Digital Commons Network^™

Feasibility Analysis For The Implementation Of An Anaerobic Digestion System In The City Of Pittsburgh, Pa, Gianna L. Kolencik

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The current study is investigating the feasibility of an anaerobic digestion system

in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, at the old State Correctional Institute (SCI-Pittsburgh)

located at 1922 Westhall St. This location is immediately upstream of the Allegheny

County Sanitary Authority (ALCOSAN) along the Ohio River. Municipal solid waste

from ALCOSAN may be used as the main form of feedstock. ALCOSAN produced

roughly 36,500 tons of dry sludge in the reporting year 2023-2024. Based on the volume

of dry sludge from ALCOSAN it is estimated that an anaerobic digestion system could

yield approximately 29,930,000 kWh of energy, which is enough to power over …

Advancing Dermatologic Equity For Individuals With Autism Through Awareness And Structural Reform, Radhika Misra, Renee Chang, Olumayowa T. Adebiyi, Maria Orbe, Donna Pham, Kaitlyn Miner, Kelly M. Frasier

Student Publications

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD), a neurodevelopmental condition affecting communication, social interaction, and sensory processing, has seen a marked increase in prevalence over the past two decades. Dermatologists are increasingly encountering patients with ASD, many of whom face compounded challenges due to mobility issues, such as reliance on wheelchairs, as well as sensory hypersensitivities and communication barriers. Despite the growing demand for specialized care, advocacy for accessible dermatologic health for individuals with ASD remains insufficient. This literature review highlights the challenges faced by this population, including higher susceptibility to certain dermatologic conditions and the significant barriers to effective clinical evaluation and …

Community Structure And Functional Diversity Of Imperiled Great Plains Fishes: Implications For Conservation Of Two Endangered Shiners (Sharpnose Shiner Notropis Oxyrhynchus And Smalleye Shiner Notropis Buccula) In The Upper Brazos River, Texas, Chase Nimee

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Anthropogenic practices such as groundwater pumping, land use change, and the implementation of dams have caused significant change in freshwater ecosystems, especially in the Great Plains of North America where pelagic broadcast spawning fish species are declining due to the loss of the natural flow regime and river fragmentation. Uncovering the abiotic and biotic drivers across spatial and temporal scales influencing fish assemblages across the Great Plains is required to inform effective management strategies. Here, I investigated ecological drivers influencing fish assemblages containing two federally endangered minnow species: the Sharpnose Shiner Notropis oxyrhynchus and Smalleye Shiner Notropis buccula in the …

Direct Computations Of Spatially Resolved Viscoelastic Moduli Of Biomolecular Condensates, Liwen Gu

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Biomolecular condensates are viscoelastic materials formed by liquid-liquid phase separations (LLPS) of biopolymers. In this study, we develop a modified graph Laplacian-based collective model to characterize viscoelastic heterogeneity within condensates based on results of lattice-based Metropolis Monte Carlo (MMC) simulations. By integrating random graph models and simulations of A1-LCD, a type of intrinsically disordered protein, we examine how network topology influences storage modulus, loss modulus, crossover frequency, and relaxation time spectra. Our results reveal a strong correlation between topological features and mechanical response, with the condensate interior exhibiting higher stiffness and faster relaxation than the interface. The relaxation spectra provide …

Pulse Pressure, White Matter Hyperintensities, Andcognition: Mediating Effects Across The Adult Lifespan, Jade Hannan, Sarah Newman-Norlund, Natalie Busby, Sarah C. Wilson, Roger Newman-Norlund, Chris Rorden, Julius Fridriksson, Leonardo Bon, Nicholas Riccardi

Faculty Publications

Objectives: To investigate whether pulse pressure or mean arterial pressure mediates the relationship between age and white matter hyperintensity load and to examine the mediating effect of white matter hyperintensities on cognition.

Methods: Demographic information, blood pressure, current medication lists, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores for231 stroke- and dementia-free adults were retrospectively obtained from the Aging Brain Cohort study. Total WMH load was determined from T2-FLAIR magnetic resonance scans using the TrUE-Net deep learning tool for white matter segmentation. In separate models, we used mediation analysis to assess whether pulse pressure or MAP mediates the relationship between age and total …

Pulse Pressure, White Matter Hyperintensities, And Cognition: Mediating Effects Across The Adult Lifespan, Jade Hannan, Sarah Newman-Norlund, Natalie Busby, Sarah C. Wilson, Roger Newman-Norlund, Chris Rorden, Julius Fridriksson Ph.D., Leonardo Bonilha

Faculty Publications

Objectives: To investigate whether pulse pressure or mean arterial pressure mediates the relationship between age and white matter hyperintensity load and to examine the mediating effect of white matter hyperintensities on cognition.

