Digital Commons Network^™

Molten Salt Processing And Electrochemistry, Devin Rappleye

BYU Research Development Office Research Networking Conference

Used Nuclear Fuel Processing (for Reuse and Disposal), High-temperature metal electrodeposition, Actinide Chemistry

Elementary School Library Collections: A Content Analysis Of Science Trade Books, Sandra W. Watson, Sheila F. Baker

Reading Horizons: A Journal of Literacy and Language Arts

In this study, science trade books from the libraries of 10 elementary schools across the United States were evaluated using the modified Hunsader rubric for their overall quality pertaining to science content, literacy, and critical literacy criteria. Findings indicate that 62% of the books met the overall science content criterion, 99% met the overall literacy criterion, and 41% met the overall critical literacy criterion. The majority of science trade books in each school were life science books, and the majority of books across all schools were 18–23 years old, with many being much older. Implications and recommendations are provided.

An Engineer's Guide To Periodic Discrete Wavelet Transforms And The Periodic Wavelet Balance Method, Simon Jones

Faculty Publications - Mechanical Engineering

This Technical Report aims to explain how to apply the discreteWavelet Balance Method (dWBM) for solving periodic differential equations using periodized Daubechies wavelets. The primary goal is to provide the user sufficient details to implement the technique without extensive mathematical background.

Chapter 2 of this document reviews the discrete Fourier transform using a multivariate regression approach, followed by a review of the discrete Harmonic Balance Method (dHBM) for approximating solutions to periodic differential equations. It is important the reader complete this chapter, even if they are familiar with the topics, since the approaches demonstrated in Chapter 2 with harmonic functions …

Effects Of Trans-Acting Factors On The Translational Machinery In Yeast, Brandon M. Trainor

Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences Theses and Dissertations

Synthesis of proteins, or translation, is a complex biological process requiring the coordinated effort of numerous protein and RNA factors. Central to translation is the ribosome, a complex macromolecular complex consisting of both ribosomal RNA (rRNA) and ribosomal protein (r-protein). Ribosomes are essential and are one of the oldest and most abundant biomolecules across all forms of life. In addition to the ribosome, translation requires messenger RNA (mRNA), transfer-RNA conjugated to an amino acid (aa-tRNA), translation factors, and energy in the form of ATP and GTP. Translation universally occurs in four major stages, initiation, elongation, termination, and recycling, with initiation …

Online Prehealth Advising: Impact Analysis Spring 2017 To Fall 2020, Alasdair Ekpenyong, Mykel Beorchia

Publications

At Utah State University, various online, Canvas-based advising programs complement the traditional in-person advising program. The online prehealth advising service assists students who are considering health professions graduate school.

This report explored the association between online prehealth advising participation and student persistence to the next term at Utah State University.

How Do Globalism And Nationalism Impact The International Business Competitiveness Of The United States Of America?, Françoise Lepage, Denise Lucy, Jayati Ghosh

Barowsky School of Business | Faculty Scholarship

Business competitiveness in the global marketplace is dependent upon the stability, infrastructure, policies, and practices of the nations with which it does business. A nation’s competitiveness is fundamentally interconnected with its businesses and while on the world stage, it is tied to its globalist and nationalist strategies. There are objective approaches to measuring various dimensions of national outcomes of competitiveness from economic, political, and social platforms. Many internationally recognized indices seek to offer standard-based, objective perspectives and associated data on what constitutes nation-state greatness. These indices are based upon a globalist perspective, acknowledging that a nation’s competitiveness is in relationship …

Effect Of Temperature On Abrasion Erosion In Particle Based Concentrating Solar Powerplants, Nipun Goel, Tessa Mei-Lin Fong, John P. Shingledecker, Andrew Russell, Michael W. Keller, Siamack A. Shirazi, Todd Otanicar

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

The use of solid particles as a heat transfer medium is being explored for concentrated solar power plants (CSP) to increase their efficiency by achieving operating temperature >700 °C. During operation, these hot particles are expected to move along the various components within the collector system, resulting in material degradation from a combination of high-temperature oxidation and erosion. In the present study, the performance of candidate materials was evaluated through a series of abrasion erosion experiments at room temperature as well as at 800 °C. Wear in metallic and refractory type materials was investigated using CarboBead® HSP 40/70 particles inside …

Design, Synthesis, And Evaluation Of A Novel Cytotoxic Peptide-Doxorubicin Conjugate Targeting Triple-Negative Breast Cancer, Elmira Ziaei

