Digital Commons Network^™

Electronic Books: Educational Enhancement Or Novelty?, Felipe O. Reyes

Theses and Dissertations

The study’s purpose was to explore if there was a statistically significant difference in reading comprehension of non-Limited English Proficient students when reading eBooks compared to printed books. Second, it explored if there was a statistically significant difference in Limited English Proficient students. Third, it explored if there was a statistically significant difference between non-Limited English Proficient and Limited English Proficient students while reading in neither format. The research sample of the study drew from the population (N=8,100) of students at the middle school level within a district in south Texas who participated in the Accelerated Reader program during …

Innovating The Communication Pedagogy: An Application Of Flipped Classroom Technique In Communication Education, Gamze Yilmaz

Journal of Communication Pedagogy

As students try to make sense of their college experience and the value of attaining a degree post-pandemic, educators are grappling with finding new methods to re-engage students in the classroom using a range of modalities. This case study explored student reactions to flipped classroom learning experiences, and possible relationship between the flipped classroom technique and academic performance in communication education. As a student-centric pedagogical method, the flipped classroom can offer a promising remedy for student disengagement, and the findings of this study provide supporting evidence for this conclusion. Students characterized flipped classroom as a very favorable learning experience as …

Educating Older Drivers To Improve Acceptance And Utilization Of Cav Technologies, Ping Yi, Claudia Marovic, Renee Whittenberger

University Research

As the population of older drivers continues to grow, there is an increasing need to enhance their awareness and understanding of Connected and Automated Vehicles (CAVs). This study utilized an education program aimed at improving the knowledge and awareness of older drivers about CAVs, thereby preparing them to utilize the safety features of these technologies while effectively meeting the challenges that come with them. Through data collection and analysis from study participants, the research provides valuable insights for transportation agencies and technology developers to design and develop more adaptive technologies and associated education for older drivers. The findings from this …

Towards Global And Local Histories Of Educational Technologies: Introduction, Katie Day Good, Barbara Hof

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

This introduction summarises the objectives and themes of a special issue that highlights global-local interdependencies in the history of educational technologies. It suggests that discussions of the development, diffusion, and use of technologies of teaching and learning around the world could benefit from a broadening of the definition of educational technologies, a diversification of research materials and practices, and a focus on underrepresented voices and asymmetrical power relations. Offering such perspectives, the ten articles included in the special issue present welcome approaches to tracing the historical and contemporary adoption of technologies in and beyond educational settings.

Multidrug Resistance Of Escherichia Coli From Outpatient Uncomplicated Urinary Tract Infections In A Large United States Integrated Healthcare Organization, Katia J. Bruxvoort, Jennifer H. Ku, S. Bianca Salas, Cara D. Varley, Joan A. Casey, Eva Raphael, Sarah C. Robinson, Keeve E. Nachman, Bruno J. Lewin, Multiple Additional Authors

OHSU-PSU School of Public Health Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background

Urinary tract infections (UTIs) cause significant disease and economic burden. Uncomplicated UTIs (uUTIs) occur in otherwise healthy individuals without underlying structural abnormalities, with uropathogenic Escherichia coli (UPEC) accounting for 80% of cases. With recent transitions in healthcare toward virtual visits, data on multidrug resistance (MDR) (resistant to ≥3 antibiotic classes) by care setting are needed to inform empiric treatment decision making.

Methods

We evaluated UPEC resistance over time by care setting (in-person vs virtual), in adults who received outpatient care for uUTI at Kaiser Permanente Southern California between January 2016 and December 2021.

