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Viscoelastic Properties Of Thoraco-Abdominal Tissue Under Dynamic Compressive Loading, Devin Matthew Wozniak

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Finite element analysis is an effective tool for modeling the mechanical behavior of biologic structures, especially in scenarios where physical experimentation is impractical. The accuracy of these models depends on comprehensive mathematical formulations that describe tissue behavior using parameters derived from laboratory data. Currently there is a shortage of experimental data suitable for detailed parameter estimation. The goal of the current study was to generate a viscoelastic dataset using fresh harvested porcine tissue maintained under in vivo conditions, then provide a detailed constitutive model to capture the complex mechanical response. A sevohydraullic piston with a 5-mm spherical tip indenter was …

Development Of Coarctation Of The Aorta Software To Combat Hypertension (Coach), Shahd Sawalhi

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Coarctation of the aorta (CoA) is a congenital cardiovascular defect characterized by narrowing of the proximal descending thoracic aorta and is often associated with long-term hypertension (HTN) even after treatment. The current threshold for intervention in CoA patients, defined by a >20 mmHg peak-to-peak blood pressure gradient (BPGpp), does not effectively prevent HTN post-treatment and depends on the approached used for BPGpp measurement. To address this, the objective of this study was to develop the Coarctation of the Aorta App to Combat Hypertension (CoACH), which integrates a new index, the continuous flow pressure gradient (CFPG). The CFPG provides a more …

Kinematics Of Bowing The Re-Strung Violin, Sarah Hayden

Master's Theses (2009 -)

Building upon existing research in motor learning and sensorimotor control, this thesis explores how the performance of a real-world task (playing a simple musical piece on the violin) is impacted by the spatial re-arrangement of the violin’s strings, and how performance recovers with practice (relearning). I recorded audio performances and bow kinematics as violinists with a wide range of prior skills played a familiar 2-octave G-Major arpeggio 50 times. Some subjects played all 50 arpeggios on a violin with the standard string arrangement (the control violin). Another set of subjects played the middle 30 arpeggios with a “similar” violin with …

Analysis Of Head Resultant Linear Acceleration Transformation To Head Center Of Gravity For Ear-Based Sensor Application, Jonathan Wilder

Master's Theses (2009 -)

A wearable ear-based system, incorporating hearing protection, communications capabilities, and a head impact sensor, has been developed for military use. Enhancing computational efficiency is a pivotal goal for system sustainability. The first and second aims of this research were to assess tradeoffs in accuracy for two potential on-board computational processes: 1) rigid body transformations and 2) adjusting transformation dimensions for different head sizes. The third aim of this research study was to validate the performance of the system in the laboratory. For the first aim, ear-measured and transformed ear-to-head CG accelerations were compared to head CG-measured accelerations. For the second …

Investigating The Impacts Of Bin Variability On Particle Size Distributions In Multiphase Eulerian-Eulerian Simulations, Wilbert Alexander Cruz

Master's Theses (2009 -)

In this study, a 3D steady-state Eulerian-Eulerian simulation was developed to investigate flow performance in a dilute pneumatic conveying system. The investigation focused on two main objectives: (1) assessing the influence of bin selection on solution accuracy for representing the polydisperse mixture, and (2) exploring methods to simplify the modeling of polydisperse particles in the simulation by utilizing a mean diameter derived from the mixture’s particle size distribution. The system's geometry and initial boundary conditions featured a 10.6 m long, 150 mm diameter horizontal pipe with both gaseous and solid phases initially moving at 27 m/s . The steady-state simulation …

Exploring Cation Exchange: Unveiling Its Significance In Biochar And Bioenergetics Applications, Gyanendra Kharel

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses & Dissertations

Cation exchange, a cornerstone of soil chemistry and nutrient cycling, is a fundamental chemical process that occurs in soils, sediments, membranes, and other solid materials. It involves the interchange of positively charged ions, or cations, between a solid matrix and a surrounding solution. This process is crucial in various natural and engineered systems, leading to a range of applications across different fields.

