Digital Commons Network^™

Carbon Fiber And Carbon Fiber Composites—Creating Defects For Superior Material Properties, Ashis Sutradhar Nitai, Tonny Chowdhury, Md Nafis Inam, Md Saifur Rahman, Md Ibrahim H. Mondal, M. A.H. Johir, Volker Hessel, Islam Md Rizwanul Fattah, Md Abul Kalam, Wafa Ali Suwaileh, John L. Zhou, Masoumeh Zargar, Mohammad Boshir Ahmed

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Recent years have seen a rise in the use of carbon fiber (CF) and its composite applications in several high-tech industries, such as the design of biomedical sensor components, 3D virtual process networks in automotive and aerospace parts, and artificial materials or electrodes for energy storage batteries. Since pristine CF have limited properties, their properties are often modified through a range of technologies, such as laser surface treatment, electron-beam irradiation grafting, plasma or chemical treatments, electrophoretic deposition, carbonization, spinning-solution or melt, electrospinning, and sol–gel, to greatly improve their properties and performance. These procedures cause faulty structures to emerge in CF. …

Forecasting The Effects Of Smoking Prevalence Scenarios On Years Of Life Lost And Life Expectancy From 2022 To 2050: A Systematic Analysis For The Global Burden Of Disease Study 2021, Dana Bryazka, Marissa B. Reitsma, Yohannes Habtegiorgis Abate, Abdallah H H.A. Abd Al Magied, Atef Abdelkader, Arash Abdollahi, Meriem Abdoun, Rizwan Suliankatchi Abdulkader, Roberto Ariel Abeldaño Zuñiga, E. S. Abhilash, Olugbenga Olusola Abiodun, Olumide Abiodun, Richard Gyan Aboagye, Lucas Guimarães Abreu, Dariush Abtahi, Hasan Abualruz, Bilyaminu Abubakar, Niveen Me Abu-Rmeileh, Salahdein Aburuz, Ahmed Abu-Zaid, Mesafint Molla Adane, Akindele Olupelumi Adebiyi, Oyelola A. Adegboye, Victor Adekanmbi, Habeeb Omoponle Adewuyi, Ali Fatehizadeh

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Background: Smoking is the leading behavioural risk factor for mortality globally, accounting for more than 175 million deaths and nearly 4·30 billion years of life lost (YLLs) from 1990 to 2021. The pace of decline in smoking prevalence has slowed in recent years for many countries, and although strategies have recently been proposed to achieve tobacco-free generations, none have been implemented to date. Assessing what could happen if current trends in smoking prevalence persist, and what could happen if additional smoking prevalence reductions occur, is important for communicating the effect of potential smoking policies. Methods: In this analysis, we use …

Leptospirosis In The Platypus (Ornithorhynchus Anatinus) In Australia: Who Is Infecting Whom?, Richard J. Whittington, Thomas R. Grant, Jarrad Mckercher, Monica Suann, Keith Hart, Kathrine A. Handasyde, James Macgregor, Mark E. Westman, Joanne H. Connolly

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The platypus (Ornithorhynchus anatinus) is an amphibious, egg-laying mammal of high conservation value that is found only in Australia. The zoonotic bacterium Leptospira interrogans serovar Hardjo was discovered in platypuses in prior studies, but little is known about its epidemiology. Samples in the Platypus Serum Bank were tested in 2023 and the results were combined with historical records. Antibodies against L. interrogans serovar Hardjo were found in 50% of 464 serum samples from 411 platypuses collected from 14 river basins in southeastern Australia between 1981 and 2012; prevalence remained high over three decades in the Shoalhaven River population. Seroprevalence increased …

Nursing Student Voices: A Qualitative Thematic Synthesis Of Education Elements Supporting Nursing Students' Clinical Learning During Placement, Robyn Cant, Colleen Ryan, Lynda Hughes, Christine Ossenberg, Simon Cooper

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Aim: to report a thematic synthesis of students’ narratives in free text comments from a national quality survey of Australian nursing degree students’ clinical placements. Background: Nursing student evaluation surveys are submitted to the Australian National Placement Evaluation Centre. Students in 36 Australian nursing programs are included. Design: Thematic synthesis of nursing students’ narrative comments. Methods: Data were sourced from 10,226 surveys submitted between July and December 2023. From these, the 3640 free text comments were extracted and tabulated to form the sample for synthesis. Three authors conducted a thematic synthesis and all five authors agreed on the findings. Findings: …

Production Of Lioh·H2o From Lithium Chloride By Electrodialysis And Crystallisation, Kwang Loon Ang, Maryam Barmi, Yasaman Boroumand, Amir Razmjou, Aleksandar N. Nikoloski

