Digital Commons Network^™

Urban Climatic And Health Impacts Of Aerosols, Yuezhi Li

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Aerosols, also known as particulate matter (PM), strongly influence the climate and pose considerable risks to human health. As short-lived climate forcers, aerosols alter the Earth’s radiative budget by absorbing and scattering incident solar radiation, thereby affecting global and regional temperatures, atmospheric circulation, cloud formation, and precipitation patterns. From a public health perspective, exposure to particulate matter, particularly fine and ultrafine particles, has been associated with a wide range of adverse outcomes, including respiratory diseases, neurodegenerative disorders, and premature mortality. In addition, aerosols can transport pathogens and represent a critical pathway for the transmission of airborne infectious diseases. Despite contributing …

Functionalization Of The Amine Group For Access To 4-Imidazolidinone-Sulfadiazine Hybrid Derivatives And Study Of Their Biological Activities, Sabaa A. Yousif, Rafid S. Dawood

Baghdad Science Journal

The work successfully synthesized twelve novel derivatives of 4-imidazolidinone bearing a sulfadiazine moiety using a one-pot reaction. This was done by condensation of sulfadiazine with twelve different aldehydes to afford the corresponding imines as intermediates, which were then followed by a cyclization reaction with glycine to furnish the desired products 1-12 in 56-85% yields. The structures of these products were identified by FT-IR and ¹H NMR spectroscopy. In addition, a number of the produced compounds demonstrated diverse antibacterial and antioxidant activities. In terms of the antibacterial activity, the compounds 1, 2, 3, 4, …

Synthesis, Characterization, And Biological Evaluation Of A New Azo Dye Ligand 1-[2,4,6-Trihydroxy-3-(2-Hydroxy-Phenylazo)-Phenyl-Ethanone] And Its Complexes With Co(Ii), Ni(Ii), Cu(Ii), Zn(Ii), And Cd(Ii), Ban Hasan Al-Agele, Areej Kamal Assim Aldabbagh

Baghdad Science Journal

1-[2,4,6-trihydroxy-3-(2-hydroxy-phenylazo)-phenyl-ethanone] is a new azo dye ligand (H₂L), which was used to form a number of new azo dye-metal complexes by reaction with salt chlorides of Co, Ni, Cu, Zn and Cd(II). The complexes were characterized using mass spectroscopy, infrared analysis, ultraviolet-visible spectrophotometry, ¹H-, ¹³C-NMR spectroscopy, conductivity, magnetic susceptibility, DSC, TGA, C.H.N., metal content, and melting point. The results highlighted the ligand's trigonal behavior and that all the complexes yielded tetrahedral geometry, with the exception of Co and Ni, which produced octahedral geometry. They are all non-electrolytic. The compounds' capacity to function as antioxidants was used …

Dynamic Reconstruction Engineering Of Anti-Corrosion Ni-Based Anodes For Alkaline Seawater Electrolysis, Yi-Gang Zhang, Wen-Wen Xu, Tian-Yu Zhang, Zhi-Yi Lu

Journal of Electrochemistry

Green hydrogen production via alkaline seawater electrolysis offers an environmentally sustainable and potentially cost-effective route to address both energy and climate challenges. Achieving long-term anode stability under complex ionic environments and industrial current densities remains a central bottleneck. Specifically, Ni-based anodes exhibit intense surface reconstruction during the oxygen evolution reaction, necessitating dynamic anti-corrosion strategies. This mini review systematically summarizes reconstruction engineering approaches to develop anti-corrosion Ni-based anodes of alkaline seawater electrolysis across increasingly complex ionic environments from simulated seawater to real seawater: (i) Cl^– dominated; (ii) Cl^– with co-existing oxyanions, and (iii) Cl^–  with co-existing Br^{– …}

Preparation And Performance Study Of In-Situ Self-Assembled Biphasic Smmn2O5-Nimn2O4 Composite Cathode, Neng-Chu Xia, Yu Zhou, Qin Wang, Jia-You Zhang, Chun Yu, Yang Zhang, Wan-Bing Guan, Jian-Xin Wang

