Digital Commons Network^™

Draft Final Bpsou Insufficiently Reclaimed Sites Belle Of Butte (Bres No. 8 & Ur-39) Remedial Action Work Plan (Rawp), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Exploring The Relationships Between Food Insecurity, Wic Participation, Early Life Feeding Practices, Diversity Of Dietary Exposures, And Diet Quality In The First Two Years Of Life, Vivian M. Drewelow

Master's Theses

Diet quality during early childhood is a strong predictor of mental and physical outcomes, as well as future diet quality. Although many factors determine diet quality during childhood, food insecurity is a significant predictor of lower diet quality. On the other hand, participation in nutrition assistant programs, such as the Special Supplemental Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC) is a significant predictor of higher diet quality. In addition, specific feeding practices, including timing of complementary food and beverage (CFB) introduction, types of CFB introduced early, and diversity of dietary exposures (DD), in the first year may predict future …

Testing Multiple Linear Regression With The Mmle, Lakni Hettige

Research Papers

We consider testing the multiple linear regression model with the one component partial least squares (OPLS) estimator and the marginal maximum likelihood estimator (MMLE) where the sample covariance vector ηˆ_{OP LS} = Σˆ _xY . Some of the tests can be done in high dimensions.

Simulation Of A Passive Osmosis-Integrated Electrolyzer For Seawater Electrolysis, Masoomeh Ghasemi

Theses and Dissertations

Efforts to develop direct seawater electrolysis technology have been ongoing due to the need for pure water in electrolysis and the abundance of seawater. However, progress has been hampered by several issues, including competition with the chlorine evolution reaction, higher membrane resistance, corrosion of electrodes, and scaling from multivalent cations [1]. To avoid these issues, our project has proposed a new reactor that integrates passive osmosis (extracting fresh water from seawater) with electrolysis. In this thesis, we will discuss the operation of the osmosis-integrated electrolyzer and show theoretical predictions of the osmotic pressure differential and water flux/velocity profiles under different …

Spatial And Abiotic Effects Of Urbanization On Small Mammal Communities, Bri Casement

Master's Theses

Urbanization, the phenomenon of increasing human population density and artificial structures, is known to decrease the richness, abundance, and diversity of native wildlife populations, fragment natural areas, and increase human and human-commensal animal interactions with wildlife. Dynamics of species persistence in habitat fragments is often understood in the framework of island biogeography theory (IBT), with habitat fragments being analogous to oceanic islands. Despite the conceptual similarities between oceanic islands in IBT and urbanized habitat fragments (fragment size, fragment age, and distance to immigration sources), there are important differences. In urban fragments, the matrix is not completely impassible, habitats within fragments …

Characterization And Evaluation Of Bacteriophages Φpa-C And Φpa-Tc Infecting Pseudomonas Aeruginosa, Joanne Harrison

Master's Theses

Pseudomonas aeruginosa are prevalent opportunistic bacterial pathogens that cause nosocomial infections in at-risk individuals. The rise of multidrug-resistant P. aeruginosa poses an immense threat to hospitals. Additionally, P. aeruginosa are common food spoilage organisms that contribute to food waste. Alternative effective treatment methods are needed to improve public health and reduce food waste. Recent studies have shown that bacteriophages, viruses that only kill host-specific bacteria, are promising alternatives. This study characterizes two lytic P. aeruginosa phages, ΦPa-C and ΦPa-Tc, and evaluates their efficacy against P. aeruginosa in two model food systems. The morphology, genome, structural proteins, host range, growth kinetics, …

2024 July - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Reports

No abstract provided.

