Digital Commons Network^™

Play It Again Mathematics, Michelle Sherman

Master's Theses & Capstone Projects

This action research project focuses on implementing game-based learning into a first-grade math lesson, to help improve addition facts and fluency. The study was conducted over a ten-day period in one first grade classroom. Data was collected at the beginning of this study and at the end to determine if playing games in math increases a student's addition fact fluency . After the initial one-minute addition pre-test, the students were divided into two groups according to ability. One of the groups was the control group who learned addition math facts through paper and pencil activities and the other group was …

Louisiana Agriculture Fall, 2021, Lsu Agcenter

Louisiana Agriculture

No abstract provided.

Autonomous Vehicle Communication Strategies Modeled In Virtual Reality, Nick N. Ferenchak Ph.D

Data

We sought to better understand how autonomous vehicle (AV) communication strategies impact human road users’ perceptions and behaviors. More specifically, we explored the impact of different external human-machine interface (eHMI) designs on understanding, task load, comfort, trust, acceptance, and reaction time. To accomplish this, we created virtual reality (VR) scenarios where human participants interacted with AVs. Participants experienced biking, driving, and pedestrian simulators and were brought back after initial testing to explore acclimation and learning effects. In terms of perceptions, the presence of an eHMI was the strongest predictor of understanding, comfort, trust, and acceptance outcomes in the statistical models …

Exploring Traffic Safety Problems And Challenges Of Older Roads’ Users In Louisiana: Causes And Countermeasures, Hany Hassan Ph.D, Saba Doulabi

Data

It is well established that older pedestrians and drivers with 65 years and above are among the most vulnerable road users. As the number and proportion of older road users (as drivers and pedestrians) grows in many countries, as well as their share in pedestrians’ and drivers’ crashes and injuries, it behooves transportation researchers to further investigate the safety and mobility challenges of older road users. This study aims mainly to provide a comprehensive investigation of older pedestrians’ and drivers’ safety challenges. To this end, a three-fold research approach is designed to thoroughly examine older road users’ safety challenges as …

Calculating Pile Downdrag: Experimental And Numerical Investigations, Hai Lin, Shengli Chen, Hussein Alqrinawi

Data

Piles can be exposed to significant settlement (i.e., downdrag) and compressive force (i.e., dragload) if embedded in consolidating ground. Downdrag has been included in the design of piles, but there is uncertainty about how downdrag and dragload are efficiently considered in the pile design due to the differences in the existing design methods (e.g., AASHTO and FHWA). Although several field monitoring programs were successfully conducted on pile downdrag, fully instrumented pile model tests are still needed to investigate the responses at the soil-pile interface to improve the design of pile downdrag. This research focused on investigating the downdrag and skin …

Urban Transportation Infrastructure And Cyclist And Pedestrian Safety, Hatim Sharif, Samer Dessouky

Data

No abstract provided.

Developing Notification And Enforcement Systems To Communicate And Administer Bridge Load Postings, Hany Hassan, Hisham Abdu Kunnah

Data

State and local law enforcement agencies in the US strive to enforce weight restrictions on trucks and heavy vehicles travelling on public roads as a matter of public safety and as a way of safeguarding vital transportation infrastructure. This research aimed to identify plausible notification systems that can effectively communicate bridge load postings to dispatchers and drivers, investigate and suggest possible approaches to communicate potential detour routes, and identify corresponding enforcement methods required to successfully administer bridge load postings. This report discusses the current practices of bridge load posting notification and enforcement systems. Also, it presents an overview of the …

Coupling Novel Soil Moisture-Suction Sensors And Uav Photogrammetry Technology To The Performance Of Highway Embankments, Navid Jafari, Anand Puppala, Xinbao Yu, Surya Sarat Chandra Congress

Data

The movement of water plays a critical role in the mechanical performance and service life of transportation infrastructure, especially for pavement subgrades and highway embankments consisting of high-plasticity, expansive soils that saturate and ultimately lead to infrastructure distress. Shallow slides along highway embankments are ubiquitous across Region 6 because long-term wetting and drying cycles considerably weaken these compacted soils. In the aftermath of heavy rains, pore-water pressures increase to a critical threshold such that a failure occurs. The implications of embankment failures range from repeated maintenance repairs to long-term road closures. A comprehensive approach to model highway embankments comprising of …

An Innovative Thermo-Energy Harvesting Module For Asphalt Roadway Pavement, Seyed Amid Tahami, Samer Dessouky

Data

The importance of green technologies for generating renewable energy and sustainable development is widely accepted. Road surfaces are exposed to solar radiation that generates thermal gradients and heat flow in the pavement layers. The heat stored can be harvested providing an untapped source of renewable energy. This report presents the design, construction, and assessment of an improved thermoelectric energy prototype for harvesting heat energy from roadway pavements. To accomplish this, various prototype designs were simulated using Finite Element (FE) analysis, followed by design construction and laboratory testing of the most promising prototypes to evaluate their power harvesting capabilities. The main …

Lsu Research Fall 2021, Louisiana State University And Agricultural And Mechanical College

Research Magazine

LSU Research is published annually by the Office of Research & Economic Development, Louisiana State University.

