Digital Commons Network^™

Parenting During A Pandemic: Understanding The Impact Of Covid-19 On Early Childhood Development, Jessica A. Manes

Senior Theses

The early years of a child's life are crucial for their development, shaping their ability to process information, communicate, and form their identity. However, the COVID-19 pandemic disrupted essential elements necessary for optimal early childhood development, including quality education, nurturing environments, and social stimulation. This study explored how parents in South Carolina perceived the pandemic's impact on their children's development. Five themes emerged from the study. Firstly, remote work due to pandemic protocols significantly affected the parent-child relationship. Secondly, the family's socioeconomic status influenced their ability to cope with and protect their children from the pandemic's impact. Thirdly, isolation resulting …

Initiation Payments, Scott Hirst

Faculty Scholarship

Many of the central discussions in corporate governance, including those regarding proxy contests, shareholder proposals, and other activism or stewardship, can be understood as a single question: Is there under-initiation of corporate changes that investors would collectively prefer?

This Article sheds light on this question in three ways. First, the Article proposes a theory of investor initiation, which explains the hypothesis that there is under-initiation of collectively-preferred corporate change by investors. Even though investors collectively prefer that certain corporate changes take place, the costs to any individual investor from initiating such changes through high-cost proxy contests, or even low-cost shareholder …

Tennessee Farm Bureau News - July 2023, Tennessee Farm Bureau Federation

Tennessee Farm Bureau News

No abstract provided.

Design Of A Burst Mode Ultra High-Speed Low-Noise Cmos Image Sensor, Xin Yue

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Ultra-high-speed (UHS) image sensors are of interest for studying fast scientific phenomena and may also be useful in medicine. Several published studies have recently achieved frame rates of up to millions of frames per second (Mfps) using advanced processes and/or customized processes.

This thesis presents a burst-mode (108 frames) UHS low-noise CMOS image sensor (CIS) based on charge-sweep transfer gates in an unmodified, standard 180 nm front-side-illuminated CIS process. By optimizing the photodiode geometry, the 52.8 μm pitch pixels with 20x20 μm^2 of active area, achieve a charge-transfer time of less than 10 ns. A proof-of-concept CIS was designed and …

Smokejumper Magazine, July 2023, National Smokejumper Association

Smokejumper and Static Line Magazines

Message from the President; Denali, the Great One—An Early Ascent of North America's Highest Peak; The Jump List; Motorcycles Are Not Approved for Packouts; Randy Hurst; Small Town Connections; Lost Horizons; Odds and Ends; Whites OFF The Breaks; Moose Tracks in the Timber; Notes from the Ranks; Sounding Off from the Editor; Jack Demmons Remembered; Fighting Wildfire During Extreme Burning Conditions; "Too Steep and Too Rough"; Off the List; Not Forgotten; Public Involvement; So - Is There a Fee?; Fire Jumps in One Season; The Legend of Black Water Canyon;

Contextualizing Search: An Analysis Of The Impacts Of Construal Level Theory, Mood, And Product Type On Search Engine Activity, Jackson Everitt Carter

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation explores the world of search from the human perspective. While search engine research, both corporate and academic, has seen a growth in relevance in recent years, the relative novelty of the area in the advertising world means that many important questions remain unanswered. This work aims to expand the current state of search engine research by examining the combined impact of mood, construal level theory applications, and product type on search behavior. Additionally, this research seeks to examine psychophysiological responses from these interreacting frameworks using webcam eye-tracking technology, which was developed recently and has not been previously used …

Optimization Of Ultrawide Bandgap Semiconductor Materials For Heterostructure Field Effect Transistors (Hfets), Mohi Uddin Jewel

Theses and Dissertations

Ultra-wide bandgap (UWBG) gallium oxide (Ga2O3), and aluminum gallium oxide (Al_xGa_1-x)₂O₃ materials with bandgap E_G ≥ 4.8 eV are promising for heterostructure field effect transistors (HFETs) with high breakdown voltage and operating at high temperatures. Despite some initial breakthroughs in good quality β-Ga₂O₃ thin films growth on (001), (100), (010), and (201) β-Ga₂O₃ substrates, and promising results on β- (Al_xGa_1-x)₂O₃/β-Ga₂O₃ HFETs fabricated on (010) β-Ga₂O₃ substrates, heat dissipation in Ga2O3 materials and …