Journal of Electrochemistry

Mullite-structured oxides exhibit excellent oxygen reduction reaction activity, possess a low thermal expansion coefficient due to their unique crystal structure, and can eliminate the need for a barrier layer and simplify the preparation process as they contain no alkaline earth elements. Thus, they hold great promise as novel cathode materials for solid oxide fuel cells. In this work, a mullite-spinel-structured SmMn₂O₅-NiMn₂O₄ (SMO-NMO) composite cathode was one-step synthesized via a solid-liquid composite route, and its in-situ self-assembly enabled good compatibility with the electrolyte without any barrier layer. Characterization results showed that the SMO:NMO = …

In Situ Stm Visualization Of Molecular Structural Evolution During Electrochemical Oxidation Coupling Of Para-Aminothiophenol On Au(111), Zi-Wei Ma, Tai-Rui Wu, An-Ni Zheng, Lai-Ke Chen, Yuan-Hui Xiao, Zhao-Bin Chen, Qing-Na Zheng, Jian-Zhang Zhou, Jia-Wei Yan, De-Yin Wu

Journal of Electrochemistry

Para-aminothiophenol (PATP) is not only a widely-used probe molecule in the field of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS), but also an important model molecule for interfacial reactions, exhibiting distinct photo- and electro-oxidation pathways, so that PATP is selectively activated under different external fields. The evolution of products and intermediates during electrochemical oxidative coupling remains unknown. In this study, we have investigated the dynamic electrochemical oxidation process of PATP on the Au(111) surface using cyclic voltammetry, electrochemical (EC)-SERS, and in situ electrochemical scanning tunneling microscopy (EC-STM). The results showed that PATP forms an unsaturated adsorption coverage on Au(111) in an acidic solution. …

Load Balancing Algorithms For Cloud Computing Systems, Mark Rakesh Christian

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2020 - Present

Cloud computing depends on load balancing to allocate user requests among virtual machines (VMs), affecting response time, utilization, and scalability. Round Robin, Equally Spread Current Execution, and standard Throttled scheduling are widely used; however, standard Throttled selects among eligible VMs using an implementation-dependent order with no explicit preference. This thesis proposes the Weighted Throttled Load Balancing (WTLB) algorithm, which introduces an explicit, deterministic selection priority among eligible VMs, implemented by modifying the Throttled scheduler within CloudAnalyst.

Evaluated under an identical six-region, multi-data-center configuration against Round Robin, ESCE, and standard Throttled, WTLB preserves the aggregate response-time, processing-time, and cost profile of …

Acute Inflammation At Host-Biomaterial Interfaces: Development Of Neutrophil-Mediating Therapeutics And Biomaterials, Evan Norman Main

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Neutrophils, key mediators of the acute host response to implanted biomaterials, engage in inflammatory signaling, form neutrophil extracellular traps (NETs), and generate reactive oxygen species (ROS). Upon contact with foreign materials, neutrophils release pro-inflammatory cytokines and chemokines that recruit additional immune cells and promote pro-inflammatory phenotypes in neutrophils and macrophages. Neutrophils may also undergo NETosis, a process involving the release of chromatin-based NETs to sequester and degrade foreign material. In excess, NET formation can impede tissue integration by physically isolating biomaterial surfaces while amplifying inflammation through the release of degradative enzymes and inflammatory mediators. Neutrophil-derived ROS contribute to oxidative stress …

Essays In Real Estate Finance: Risk, Frictions And Market Outcomes, Jason De Freitas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This dissertation consists of two essays in empirical real estate that examine how risk and market frictions shape asset valuation and market outcomes, using real estate markets as the primary empirical setting. The first essay investigates how localized crime risk influences the capitalization of urban green infrastructure into residential property values. The second essay examines how market frictions and local risk conditions affect the timing of asset disposition in distressed property markets. The first essay investigates how crime, as a localized risk factor, influences the capitalization of urban green infrastructure into residential property values. While greenlines and greenways are typically …

Constructing Heroes In The Classroom: A Rhetorical Analysis Of Abeka’S Evangelical K-12 Curriculum, Jeff S. Miller

