Digital Commons Network^™

Testing Different Methods Of Total Rna Extraction From Candida Albicans For Effective Pcr, Sara Tewoldemedhin, George Gundelach, Patrice Bouyer

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

Candida albicans is a commensal fungal pathogen, and to infect the human body, it must penetrate the intestinal mucosal barrier by changing its morphology from yeast to filamentous. The risk of candida infections increases during pregnancy and estrogen levels are high during pregnancy. Thus, we hypothesized that estrogen could act as a signal for C. albicans to become filamentous. In an ongoing study, we have looked at the effect of estrogen on filamentation, but our approach was qualitative rather than quantitative and could not clearly establish the effect of estrogen on filamentation. To get a better understanding of the effect …

Using Word2vec And N-Grams To Create Shakespearean Texts, Hexin Liu

Symposium on Research and Creative Expression (SORCE)

This research attempts to create poetic texts in the Shakespearean style. Many available technologies can create artworks based on styles of well-known artists. However, it is difficult for the generative models to create texts within the style of a particular author. This study aims to produce sentences in a style of Shakespeare that contain metaphorical meanings without quoting his works. We have trained statistical n-gram models on the complete works of Shakespeare and then used the model to create Shakespearean text. We noticed that, in some cases, the n-gram models will construct sentences that are copied from Shakespeare’s works. We …

Cultivating Resilience In Adolescence: How Educational Environments Can Support Positive Youth Development During Identity Exploration, Heather I. Arndt, Genesis G. Larin, Gladis Abigail Munguia, Henry William Perez, Dianne Preciado

LMU Theses and Dissertations

Adolescence is a critical stage of human development, one that can be especially challenging for teens that are navigating certain vulnerabilities in their identity formation. With the World Health Organization stating that 14% of 10–19 year-olds experience mental health conditions, educational environments are increasingly needed to address mental concerns in their curriculums. This qualitative research project used a combination of art based inquiry and narrative analysis to answer the following question, “How can educational environments promote resilience and positive youth development during adolescent identity exploration?” Findings illuminated several emergent themes that culminated in the following four recommendations for educational environments; …

Trade And Flow Of Value In Global Value Chains, Peijie Wang, Zhiyuan Liu

Plymouth Business School

This paper examines flow of value that goes with trade flows in global value chains (GVCs) by a residence-based domestic value-added trade measure. Accordingly, the paper puts forward a concept of residence-based domestic value-added exports from activity domains and develops a corresponding trade measure. Export activities of G20 economies are scrutinized empirically, with which sizeable differences are observed between figures in the proposed residence-based domestic value-added trade measure and the conventional domestic value-added trade measure. This calls for new measures, to which the present study responds. It has been demonstrated that the developed G20 gains persistently in residence-based domestic value-added …

Everyday Amnesia: Residual Memory For High Confidence Misses And Implications For Decision Models Of Recognition, Christopher J. Berry, David R. Shanks

School of Psychology

Despite studying a list of items only minutes earlier, when reencountered in a recognition memory test, undergraduate participants often say with total confidence that they have not studied some of the items before. Such high confidence miss (HCM) responses have been taken as evidence of rapid and complete forgetting and of everyday amnesia (Roediger & Tekin, 2020). We investigated (a) if memory for HCMs is completely lost or whether a residual memory effect exists and (b) whether dominant decision models predict the effect. Participants studied faces (Experiments 1a, 2, and 3) or words (Experiment 1b), then completed a singleitem recognition …

Second April 2024 Faculty Senate Packet, University Of Nebraska At Kearney Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Packets

No abstract provided.

One-Time Broadscale Sctld Intervention Effectiveness On Montastraea Cavernosa In An Endemic Zone, Amanda Zummo

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Disease intervention using CoralCure with amoxicillin is effective at stopping stony coral tissue loss disease (SCTLD) lesion progression, however, it does not provide protection against reinfection. Prolonging colony survival may require regular visits to treat new lesions should they appear. Intervention activities in southeast Florida were allocated between regular treatment and monitoring of selected priority colonies and broadscale disease interventions. The latter involved strike team divers, who worked in small groups to cover large areas of reef treating all SCTLD lesions observed, tagging the colonies, and recording their locations via a floating GPS. Broadscale disease intervention efforts aimed to maximize …

Euhaplorchis Sp. A Effect On Social Behavior And Familiarity Of Gulf Killifish (Fundulus Grandis), Hannah Bauman