2023-2024 Academic Catalog, Saint Mary's College Of California

Academic Catalog

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Nanoparticle Loading And Magnetic Field Application On The Thermodynamic, Optical, And Rheological Behavior Of Thermoresponsive Polymer Solutions, Christopher A. P. Neal, Grace V. Kresge, Michelle C. Quan, Valeria León, Nondumiso O. Chibambo, Michelle A. Calabrese

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

Although processing via external stimuli is a promising technique to tune the structure and properties of polymeric materials, the impact of magnetic fields on phase transitions in thermoresponsive polymer solutions is not well-understood. As nanoparticle (NP) addition is also known to impact these thermodynamic and optical properties, synergistic effects from combining magnetic fields with NP incorporation provide a novel route for tuning material properties. Here, the thermodynamic, optical, and rheological properties of aqueous poly(N-isopropyl acrylamide) (PNIPAM) solutions are examined in the presence of hydrophilic silica NPs and magnetic fields, individually and jointly, via Fourier-transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR), magneto-turbidimetry, …

The Bridwell Quarterly. Issue 20, Summer 2023., Michelle Ried

Bridwell Library Publications

No abstract provided.

Extending The Service-Life Of Bridges Using Sustainable And Resilient Abutment Systems: An Experimental Approach To Electrochemical Characterization Of Lightweight Mechanically Stabilized Earth, Fariborz M. Tehrani, Kenneth L. Fishman, Farmehr M. Dehkordi

Mineta Transportation Institute

Bridges are critical components of transportation infrastructure. This research addresses the need to extend the service life of bridges by improving the safety and reliability of bridge abutments and reducing their life-cycle cost and footprints. Mechanically stabilized earth (MSE) is a known strategy to enhance the economy and performance of bridge abutments. In addition, the application of rotary-kiln-manufactured lightweight aggregate backfills improves the performance of MSE bridge abutments with a leaner structural system. Such improvements include a reduction of structural demands due to a lower density, free drainage of granular materials, a high internal friction angle, less settlement with no …

Electrical Vehicle Charging Infrastructure Design And Operations, Yu Yang, Hen-Geul Yeh

Mineta Transportation Institute

California aims to achieve five million zero-emission vehicles (ZEVs) on the road by 2030 and 250,000 electrical vehicle (EV) charging stations by 2025. To reduce barriers in this process, the research team developed a simulation-based system for EV charging infrastructure design and operations. The increasing power demand due to the growing EV market requires advanced charging infrastructures and operating strategies. This study will deliver two modules in charging station design and operations, including a vehicle charging schedule and an infrastructure planning module for the solar-powered charging station. The objectives are to increase customers’ satisfaction, reduce the power grid burden, and …

Neural Mechanisms Related To The Enhanced Auditory Selective Attention Following Neurofeedback Training: Focusing On Cortical Oscillations, Hwan Shim, Leah Gibbs, Karsyn Rush, Jusung Ham, Subong Kim, Sungyoung Kim, Inyong Choi

Department of Communication Sciences and Disorders Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Selective attention can be a useful tactic for speech-in-noise (SiN) interpretation as it strengthens cortical responses to attended sensory inputs while suppressing others. This cortical process is referred to as attentional modulation. Our earlier study showed that a neurofeedback training paradigm was effective for improving the attentional modulation of cortical auditory evoked responses. However, it was unclear how such neurofeedback training improved attentional modulation. This paper attempts to unveil what neural mechanisms underlie strengthened auditory selective attention during the neurofeedback training paradigm. Our EEG time–frequency analysis found that, when spatial auditory attention was focused, a fronto-parietal brain network was activated. …