Pharmaceutical Sciences (PhD) Dissertations

The aim of this thesis was to design, synthesize, and characterize a novel peptide-doxorubicin conjugate, evaluate in vitro stability and cytotoxicity properties of the conjugate and study its mechanism for uptake into the triple-negative breast cancer (TNBC) cells. For the synthesis of the conjugate, first, doxorubicin (Dox) was conjugated to a highly efficient established cross-linker, MCC, to give an intermediate product, MCC-Dox. MCC-Dox was characterized using NMR spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, and RP-HPLC and purified for subsequent reaction. Second, the 11-mer peptide 18-4 (NH₂-CWxEAAYQrFL-CONH₂) with high proteolytic stability and specificity for breast cancer cells was reacted with …

A Pan-Canadian Validation Study For The Detection Of Egfr T790m Mutation Using Circulating Tumor Dna From Peripheral Blood, Shamini Selvarajah, Sophie Plante, Marsha Speevak, Andrea Vaags, Darren Hamelinck, Martin Butcher, Elizabeth Mccready, Daria Grafodatskaya, Normand Blais, Danh Tran-Thanh, Xiaoduan Weng, Rami Nassabein, Wenda Greer, Ryan N. Walton, Bryan Lo, Doug Demetrick, Stephanie Santos, Bekim Sadikovic, Xiao Zhang, Tong Zhang, Tara Spence, Tracy Stockley, Harriet Feilotter, Philippe Joubert

Paediatrics Publications

Introduction: Genotyping circulating tumor DNA (ctDNA) is a promising noninvasive clinical tool to identify the EGFR T790M resistance mutation in patients with advanced NSCLC with resistance to EGFR inhibitors. To facilitate standardization and clinical adoption of ctDNA testing across Canada, we developed a 2-phase multicenter study to standardize T790M mutation detection using plasma ctDNA testing. Methods: In phase 1, commercial reference standards were distributed to participating clinical laboratories, to use their existing platforms for mutation detection. Baseline performance characteristics were established using known and blinded engineered plasma samples spiked with predetermined concentrations of T790M, L858R, and exon 19 deletion variants. …

The Effect Of Price-Based Demand Response On Carbon Emissions In European Electricity Markets: The Importance Of Adequate Carbon Prices, Markus Fleschutz, Markus Bohlayer, Marco Braun, Gregor Henze, Michael D. Murphy

Publications

Price-based demand response (PBDR) has recently been attributed great economic but also environmental potential. However, the determination of its short-term effects on carbon emissions requires the knowledge of marginal emission factors (MEFs), which compared to grid mix emission factors (XEFs), are cumbersome to calculate due to the complex characteristics of national electricity markets. This study, therefore, proposes two merit order-based methods to approximate hourly MEFs and applies them to readily available datasets from 20 European countries for the years 2017–2019. Based on the calculated electricity prices, standardized daily load shifts were simulated which indicated that carbon emissions increased for 8 …

Estimating School-Level Effects Of Mandatory Student Grade Retention Policies Using Latent Growth Curve Modeling, Matthew Koziol

Dissertations

Mandatory grade retention for poor-performing readers has been a disputed practice for decades. Since the early-2000s, state-level mandatory grade retention policies have proliferated. In 18 states and Washington, D.C. mandatory grade retention exists for students in the third grade who fail an end-of-year standardized reading exam. These policies are based on research that suggests students who do not read by the third-grade are at much greater risk of dropping out of school prior to receiving a high-school degree. Mandatory grade retention policies use a gatekeeper mechanism at the end of the third grade to ensure that students who are not …

The Role Of International Law In The Food–Energy–Water Nexus, Waseem Ahmad Qureshi

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

The current relationship of water, food, and energy is deeply entangled as it functions within different sectors, such as industry and agriculture, the latter of which water is essential for irrigating crops. Similarly, adequate water storage facilities are also required for hydroelectricity generation. Moreover, in many regions, electrical energy is used to operate tube wells for extracting groundwater to irrigate crops for food. Within the intricate nature of the mutual relationship of water, energy, and food, each plays its role in ensuring the security of the others. For instance, both energy security and food security are dependent upon water security, …

Muddying The Waters: The Need For More Clarity Under The Clean Water Act, Georgia D. Reid

Buffalo Environmental Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Predict Trend Of Unemployment Rate By Observing The Nasdaq Composite Index Using Hidden Markov Model, Li Liu

Master's Theses

In this paper, we present how to use Hidden Markov Models (HMM) to predict the change in Unemployment Rate. By observing the NASDAQ price difference, we will predict the Unemployment Rate will rise or fall in the next month using the Hidden Markov Model. We will use the NASDAQ price and the unemployment rate from 2016 to 2020 monthly data for this paper. When we check the relation between the NASDAQ price and the unemployment rate, we find out that whenever the NASDAQ price goes up, the unemployment rate will drop for a time. So we are interested in how …

Epileptogenesis In Rodents Leads To Neural System Dysfunction And Loss Of Associative Memory Measured By Auditory Event Related Potentials., Sai Mohan Rudrashetty

Doctoral Dissertations

Epilepsy is a common and disabling neurological condition affecting 1-2% of the world’s population. Individuals suffering from epilepsy are prone to cognitive dysfunctions with detrimental effects in neural processing and memory resulting in decreases in quality of life. An evaluation of inherent neural processes is valuable information to diagnose and clinically assess cognitive function, which could significantly improve the treatment possibilities and thereby the quality of life for epilepsy patients.