On Laudenbach-Type Exact Sequences, Jorge Andres Robinson Arrieta

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Laudenbach proved that the mapping class group of the connected sum of $n$ copies of $S^2 \times S^1$ is an extension of $\text{Out}(F_n)$ by a finite group. Brendle, Broaddus and Putman proved that this exact sequence splits. We provide an explicit section $s$ of this split exact sequence. Given a locally finite graph $\Gamma$, Udall proved that the mapping class group of the doubled handlebody associated to $\Gamma$ is an extension of $\map(\Gamma)$ by a possibly infinite direct product of $\Z_2$, and proved that this exact sequence splits. We provide an explicit formula for this section $s$ of $\Psi$ restricted …

Search For Gravitational-Lensing Signatures In The Full Third Observing Run Of The Ligo–Virgo Network, R. Abbott, H. Abe, F. Acernese, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Francisco Llamas, Soma Mukherjee, Gaukhar Nurbek, Volker Quetschke, Wenhui Wang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

Gravitational lensing by massive objects along the line of sight to the source causes distortions to gravitational wave (GW) signals; such distortions may reveal information about fundamental physics, cosmology, and astrophysics. In this work, we have extended the search for lensing signatures to all binary black hole events from the third observing run of the LIGO-Virgo network. We search for repeated signals from strong lensing by (1) performing targeted searches for subthreshold signals, (2) calculating the degree of overlap among the intrinsic parameters and sky location of pairs of signals, (3) comparing the similarities of the spectrograms among pairs of …

Final 2024 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Mandan Park Soil Remedial Action Work Plan (Rawp), Mike Mcanulty

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Revised Draft Final 2024 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) Annual Update (Non-Residential Parcels And Residential Daycares), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Improvement Of Triboelectric Nanogenerator By As-Prepared Lithium Niobate For Energy Harvesting And Sensing Applications, Jahid Inam Chowdhury

Theses and Dissertations

One readily available green energy source that is used to address the small-scale energy requirement is mechanical energy. To harvest mechanical energy, supply energy for upcoming electronic devices, and enable flexible health monitoring, triboelectric nanogenerators composed of perovskite and lightweight polymers have garnered significant interest. A material named lithium niobate (LiNbO3) was produced in two different phases and used to make a flexible triboelectric nanogenerator (TENG). Furthermore, lightweight polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS), Polyvinyl Alcohol (PVA), and LiNbO3 nanoparticles were used to produce a small triboelectric nanogenerator that successfully converts mechanical energy into electricity. LiNbO3 nanoparticles were first created and loaded into polydimethylsiloxane …

Mitigating The Greenhouse Gas Footprint Of Hydropower Via Floating Solar Photovoltaic Integration: A Modeling And Predictive Analysis Study, Areefin Ul Hassan Chowdhury

Theses and Dissertations

Hydropower is typically considered a low-carbon energy source; however, some hydropower facilities exhibit high greenhouse gas (GHG) intensities due to emissions from their reservoirs. This study evaluates the potential for offsetting GHG intensities by integrating floating solar photovoltaics (FPV) with reservoir-based hydropower. Our assessment indicates that technically feasible FPV–hydropower integrations could enable over 50% of the world’s GHG-intensive hydropower plants to achieve low-GHG energy benchmarks, with significant implications for both hydropower management and climate change mitigation. To support this analysis, we conducted clustering analysis to investigate the potential for reservoir segmentation. Following this, we applied various regression methods to predict …

The Social Influence Network Model Of Performance Expectations, Jingwen Zhong

Theses and Dissertations

Disagreement among group members on each other’s status and competence has been found to negatively impact group performance. However, in theories, it is oftentimes assumed that group members have common perceptions of each other’s competence, or in other words, have a consensus on performance expectations. Recognizing the importance of disagreement on performance expectations, in this dissertation I argue that individuals are subject to the self-serving bias and can develop different performance expectations based on the same status information. The results of an online experiment show that individuals tend to think highly of themselves in both status-homogeneous and status-heterogenous situations, and …

Calibration And Use Of The Transparency Tube As An Estimate Of Turbidity: An Analysis Of Factors Controlling Light Attenuation In Estuarine Waters, Makenna Leigh Thompson