Methods: Demographic information, blood pressure, current medication lists, and Montreal Cognitive Assessment scores for231 stroke- and dementia-free adults were retrospectively obtained from the Aging Brain Cohort study. Total WMH load was determined from T2-FLAIR magnetic resonance scans using the TrUE-Net deep learning tool for white matter segmentation. In separate models, we used mediation analysis to assess whether pulse pressure or MAP mediates the relationship between age and total …

Msw Portfolio, Katarina T. Keeler

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

No abstract provided.

Msw Portfolio, Nannie R. Stewart

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

Nannie Stewart, a student in the University of Montana's online MSW program, presents her portfolio and provides a narrative about several key topics from her coursework and practicum experiences. She highlights her theoretical orientation, emphasizing the humanistic and strength-based approaches when working with diverse clients, including young adults, adolescents, and the elderly. Nannie further covers her experiences addressing social, racial, and economic justice, and learned experiences from indigenous cultures. Nannie also discusses her engagement in simulated practice, which allowed her to develop skills in micro, mezzo, and macro-level interventions, such as creating a domestic violence support group and advocating for …

From Fables To Facts: Discovering The World Through Stories And Science, Lucille Helen Vanek

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

From Fables to Facts: Discovering the World Through Stories and Science examines the integration of narrative storytelling and hands-on scientific exploration as a means of cultivating environmental literacy, ethical reflection, and sustained engagement with the natural world. Grounded in environmental philosophy, aesthetics, and ethics, the project draws on theoretical insights from Holmes Rolston III, Marcia Muelder Eaton, Allen Carlson, Arnold Berleant, and C. Thi Nguyen to develop a multidimensional model of education that unites imagination, cognition, and participatory experience. Implemented in diverse Montana community settings—including libraries, early learning centers, science museums, and faith-based organizations—the program paired fables, parables, and literary …

Msw Portfolio, Aubrey Henderson

Graduate Student Portfolios, Professional Papers, and Capstone Projects

Comprehensive Collection of work that reflects my academic, professional, and personal growth throughout the Master of Social Work Program. It highlights my development across core Social Work competencies, advocacy, family reservation, and trauma-informed care in Indigenous communities. Each section showcases key assignments, reflections, and professional experiences demonstrating my ability.

2025 Spring Commencement, Harding University

Commencement Programs

Program for the Harding University Commencement on May 10.

Commencement Speakers:
9a.m.: Dr. Lisa Ritchie
noon: David Johnson
3p.m.: Mark Sweesy

Prevalence Of Well Water Contaminants In Georgia From 2010-2022, Angelique B. Willis, Suhasini Ramisetty-Mikler, Christine E. Stauber, Uttam Kumar Saha

Journal of the Georgia Public Health Association

Background: Safe, reliable, and clean drinking water sources are a basic necessity. More than 1.7 million individuals rely on private wells for drinking water in Georgia and are confronted with water quality challenges stemming from chemical contamination as private wells are not under mandated regulations as public water supplies. In Georgia, previous studies suggested that the variation of soil and rock in a physiographic province (region) plays an essential role in the quality of private well water. There is a need to understand the distribution of these chemical contaminants above the federal Maximum Contaminant Level (MCL) and how different geologies …

Coxiella Burnetii Manipulation Of Membrane Contact Sites In The Intracellular Niche, Margaret F. Sladek

Theses & Dissertations

Coxiella burnetii is a highly infectious and environmentally persistent bacterium that causes the disease Q Fever. Its intracellular home, the Coxiella-Containing Vacuole (CVV), is formed from fusion of host-derived vesicles and is rich in sterols - yet cholesterol accumulation in the CCV is bacteriolytic. Our lab’s goal is to understand how Coxiella manages intracellular cholesterol levels and survives within the host. One way Coxiella may modulate CCV cholesterol is through membrane contact sites (MCS), areas where molecular complexes bridge two organelles and exchange lipids. This thesis explores how Coxiella uses both a mammalian lipid transfer protein and bacterially-encoded effector …

Schistosoma Haematobium Infection In Ethiopian Children: Evaluating Praziquantel Efficacy, Nutritional Effects, And Diagnosis Using Flukecatcher, Louis Fok

Theses & Dissertations

Urogenital schistosomiasis continues to impact the wellbeing of hundreds of millions of people worldwide and remains a significant public health challenge across Ethiopia. Despite existing knowledge on the disease, there remain significant unanswered questions with regard to its treatment and diagnosis. This dissertation evaluated the efficacy of praziquantel at treating urogenital schistosomiasis, improving nutritional parameters among children and the performance of FlukeCatcher at detecting and determining the intensity of infection. In effecting this, a total of 977 children aged 5 through 15 from the Afar and Gambella regions of Ethiopia were screened for S. haematobium infection using urine filtration microscopy …

Felony Offenders' Perceptions Of Effective Rehabilitation And Reintegration Programs In Northern Colorado, Burnes Marjorie