An evaluation of cognitive functions during epileptogenesis was performed by experiments using auditory event related potentials (ERP) in rats before and after induction of status epilepticus (SE) using the Lithium-Pilocarpine …

Firm Performance In The Era Of Big Data Analytics: The Effects Of Analytical Human Capital On Firm Capabilities And Performance, Rajiv Dahiya

Doctoral Dissertations

The Big Data phenomenon has revolutionized the way firms do business by providing immense opportunities for valuable business insights from large amounts of data. Big data analytics (BDA) has emerged as one of the top technology investment areas as firms consider it a significant impetus for superior firm performance. However, many firms adopting BDA find it challenging to gain an advantage from their BDA investments. Scholars note the need to further understand the factors and mechanisms of BDA success. Some anecdotal evidence has indicated that a critical barrier to BDA success may be the lack of a necessary workforce with …

Raj Soin College Of Business Newsletter - August 2021, Raj Soin College Of Business, Wright State University

Raj Soin College of Business Newsletter

A five page newsletter created by the Raj Soin College of Business at Wright State University. This newsletter includes a upcoming events, message from the dean, and more.

Clemson Commencement Program, August 2021, Clemson University

Clemson Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Seeing The Tress For The Forest: An Analysis Of Novice And Experienced Teachers' Self-Efficacy And Stress, Allison Serceki

Education (PhD) Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to better understand the relationship between novice teachers’ context-specific self-efficacies and stresses and whether these constructs differed from the self-efficacies and stresses of experienced teachers in middle school and early high school. Novice teachers, or teachers in their first 5 years of teaching, are most susceptible to attrition and turnover, which research indicated is sometimes brought on by stress. Research also showed self-efficacy consistently had a negative correlation to stress. This study used the second-hand dataset obtained from the Teaching and Learning International Survey, focusing on 2560 responses obtained from teachers in the United …

An Examination Of Chinese Undergraduates’ Contemplativity And Academic Stress, Ran Tao

Education (PhD) Dissertations

China has advanced considerably in many fields, which has led to fierce competition among its people. College students are no exception as this competition has brought tremendous academic stress that affects academic performance. Western scholars and researchers found contemplative practice (CP) was helpful to reduce students’ educational stress and improve their study performance. However, no literature was found regarding the potential impact of CP on undergraduates in China, nor was any literature discovered concerning potential differences between genders or academic emphases on students’ conceptions of CP and collegiate stress. The purpose of this study was to fill the gap by …

Fighting An Uphill Battle: Black Undergraduate Women Navigating Higher Education While Acknowledging And Challenging Media Portrayals Of Black Women, Kandace Branch

Education (PhD) Dissertations

The stereotypes present in popular television shows often become barriers that limit Black women in higher education, influencing the ways in which they experience college campuses, including how they are treated by faculty and peers and how they interact with others in these spaces. This study examined the perspectives of Black women regarding how media portrayals of Black women and specific popular characters influence their learning opportunities and sense of belonging as undergraduates in college campuses. Black Feminist Theory was employed to analyze the experiences of the participants, Black women, and Critical Race Theory aided in understanding how these women …

Incorporation Of Glycyl-L-Histidyl-L-Lysine (Ghk) With Metalized Halloysites For Tissue Regeneration, Christopher Cameron Miller

Doctoral Dissertations

Human adipose stem cells (hASCs) provide a research tool for regenerative medicine in various capacities. There are major research needs for new therapies for bone-related diseases such as osteoporosis, osteomyelitis, and severe trauma. Human ASCs can self-renew for extended durations outside of the body and provide an ideal platform to study therapeutics for the formation of bone-specific modalities or wound healing applications.

Combining hASCs with nanomaterials is a growing area of research that requires additional studies. Halloysites (HNTs) are hollow aluminosilicate nanotubes with an exterior negative charge and a positively charged lumen. HNTs have demonstrated biocompatibility in cell and animal-based …

In Vivo And In Vitro Expression And Interaction Of The Mediator Kinase Module Subunits During Adipogenesis, Sree Lakshmi Venigalla

Doctoral Dissertations

Selective gene expression is crucial in maintaining the self-renewing and differential potential of stem cells. Especially differentiation process requires a constellation of proteins that regulate expression of genes necessary for differentiation towards a specific lineage. Adipogenesis is a process of formation of mature fat cells from precursor cells that is tightly regulated by a number of transcription factors and their cofactors. Dysregulation in the process often leads to metabolic disorders, which is common due to prevalence of obesity. Mediator is a large, evolutionarily conserved, multi-subunit protein complex that functions as a transcriptional coactivator that modulates gene expression by relaying signals …

The Best Children's Books Of The Year [2021 Edition], Bank Street College Of Education. Children's Book Committee

The Center for Children's Literature

Includes more than 600 titles chosen by the Children’s Book Committee as the best of the best published in 2020. In choosing books for the annual list, committee members consider literary quality and excellence of presentation as well as the potential emotional impact of the books on young readers. Other criteria include credibility of characterization and plot, authenticity of time and place, age suitability, positive treatment of ethnic and religious differences, and the absence of stereotypes.