Theses and Dissertations

The transparency tube is low-cost, portable, and easy to use to measure the transparency or clarity of the water. Filling the tube with water creates a small-scale water column where water will be slowly drained out of the bottom until the Secchi disk at the bottom of the tube is visible from the top opening, and the depth of the remaining water in the tube is recorded in centimeters. Unlike traditional Secchi disk measurements, the advantage of this instrument is that sampling depth in highly turbid waters is possible with a centimeter scale resolution. Transparency tube measurement, through careful calibrations, …

Preregistration And Registration As A New Method For Transparency Of External Validation In Artificial Intelligence And Machine Learning Applications To Address Overfitting, Underspecification, And Shortcut Learning, Marilyn Elaine Gartley

Theses and Dissertations

Statistics has been defined as the study of how information should be employed to reflect on and give guidance for action in a practical situation involving uncertainty. The essence of uncertainty is that there is more than one possible outcome, and the actual outcome is unknown in advance; it is indeterminate. The goal of statistical methods is inference: namely, statistical inference—reaching conclusions about populations or deriving scientific insights from data which are collected from a representative sample of that population through providing a mathematical understanding of inference, quantifying the degree of support that data offer for assertions of knowledge, as …

An Exploratory Analysis Of The Association Between Coronavirus Anxiety And Teacher Burnout, Lester A. C. Archer

Journal of Global Education and Research

This study was an exploration of COVID-19 anxiety and its relationship with teacher burnout. The study was a cross-sectional survey research design with a convenience sample drawn from a population of K-12 public school teachers. A non-parametric statistical test, Kruskal-Wallis, showed a statistically significant difference in teacher burnout across the three grade levels: χ² (2, N = 61) = 6.20, p = .045. Teacher burnout was lowest amongst elementary school teachers (M = 47.00) when compared to middle school (M = 74.00) and high school teachers (M = 71.00). Implications include a need for increased administrative …

“In My Blood”: External Factors For International Stem Postdoctoral Scholars’ Career Decisions, Kathryn J. Watson, Sylvia L. Mendez

Journal of Global Education and Research

This instrumental case study (Stake, 1995) explores the external factors that influence international science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) postdoctoral scholars in the United States to pursue a career in STEM. Interviews with 20 international STEM postdoctoral scholars were analyzed deductively to shed light on their unique backgrounds and experiences. Three themes emerged: (a) parents were highly encouraging, (b) a love of science was nurtured in school, and (c) they were eager to engage in and promote scientific innovation. These findings illustrate the ways in which family, schools, and community influence the STEM career trajectories of international postdoctoral scholars.

The Relationship Between Physical Activity Level, Digital Game Addiction, And Academic Success Levels Of University Students, Aydin Ilhan

Journal of Global Education and Research

This study examined the relationship between physical activity, digital game addiction, and academic success among university students. Participants were university 704 students from Turkiye who did physical activity and played digital games. The sample group consisted of 704 university students (342 women and 362 men), selected through random sampling. Data were collected using demographic information forms, a digital game addiction scale, and an international short-form questionnaire about physical activity. The data were analyzed using Pearson correlation, t-tests, one-way ANOVA, and post-hoc tests. The findings revealed a significant negative relationship between academic success and both physical activity and digital game …

Quantifying Extreme Events: Applications Of Probabilistic Methods To Quantify Riverine And Coastal Flood Dynamics In South Carolina And Neighboring Coastal Communities, Ryne Phillips

Theses and Dissertations

Extreme flood events have been persistent throughout history and have challenged human populations around the globe. Over time, scientists and engineers have developed tools and technology to support flood risk management. Most, if not all, of these tools rely on some form of the field of stochastic hydrology. Stochastic hydrology is a broad discipline, but the overarching principle is to use statistical and data-driven techniques to develop an understanding of one or more hydrologic variables (e.g., flood flow or peak storm tide). However, the need for large sample sizes of data that offer insight into all possible combinations of outcomes …

Heat Stress Changes The Bovine Methylome And Transcriptome And Investigation Of Two Novel Genetic Defects In Cattle, Rachel Renae Reith