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

This study critically analyzes the rhetoric of four textbooks published by Abeka, Inc., a popular producer of curriculum for both American evangelical Christian K-12 school and homeschoolers through the lens of heroic rhetoric and anthropologist Ernest Becker’s hero systems, examining institutions’ and communities’ rhetorical construction of hero systems that provide or claim to provide relief to members’ mortality anxiety. Hero systems for each of the four textbooks are identified and examined for the ways that they function to build and maintain power hierarchies. Additionally three significant thematic threads of what constitutes heroism are identified in the textbook: biblicism, unidirectional influence, …

The Evolution Of Regulatory Architectures Underlying Phenotypic Plasticity, Shweta Agarwal

Biology ETDs

Phenotypic plasticity refers to a mechanism where a single genotype results in distinct phenotypes in response to distinct environments, making it a key mechanism for persistence under environmental change. Phenotypic plasticity can arise from two distinct regulatory architectures: epistatically regulated plasticity or environmentally sensitive loci. The evolutionary forces shaping these architectures remain unclear. I use the recombination modifier framework to explore how the regulatory architecture of plasticity evolves across a range of selection regimes, including the rate of environmental change and the costs and benefits of plasticity. I find that the evolution of the regulatory architecture of phenotypic plasticity requires …

Autotrophic And Heterotrophic Contributions To Soil Co2 Fluxes And Variability In A Chihuahuan Desert Grassland, Savannah B. Sanchez

Biology ETDs

Drylands are major drivers of interannual variability in the global terrestrial carbon sink, and their influence is expected to increase as climate change promotes the expansion of hotter and drier regions. Predicting the consequences of these shifts remains challenging because ecosystem models are largely developed for mesic systems, which differ from drylands in water and nutrient availability, decomposition rates, respiration dynamics, and microbial communities. Improving our understanding of carbon cycling in drylands is therefore critical. This research focuses on soil CO₂ efflux, a major pathway of terrestrial carbon release driven by plant root respiration and microbial decomposition. I investigated the …

Control Of Reshock In A Shock Tube, Alexander Sweis

Mechanical Engineering ETDs

Reshocks can pose a threat to the structural integrity of structures and buildings. While incident shock waves pose larger threats, the study of reshocks and reshock attenuation is important to consider. This thesis investigates methods for controlling and attenuating reshock strength within a shock tube through material-based damping and modifications to baffle box geometric configurations. Experiments are performed using a custom-built shock tube in the University of New Mexico fluid mechanics laboratory. Four baffle box configurations are examined: a foam-lined configuration, a foam-lined configuration with ”egg crate-like” textured foam, an empty (no foam) configuration, and a configuration which incorporates a …

A Contextual And Sonic Analysis Of John Coltrane’S First Meditations, Matt Lind

Music ETDs

This thesis presents a contextual and sonic analysis of John Coltrane’s album First Meditations recorded in 1965. I use methods based on Dora Hanninen’s A Theory of Music Analysis to examine sonic and contextual aspects of Coltrane’s playing, including varying timbres, rhythmic tendencies, and contextual relationships in musical material. I consider pitch material from the perspective of “outside” playing, rather than traditional harmonic analysis. Considering areas of pitch, rhythm, and timbre allows the visualization of these features across each track in the album in five musical “plots.”

Helmholtz Reciprocity In Bidirectional Y-Junction Couplers, Hosuk Lee

Optical Science and Engineering ETDs

This thesis explores the light propagation characteristics in Y-junction couplers based on the Helmholtz reciprocity principle. The Helmholtz reciprocity principle is a crucial concept in optical system design, and it has primarily been understood based on input-output symmetry. However, this study emphasizes reciprocity needs to consider the entire system, beyond the traditional input-output symmetry reciprocity interpretation. For this study, we specifically examined the direction-dependent asymmetrical outputs, in the Whistle-geometry Ring Laser (WRL) structure. And the WRL results cannot be fully explained by simple input-output symmetry for reciprocity. The Y-junction coupler in the WRL structure makes different output characteristics based on …