Results

We included 174 185 individuals …

Developments In Contract Law: The 2021-2022 Term — The Enduring Allure Of Freedom Of Contract, Marcus Moore

All Faculty Publications

A review of recent developments in Contract Law reveals that Freedom of Contract continues to thrive in the jurisprudence a half-century after its supposed fall. As the analysis here shows, it is a theme which animates not only general thinking about contracts, but also court resolution of specific cases and issues. High-level considerations drive the reasoning, colouring the application of more detailed rules where these exist. And among these high-level considerations, Freedom of Contract enjoys privileged status as the default law, against which opposing considerations in practice must justify themselves as exceptions. Other considerations vary in their power to constrain …

The Governance And Management Of Higher Education In The Commonwealth Of Asia: Sharing The Asian Experience For The Common Good In The Commonwealth Of Africa, Muhammad Mufahu

Journal of Comparative & International Higher Education

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Acute And Chronic Gut Injury On Secretory Lineage Differentiation, Roger Atanga

Biomedical Sciences ETDs

Acute and chronic injury to the gut has several detrimental consequences. However, dysregulation of secretory lineage cells is a common observation. To model acute gut injury, we use non-fissile uranium bearing dust (UBD), an environmental toxicant prevalent in communities adjacent abandoned uranium mines, majority of which are located in the Southwestern United States. Repeated exposure to environmental toxins and heavy metals has been obscurely linked to intestinal inflammation, increased susceptibility to pathogen-induced diseases, and higher incidences of colorectal cancer. However, there is no molecular evidence that non-fissile uranium can cause damage to the intestinal epithelia. Human colonoids exposed to UBD …

Wild Bee Utilization Of Engineered Pollinator Habitat In Eastern Nebraska Agroecosystems, Shianne Lindsay

Department of Entomology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Habitat loss is a leading cause of biodiversity decline globally. Further, loss of natural and semi-natural habitat is a major factor contributing to declines in wild pollinator populations. Among intensive agroecosystems in the Midwestern United States, corn, soy, and small grain fields dominate the landscape and leave limited space available for forb-rich habitat that supports diverse pollinator assemblages to exist and thrive. There are numerous barriers and challenges to integrating pollinator habitat into such agroecosystems and quantitative assessments of impacts on pollinator communities are largely lacking. The establishment of high-quality pollinator habitat can provide both high flower abundance and species …

Distributed Cooperative Control Of Multiple Uavs With Uncertainty, Shihab Ahmed, Wenjie Dong

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper considers the formation flying of multiple quadrotors with a desired orientation and a leader. In the formation flying control, it is assumed that the desired formation is time-varying and there are the system uncertainty and the information uncertainty. In order to deal with different uncertainties, a backstepping-based approach is proposed for the controller design. In the proposed approach, different types of uncertainties are considered in different steps. By integrating adaptive/robust control results and Laplacian algebraic theory, distributed robust adaptive control laws are proposed such that the formation errors exponentially converge to zero and the attitude of each quadrotor …

August 2023 News, Office Of Sustainability

Office of Sustainability Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Facilitating Electric-Propulsion Of Autonomous Vehicles Through Efficient Design Of A Charging-Facility Network, Mohammadhosein Pourgholamali, Amir Davatgari, Jiaming Wang, Deepak Benny, Mohammad Miralinaghi, Samuel Labi

Center for Connected and Automated Transportation

No abstract provided.

Modeling Of A Flexible Perforated Membrane Backed By Granular Materials, Zhuang Mo, Guochenhao Song, Tongyang Shi, J Stuart Bolton

Publications of the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories

It has recently been shown that adding activated carbon particles to the interior of a Helmholtz resonator can improve the resonator’s absorption at low frequencies. A similar improvement has been found when a layer of activated carbon partially fills the space behind a finite, tensioned impermeable membrane. In that case, absorption peaks due to the modal response of the tensioned membrane were found to be significantly enhanced in the low frequency range. In the present work, the modeling aspects of the latter work are extended in a number of ways. First, the circular membrane is considered to be both tensioned …

Measurement Of Vapour Pressure, Miscibility And Thermal Conductivity For Binary And Ternary Refrigerant Lubricant Mixtures In The Context Of Heat Pump Tumble Dryers, Katharina Stockel, Ramona Nosbers, Riley Barta, Christiane Thomas