Department of Animal Science: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Heat stress is a major concern for livestock producers due to its negative impact on animal health and productivity. Heat stress does so by altering expression of genes through different regulatory mechanisms such as DNA methylation. Understanding how heat stress alters gene expression will help elucidate the genetic basis of physiological changes as well as identify targets for possible heat stress mitigation. The purpose of the first study was to understand how heat stress alters the adipose and skeletal muscle transcriptomes in zilpaterol-fed Brahman, as zilpaterol improves muscle growth and may mitigate the effects of heat stress. Differential expression and …

Hardening Interpretable Deep Learning Systems: Investigating Adversarial Threats And Defenses, Eldor Abdukhamidov, Mohammed Abuhamad, Simon S. Woo, Eric Chan-Tin, Tamer Abuhmed

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Deep learning methods have gained increasing attention in various applications due to their outstanding performance. For exploring how this high performance relates to the proper use of data artifacts and the accurate problem formulation of a given task, interpretation models have become a crucial component in developing deep learning-based systems. Interpretation models enable the understanding of the inner workings of deep learning models and offer a sense of security in detecting the misuse of artifacts in the input data. Similar to prediction models, interpretation models are also susceptible to adversarial inputs. This work introduces two attacks, AdvEdge and AdvEdge + …

Evidence Of Lactobacillus Strains Shared Between The Female Urinary And Vaginal Microbiota, Haley Atkins, Baani Sabharwal, Leah Boger, Natalie Stegman, Alexander Kula, Alan J. Wolfe, Swarnali Banerjee, Catherine Putonti

Biology: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Lactobacillus species are common inhabitants of the ‘healthy’ female urinary and vaginal communities, often associated with a lack of symptoms in both anatomical sites. Given identification by prior studies of similar bacterial species in both communities, it has been hypothesized that the two microbiotas are in fact connected. Here, we carried out whole-genome sequencing of 49 Lactobacillus strains, including 16 paired urogenital samples from the same participant. These strains represent five different Lactobacillus species: L. crispatus, L. gasseri, L. iners, L. jensenii, and L. paragasseri. Average nucleotide identity (ANI), alignment, single-nucleotide polymorphism (SNP), and CRISPR comparisons between strains from the …

Insights Into Personalized Care Strategies For Wilms Tumor: A Narrative Literature Review, Salma Karam, Ahmad Gebreil, Ahmed Alksas, Hossam Magdy Balaha, Ashraf Khalil, Mohammed Ghazal, Sohail Contractor, Ayman El-Baz

All Works

Wilms tumor (WT), or nephroblastoma, is the predominant renal malignancy in the pediatric population. This narrative review explores the evolution of personalized care strategies for WT, synthesizing critical developments in molecular diagnostics and treatment approaches to enhance patient-specific outcomes. We surveyed recent literature from the last five years, focusing on high-impact research across major databases such as PubMed, Scopus, and Web of Science. Diagnostic advancements, including liquid biopsies and diffusion-weighted MRI, have improved early detection precision. The prognostic significance of genetic markers, particularly WT1 mutations and miRNA profiles, is discussed. Novel predictive tools integrating genetic and clinical data to anticipate …

Uldp-Fl: Federated Learning With Across-Silo User-Level Differential Privacy, Fumiyuki Kato, Li Xiong, Shun Takagi, Yang Cao, Masatoshi Yoshikawa

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Differentially Private Federated Learning (DP-FL) has garnered attention as a collaborative machine learning approach that ensures formal privacy. Most DP-FL approaches ensure DP at the record-level within each silo for cross-silo FL. However, a single user's data may extend across multiple silos, and the desired user-level DP guarantee for such a setting remains unknown. In this study, we present Uldp-FL, a novel FL framework designed to guarantee user-level DP in cross-silo FL where a single user's data may belong to multiple silos. Our proposed algorithm directly ensures user-level DP through per-user weighted clipping, departing from group-privacy approaches. We provide a …

Regularized Multivariate Functional Principal Component Analysis, Yue Zhao

Dissertations (1934 -)