Placental Adaptation To Maternal Malnutrition, M. Carey Satterfield, Ashley K. Edwards, Fuller W. Bazer, Kathrin A. Dunlap, Chelsie B. Steinhauser, Guoyao Wu

Faculty Publications

Maternal malnutrition gives rise to both short- and long-term consequences for the survival and health of the offspring. As the intermediary between mother and fetus, the placenta has the potential to interpret environmental signals, such as nutrient availability, and adapt to support fetal growth and development. While this potential is present, it is clear that at times placental adaptation fails to occur resulting in poor pregnancy outcomes. This review will focus on placental responses to maternal undernutrition related to changes in placental vascularization and hemodynamics and placental nutrient transport systems across species. While much of the available literature describes placental …

Fall 2021 Catalog, Lsu Press

LSU Press Seasonal Catalogs

No abstract provided.

Genetic Knockouts Indicate That The Abcc2 Protein In The Bollworm Helicoverpa Zea Is Not A Major Receptor For The Cry1ac Insecticidal Protein, Omaththage P. Perera, Nathan S. Little, Heba Abdelgaffar, Juan Luis Jurat-Fuentes, Gadi V.P. Reddy

Faculty Publications

Members of the insect ATP binding cassette transporter subfamily C2 (ABCC2) in several moth species are known as receptors for the Cry1Ac insecticidal protein from Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). Mutations that abolish the functional domains of ABCC2 are known to cause resistance to Cry1Ac, although the reported levels of resistance vary widely depending on insect species. In this study, the function of the ABCC2 gene as a putative Cry1Ac receptor in Helicoverpa zea, a major pest of over 300 crops, was evaluated using CRISPR/Cas9 to progressively eliminate different functional ABCC2 domains. Results from bioassays with edited insect lines support that mutations …

Stability Analysis Using Generalized Sup-Delay Inequalities, Frederic Mazenc, Michael Malisoff, Miroslav Krstic

Faculty Publications

We provide a new generalization of a recent trajectory-based approach for proving global asymptotic stability properties, using new sup-delay inequalities. Our generalization eliminates the usual contractivity requirement from previous sup-delay inequality approaches. We show how the requirements of our generalization hold under less restrictive Halanay's conditions than those that were previously reported. While the usual Halanay's inequality requires the decay rate to exceed the gain, our less restrictive conditions allow the gain to exceed the decay rate. We apply our work to systems with switching delays and to a continuous-discrete system.

Analysis Of A New Multispecies Tumor Growth Model Coupling 3d Phase-Fields With A 1d Vascular Network, Marvin Fritz, Prashant K. Jha, Tobias Köppl, J. Tinsley Oden, Barbara Wohlmuth

Faculty Publications

In this work, we present and analyze a mathematical model for tumor growth incorporating ECM erosion, interstitial flow, and the effect of vascular flow and nutrient transport. The model is of phase-field or diffused-interface type in which multiple phases of cell species and other constituents are separated by smooth evolving interfaces. The model involves a mesoscale version of Darcy's law to capture the flow mechanism in the tissue matrix. Modeling flow and transport processes in the vasculature supplying the healthy and cancerous tissue, one-dimensional (1D) equations are considered. Since the models governing the transport and flow processes are defined together …

Modeling And Simulation Of Vascular Tumors Embedded In Evolving Capillary Networks, Marvin Fritz, Prashant K. Jha, Tobias Köppl, J. Tinsley Oden, Andreas Wagner, Barbara Wohlmuth

Faculty Publications

In this work, we present a coupled 3D–1D model of solid tumor growth within a dynamically changing vascular network to facilitate realistic simulations of angiogenesis. Additionally, the model includes erosion of the extracellular matrix, interstitial flow, and coupled flow in blood vessels and tissue. We employ continuum mixture theory with stochastic Cahn–Hilliard type phase-field models of tumor growth. The interstitial flow is governed by a mesoscale version of Darcy's law. The flow in the blood vessels is controlled by Poiseuille flow, and Starling's law is applied to model the mass transfer in and out of blood vessels. The evolution of …

X-Ray Observations Of Two Candidate Symbiotic Binaries In The Galactic Bulge, Joshua Wetuski, R. I. Hynes, T. J. Maccarone, C. Heinke, M. A.P. Torres, P. G. Jonker, Christopher T. Britt, D. Steeghs, G. Nelemans

Faculty Publications

This paper analyses X-ray observations by the Chandra X-ray Observatory of CXOGBS J174614.3-321949 (CXB3) and CXOGBS J173620.2-293338 (CX332), two symbiotic binary star candidates identified by the Galactic Bulge Survey. Using new Chandra observations, we improved their X-ray positional uncertainties to 0.24 and 0.92 arcsec, respectively, confidently associating them with single optical counterparts. In particular, new observations of symbiotic X-ray candidate CX332 further solidify confidence in its coincidence with a carbon star. We demonstrate X-ray variability in both targets with a more recent observation of CX332 showing a decrease in brightness by a factor of 30, while CXB3 observations show it …