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Laboratory bench scale experiments were performed to develop a process for electrodialysis (ED) of LiCl liquor from spodumene leaching and purification to produce LiOH solution, for subsequent conversion by evaporative crystallisation to LiOH·H2O crystals as the end-product. Nafion® 117 cation-selective membranes were used in all experiments. The small electrolytic test cell achieved an average LiOH production rate of 7.5 g/h with 83 % coulombic efficiency and specific electrical consumption of 6.5 kWh/kg LiOH. In the large electrolytic test cell, a higher average LiOH production rate of 11.2 g/h was attained but at lower coulombic efficiency (62 %) and greater specific …

High Mechanical Performance Of Lattice Structures Fabricated By Additive Manufacturing, Yuhua Li, Deyu Jiang, Rong Zhao, Xin Wang, Liqiang Wang, Lai Chang Zhang

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Lattice structures show advantages in mechanical properties and energy absorption efficiency owing to their lightweight, high strength and adjustable geometry. This article reviews lattice structure classification, design and applications, especially those based on additive manufacturing (AM) technology. This article first introduces the basic concepts and classification of lattice structures, including the classification based on topological shapes, such as strut, surface, shell, hollow-strut, and so on, and the classification based on the deformation mechanism. Then, the design methods of lattice structure are analyzed in detail, including the design based on basic unit, mathematical algorithm and gradient structure. Next, the effects of …

Psychological Distress Among Ethnically Diverse Participants From Eastern And Southern Africa, Bizu Gelaye, Alicia R Martin, Ronald Galiwango, Wilber Ssembajjwe, Fred Kirumira, Adele Pretorius, Anne Stevenson, Charles R J C Newton, Dan J Stein, Elizabeth G Atkinson, Emanuel K Mwesiga, Joseph Kyebuzibwa, Lori B Chibnik, Lukoye Atwoli, Mark Baker, Melkam Alemayehu, Rehema M Mwende, Rocky E Stroud, Solomon Teferra, Stella Gichuru, Symon M Kariuki, Zukiswa Zingela, Moffat Nyirenda, Segun Fatumo, Dickens H Akena

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

IMPORTANCE: Psychological distress is characterized by anxiety and depressive symptoms. Although prior research has investigated the occurrence and factors associated with psychological distress in low- and middle-income countries, including those in Africa, these studies' findings are not very generalizable and have focused on different kinds of population groups.

OBJECTIVE: To investigate the prevalence and characteristics (sociodemographic, psychosocial, and clinical) associated with psychological distress among African participants.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This case-control study analyzed data of participants in the Neuropsychiatric Genetics in African Populations-Psychosis (NeuroGAP-Psychosis) study, which recruited from general outpatient clinics in Eastern (Uganda, Kenya, and Ethiopia) and Southern …

Data Provenance Via Differential Auditing, Xin Mu, Ming Pang, Feida Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the rising awareness of data assets, data governance, which is to understand where data comes from, how it is collected, and how it is used, has been assuming evergrowing importance. One critical component of data governance gaining increasing attention is auditing machine learning models to determine if specific data has been used for training. Existing auditing techniques, like shadow auditing methods, have shown feasibility under specific conditions such as having access to label information and knowledge of training protocols. However, these conditions are often not met in most real-world applications. In this paper, we introduce a practical framework for …

Transformer-Based Joint Learning Approach For Text Normalization In Vietnamese Automatic Speech Recognition Systems, The Viet Bui, Tho Chi Luong, Oanh Thi Tran

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this article, we investigate the task of normalizing transcribed texts in Vietnamese Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems in order to improve user readability and the performance of downstream tasks. This task usually consists of two main sub-tasks: predicting and inserting punctuation (i.e., period, comma); and detecting and standardizing named entities (i.e., numbers, person names) from spoken forms to their appropriate written forms. To achieve these goals, we introduce a complete corpus including of 87,700 sentences and investigate conditional joint learning approaches which globally optimize two sub-tasks simultaneously. The experimental results are quite promising. Overall, the proposed architecture outperformed the …

Allura Red Ac Is A Xenobiotic. Is It Also A Carcinogen?, Lorne J. Hofseth Ph.D., James Hébert Scd, Elizabeth Angela Murphy, Erica Trauner, Athul Vikas, Quinn Harris, Alexander A. Chumanevich

Faculty Publications

Merriam-Webster and Oxford define a xenobiotic as any substance foreign to living systems. Allura Red AC (a.k.a., E129; FD&C Red No. 40), a synthetic food dye extensively used in manufacturing ultra-processed foods and therefore highly prevalent in our food supply, falls under this category. The surge in synthetic food dye consumption during the 70s and 80s was followed by an epidemic of metabolic diseases and the emergence of early-onset colorectal cancer in the 1990s. This temporal association raises significant concerns, particularly given the widespread inclusion of synthetic food dyes in ultra-processed products, notably those marketed toward children. Given its interactions …