This dissertation presents an extensive investigation into the applications of cation exchange in the fields of biochar and bioenergetics, encompassing three distinct aims. The first aim concentrates on the surface oxygenation of biochar through ozonization, aiming to achieve …

Reliability Of Popliteal Artery Flow-Mediated Dilation In The Seated Position, Taskina Akhter

Rehabilitation Sciences Theses & Dissertations

Flow-mediated dilation (FMD) is a noninvasive measurement of endothelial function, which is a useful prognostic tool for cardiovascular disease risk. Despite its widespread use since 1992, the reproducibility of FMD varies widely between studies. This variability in reproducibility is especially significant in the case of the popliteal artery due to different methodological approaches. Studies perform popliteal FMD in various body positions, with the prone and seated positions most common. However, no studies have examined the reproducibility of both the seated and prone positions of the popliteal artery FMD. Therefore, the aim of this study is to examine the test-retest and …

A Case Study On Teacher Perceptions Of The Wisconsin State Educator Effectiveness Requirement: Mandates And Results, Daniel Unertl

Dissertations (1934 -)

Teachers are the essential element in improving student learning in education. The State of Wisconsin requires public school teachers to participate in the Wisconsin Educator Effectiveness System. There is limited research on the links between required participation with the State of Wisconsin’s Educator Effectiveness System and on the experience of teachers and their outcomes for students (Dvorak et al., 2014; Jones, 2017). This qualitative case study explored, through semi-structured interviews, the experiences of Wisconsin educators who engaged with the EE System, teachers’ connections with EE and subsequent changes to their practice. The study addressed whether teachers’ felt the technical elements …

Interprofessional Community Schools, Shauna Curran, Morgan Bassett, Belle Betit, Kelly Couch, Allie Hegarty, Katelynn Leblanc

CAIEP Spring Showcase 2024

This presentation details the key components of community schools and their importance to community members and students alike. Comprised of four primary pillars, these schools focus on expanding learning opportunities, bringing in a variety of student supports, serving families collectively, while emphasizing the collaborative element of leadership. Community schools serve as an integration point of various elements of a community to come together in order to produce maximum benefits for all.

3/5ths Of Freedom: The Analysis Of {With} Black Individuals In Higher Education And Navigating Society Post-Justice-Involvement, Gabrielle Sarah Smith Finnie

Educational Leadership & Workforce Development Theses & Dissertations

Black individuals have been disproportionately involved in the criminal justice system in the United States (Federal Bureau of Prisons, 2022). Because of their criminal justice involvement, Black individuals are perceived as second-class citizens making their quest for “freedom” an endless journey impacted by oppression and domination post-justice-involvement (Couloute & Kopf, 2018; Johnson, 2021; Pager, 2003). To combat domination and oppression, Freire (1970) emphasized pursuing higher education helps individuals who experience marginalization become more humanized and aids them on their plight to freedom. Research highlighted pursuing higher education post-justice-involvement is a liberatory yet challenging experience because of discriminatory on-campus …

Performing Information Extraction For Mission Engineering Applications, Samuel R. Koski

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The process of extracting structured data from unstructured and semi-structured text is manual, time consuming and error prone. Current natural language processing approaches for automating this process are difficult to verify for non-trivial and context-sensitive corpora. Large Language Models (LLMs) like ChatGPT have become a subject of considerable interest, opening a promising avenue of exploration. However, there is limited evidence on the performance of LLMs for information extraction.

In this dissertation, an approach is proposed to evaluate the accuracy of Stanford OpenIE and OpenAI's ChatGPT for this purpose. This includes comparing Resource Description Framework (RDF) triples extracted by each of …

Effect Of Lunar Magnetic Field And Lunar Regolith Simulant On The Growth And Bioactive Compounds Production Of Chlorella Vulgaris Microalgae, Jeries Philip Butros Abedrabbo

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Since humans last went to the moon on the Apollo missions, there has been a fascination with inhabiting and colonizing other planetary objects, starting with the Earth’s Moon, Mars, and recently Jupiter’s moon, Europa. However, there is still lack of knowledge and science behind many of the extraterrestrial environmental effects on biological organisms living on Earth. Therefore, there is a need to study how such environments would affect these organisms. Moreover, how can we attain sustainable living in such environments as well through self-providing life support systems (LSS), without the need to provide for additional necessities back and forth from …

Aligning United States Law With International Norms Would Remove Major Barriers To Protection In Gender Claims, Karen B. Musalo Prof.