Cellulosome-Forming Modules In Gut Microbiome And Virome, Jerry Akresi

Department of Food Science and Technology: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Cellulosomes are large multi-enzyme complexes encoded in the genomes of some microorganisms. Cellulosomes can degrade plant cell wall celluloses, commonly found in compost soils, forest floors and dietary fibers of farm animals. The hallmarks of cellulosome complexes are cohesins that form a large scaffoldin protein and dockerins that interact with cohesin to dock enzymes onto the scaffoldin. The dockerin-containing proteins often contain Carbohydrate Active Enzymes (CAZyme) domains, predominantly the cellulases (e.g., GH48 and GH9 enzymes), which enable them to break down celluloses. A fascinating question is, has Nature also evolved other similar protein complexes that target other types of complex …

Uncertainty In Overturning Of Precariously Balanced Rocks Due To Basal Contact, M. Khalid Saifullah, Christine E. Wittich

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Faculty Publications

Precariously balanced rocks (PBRs) are a type of naturally occurring freestanding structure that provides valuable information to constrain seismic hazard at return periods which are important for critical facilities such as nuclear power plants and nuclear repositories. Exposure ages have been established to be in excess of 10,000–30,000 years, which is why precarious rocks are one of the only available means to validate seismic hazard associated with long return periods. One critical component for constraining seismic hazard in this way is the overturning estimate of a given precarious rock as a function of earthquake intensity. However, current state-of-the-art methods for …

On The Development Of Part-Scale Fem Modeling For Laser Powder Bed Fusion Of Aisi 316l Stainless Steel With Experimental Verification, Muhammad Arif Mahmood, Asif Ur Rehman, M. Mustafa Azeem, Abedalkader Alkhouzaam, Marwan Khraisheh

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In laser powder bed fusion (LPBF), the effects of operating conditions on thermal gradients and residual stresses are the utmost challenges that require significant attention. The magnitudes of residual stress in the printed layers, as well as the distribution along the printed components, have not been well explained for LPBF parts. In this study, a 3D finite element thermo-mechanical model has been established to investigate the effect of operating conditions on thermal distribution, melt pool evolution, residual stress distribution, and part distortion. The printed AISI 316L stainless steel cubes have been characterized experimentally. The results showed a proportional correlation among …

Nonmonotonic Effect Of Chemical Heterogeneity On Interfacial Crack Growth At High-Angle Grain Boundaries In Fe-Ni-Cr Alloys, Yuchu Wang, Bita Ghaffari, Christopher Taylor, Simon Lekakh, Carlos Engler-Pinto, Larry Godlewski, Yang Huo, Mei Li, Yue Fan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

An intermittent pattern is observed in the modeling of interfacial cyclic-loading crack growth at high-angle grain boundaries in ternary Fe-Ni-Cr alloys. Different from conventional wisdom of stress-intensity factor, the abrupt crack advances are found driven by extreme value statistics - namely, the aggregation of atoms with most compressive residual stresses. In addition, inherently non-affine atomic stress fluctuations are discovered, and the fluctuations peak at intermediate level of chemical heterogeneity, causing the fastest crack growth. Implications of such nonmonotonic mechanism in regard to the origin of intermediate-temperature embrittlement phenomena are also discussed.

Transportation Infrastructure Needs In The Central Appalachian Basin To Support Core-Cm, Bryan Gibson, Robin Baskette, Doug Kreis

Kentucky Transportation Center Research Report

With demand for coal from the Central Appalachian Basin waning, coalitions and organizations throughout the region have sought to diversify the region’s economy. However, the potential exists to use coal and coal-based resources to produce new and innovative products and kick start economic growth in the basin. This includes carbon ore, rare earth and critical minerals (CORE-CM), other minerals, and waste streams. If the region is to take advantage of these economic growth opportunities, transportation infrastructure must be developed and maintained in a sound condition. Reliable roads, highways, and bridges provide rural areas with access to capital, labor, and markets …

Prediction Of Compressive Strength And Evaluation Of Different Theoretical Standards And Proposed Models Of Brick Columns Confined With Frp, Frcm, Or Srg System, Zuhair Al-Jaberi, John J. Myers