School of Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Household appliances need to be both efficient and cost-effective. As a result, electrically driven tumble dryers were converted to heat pump driven ones several years ago in order to comply with energy directives, in this case in Germany. In order to increase the efficiency of heat pumps of different performance classes, the use of zeotropic refrigerant mixtures can be useful, since the temperature glide during the phase change of the refrigerant mixture can be adapted to the temperature gradients of the secondary fluids. In order to take advantage of this unique property, a refrigerant mixture selection was carried out by …

Applications Of Ai Technologies As A Tutor In Teaching And Learning In Class, Young B. Choi

KAUPA Letters

As AI technologies continue to be applied in various domains, their application in education is becoming a globally significant issue. This paper aims to explore the implementation of AI technologies in teaching and learning within the classroom setting. Additionally, it will address the relevant issues that need to be resolved in order to minimize the potential negative aspects of AI technology applications in education.

Modeling Of Sound Radiation From A Loaded Rolling Tire, Won Hong Choi, J Stuart Bolton

Publications of the Ray W. Herrick Laboratories

In recent work it has been possible to model the surface vibration of a loaded rolling tire, including the influence of the acoustic mode that forms within the tire cavity. For example, it has been found that the acoustic cavity mode splits owing to the deformation of the tire when it is loaded, and that the split widens owing to Doppler effects when the tire is rolling. It has also been demonstrated that the force at the hub that results from the acoustic cavity mode is strongly dependent on interaction with circumferential structural modes of the treadband. The finite element …

Recollections And Reflections On Syngman Rhee (이승만), Yeomin Yoon

KAUPA Letters

No abstract provided.

Evaluating How Well Active Fault Mapping Predicts Earthquake Surface-Rupture Locations, Chelsea Scott, Ramon Arrowsmith, Rachel Adam, Christopher Madugo, Joseph Powell, John Ford, Brian Gray, Ashley Streig, Multiple Additional Authors

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Earthquake surface-fault rupture location uncertainty is a key factor in fault displacement hazard analysis and informs hazard and risk mitigation strategies. Geologists often predict future rupture locations from fault mapping based on the geomorphology interpreted from remote-sensing data sets. However, surface processes can obscure fault location, fault traces may be mapped in error, and a future rupture may not break every fault trace. We assessed how well geomorphology-based fault mapping predicted surface ruptures for seven earthquakes: 1983 M 6.9 Borah Peak, 2004 M 6.0 Parkfield, 2010 M 7.2 El Mayor–Cucapah, 2011 M 6.7 Fukushima-Hamadori, 2014 M 6.0 South Napa, 2016 …

Improved Fine-Scale Tropical Forest Cover Mapping For Southeast Asia Using Planet-Nicfi And Sentinel-1 Imagery, Feng Yang, Xin Jiang, Alan D. Ziegler, Lyndon Estes, Jin Wu, Anping Chen, Philippe Ciais

Geography

The accuracy of existing forest cover products typically suffers from “rounding” errors arising from classifications that estimate the fractional cover of forest in each pixel, which often exclude the presence of large, isolated trees and small or narrow forest clearings, and is primarily attributable to the moderate resolution of the imagery used to make maps. However, the degree to which such high-resolution imagery can mitigate this problem, and thereby improve large-area forest cover maps, is largely unexplored. Here, we developed an approach to map tropical forest cover at a fine scale using Planet and Sentinel-1 synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery …

Genesis Of The 1.45 Ga Kratz Spring Iron Oxide-Apatite Deposit Complex In Southeast Missouri, Usa: Constraints From Oxide Mineral Chemistry, Brandon Sullivan, Marek Locmelis, Bolorchimeg N. Tunnell, Cheryl M. Seeger, Marilena Moroni, Sarah Dare, Ryan Mathur, Thomas Schott