Faculty Scholarship

The protection of women and girls fleeing gender-based harms has been controversial in the United States (US), with advances followed by setbacks. The US interpretation of particular social group and its nexus analysis, both of which diverge from guidance by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), is the most significant barrier to protection. It has become almost impossible for women and girls to rely upon the particular social group ground because of current requirements that social groups not only be defined by immutable or fundamental characteristics, but also be socially distinct and have particularity. Establishing nexus is also …

Robust Machine Learning Under Vulnerable Cyberinfrastructure And Varying Data Quality, Sergei Chuprov

Theses

In our study, we investigate Machine Learning (ML) application robustness in ML Integrated with Network (MLIN) systems. We consider MLIN as an integration of three major components and interrelations between them: data sources, network facilities, and ML application. In contrast to the conventional approaches that focus on each separate component, we concentrate on their interrelationships, and consider them from the system integration perspective. We formulate our primary goal as to develop methods and tools aimed at assuring ML application performance towards Data Quality (DQ) variation in MLIN through improving ML application robustness. We examine the prior work on ML robustness …

Transfer Learning Across Domains And Sensing Modalities, Chowdhury Sadman Jahan

Theses

Transfer learning facilitates the training of a deep learning (DL) model with limited or no labeled data, by initializing the network parameters using a similar model already trained on a different but related dataset or task. This dissertation examines two special cases of transfer learning for image classification tasks: cross-modal supervised learning, and cross-domain unsupervised adaptation. This dissertation proposes to apply cross-modal transfer learning to guide the training process of a DL model on Synthetic Aperture Radar (SAR) images via knowledge distillation from a DL model trained on corresponding electro-optical (EO) images. Furthermore, this approach explores class-balanced sampling strategies and …

Adjoining Gates: Mitigating Optical Side-Channel Attacks On Integrated Circuits Through Security-Aware Placement, Thomas Wojtal

Theses

With the rise of outsourcing in Integrated Circuit (IC) fabrication processes, vulnerabilities in chip security have become a growing concern. These vulnerabilities can lead to attacks such as reverse-engineering, piracy, overproduction, and malicious modification of high-value intellectual property (IP) in a design. In light of this, a method called logic locking has been developed to protect chips prior to end-user shipment. Logic locking incorporates additional logic gates in a design to conceal a chip’s functionality during manufacture and test processes. However, recent developments have shown logic locking to be vulnerable to optical side-channel attacks. In this work, we explore these …

A Clinical Problem-Solving Model For Identifying And Addressing Barriers To Learning In Skill-Acquisition Programs, Landon Scott Cowan

Dissertations (1934 -)

Applied Behavior Analysis (ABA) services for learners with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and other intellectual and developmental disabilities frequently involve teaching a variety of skills, such as those related to communication, daily-living, and safety. There is an extensive literature available demonstrating effective instructional procedures (e.g., discrete-trial teaching, prompt-fading strategies) as well as procedural or environmental modifications that clinicians can apply when teaching these skills; however, minimal literature exists to guide clinicians in applying these procedures when learners encounter a barrier to learning. Thus, it is unclear what systematic methods, if any, clinicians are using to determine efficacious and efficient instructional …

Becoming Hispanic-Serving Institutions (Hsis): Disrupting Institutional Whiteness, Jacqueline Black

Dissertations (1934 -)

Hispanic-Serving Institutions (HSIs) educate disproportionately large percentages of Latinx and other underrepresented minority (URM) postsecondary students. But as most HSIs are also Historically White Colleges, whiteness permeates their campus structures, cultures, and practices. This study bridges gaps in our understanding around how legacies of historical whiteness on campuses that have recently become or are emerging as HSIs affect their efforts to serve Latinx/URM students. The project focuses on the perspectives of those faculty, staff, and administrators most intimately involved in “servingness” work on these campuses: HSI specialists. Employing a critical qualitative approach and guided by Critical Whiteness Studies and Omi …

An Evaluation Of Probabilistic Delay And Denial Training: Durability Against Treatment Relapse, Kendall Mae Kastner

Dissertations (1934 -)

Delay and Denial Teaching is a prevalent prescribed intervention following successful implementation of Functional Communication Training (FCT). Although there is strong empirical evidence in support of delay and denial teaching as an intervention to reach socially acceptable outcomes, there has yet to be systematic assessments of this intervention’s susceptibility to treatment relapse. The goal of this evaluation is to arrange treatment challenges which mimic the conditions that threaten treatment outcomes in the natural environment, specifically transferring treatment to a new environment or treatment integrity omission errors. Researchers replicated recent iterations of delay and denial teaching procedures (Hanley et al., 2014; …

Probing Charge Transport Mechanisms In 2d Semiconductive Metal Organic Framewoks, James Nyakuchena

Dissertations (1934 -)

Metal organic frameworks (MOFs) are a class of highly porous crystalline materials constructed from metal nodes connected by multitopic organic ligands. Due to their unique properties such as large surface area, tunable pore structure, and structural diversity, they have demonstrated potential in a wide array of applications including gas storage and separation, sensing, catalysis, and drug delivery. However, there are only a handful of MOFs reported that have electrical conductivity, which prevents their applications in photoelectronic and photocatalytic applications. This is because hard metals and redox inactive ligands with terminal hard linking bases such as carboxylates are often used in …