All HCAS Student Capstones, Theses, and Dissertations

Trophically transmitted parasites may manipulate their hosts’ phenotype (e.g., behavior, physiology, morphology) to increase the likelihood of transmission to the definitive host. In fishes, stable social groups develop familiarity over time through repeated interactions among individuals, and social preferences are often developed due to familiarity. Consequently, fishes often shoal with familiar fishes, a behavior that is likely to be protective against predation. Parasites may alter fish social dynamics in two ways: by decreasing association with familiar individuals, thereby isolating infected fish and making them more susceptible to predation by definitive hosts; and/or by incentivizing uninfected individuals to avoid infected fish …

Unintentional Fatal Overdoses And Prior Incarceration, Amy Donley Phd, Alexandria Mcclarty Ba

Institute for Social and Behavioral Science (ISBS)

This report shares analysis of unintentional fatal overdose victims from 2018-2022 in Orange County, Florida who had been incarcerated in the Orange County Jail at least once in the 365 days prior to their death. Specifically, this report examines the number of times the victim had been incarcerated in their lifetime in the jail and if they had flags in their files for mental health, persistent mental health, substance abuse, and/or detoxification. Data for this analysis were provided by Orange County Corrections and the Orange County Medical Examiner.

Proposal: Antioxidants’ Impact On Preventing Oxidative Stress-Related Conditions In Oral Health, Sophia Franco, Beanna Cumella, Emily Lopez-Martin, Julia Birman

Department of Nutrition Student Projects

Oxidative stress-related conditions result from an imbalance of reactive oxygen species (ROS) as harmful free radicals overwhelm our body’s supply of antioxidants. Excess free radicals cause damage to cells, DNA, or protein, creating oxidative stress. The purpose of this presentation is to evaluate the contribution of antioxidant-rich mouthwash in improving the antioxidant capacity of saliva and the prevention of oxidative stress-related conditions in oral health among the adult population. A randomized control trial will be conducted in Nova Southeastern University's dental clinic. A total of 200 participants will be included in the study; 100 will receive the control mouthwash containing …

A System Of Communication Between Two Computers Using Novel Frequency Shift Keying Techniques, Jared Reyes

Honors Thesis

Frequency shift keying (FSK) is an old but powerful form of modulation that powered much of the early modems of the 1960’s, and the author felt inspired to make his own version of audio binary FSK modulation. He researched the general history and legacy of the Bell 103, a modem using FSK that defined telecommunication for the next few decades. Using research of the most common English characters of recent emails to determine which English characters should have the shortest bit length, a novel character encoding standard was created using variable bit rate. In addition, he has created a modulation …

Wmu Board Of Trustees Formal Session ,April 25, 2024, Wmu Board Of Trustees

WMU Board of Trustees Meetings

• Acceptance of the Agenda
• Approval of the Minutes
• Remarks by the President
• Updates by the Faculty Senate President
• Updates by the Western Student Association President
• Presentation: Bronco Challenge for Sustainable Impact
• Public Comments Regarding Action Items

A Benchmark Project On Early Mobility In The Intensive Care Unit, Millicent Odhiambo

MSN Capstone Projects

Introducing early mobility interventions in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) is a crucial measure to improve patient outcomes and optimize care delivery in the critical care setting. The objective of this project is to tackle the difficulties caused by extended periods of immobility in the Intensive Care Unit (ICU), with the aim of diminishing complications, shortening the duration of ICU stays, and enhancing the functional recovery of patients.

Formal Bayesian Approaches To The Sense And Grappa Parallel Fmri Reconstruction Techniques Along With Their Combination, Chase Joseph Sakitis

Dissertations (1934 -)

In fMRI, capturing cognitive temporal dynamics is dependent on how quickly volume brain images are acquired. The sampling time for an array of spatial frequencies to reconstruct an image is the limiting factor in the fMRI process. Parallel imaging techniques Sensitivity Encoding (SENSE), which operates in the image space domain, and GeneRalized Autocalibrating Partial Parallel Acquisition (GRAPPA), which operates in the spatial frequency domain, have been utilized to greatly reduced image acquisition time. In SENSE image reconstruction, coil sensitivities are estimated once from a priori calibration images and used as fixed “known” coil sensitivities for image reconstruction of every subsequent …

Secured Blockchain And Fractional Discrete Cosine Transform-Based Framework For Medical Images, Abhay Kumar Yadav, Virendra P. Vishwakarma

Makara Journal of Technology

Images can store large amounts of data and are useful for transmitting large amounts of information across different geographical locations using different cloud services. This data sharing increases the chances of cyber-attacks on digital images. Blockchain has properties that enable it to work as a solution to this problem, providing enhanced security and unchangeable storage. However, image size poses a challenge in image storage, as it increases the related storage cost. Compressing images using fractional discrete cosine transform (fctDCT) reduces the amount of data required to express an image securely. This paper presents a novel framework for securely storing and …

Focus, 2024, Winter, Andrews University

Focus

FOCUS (ISSN 1077-9345) is published quarterly, free of charge, for alumni and friends of Andrews University, an institution owned and operated by the Seventh-day Adventist Church.

