant: Ohio Association of Physician Assistants; Physician Volunteer: Franklin County & Columbus Medical Reserve Corps; Board Certification: Internal Medicine & Diabetes and Endocrinology.

Prg4/Cd44/Pp2a Signaling Axis: A Significant Regulator Of Gout Arthritis, Sandy Elsayed

Pharmaceutical Sciences (PhD) Dissertations

Introduction: Gout is a common chronic arthritis caused by monosodium urate (MSU) crystal deposition in joints leading to activation of synovial resident macrophages and downstream production of interleukin-1b (IL-1b). Xanthine oxidase (XO) catalyzes purines into uric acid (UA) and reactive oxygen species (ROS) that activate NLRP3 inflammasome. Protein phosphatase-2A (PP2A) may be involved in regulating inflammatory pathways in macrophages. Proteoglycan 4 (PRG4) and its receptor CD44 and its transducer PP2A signaling axis play a biologically significant role in regulating urate crystal inflammation.

Methods: Monocytes and macrophages were primed with TLR2 agonist and stimulated with MSU crystals. Fingolimod (PP2A …

The Impact Of Marginalization On Relations With Law Enforcement And The Criminal Justice System, Angelo Kevin Brown

Faculty Publications

This chapter provides an overview of how critical race theory (CRT) has provided an important context for the racial disparities in the criminal justice system. CRT has promoted teaching the history of the criminal justice system in the United States of America (USA) and abroad from a racial perceptive. CRT scholars emphasize race because of how race and racism have shaped and impacted our society and institutions. CRT has been used to understand issues from police violence, sentencing disparities, school-to-prison pipeline, prison abolitionism, and much more. The CRT framework is especially important when it comes to understanding the disparities and …

Bs Environmental Science, 2023-24, Arkansas State University - Jonesboro

Bachelor of Science and Education

No abstract provided.

Evaluating Food Metrics Of Lanternfishes In Waters Of The Southeastern Pacific Ocean, Carolina Carcamo, Pepe Espinoza, Carlos Canales-Cerro, Stephanny Curaz-Leiva, Ana Brisca Guzman-Castellanos, Ivonne Quintanilla, Fernanda Vargas, Mauricio Zuñiga, Francisco Fernandoy, Patricio Galvez, Rene Vargas, Álvaro Saavedra, Chris Harrod, Eric T. Schultz, Sebastian Klarian

EEB Articles

Using carbon and nitrogen stable isotope values, we analyzed the trophic position (TP) and the isotopic niche width of lanternfishes from three different areas in the Southern Pacific Ocean. Fishes from Perú had slightly higher δ¹³C values compared with fish from Chilean areas. In contrast, δ¹⁵N values increased with latitude (North to South). Myctophids TP differed between the three study areas (highest in Central Chile, lowest in Peru). Peruvian fishes had a smaller isotopic niche than the lanternfishes of those from Chile.

What Are You Doing Here? Unexpected Occurrences Of Knobfin Sculpins (Cottus Immaculatus) In Connecticut, Joshua M. Tellier, Brooke Winsmann, Michael Humphreys, Stella Minoudi, Alexandros Triantafyllidis, Eric T. Schultz

EEB Articles

Reductions in cold-water habitat owing to anthropogenic stressors are focusing attention on indicator fish species. We investigated an apparent range expansion in Connecticut of a native cold-water fish, Slimy Sculpin (Cottus cognatus). Unexpectedly, genetic and morphological analyses identified the new population as a non-native cottid from the Ozark region, the Knobfin Sculpin (C. immaculatus). This is the first record of C. immaculatus outside of its native range. The new occurrences were not recognized for over a decade despite comprehensive watershed inventories by state natural resource managers. The mechanism by which the non-native Knobfin Sculpin first arrived in Connecticut is currently …

Equal Protection Against Policing, Evan D. Bernick

College of Law Faculty Publications

A White police officer pins his knee against a Black man’s neck. The Black man lies prone. He says he can’t move. He says he can’t breathe. He says he’s through. He pleads for his mama. He moans, gasps, and writhes. Blood runs out of his nose and mouth. After eight minutes and forty-six seconds, George Floyd is dead.