Immune Cell And Muscle Bioenergetics In Persons With Multiple Sclerosis, Kathryn Anne Kern

Dissertations (1934 -)

The pathology of Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is immune-mediated, associated with excessive lymphocyte activity, and dysregulated immune cell metabolism. Biomarkers readily detected in the blood have superior utility in research and the clinical laboratory for their pathological, diagnostic, and prognostic value as well as translatability. There is a need for additional biomarkers of disease status in MS. Therefore, the purpose of this dissertation was to determine whether peripheral blood immune cell (PBMC) metabolism differed between people with MS and non-MS controls, and whether PBMC bioenergetics correlated to muscle energetics and clinical end points including clinical, psychosocial, and functional outcomes. Specific cellular …

Arming The Naked Public Square: America’S Catholic Bishops Confront The Reagan Administration, 1980-1983, Brooke Tranten

Dissertations (1934 -)

This dissertation examines 1983 pastoral on war and peace, The Challenge of Peace, from the National Conference of Catholic Bishops (NCCB). It analyzes in-depth the process of the ad hoc committee of the NCCB that wrote the pastoral alongside the simultaneous debates within the American Catholic community and the Reagan administration surrounding the pastoral. Special attention is given here to the interactions of the Reagan administration with the ad hoc committee, led by Archbishop Joseph Bernardin, and the role of American Catholic lay critics Michael Novak, Philip Lawler, and George Weigel. It also explicates the intrapersonal aspect of drafting process, …

The Mental Health Management Of Individuals In Sex Work, Bianca Tocci

Dissertations (1934 -)

ABSTRACT:

This dissertation examines the mental health implications and experiences of individuals engaged in sex work, employing a constructivist grounded theory approach to explore the nuanced realities of this marginalized population. Through in-depth interviews with sex workers, this study reveals the complex interplay of positive aspects (enjoyment and empowerment), and the negative (severe risks faced by individuals in this field, including verbal abuse, physical violence, and sexual assault). The findings underscore the critical need for a holistic and nuanced understanding of sex work, challenging prevalent stereotypes and emphasizing the importance of ongoing consent, communication, and respect for sex workers' boundaries. …

Monitoring Hydrocarbons In Air Using Adaptive Multivariate Sensor Signal Processing And Analysis Of Humidity Effects, Sakin Sarwar Satter

Dissertations (1934 -)

Volatile organic hydrocarbons such as BTEX (benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylenes), commonly released into the ambient environment from sources such as gasoline or household products, are known to be hazardous to human health. As a result, real-time monitoring of such compounds in ambient environments is required for safety. Gas sensors with high sensitivity, sufficient selectivity, and fast response times are needed for effective monitoring of the environment. This dissertation addresses some challenges in environmental monitoring using gas sensors, especially with multi-analyte mixtures in the presence of humidity. This work uses sensor arrays with multivariable sensing parameters (sensitivity and response time constant) …

Bikeability Disparities In Orange County, California: Intersection Of Place And Demographics, Jeanette Gritton, Maria Cristina Martinez, Georgiana Bostean, Megan Thiele Strong

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Active transportation modes such as walking and biking are gaining popularity for their extensive health and environmental benefits, yet scholars know little about how place-based accessibility varies by area sociodemographic composition. This study is among the first to examine sociodemographic disparities (by both race and socioeconomic status) in bikeability while allowing for heterogeneity in disparities. Consideration of bikeability disparities is particularly critical within the framework of urban planning concepts that promote equitable accessibility and reduced dependency on automobiles, such as the 15-minute city. Geographically Weighted Regressions examined associations between census tract-level bikeability (using an index that combines five components), socioeconomic …

Soil Incubation Methods Lead To Large Differences In Inferred Methane Production Temperature Sensitivity, Zhen Li, Robert F. Grant, Kuang-Yu Chang, Suzanne B. Hodgkins, Jinyun Tang, Alexandra Cory, Zelalem A. Mekonnen, Scott R. Saleska, Eoin L. Brodie, Ruth K. Varner, Virginia I. Rich, Rachel M. Wilson, Jeff P. Chanton, Patrick Crill, William J. Riley