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Seven major and numerous lesser Fe oxide occurrences within the 1.47 Ga St. Francois Mountains terrane in Missouri (USA) have previously been described as iron oxide-apatite (IOA) and iron oxide-copper-gold (IOCG) deposits. Researchers speculate that these contain significant amounts of critical minerals, most notably rare earth elements and cobalt. One of the less-studied deposits in the region is the 1.455 Ga Kratz Spring deposit. The deposit consists of two steeply dipping magnetite bodies beneath 450 m of sedimentary cover. The genesis of the Kratz Spring deposit and its relationship to nearby IOA-IOCG deposits remains poorly constrained. To better understand the …

Effect Of Robotic Delivery Of Physical Activity And Fall Prevention Exercise In Older Adults: A Pilot Cohort Study, Christopher M. Wilson, Lori Boright, Wing-Yue Geoffrey Louie, Pourya Shahverdi, Sara K. Arena, Ronald Benbow, Jason R. Wilson, Qinghua Chen, Katie Rousso, Nathan Huang

Cardiology Articles

Introduction: The high prevalence of falls, lack of stability and balance, and general physical deconditioning are concerning issues for longevity and quality of life for adults aged 65 years and older. Although supervised delivery of the Otago Exercise Program (OEP) has demonstrated evidence of effectiveness in reducing fall risk of older adults, opportunities for ongoing unsupervised exercise performance are warranted. An option to facilitate exercise and performance of health behaviors may be via a social robot. The purpose of this study was to examine feasibility and initial outcomes of a robot-delivered fall prevention exercise program for community-dwelling older adults.

Methods: …

Crowdfl: Privacy-Preserving Mobile Crowdsensing System Via Federated Learning, Bowen Zhao, Ximeng Liu, Wei-Neng Chen, Robert H. Deng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As an emerging sensing data collection paradigm, mobile crowdsensing (MCS) enjoys good scalability and low deployment cost but raises privacy concerns. In this paper, we propose a privacy-preserving MCS system called CROWDFL by seamlessly integrating federated learning (FL) into MCS. At a high level, in order to protect participants' privacy and fully explore participants' computing power, participants in CROWDFL locally process sensing data via FL paradigm and only upload encrypted training models to the server. To this end, we design a secure aggregation algorithm (SecAgg) through the threshold Paillier cryptosystem to aggregate training models in an encrypted form. Also, to …

Re-Mediating Nature: Environmental Entropy, Urban Parks, And The Boise River Greenbelt, Quinn Zachary Anderson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Urban greenspaces are integral to the healthy functioning of a city. They provide heat relief, flood prevention, act as sites of community engagement and creation, and are home to charismatic flora and fauna, to name just a few of their roles. However, this importance has not translated to scholarly analysis. This thesis aims to address this shortcoming in several ways. Firstly, it introduces the typology of environmental entropy, a framework of analysis that recontextualizes greenspaces as blended landscapes, where nature and culture and human and nonhuman agency equilibrate. Using environmental entropy, the rest of the paper examines urban parks …

Emergence, Evolution, And Outcomes Of Community-Based Conservation Behaviors In Coastal Systems, Matthew C. Clark

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

This body of work leverages a variety of quantitative and theoretical approaches to advance our understanding of why individuals adopt community-based conservation behaviors, the impacts those decisions have on natural resources and human wellbeing, and how these insights can be used for practical conservation planning. The first chapter makes a theoretical contribution by fitting data produced from a stylized, agent-based simulation of conservation adoption over time with a set of probabilistic differential equations derived from the theory of diffusion of innovations and cultural evolutionary theory broadly. We use these methods to demonstrate that such a statistical approach can provide accurate …

Evaluating Learning Geometric Concepts To Generate Predicate Abstract Domains In Static Program Analysis, Patrick Chadbourne

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Accuracy of static analysis over predicate abstract domains depends on the partitions of predicates. More precise predicates approximate concrete values of program variables resulting in more accurate analysis. Manual reasoning about these partitions must be done on a case-by-case basis and is time consuming and difficult.