Multivariate Functional Principal Component Analysis (MFPCA) is a valuable tool for exploring relationships and identifying shared patterns of variation in multivariate functional data. However, interpreting these functional principal components (PCs) can sometimes be challenging due to issues such as roughness and sparsity. In this dissertation, we establish the theoretical foundations of the penalized MFPCA problem within Hilbert space and propose three novel regularized MFPCA approaches. These approaches utilize eigen decomposition and singular value decomposition (SVD) techniques to enhance the performance of MFPCA by incorporating multiple penalty terms, such as roughness and sparsity penalties. In the first method, a roughness penalty …

Evaluating The Relationship Between Magnetic Resonance Image Quality Metrics And Deep Learning-Based Segmentation Accuracy Of Brain Tumors, Rajarajeswari Muthusivarajan, Adrian Celaya, Joshua P Yung, James P Long, Satish E Viswanath, Daniel S Marcus, Caroline Chung, David Fuentes

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Background: Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) scans are known to suffer from a variety of acquisition artifacts as well as equipment-based variations that impact image appearance and segmentation performance. It is still unclear whether a direct relationship exists between magnetic resonance (MR) image quality metrics (IQMs) (e.g., signal-to-noise, contrast-to-noise) and segmentation accuracy.

Purpose: Deep learning (DL) approaches have shown significant promise for automated segmentation of brain tumors on MRI but depend on the quality of input training images. We sought to evaluate the relationship between IQMs of input training images and DL-based brain tumor segmentation accuracy toward developing more generalizable models …

Data-Driven Gated Positron Emission Tomography/Computed Tomography For Radiotherapy, Tinsu Pan, Dershan Luo

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

PURPOSE: Software-based data-driven gated (DDG) positron emission tomography/computed tomography (PET/CT) has replaced hardware-based 4D PET/CT. The purpose of this article was to review DDG PET/CT, which could improve the accuracy of treatment response assessment, tumor motion evaluation, and target tumor contouring with whole-body (WB) PET/CT for radiotherapy (RT).

MATERIAL AND METHODS: This review covered the topics of 4D PET/CT with hardware gating, advancements in PET instrumentation, DDG PET, DDG CT, and DDG PET/CT based on a systematic literature review. It included a discussion of the large axial field-of-view (AFOV) PET detector and a review of the clinical results of DDG …

Application Of Neutrosophic Cognitive Maps In The Jurisprudence Of The National Court Of Justice Of Ecuador, Alipio Cadena Posso, Diana Carolina Quiroz Gordillo, Diego Xavier Chamorro Valencia, Luis Andrés Crespo Berti, Vladimir Vega Falcón

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

This research analyzes the use of neutrosophic cognitive maps in the jurisprudential examination of divorce in the National Court of Justice of Ecuador. The suggested technique intends to simulate the links between legal reasons and the psychological and emotional ramifications of divorce, therefore enhancing judicial decision-making. Resolution No. 0071 - 2018 - 38420 is evaluated to determine its influence on the protection of individual rights, presenting an original viewpoint on family law. The results gathered from the study underline the necessity to examine both the legal reasons and the psychological and emotional ramifications of divorce when making court judgments in …

Uncertainty Analysis In Prediction Intervals Using Neutrosophic Numbers, Héctor Félix Cerna Maguiña, Domingo Guzmán Chumpitaz Ramos, Ada Lucía Gallegos Ruiz Conejo, Nancy Isabel Pool Painted, Jesús Isabel Baltazar Ángeles

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

This study analyzes uncertainty in prediction intervals by applying neutrosophic numbers to quality of life forecasts based on characteristics such as compensation, job hours, years of experience, and academic level. Three examples were studied, with indeterminacy values ranging from 0.589 to 0.628. These statistics show that between 58.9% and 62.8% of the prediction intervals are affected by uncertainty. Higher indeterminacy levels reflect a stronger effect of external influences or unpredictability within the data. The analysis demonstrates that as variables like compensation and labor hours grow, so does the level of uncertainty in the projections. Neutrosophic numbers provide a valuable framework …