Ordinary Meaning As Last Resort: The Meaning Of "Undue Hardship" In Title Vii, James Phillips

BYU Law Review

Ordinary meaning reigns supreme in modern statutory interpretation. Yet that supremacy can cause an interpreter to miss specialized meaning. And the Supreme Court has never fully clarified when ordinary meaning must give way to specialized or technical meaning.

This Article attempts to provide doctrinal clarification as to when one should use ordinary as opposed to other meanings through putting the doctrinal pieces together in a full and coherent way. That doctrinal clarity leads to a methodological refinement: rather than the starting point, ordinary meaning is the ending point of statutory interpretation.

This Article applies this doctrine and methodology, as well …

Lessening Lacunas: A Genetic Critique And Literary Analysis Of Female Indigenous Characters In Maria Firmina Dos Reis's Gupeva, Xana Furtado

Theses and Dissertations

One year after publishing Úrsula (1860), Maria Firmina dos Reis (Brazil’s first female novelist) published Gupeva, a novella that acts as a continuation of José de Santa Rita Durão’s Caramurú: Poema épico do descubrimento da Bahia (1781). Gupeva depicts the ultimately tragic love between Épica, an indigenous woman, and Gastão, a French sailor. The novella was published twice more during Reis’s lifetime—once in 1863, with minimal orthographic changes, and again in 1865, this time with quite drastic modifications. The editors of Echo da Juventude, where the 1865 version was published, acknowledged these changes by asking readers to be "indulgentes para …

College Students' Perceptions Toward Native And Non-Native Chinese And Spanish Instructors, Xiaoce Ye

Theses and Dissertations

Since the recognition of the distinction between native and non-native language teachers in English Language Teaching (ELT), research has focused on understanding the strengths and weaknesses of both types of instructors. However, limited attention has been given to students' perceptions of native teachers (NSTs) and non-native foreign language teachers (NNSTs) beyond English instruction. This thesis delves into college students' perceptions of native and non-native Chinese and Spanish language instructors in language education, extending beyond the native/non-native English teacher debate. Drawing from existing literature on language teaching, this study contextualizes preferences and biases to provide an understanding of student perceptions. Employing …

Visualizing Intergenerational Kinship: Humor, Grief, And Youth-Led Resurgence In Reservation Dogs, Emily Catherine Huillet

Theses and Dissertations

Audiences have been drawn to Reservation Dogs (2021-2023) because of its life-giving humor and portrayal of contemporary Indigenous realities. Yet the series truly gains its rhetorical power as the creators pair humor with intergenerational kinship to process diverse forms of unresolved grief. In fact, through narrative, the filmmakers map out processing grief and bonding through humor as healthy components of intergenerational kinship, and they position Indigenous youth as leading that balanced approach to kinship. I refer to this artistic rhetorical mapping as visual kinship mapping and I view it as a filmic manifestation of cultural mapping processes described by Leanne …

The Advancement Of Experimental And Computation Tools For The Study Of Molten Salt Chemistry To Facilitate The Extraction Of Strategic Elements In Nuclear Applications, Michael Stoddard

Theses and Dissertations

Nuclear energy presents environmental benefits, yet the challenge of radioactive waste management persists. Advanced solutions, such as Molten Salt Reactors (MSRs), require a more profound understanding of molten salt chemistry. This research aims to develop tools, including a depletion simulator, molten salt electrochemical simulator, and a fluoride-based thermodynamic reference electrode for electrochemical purification. The computationally inexpensive depletion simulator allows for exploration into extraction and processing strategies for molten salt reactors. An illustrative case study on Mo-99 production from MSRs demonstrates the practical application of the theoretical framework, emphasizing the need for optimization in extraction effectiveness and separation difficulty. The electrochemical …

Trip - Transformer Interatomic Potential Predicts Realistic Energy Surface Using Physical Bias, Bryce Eric Hedelius