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Strength Capacity of Confined Masonry Column is One of the Topics that Need to Be Studied. in This Study, the Efficiency of using Different Types of Advanced Composite (Non-Corrosive Materials) Such as Fiber Reinforced Polymer (FRP), Fiber Reinforced Cementitious Matrix (FRCM), or Steel Reinforced Grout (SRG) in Confining Masonry Columns is Investigated. a Wide Range of Experimental Database of Masonry Column Specimens Has Been Collected from the Results that Available in Scientific Literatures. Different Theoretical Standards and Proposed Models that Used to Predict the Capacity of Masonry Columns Confined with FRP and FRCM Are Evaluated based on Collected Experimental …

Deep Cnn-Based Automated Optical Inspection For Aerospace Components, Shashi Bhushan Jha

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

ABSTRACT

The defect detection problem is of outmost importance in high-tech industries such as aerospace manufacturing and is widely employed using automated industrial quality control systems. In the aerospace manufacturing industry, composite materials are extensively applied as structural components in civilian and military aircraft. To ensure the quality of the product and high reliability, manual inspection and traditional automatic optical inspection have been employed to identify the defects throughout production and maintenance. These inspection techniques have several limitations such as tedious, time- consuming, inconsistent, subjective, labor intensive, expensive, etc. To make the operation effective and efficient, modern automated optical inspection …

Building Services Engineering July/August 2023

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

Atmosphere, Environment, Society: The Typhoon Vulnerability Nexus In Early Twentieth-Century Hong Kong, Fiona Williamson

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

By looking at how typhoon risk was managed in early twentieth-century colonial Hong Kong, this article argues that bringing a historical lens to the discussion of the human-climate-environment nexus is an essential part of studies of resilience and vulnerability. It interprets physical evidence of the strength of a natural event against human factors, including structural and social vulnerabilities and governance. Investigating two of the deadliest typhoons to have hit Hong Kong's shores (1906 and 1937), this article notes that social vulnerabilities played a major part in turning the typhoon of 1937 into a worse disaster than 1906, despite advances in …

Vulnerability To Climatic And Environmental Disaster And Change In The Indian Ocean World, Philip Gooding, Fiona Williamson, Julie Babin

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

At the time of writing (Autumn 2022), extreme weather is devastating large swathes of the Indian Ocean World (IOW). In Pakistan, especially around the Indus River in Balochistan and Sindh, floods are causing severe distress. So far, more than 1,300 people have been killed, half a million more have been left homeless and there has been around $30 billion worth of damage to infrastructure. Nevertheless, even as the floods are projected to worsen during the second half of the south-west monsoon season, there are already fights on multiple spatial scales to shape the narratives about the root causes of the …

Inter-Frame Video Compression Based On Adaptive Fuzzy Inference System Compression Of Multiple Frame Characteristics, Arief Bramanto Wicaksono Putra, Rheo Malani, Bedi Suprapty, Achmad Fanany Onnilita Gaffar, Roman Voliansky

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

Video compression is used for storage or bandwidth efficiency in clip video information. Video compression involves encoders and decoders. Video compression uses intra-frame, inter-frame, and block-based methods. Video compression compresses nearby frame pairs into one compressed frame using inter-frame compression. This study defines odd and even neighboring frame pairings. Motion estimation, compensation, and frame difference underpin video compression methods. In this study, adaptive FIS (Fuzzy Inference System) compresses and decompresses each odd-even frame pair. First, adaptive FIS trained on all feature pairings of each odd-even frame pair. Video compression-decompression uses the taught adaptive FIS as a codec. The features utilized …

Round-Robin Algorithm In Load Balancing For National Data Centers, I Kadek Wahyu Sudiatmika, Gede Indrawan, Sariyasa Sariyasa

Knowledge Engineering and Data Science

The Provincial Government of Bali assumes a crucial role in administering various public service applications to meet the requirements of its community, traditional villages, and regional apparatus. Nevertheless, the escalating magnitude of traffic and uneven distribution of requests have resulted in substantial server burdens, which may jeopardize the operation of applications and heighten the likelihood of downtime. Ensuring efficient load distribution is of utmost importance in tackling these difficulties, and the Round Robin algorithm is often utilized for this purpose. However, the current body of research has not extensively examined the distinct circumstances surrounding on-premise servers in the Bali Provincial …