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Criminal justice reform programs in the U.S. have grown and developed as studies have found that older methods of criminal punishment are ineffective in terms of reducing the likelihood of an inmate being reincarcerated after release, referred to as “recidivism.” With the growth of these reforms, ground-breaking systems have been integrated into prisons in the form of rehabilitation and reintegration programs which serve to reduce recidivism. However, with the development of numerous new unique and powerful programs, determining which rehabilitation and reintegration programs are most effective in reducing recidivism in felony offenders in the U.S. is critical. Past research …

Outcomes Of 1,021 Consecutive Cases Utilizing A Triple Tapered Collared Stem And Automated Broaching System, Ravi R Agrawal, Maria T Schwabe, Helena F Barber, Ethan Blum, Joseph T Gibian, Ryan M Nunley, Ilya Bendich

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Region-Specific Brain Targets Drive Circuit Formation And Maturation Of Human Retinal Ganglion Cells, Victoria R Cuevas, Eyad Shihabeddin, Claire Young, Melody Hernandez, Jason S Meyer, Nicholas M Tran, Melanie A Samuel

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

Human vision relies on retinal ganglion cells (RGCs), and their connectivity with distinct brain regions enables higher order visual processing. RGCs vary considerably between species, and small model organisms display distinct RGC innervation patterns from that in humans. There is thus a need for robust models of human RGC circuit formation that preserves innervation specificity. Here, we developed an in vitro microfluidics eye-to-brain connectivity model using human pluripotent stem cell (hPSC)-derived RGCs to assess brain region-specific connectivity features. We find that cultured human RGCs segregate their dendrites and axons and display axonal features that align with that of their in …

Tai Chi Offers Students A Way To Cope With Anxiety, Anna Williams

Cardinal Compositions

No abstract provided.

Research And Advancing Dei And Representation In Medical Treatment And Healthcare Access, Aleea Engle

Cardinal Compositions

No abstract provided.

The Role Of Oxygen During Thermal Runaway Of Lithium-Ion Batteries, Nicholas Baehl, Jason Ostanek

Purdue Polytechnic Graduate Student Poster Symposium

Energy storage has become an important technology due to the increasing utilization of renewable resources. Although LIB usage continues to rise, latent defects and abuse pose safety risks. Modeling and simulation tools are applied to simulate failure conditions such as thermal runaway. CFD tools may be used to simulate thermal runaway with consideration of important physics including: gas generation, venting, and combustion of evolved gases. Previous CFD-based studies have investigated thermal runaway and venting, but none have considered the instantaneous composition of gases which may lead to ignition within the cell body. This work explores the progression of thermal runaway …

Extended Reality-Enabled Teleoperation Platform For Industrial Operations, Israa Azzam, Farid Breidi

Purdue Polytechnic Graduate Student Poster Symposium

Extended Reality (XR) environments enhance the efficacy of teleoperation systems, overcoming the limitations of 2D settings. This work aims to advance industrial teleoperations by investigating the capabilities of remote XR environments, selecting the optimal configuration, and developing an XR-Enabled Teleoperation Platform that integrates advanced controllers, allowing minimizing latency. The XR-Enabled Teleoperation Platform is designed integrating control protocols, including Adaptive Smoothing & Model Predictive Control to minimize latency and enhance synchronization. This framework is tested on a 6-DOF robotic arm, serving as a Digital Twin (DT), enabling bi-directional data exchange between the physical robotic arm and its virtual shadow

Demonstration Of A Digital Twin Framework For A Two-Actuator Hydraulic Application, Marvin R. Durango -Cogollo, Jose M. Garcia-Bravo

Purdue Polytechnic Graduate Student Poster Symposium

This project presents a digital twin framework for controlling a hydraulic crane using AI, mixed reality, and real-time actuation. Leveraging a Jetson Nano and Xbox Kinect for perception and a Raspberry Pi with DRV103 for control, the system enables adaptive motion planning and obstacle-aware navigation. A Unity-based interface integrated with HoloLens2 allows operators to visualize and manipulate the crane through FABRIK inverse kinematics. Real-time environmental mapping from Kinect enables obstacle detection to update the motion path dynamically. Early experiments confirm the ability to compute joint angles in real-time, detect environmental objects, and demonstrate closed-loop control in a virtual-physical hybrid system.

Compost Bin Monitoring System Through Iot And Lorawan, Nicolas Rendon-Arias, Luis Gerardo Ruiz Gonzalez, Sehyeon Lim, Walter Daniel Leon-Salas

Purdue Polytechnic Graduate Student Poster Symposium

This project improves agricultural land management and composting techniques by utilizing sensors and the Internet of Things. The initiative intends to enhance sustainable agriculture practices, maximize resource usage, and minimize waste. LoRaWAN wireless technology and sensors are used to continuously monitor parameters like temperature and composting conditions (CO2, ammonia, and pH), allowing for improved compost quality and accurate decision making. A crucial step in the creation of our system was the deployment of the LoRaWAN network, which enables long-distance sensor monitoring. Additionally, our system has an intuitive web-based interface to visualize the data at any place.