This work explores learning geometric concepts to automate discovery of predicate domain candidates.

The proposed framework uses run-time data from program executions to gather training data for a PAC-learner to generate separating hyperplanes that can be projected onto predicate domains.

The thesis implements the framework and performs evaluations of it effectiveness on a set …

Seed Predation By Harvester Ants On Native Grasses And Forbs: Implications For Management In A Changing Landscape, Michaela Grossklaus

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Vegetation restoration efforts in the sagebrush steppe to date have yielded mixed results. Although many factors contribute to variation in restoration outcomes, seed predation by harvester ants may be an important yet overlooked source of seed loss. Using a selection of grass and forb seeds commonly seeded in local restoration projects, we conducted a field experiment to evaluate whether seed species and spatial arrangement (i.e., distance of seed patches from ant colonies and from each other) affected patterns of seed consumption by Owyhee harvester ants, Pogonomyrmex salinus. To further examine the ecological factors that may affect foraging by harvester …

Multiphysics Numerical Modeling For Pfas Transport Within Vadose And Saturated Zones, Pierrette Iradukunda

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The extent and severity of wildfires have increased around the world, necessitating a greater understanding of the consequences of wildfire and post-fire impacts on soil and groundwater. Wildfire suppression techniques like aqueous film-forming foams (AFFF) can also contaminate the soil with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), which can contribute to human and environmental health concerns. PFAS are dangerous man-made chemical compounds that are persistent, mobile, poisonous, and a major cause of soil and groundwater contamination. In addition to contamination by aqueous film-forming foams, PFAS has accumulated in the environment as a result of being utilized in numerous other goods over …

A Dna Aptamer Transducer Designed Toward Rapid Biosensor Development: A Novel Approach To Modular Biosensing Platforms, Timothy Z. Hachigian

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Aptamer-based biosensors have garnered significant interest due to their versatility in detecting a wide range of analytes across various applications. In this work, a customizable Aptamer Transducer (AT) was introduced as a non-enzymatic and modular duplexed aptamer biosensing platform. The design modularity was accomplished by separating the aptamer input domain from the output domain. The AT was demonstrated to be capable of fully transducing an adenosine signal into arbitrary DNA outputs using a structure-switching aptamer design. The AT design utilized strand displacement reactions via toehold mediated strand displacement with fluorescence based reporting for signal detection. Furthermore, the AT was incorporated …

Robust Digital Nucleic Acid Memory, Golam Md Mortuza

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The rapid growth of data generation from electronic devices has created a critical demand for efficient and sustainable data storage solutions. Traditional storage systems face challenges regarding reliability, energy consumption, and scalability, necessitating the exploration of alternative technologies. This dissertation explores the potential of Deoxyribonucleic Acid (DNA) as an alternative storage medium, along with the associated challenges and potential solutions.

This dissertation focuses on Digital Nucleic Acid Memory (dNAM), which utilizes Single Molecule Localization Microscopy (SMLM) to encode and store data within DNA structures called DNA origami. SMLM surpasses the limitations of light’s diffraction limit, enabling the imaging of biological …

Effect Of Age On The Mechanical Behavior And Molecular Structure Of Human Meniscus: An Experimental And Computational Analysis, Derek Q. Nesbitt

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The knee meniscus is a soft fibrous tissue with a high incidence of injury in older populations. Surgical treatments do not fully restore the functionality of the meniscus, and the meniscus lacks native healing capacity, leading to a 40% increase in the probability of developing osteoarthritis once torn. Meniscus injury prevention is thus paramount to reducing the onset of osteoarthritis. Despite the importance of the meniscus in joint health, its mechanical properties, and how these change with age, are poorly understood. In order to quantify these properties, and how they change with age, we performed uniaxial tensile tests on two …