Random Matrix Theory In Cd Isotopes, A. J. Majarshin, Yan An Luo, Feng Pan, Jerry P. Draayer

Faculty Publications

Random matrix theory (RMT) is used to provide a measure of the chaoticity (q) of calculated results for the spectra for various Cd isotopes. The goal is to gain a better understanding of the internal dynamics in play; namely, whether it tracks with regular or irregular (chaotic) behavior as determined through an RMT analyses of calculated spectra. The basis-state configurations used to determine the spectra includes all positive, negative, natural (J π = 1-, 2+, ...), and unnatural parity configurations (J π = 0-, 1+, 2-, ...), unless suppressed for comparative purposes. The results show that when intruder-state configurations are …

A Community Cultural Wealth Perspective: Black And Latino Families' Experiences In Nyc Gifted Programs, Jennifer Cosme

Theses and Dissertations

Black and Latino K-12 students are largely underrepresented and underperform on standardized assessments in gifted programs compared to their White and Asian peers. The reasons for these differences in recruitment and retention of Black and Latino K-12 students have been attributed to a culturally biased admissions process and the lack of a culturally responsive curriculum framework for students of color. Nevertheless, a small minority of Black and Latino students are successful in K-12 gifted programs. Yet, little is understood about the factors that account for their success and the degree to which families are involved in their child’s success. Using …

2021 Fall Nutshell, Morehead State University. Institutional Research & Analysis.

Office of Institutional Research & Analysis Publication Archive

Fall 2021 issue of the Nutshell.

...Of Cabbages And Kings, Fall 2021, Emeriti Society, University Of The Pacific

Emeriti Newsletter: "...Of Cabbages and Kings"

"...Of Cabbages and Kings" is the newsletter of the University of the Pacific Emeriti Society. Read more about the Emeriti Society of Pacific by clicking here.

Sustainability Spotlight, University Of Dayton. Hanley Sustainability Institute

Hanley Sustainability Institute Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Sustainability Spotlight, University Of Dayton. Hanley Sustainability Institute

Hanley Sustainability Institute Newsletter

No abstract provided.

Sustainability Spotlight, University Of Dayton. Hanley Sustainability Institute

Hanley Sustainability Institute Newsletter

No abstract provided.

2018-20 Hsi Impact Report, University Of Dayton, Hanley Sustainability Institute

Hanley Sustainability Institute Documents, Reports and Promotional Materials

No abstract provided.

Mathematics Value Research, Diane Lamoy

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

Recent research shows how significant experiential learning can be to teaching the critical application of math to real-world problems. However, there is still a lack of research regarding experiential learning and its application to real-world problems regarding the concept of value. Concepts such as value are necessary for money management to help people maximize their purchase of goods and services. Currently, math classrooms teach procedural problem-solving, which may leave students unable to apply math critically to value-related math problems. This research examined critical thinking skills through completion of a real-world question about value before and after an experiential learning activity …

How To Do Surgery On The Constitutional Law Of Libel, R. George Wright

SMU Law Review Forum

Of late, the constitutional law of libel has become the focus of increasing dissatisfaction. This dissatisfaction has taken various forms. The argument below, however, is that the most crucial defect of constitutional libel law lies in the Court’s continuing attempts to draw and utilize distinctions among public figure and private figure libel plaintiffs. The Court should abandon these attempts. Instead, the Court should attend, broadly and fundamentally, to the constitutionally vital distinction between libelous speech that does or does not address some matter of public interest and concern.

The argument below first emphasizes the constitutional logic underlying the Court’s initial …

Turtles All The Way Down: A Clearer Understanding Of The Scope Of Waters Of The United States Based On The U.S. Supreme Court Decisions, Jesse J. Richardson Jr., Tiffany Dowell Lashmet, Gatlin Squires

William & Mary Environmental Law and Policy Review

The meaning of “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) has been debated in Congress, federal agencies, and courtrooms across the country for almost fifty years. Despite the longstanding attention to the term, most consider the term even more unclear today than in 1972 when the CWA was adopted. However, a methodical examination of the statutory and regulatory history and the U.S. Supreme Court decisions on the issue reveal more consensus than previously understood. In addition, this focused examination shows that the debate centers on one problem that the arguments rarely acknowledge: wetlands adjacent to a …

Unl Emeriti And Retirees Association Newsletter, Fall 2021

UNL Emeriti and Retirees Association: Newsletters and Other Materials

University of Nebraska-Lincoln Emeriti and Retirees Association Newsletter, Fall 2021

Exploring Neural Networks For Predicting Sentinel-C Backscatter Between Image Acquisitions, Zhongdi Wu

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Measuring moisture dynamics in soil and overlying vegetation is key to understanding ecosystem and agricultural dynamics in many contexts. For many applications, moisture information is demanded at high temporal frequency over large areas. Sentinel-1 C-band radar backscatter satellite images provide a repeating sequence of fine-resolution (10-m) observations that can be used to infer soil and vegetation moisture, but the 12-day interval between satellite observations is infrequent relative to the sensed moisture dynamics. Machine learning approaches have been used to predict soil moisture at higher spatial resolutions than the original satellite images, but little effort has been made to increase the …