Faculty Publications

Quantifying the temperature sensitivity of methane (CH4) production is crucial for predicting how wetland ecosystems will respond to climate warming. Typically, the temperature sensitivity (often quantified as a Q10 value) is derived from laboratory incubation studies and then used in biogeochemical models. However, studies report wide variation in incubation-inferred Q10 values, with a large portion of this variation remaining unexplained. Here we applied observations in a thawing permafrost peatland (Stordalen Mire) and a well-tested process-rich model (ecosys) to interpret incubation observations and investigate controls on inferred CH4 production temperature sensitivity. We developed a field-storage-incubation modeling approach to mimic the full …

The Impact Of Gratitude On Academic Advisor Job Satisfaction, Alexandria M. Widener

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Academic advisors face high job demands and have among the highest turnover rates in higher education. Gratitude may have a positive impact on job satisfaction, but it has not been studied in this population. The purpose of this quantitative correlational study was to understand how dispositional gratitude at work, expression of gratitude at work, and receipt of gratitude at work predict job satisfaction in academic advisors. Academic advisors who were members of NACADA: The Global Community for Academic Advising, served in a full-time role at an institution of higher education in the United States, had worked a minimum of 6 …

Resiliency, Mindset, And Academic Performance: A College Athlete's Perspective, Trisha C. Giacomazzi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The problem addressed in this qualitative case study was the low graduation rates self-reported by the National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics institutions when compared to the general student population at a small Christian university in the Southern United States. In this study, I sought to acquire a deeper understanding of the degree to which an athlete’s mindset and psychological resilience influenced their perseverance and academic achievement on their path toward graduation. Utilizing semistructured interviews as the primary data collection method, I used purposive, convenience, and snowball selection methods to enlist a total of 10 participants from a pool of 52 …

Brainlife.Io: A Decentralized And Open-Source Cloud Platform To Support Neuroscience Research, Soichi Hayashi, Bradley A. Caron, Anibal Solon Heinsfeld, Sophia Vinci-Booher, Brent Mcpherson, Daniel N. Bullock, Giulia Berto, Guiomar Niso, Sandra Hanekamp, Daniel Levitas, Kimberly Ray, Anne Mackenzie, Paolo Avesani, Lindsey Kitchell, Josiah K. Leong, Filipi Nascimento-Silva, Serge Koudoro, Hanna Willis, Jasleen K. Jolly, Derek Pisner, Taylor R. Zuidema, Jan W. Kurzawski, Kyriaki Mikellidou, Aurore Bussalb, Maximilien Chaumon, Nathalie George, Christopher Rorden, Conner Victory, Dheeraj Bhatia, Dogu Baran Aydogan, Fang-Chen F. Yeh, Franco Delogu, Javier Guaje, Jelle Veraart, Jeremy Fischer, Joshua Faskowitz, Ricardo Fabrega, David Hunt, Shawn Mckee, Shawn T. Brown, Stephanie Heyman, Vittorio Iacovella, Amanda F. Mejia, Daniele Marinazzo, R. Cameron Craddock, Emanuale Olivetti, Jamie L. Hanson, Eleftherios Garyfallidis, Dan Stanzione, James Carson, Robert Henschel, David Y. Hancock, Craig A. Stewart, David Schnyer, Damian O. Eke, Russell A. Poldrack, Steffen Bollmann, Ashley Stewart, Holly Bridge, Ilaria Sani, Winrich A. Freiwald, Aina Puce, Nicholas L. Port, Franco Pestilli

Psychological Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Neuroscience is advancing standardization and tool development to support rigor and transparency. Consequently, data pipeline complexity has increased, hindering FAIR (findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable) access. brainlife.io was developed to democratize neuroimaging research. The platform provides data standardization, management, visualization and processing and automatically tracks the provenance history of thousands of data objects. Here, brainlife.io is described and evaluated for validity, reliability, reproducibility, replicability and scientific utility using four data modalities and 3,200 participants.

Generation, Dynamics, And Interaction Of Quartic Solitary Waves In Nonlinear Laser Systems, Sabrina Hetzel

Mathematics Theses and Dissertations

Solitons are self-reinforcing localized wave packets that have remarkable stability features that arise from the balanced competition of nonlinear and dispersive effects in the medium. Traditionally, the dominant order of dispersion has been the lowest (second), however in recent years, experimental and theoretical research has shown that high, even order dispersion may lead to novel applications. Here, the focus is on investigating the interplay of dominant quartic (fourth-order) dispersion and the self-phase modulation due to the nonlinear Kerr effect in laser systems. One big factor to consider for experimentalists working in laser systems is the effect of noise on the …