Theses and Dissertations

Accurate interatomic energies and forces enable high-quality molecular dynamics simulations, torsion scans, potential energy surface mapping, and geometry optimization. Machine learning algorithms have enabled rapid estimates of energies and forces with high accuracy. Further development of machine learning algorithms holds promise for producing general potentials that support dozens of atomic species. I present my own Transformer Interatomic Potential (TrIP): a chemically sound potential based on the SE(3)-Transformer. TrIP's species-agnostic architecture--using continuous atomic representation and homogenous graph convolutions--encourages parameter sharing between atomic species for more general representations of chemical environments, keeps a reasonable number of parameters, serves as a form of …

Leo: A Carrier To Help Increase Disaster Evacuation Compliance Among Cat Owners, Anna Lorino

Honors Theses

My thesis project is Leo: a carrier to help increase disaster evacuation compliance among cat owners. It’s focused on creating a product that helps increase disaster evacuation compliance among cat owners. There’s an increase in the severity and frequency of natural disasters and being able to evacuate ahead of time saves lives and resources. However, 20-30% of people choose not to evacuate because they don’t want to leave their pet behind. Cats are of particular interest because they are sensitive to environmental stress and need to be contained. The main reasons cat owners fail to evacuate with their cat is …

Attentional Alchemy: Crafting Meaning In The Fabric Of Experience ---An Argument From Attention For The Content View, Ling 鳕鱼 张 Zhang

Theses

Abstract: In the realm of philosophy of mind, a central inquiry concerns whether perceptual experiences have content. This paper aims to construct an argument, termed Argument from Attention, which asserts that all visual experiences have content in the minimal sense, drawing upon insights from phenomenological features of attentional experience and mechanisms of attention elucidated in The Erotetic Theory of Attention. To achieve this goal, the paper begins by clarifying the essential features of contentful experience in Section 2. Furthermore, the second subsection scrutinizes Siegel's Argument from Appearances, highlighting the susceptibility of her Weak Content View to the …

The Cowl - V. 88 N. 7 - April 25, 2024

The Cowl

The Cowl - student newspaper of Providence College. Vol. 88 No. 7 - April 25, 2024. 24 pages.

Atoms And Leaves, Patty Tomanovich

Theses

Atoms and Leaves is a photographic project presented as windows into a utopia. The glass images display a potential time and place where the landscape, photography, and transness intertwine and grow from each other. Photography historically harms the landscape- requiring precious metals, releasing pollution into the atmosphere, and creating hazardous water waste. The traditional photographic canon erases the connection between queerness and ecology. Atoms and Leaves rethreads these connections, creating a world where photography collaborates with the landscape and takes on a transgender perspective by reshaping given material. The photographic printing process developed in this project was inspired by the …

Laser Remote Sensor For Oil Palm Fruit Ripeness Assessment, Sing Lim Kok, Rusik Wan Rushdiah, Abd. Hamid Amirul Al-Hafiz, Weng Ooi Cheong, Udos Waldo, Aris Mohd Shiraz, Mohd Yusof Mohd Zulfahmi, Kulaveerasingam Harikrishsna, Yi Chong Wu, Ismail Mohamad Faizal, Ahmad Harith

Research Publications (2021 to 2025)

The color change of oil palm fresh fruit bunches (FFB) is one of the important parameter for harvesting decisions. However, human visual identification is prone to errors due to uncontrolled ambient lighting and the far distance of fruit bunches on tall palm trees. These errors can lead to inaccurate harvesting and significant revenue loss. This study introduces a laser remote sensor for non-destructive FFB ripeness assessment. Based on the unique spectral reflection curves of the FFO at different ripeness, laser modules at three different wavelenghts (visible-NIR region) have been employed for the measurement. The photodetector and laser sources are configured …

Montana Kaimin, April 25, 2024, Students Of The University Of Montana, Missoula

Montana Kaimin, 1898-present

Student newspaper of the University of Montana, Missoula.

Development Of Deployable Arrays For Satellites Through Origami-Pattern Design, Modeling, And Optimization, Nathan Mckellar Coleman

Theses and Dissertations

This research presents methods for modeling and optimizing an origami design using compliant mechanisms, improving origami design processes, modeling and analyzing rolling behavior of compliant designs, and an antenna design for SmallSats. A framework for the optimization of the origami Flasher pattern to mitigate issues with rigid-foldability is shown, and several optimization solutions are presented to overcome these issues. An alternative design method is presented which allows designers to more accurately predict the characteristics of a design in the deployed state, and configurations are shown for an example use case. A model for rolled gossamer structures is presented which predicts …

Full Issue

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.