“The School Pretty Much Doesn’T Care . . . But I Do” Syllabus, Leconte J. Dill, Shavaun S. Sutton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

Our “The School Pretty Much Doesn ’t Care . . . But I Do ” Syllabus frames school pushout as a structural determinant of health and one that disproportionately impacts Black girls. Therefore, we are calling in scholars, practitioners, and policymakers who do not operate solely in the field of education to recognize school pushout as a health inequity. Created through Black feminist and Black girlhood studies lenses and popular education approaches, our syllabus includes relevant transdisciplinary and cross-genre concepts, source material, and engaging activities. Overall, our syllabus seeks to guide those who educate, support, nurture, and love Black girls …

The Rapsody Syllabus: Rescripting The Erasure Of Black Women And Black Women Educators Through Rapsody’S Album Eve, Eghosa Obaizamomwan-Hamilton

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This syllabus explores the connections between Rapsody’s album and the experiences of Black women, with an emphasis on education. Much like Black women in education, Rapsody 's talents are often obscured and minimized. Her album “Eve ” is a love letter to Black women and serves as a mirror for Black women educators. This syllabus centers on Black women and highlights the beauty and magic of our presence within oppressive institutions. It works to amplify and extend the nonfungible existence of Black women, the humanization of our voices and words as sacred texts, and illuminate our ever-evolving contributions. Black women’s …

Maroon Science: A Counterstory Of Apocalypse, Abolition, And Abandonment, Kenjus Watson

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This Critical Race Counterstory explores "Maroon Science," covert and adaptive knowledge systems rooted in African Sacred Sciences, as a means of navigating the dystopic polycrisis of anti-Blackness, Black youth suicide, and climate destruction. Framed through Apocalyptic Education, the work begins at the end, the inevitable collapse of western schooling and broader state systems it supports, to foreground fugitivity as essential to Black autonomy. The track maps connections between Black Indigeneity, ecological adaptation, and the concealment necessary for maroon communities to evade capture. The layered counterstory portrays Maroon Science as contingencies for African epistemologies of survival, flourishing in ungovernable pockets of …

Black Queer Youths’ Dreams Of Safer And Equitable Schools, Lashanda Harbin

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

This track centers the concept of freedom dreaming to uplift the voices of Black queer youth to (1) explore what they think safe schooling should look like in the future, and (2) understand how they think those visions can come true. In focus groups, participants dreamed of futures where all Black queer youth are protected if harm occurs, feel well-represented in K–12 schools, and have adequate access to resources like mental health support and creative outlets. Participants believed these dreams could come true partly through collaboration between schools and Black and Black queer community organizations. Participants ’ dreams of safer …

A Mixtape In Times Of Trouble: Fighting, Building, And Piecing It All Together, David Stovall Ph.D.

Black Educology Mixtape "Journal"

No abstract provided.

A Virtual Wellness Program To Enhance Well-Being For Pediatric Oncology Staff During The Covid-19 Pandemic, Karen Moody, Maria Swartz, Zachary Gresham, Martha Askins, Laura Cahalan, Pavilia Francis, Christine Geistkemper, Amy Heaton, Ruitao Lin, Melissa Melo, Alakh Rajan, Madeline Smith, Priti Tewari, Keyana R. Williams, Cheng-Han Yang, Rhonda Robert

Advances in Cancer Education and Quality Improvement

In response to the COVID-19 global health crisis and mandated social isolation, Pediatric leadership at MD Anderson Children’s Cancer Hospital was concerned for the psychological impact on its workforce and encouraged wellness programming. A grassroots wellness taskforce was assembled for the Division of Pediatrics. The task force’s primary mission was to promote the well-being of clinicians and non-clinical staff members through a broadly accessible, sustainable, and effective virtual wellness program. Guided by the Stanford Model for Professional Fulfillment, a virtual program entitled, “Weekly Wellness Webex” for Pediatrics staff was launched. Weekly Wellness Webex is a 1-hour live-streamed program with varied …

Pain: Prevention, Assessment And Management, 4th Edition, Registered Nurses' Association Of Ontario

General Submissions: Clinical Settings Materials

The purpose of this fourth edition guideline is to provide nurses and members of the interprofessional team with evidence-based guidance for the prevention, assessment and management of all types of pain across the lifespan. This BPG is to be used by nurses and members of the interprofessional team across the health care continuum and in all domains of practice caring for persons at risk of or currently experiencing pain. It is also to be used by employers including health service organizations and academic institutions.