Regenerative Writing: The Rhetorics Of Indigenous Futurisms As Pedagogical Praxis, Madeline R. Mendoza

English Language and Literature ETDs

This dissertation explores how land-based writing and Indigenous Futurisms can reshape writing pedagogy in higher education, focusing on English courses at the University of New Mexico. At the center of this project is the Land Memoirs assignment, which I designed to encourage students to engage land as a living relative and active participant in the learning process. Through the frameworks of Indigenous Futurisms, Land as Pedagogy, Rhetorical Sovereignty, and Pueblo understandings of marking, I analyze the rhetorical choices across student multimodal narratives, reflections, and interviews to examine the assignment’s pedagogical impact. My findings reveal epistemic differences in how Indigenous …

Mining Legacy And Wildfires: Interfacial Reactions Affecting Metal Mobility, Eresay Alcantar-Velasquez

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

We identified water labile interfacial reactions between laboratory burned pinewood ash and mine waste solids that influence metal mobilization. The Upper Gallinas Creek Watershed in New Mexico is affected by wildfires and mining legacy. Pinewood and mine waste sediments were sampled from the area, and the pinewood was burned at 350°C to simulate medium burn intensity ignition. Rapid desorption and gradual dissolution of Mn and Fe was detected by ICP-MS as pH decreased over time. After reacting 18 MΩ ultra-pure water with a mixture of pinewood ash and mine waste sediments Fe (143%) and Mn (89.2%) concentrations increased over time. …

Wildfire Impacts On Fluvial Hydrology From Watershed To National Scales, Paige G. Tunby

Civil Engineering ETDs

Wildfires alter the water quantity and quality in downstream river networks. Fires promote biodiversity, maintain habitat, and provide many ecosystem services in a fire-adapted landscape. However, changes in the natural fire regimes can alter ecosystem function and threaten the water security of impacted downstream communities. The magnitude, timing, and persistence of these impacts are difficult to predict due to the lack of high-resolution datasets with adequate coverage to evaluate spatiotemporal trends after a fire. This dissertation moves us beyond the status quo to evaluate post-fire fluvial responses across scales, from the event-scale impacts after the Hermit’s Peak-Calf Canyon wildfire in …

Examining Conditional Indirect Media Effects Through Normative Perceptions: The Role Of Traditional Family Gender Role Expectations And Stigmatizing Beliefs In Human Papillomavirus Vaccination, Moonsun Choi

Communication ETDs

This dissertation examines how indirect media effects operate through normative perceptions within a gendered and stigmatized health context of HPV vaccination. Specifically, this study investigates how these normative mediation processes are conditioned by traditional family gender role expectations at the norm formation stage and stigmatizing beliefs about HPV vaccination at the normative influence stage. A cross-sectional survey was conducted with mothers of children aged 9 – 12 in the United States in June 2025. The key findings show that while gendered perceptions of HPV vaccination persist, the underlying normative mechanism operated in similar ways across gender-referent contexts. Injunctive norms were …

Womanhood On The Veranda: Maternalism And The Expansion Of American Women's Public Life, Abigail J. Swanson

History ETDs

Motherhood and child welfare became central organizing principles for reform during the United States Progressive Era.  From these guiding principles, the government formed the United States Children’s Bureau. It was the country's first governmental agency that focused solely on the welfare of children. Mothers writing to the federal government for motherhood advice was a phenomenon that was completely new to twentieth century mothers. Women took pride in their roles as mothers, particularly when it came to child health matters. To the generation of mothers who came before these early twentieth century letter writers, asking the government for advice on child …

Multi-Robot Cooperative System For Complex Aerospace Manipulation Tasks: Theory And Application, Longsen Gao

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Multi-robot systems can extend manipulation capabilities beyond the limits of a single robot, particularly for tasks involving large, flexible, delicate, or free-floating payloads. Reliable cooperative manipulation, however, remains difficult when payload dynamics, contact geometry, compliance properties, deformation-induced forces, and external disturbances are only partially known, and when safety constraints must be enforced during physical interaction. This dissertation develops a two-layer control framework for resilient multi-robot manipulation under uncertainty, with emphasis on space servicing, satellite stabilization, aerial transportation, and cooperative manipulation of free-floating structures.