Cytokines: From Clinical Significance To Quantification, Chao Liu, Dewei Chu, Kourosh Kalantar-Zadeh, Jacob George, Howard A. Young, Guozhen Liu

United States Public Health Resources

Cytokines are critical mediators that oversee and regulate immune and inflammatory responses via complex networks and serve as biomarkers for many diseases. Quantification of cytokines has significant value in both clinical medicine and biology as the levels provide insights into physiological and pathological processes and can be used to aid diagnosis and treatment. Cytokines and their clinical significance are introduced from the perspective of their pro- and anti-inflammatory effects. Factors affecting cytokines quantification in biological fluids, native levels in different body fluids, sample processing and storage conditions, sensitivity to freeze-thaw, and soluble cytokine receptors are discussed. In addition, recent advances …

What Is The Effect Of Physical Activity On The Reduction Of Macrovascular Complications In Patients Diagnosed With Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus?, Rachael M. Gordon

Theses and Graduate Projects

The increasing prevalence and healthcare burden of type 2 diabetes is a worldwide concern. It is the seventh leading cause of mortality and a significant cause of morbidity. While both the macrovascular and microvascular complications of diabetes can have a profound impact on overall health and quality of life, cardiovascular events are the leading cause of mortality in patients with type 2 diabetes. Adults with diabetes have a two to four-fold increased risk of cerebrovascular events and myocardial infarctions. Oral medications combat insulin resistance and aid in the control of hemoglobin A1c, blood pressure, and cholesterol, therefore, contributing to a …

Our Experience Of Mega-Prosthesis In Bone Tumours: A Retrospective Cross-Sectional Study In A Tertiary Care Hospital, Masood Umer, Eraj Khurshid Khan, Javeria Saeed

Section of Orthopaedic Surgery

Objective: To evaluate the oncological and functional outcomes of bone tumour patients who underwent reconstruction with mega prosthesis.
Methodology: A retrospective study was conducted in the department of Orthopaedics Aga Khan University Hospital, Karachi. All the paediatric and adult age group patients diagnosed with malignant, benign and metastatic bone tumours and meeting the inclusion criteria were selected and analysed. Retrospective data was collected from January 2008-January 2018.
Results: Sixty-two patients, 30 (48.4%) females and 32 (51.6%) males. were included in the study. Of these 57 (92%) cases had involvement of the lower limb. The mean age was 36.95±19.1 years with …

Representation And Strategy Learning For Variable-Size Tree Transformation Using Reinforcement Learning, Shirin Hosseini Shirvani

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Trees as acyclic graphs are ubiquitous in representing different context where they encode connectivity patterns at all scales of organization, from biological systems to social networks. Trees are powerful resources which have been used many times for the exploration and discovery of interactions and properties in different context. Tree data structure representation approaches have led to remarkable discoveries in different real-world applications. In the last decades, extensive research and algorithms have been developed on tree or acyclic graph data structures with deep theoretical properties. The cost of solving these various problems ranges from simple linear time algorithms, to more complex …

On The Efficacy Of Knowledge Graph Completion Methods, Accuracy Measures And Evaluation Protocols, Farahnaz Akrami

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In the active research area of employing embedding models for knowledge graph completion, particularly for the task of link prediction, most prior studies used some specific benchmark datasets to evaluate such models. Most triples in those datasets belong to reverse and duplicate relations, which exhibit high data redundancy due to semantic duplication, correlation, or data incompleteness. This is a case of excessive data leakage—a model is trained using features that otherwise would not be available when the model needs to be applied for real prediction. There are also Cartesian product relations for which every triple formed by the Cartesian product …

Macromodeling And Accelerated Simulations Of Electric Machines, Ajay Pratap Yadav

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Electric machines are the most important element in the power grid. Given its centennial legacy and the rise of electric vehicles and distributed energy resources, it is imperative to bring new technologies into this area. This work tries to bridge the gap between electric machines and innovative research domains such as convex optimization and FPGA-based hardware acceleration. Problems of electric machine parameter identification and real-time simulation are considered. A convex optimization-based framework is designed to identify machine parameters. This tool is used to perform the macromodeling of a synchronous machine from its magnetic-equivalent circuit model. Furthermore, it is used to …