Videos of the killing went viral. All four of the Minneapolis Police Department officers who arrested Floyd for allegedly using a counterfeit $20 bill at a convenience store were fired. Derek Chauvin—who held his knee to Floyd’s neck—was initially charged by …

Movement Administrative Procedure, Evan D. Bernick

College of Law Faculty Publications

On April 4, 1946, The Potters Herald, a Thursday weekly dedicated to labor and union news, published an editorial warning readers of pending legislation “which may seriously affect labor” despite not containing a “single word about labor” in its text. This legislation would empower “anti-labor judges” to overturn decisions by the National Labor Relations Board. Despite its neutral appearance, it was in reality designed to “kick [labor and the NLRB] in the teeth” and would result in “a field day for the corporation lawyers.”

The complained-of legislation was the Administrative Procedure Act of 1946 (APA). From today’s vantage point, the …

2022 Annual Town Report Fremont, New Hampshire, Fremont Town Representatives

Fremont, NH Annual Reports

This is an annual report containing vital statistics for a town/city in the state of New Hampshire.

The Primacy Of Openness In Ecological Complexity Theory, Colby Clark

Theses and Dissertations--Philosophy

Five principles are at the foundation of complex systems theory: emergence, openness, contingency, historicity, and indeterminacy. Of those five, the principle of emergence is easily the most prevalent. Simply put, emergence refers to the idea that some wholes cannot be properly accounted for by appealing to individual explanations of the parts that compose it. In ecological complexity theory, the principle of emergence is strongly associated with the self-organizing feedbacks that often identify the structural framework of ecosystems.

Within the last half century, the intense focus on the principle of emergence has engendered the development of many conceptual distinctions that have …

Regulating The Digital Resonance, Hassan Salman

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

The proliferation of automated content moderation in social media has negatively impacted users’ (individuals, businesses, and governments) selfexpressions. Major social media platforms like Facebook act as public forums for billions of users whose content may vary in terms of acceptability and legality. User content is colored by social as well as personal norms, values and experiences. For example, though blasphemy may be objectionable in Poland, it may not be so in France. However, despite facing some mistrust over how Facebook and other platforms handle user data and moderate content, users rely on the entities like Facebook to correctly filter this …

Solar Farms In Georgia: Why We Need To Start Thinking About The End, Erica L. Welsh

Georgia State University Law Review

Despite the lack of a renewable energy mandate or a statewide carbon-cutting goal, Georgia’s renewable energy development, particularly utility-scale solar installations, is expected to increase exponentially. In the rush to join this renewable energy development surge, utilities, solar developers, and local governments must prudently consider how to manage this growth wisely and prevent avoidable costs in preparing for the inevitable decommissioning of these solar installations. Although Georgia is one of the nation’s leading states for solar power with its abundant land and sunshine, it lacks statewide policies addressing decommissioning concerns. A statewide decommissioning policy that requires some form of decommissioning …

Reducing Single-Use Plastic Waste: A Better Alternative To The Reduce Act Tax Proposal, Ryann Wong

UC Law Science and Technology Journal

This article will discuss the relevant and imminent need for government intervention to curb and reduce single-use plastic waste. It will look at the proposed 2019 REDUCE Act and consider potential outcomes and unintended consequences which the proposed plan may bring. The article will analyze the REDUCE Act through a discussion of: how similar policies have fared in the past, a historical survey of single-use plastics in US supply chain practices, how past tax laws have had a disproportionate impact on low-income taxpayers, the current market demands for single-use plastics, and an observation of how other countries are applying tax …

There Is No Such Thing As Circuit Law, Thomas B. Bennett

Faculty Publications

Lawyers and judges often talk about “the law of the circuit,” meaning the set of legal rules that apply within a particular federal judicial circuit. Seasoned practitioners are steeped in circuit law, it is said. Some courts have imagined that they confront a choice between applying the law of one circuit or another. In its strong form, this idea of circuit law implies that each circuit creates and interprets its own body of substantive law that is uniquely applicable to disputes that arise within the circuit’s borders.

This article argues that the notion of circuit law is nonsensical and undesirable …

Judicial Process And Vigilante Federalism, Charles W. "Rocky" Rhodes, Howard M. Wasserman

Faculty Publications

Jon Michaels’ and David Noll’s "Vigilante Federalism" (Cornell Law Review) decries the explosion of state laws that target certain people (women seeking abortions, trans students seeking to use bathrooms, schools trying to teach about race) and rely on private civil litigation by random "any persons" as the exclusive or primary enforcement mechanism. These laws "deputize private actors to wage and win the culture wars," while subordinating marginalized groups.

But Michaels and Noll conflate well-taken substantive constitutional objections to these laws with procedural issues surrounding the private enforcement mechanism, which is neither unique nor constitutionally problematic. States have long authorized private …