Computationally Tractable Methods For Constrained Optimal Control And Reachability Analysis Of Nonlinear Stochastic Dynamical Systems, Karthik Sivaramakrishnan

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Autonomous systems operating in uncertain environments require methods that can rigorously quantify safety, predict future behavior, and compute optimal decisions tractably. The unifying challenge is reasoning about uncertainty propagation in constrained dynamical systems. Motivated by autonomous spacecraft inspection, this dissertation develops model-based and data-driven methods for stochastic optimal control and stochastic reachability. First, it studies optimal on-orbit inspection of an uncertain tumbling spacecraft in both single-agent and multi-agent settings, and derives computationally efficient reformulations for exploring trade-offs among sensing, trajectory deviation, and fuel use. Second, it develops a probabilistically safe penalty-based reinforcement learning method that preserves gradient information during training …

Lessons Learned Using A Decision-Making Model To Develop The Tell Tool For Gamete Donation Families, Patricia Ensweiler Hershberger, Alison L. Miller, Mary B. Richardson, Yolanda Smith, Alison Walsh, Agatha M. Gallo, Kirby Adlam, Susan C. Klock, Lauri A. Pasch

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Background: The history surrounding the use of donated gametes and/or embryos is shrouded in secrecy due to long standing concerns about protecting future parents and their donor-conceived children from stigma and even unlawful birth [1]. Estimates indicate about 23% of parents worldwide disclose the genetic origins to their children [2], approximating the 14% disclosure rate we found in our 12-year longitudinal study among U.S. parents [3]. We created an innovative digital tool called the Tool to Empower Parental TeLling and TaLking or the TELL Tool to support parents’ decision processes about informing their 1–16 year old children about their genetic …

Impact Of Bullying Workshops Among Southern California Registered Nurses, Veronica Santos Timple, Lina Najib Kawar

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Purpose: This study aimed to evaluate the impact of bullying workshops offered to Southern California Registered Nurses within an integrated healthcare delivery system to mitigate bullying and improve work environment.

Background: Bullying is an aggressive, repetitive undesirable behavior that is a common problem in many disciplines including nursing. This was a follow up study on the “Assessment of bullying among nurses in Southern California” research that was conducted in 2020. Previous study revealed that registered nurses (RNs) experienced bullying or incivility and many considered leaving their positions.

Methods: An intervention mixed method study was conducted with 148 RNs. Participants from …

Save A Pulse: Bridging Nurse Confidence And Team Performance Through In-Situ Simulation, Kimberly Morrison, Anna Oh, Zainab Alzawad, Staeci Morita, Sean Garvey, Soo Young Lee

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

High-quality cardiopulmonary resuscitation (CPR) directly influences cardiac arrest survival, yet many hospitals struggle to achieve consistent performance. Although simulation-based training is widely used, confidence may not reliably align with proficiency for physically demanding CPR skills. Save a Pulse, a Rapid Response nurse-led in-situ simulation program, was developed to strengthen nurses' cardiac arrest response using structured team training and objective feedback. This study aimed to assess nurses' confidence and CPR performance using a multimethod assessment of self-reported confidence, facilitator observations, and SimPAD® metrics.

This 13-month pretest-posttest study occurred across 23 inpatient units at a large academic hospital. Shockable and nonshockable scenarios …

Effectiveness Of Np-Led Disaster Response Training: A Central Taiwan Case Study, Po-Hsi Su, Jun-Dai Lin, Yi-Hui Lee, Shun-Shiang Yu, Yi-Fen Liang

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Purpose: Taiwan, situated in the Pacific Ring of Fire, is a democratic island nation prone to earthquakes and typhoons,compounded by geopolitical tensions. Enhancing national resilience via community preparedness and self-help is a key policy focus. This project evaluated the effectiveness of Emergency Nurse Practitioner (ENP)-leddisaster response training within Taiwan’s “Resilient Nation Medical Preparedness Project.” It aimed to boost community readiness, empower local health centers, and set up functional emergency medical stations through structured training and simulations.