Creativity In Energy Balance, Obesity And Feeding Behavior Research, Some Thoughts, Stephen J French, David B Allison

Children’s Nutrition Research Center Staff Publications

This review provides an overview of examples of especially creative work related to the fields of ingestive behavior, energetics (defined as the study of the acquisition, storage, and use of metabolizable energy by biological organisms and the causes and consequences of such acquisition, storage, and use), and nutrition, focusing on both individual works and discoveries, as well as bodies of works and in some cases the working styles of particular scientists. The paper then discusses some principles extracted from our observations as well as from the literature on creativity pointing out some factors that seem to make for more creative …

Cu2o Heterojunction Solar Cell With Photovoltaic Properties Enhanced By A Ti Buffer Layer, Binghao Wang, Zhiqiang Chen, Feng Zhao

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this study, semiconductor oxide cuprite (Cu₂O) and indium tin oxide (ITO) heterojunction solar cells with and without a 10 nm thick titanium (Ti) thin film as the buffer layer were fabricated and characterized for comparison. The Cu₂O film was formed by low-cost electrodeposition, and Ti and ITO layers were deposited on a glass substrate by sputtering. The interfacial microstructures, surface topology, and electrical and photovoltaic properties of both solar cells were investigated. The test results showed that the Ti buffer layer changed the surface morphology, resistivity, and contact potential of the electrodeposited Cu₂O …

Cost Estimation Trends For Major Defense Acquisition Programs, Sammantha Jones, Edward D. White, Jonathan D. Ritschel, Shawn M. Valentine

Faculty Publications

The authors use both descriptive and inferential techniques to investigate average and standard deviation trends in cost estimates for major defense acquisition programs (MDAPs) grouped into decades from the 1970s to 2010s. For total program-cost-growth factors (CGFs), the 2010s exhibited lower CGFs compared to the 1990s. For the program-acquisition-unit cost (PAUC) CGFs, the 2010s appear lower than the 1990s and borderline lower than the 1970s. A statistically significant decreasing trend in the standard deviations of total program CGFs throughout the decades was identified. This lowering variability trend also appeared for PAUC CGFs from the 1980s onward. This finding appears to …

Insights On Simulating Summer Warming Of The Great Lakes: Understanding The Behavior Of A Newly Developed Coupled Lake-Atmosphere Modeling System, Miraj Kayastha, Chenfu Huang, Jiali Wang, William J. Pringle, T. C. Chakraborty, Zhao Yang, Robert D. Hetland, Yun Qian, Pengfei Xue

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

The Laurentian Great Lakes are the world's largest freshwater system and regulate the climate of the Great Lakes region, which has been increasingly experiencing climatic, hydrological, and ecological changes. An accurate mechanistic representation of the Great Lakes thermal structure in Regional Climate Models (RCMs) is paramount to studying the climate of this region. Currently, RCMs have primarily represented the Great Lakes through coupled one-dimensional (1D) column lake models; this approach works well for small inland lakes but is unable to resolve the realistic hydrodynamics of the Great Lakes and leads to inaccurate representations of lake surface temperature (LST) that influence …

Balanced Blended Space: Foundational Human–Ai Dialogues In A Symmetry-Based Mediation Framework, David Smith

Publications and Research

This working paper documents the early development of the Balanced Blended Space (BBS) framework through a series of iterative interactions between a cognitive agent (human researcher) and a computational agent (AI system) conducted in 2023. The work is motivated by the need for a universal theoretical model capable of describing the integration of physical, virtual, and conceptual spaces, particularly in response to increasing fragmentation across contemporary communication systems.

BBS is proposed as a symmetry-based mediation framework in which relationships between domains—such as physical and virtual space, cognition and computation, and multiple sensory modalities—are treated as structurally equivalent and mappable. Central …