Methods: From October 29 to November 22, 2024, five of Nantou County’s 13 health centers in Central Taiwan joined the initiative. An experienced ENP …

Acalabrutinib Monotherapy As A First-Line Treatment For Cll: 3 Years Follow-Up Of The Real-World Epic Study: 3-Year Follow-Up Of The Real-World Epic Study, Toby A. Eyre, Nicolás Martínez-Calle, Shankara Paneesha, Mohsen Norouzi, David L Tucker, Harriet Sarah Walter, Alison Boden, Mari Kilner, Neil Phillips, Piers Em Patten, Nimish Shah, Meghna Ruparelia, Sharon Oddy, Tan Tsawayo, Francesco Forconi, Helen Wardle, Tobore Gbemre, Chris Gregory, Lucy B. M. Cook, David J Allsup, Anna Morris, Christopher J C Knechtli, Jenni Davies, Joy Galani, Helen Marr, Claire Hutchinson, Stella Williams, Joe Hickey, Hannah Harding, Sukhjit Hunjan

Peninsula Medical School

Clinical trials indicate that acalabrutinib, a second-generation Bruton tyrosine kinase inhibitor, is safe and effective for treating patients with chronic lymphocytic leukemia (CLL), but real-world evidence on its clinical effectiveness is limited. This ongoing multicenter retrospective chart review included UK adults with previously untreated CLL who received acalabrutinib monotherapy as part of a UK-wide early access program. These patients received their first dose of acalabrutinib between 1 April 2020 and 1 April 2021. Data from 282 patients (male patients, n = 156 [55%]) collected from 29 sites across the United Kingdom revealed a median age of 73.9 years (interquartile range …

The Dynamic Interplay Between Agency Costs And Whistleblowing: Evidence From West African Banks, Titilayo Moromoke Oladejo Dr.

Arab Economic and Business Journal

Agency issues have been a significant issue of governance in banks, particularly in the emerging economies where information asymmetry and ineffective monitoring mechanisms allow managerial opportunism. In West Africa, banking crises are common and are associated with excessive insider lending, ineffective board supervision and internal controls, which highlights the importance of more effective governance mechanisms. This paper examines the two-way relationship between the agency costs (AGC) and whistleblowing (WBH) in listed banks in Nigeria and Ghana. The analysis is based on panel data from 2017-2024 and a two-step System GMM, which adjusts the endogeneity and dynamic effects and estimates the …

Strength Training And Body Image Among Middle-Aged Women In Malaysia: A Narrative Review Using The Health Belief Model, Jasveen K.G. Singh, Nisha Nambiar

Journal of Health Research

Background: Middle-aged women (aged 40-60) in Malaysia face health concerns due to psychological changes, sociocultural impacts, and hormonal shifts as they age. This study aimed to uncover which aspects of strength training programs enable middle-aged women to better manage their health concerns in Malaysia.

Methods: Following the PRISMA guidelines, we utilized the health belief model (HBM) framework to understand how training programs affect the health of middle-aged women worldwide. We focused on women in Malaysia and the unique cultural barriers they experience. Sources were selected from 2010 to 2025.

Results: We selected 22 studies within Malaysia to highlight the impacts …

Borderline Personality Disorder (Bpd) And Witness Memory: A Beginner’S Guide For Criminal Justice, Forensic Mental Health, And Legal Professionals, Jerrod Brown Ph.D., M.A., M.S., M.S., M.S.

Forensic Scholars Today

Borderline personality disorder (BPD) is associated with emotional instability, impulsivity, interpersonal difficulties, identity disturbance, and stress-related dissociative symptoms that may influence cognitive functioning. Research suggests that BPD may contribute to difficulties with attention, executive functioning, and memory, particularly during periods of emotional distress. These issues, combined with common co-occurring conditions such as trauma exposure, substance use disorders, and sleep disturbances, may affect the encoding, storage, retrieval, and recall of information. This article examines current literature on BPD and discusses how symptoms and associated factors could influence witness memory in forensic and legal settings. Because findings remain mixed, the presence of …