Allura Red Ac Is A Xenobiotic. Is It Also A Carcinogen?, Lorne J. Hofseth, James R. Hébert Scd, Elizabeth Angela Murphy, Erica Trauner, Athul Vikas, Quinn Harris, Alexander A. Chumanevich

Faculty Publications

Merriam-Webster and Oxford define a xenobiotic as any substance foreign to living systems. Allura Red AC (a.k.a., E129; FD&C Red No. 40), a synthetic food dye extensively used in manufacturing ultra-processed foods and therefore highly prevalent in our food supply, falls under this category. The surge in synthetic food dye consumption during the 70s and 80s was followed by an epidemic of metabolic diseases and the emergence of early-onset colorectal cancer in the 1990s. This temporal association raises significant concerns, particularly given the widespread inclusion of synthetic food dyes in ultra-processed products, notably those marketed toward children. Given its interactions …

Reframing And Advancing Academic Mentorship To Support New And Early Career Faculty Members, Juanita-Dawne R. Bacsu, Patricia C. Heyn, Steffi Kim, Zahra Rahemi, Monique J. Brown, Darina V. Petrovsky, Justine S. Sefcik, Jodi L. Southerland, Jeremy Holloway, Elyse Couch, Ayse Malatyali, Matthew L. Smith

Faculty Publications

Mentorship is critical to fostering professional growth and career development in academia. However, academic mentorship is often an informal activity that is overlooked and under researched. There is much ambiguity and uncertainty surrounding mentorship roles and strategies in academia. This paper provides recommendations and strategies to reframe and advance academic mentorship to support new and early career faculty.

Evaluation Of Forces Applied To Tissues During Robotic-Assisted Surgical Tasks Using A Novel Force Feedback Technology, Michael M Awad, Mathew C Raynor, Mika Padmanabhan-Kabana, Lana Y Schumacher, Jeffrey A Blatnik

2020-Current year OA Pubs

BACKGROUND: The absence of force feedback (FFB) is considered a technical limitation in robotic-assisted surgery (RAS). This pre-clinical study aims to evaluate the forces applied to tissues using a novel integrated FFB technology, which allows surgeons to sense forces exerted at the instrument tips.

METHODS: Twenty-eight surgeons with varying experience levels employed FFB instruments to perform three robotic-assisted surgical tasks, including retraction, dissection, and suturing, on inanimate or ex-vivo models, while the instrument sensors recorded and conveyed the applied forces to the surgeon hand controllers of the robotic system. Generalized Estimating Equations (GEE) models were used to analyze the mean …

Neuroimmune Interactions In The Development And Chronification Of Migraine Headache, Jintao Zhang, Roli Simoes, Tingting Guo, Yu-Qing Cao

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Migraine is highly prevalent and debilitating. The persistent headaches in this condition are thought to arise from the activation and sensitization of the trigeminovascular pathway. Both clinical and animal model studies have suggested that neuroimmune interactions contribute to the pathophysiology of migraine headache. In this review, we first summarize the findings from human studies implicating the dysregulation of the immune system in migraine, including genetic analyses, measurement of circulatory factors, and neuroimaging data. We next discuss recent advances from rodent studies aimed at elucidating the neuroimmune interactions that manifest at various levels of the trigeminovascular pathway and lead to the …

Discordance Between Aptt And Anti-Xa In Monitoring Heparin Anticoagulation In Mechanical Circulatory Support, Christopher Kim, Marian A Granich, John Mondin, Daniel E Sabath, David A Garcia, Claudius Mahr

Faculty, Staff and Students Publications

AIMS: It is unclear whether activated partial thromboplastin time (aPTT) or anti-Xa is more accurate for monitoring heparin anticoagulation in mechanical circulatory support (MCS) patients. This study investigates the relationship between aPTT and anti-Xa in MCS patients and identifies predictors of discordance.

METHODS AND RESULTS: aPTT and anti-Xa were simultaneously measured in a prospective cohort of MCS patients receiving unfractionated heparin at a tertiary academic medical centre. Therapeutic aPTT and anti-Xa levels were 60-100 s and 0.3-0.7 IU/mL, respectively, and concordance was defined as both levels being subtherapeutic, therapeutic, or supratherapeutic. To identify predictors of discordance, both a machine learning …

Sequential Early-Life Viral Infections Modulate The Microbiota And Adaptive Immune Responses To Systemic And Mucosal Vaccination, Yuhao Li, Jerome M. Molleston, Crystal Lovato, Jasmine Wright, Isabel Erickson, Duyen Bui, Andrew H. Kim, Harshad Ingle, Somya Aggarwal, Lila S Nolan, Ahmed O. Hassan, Lynne Foster, Michael S. Diamond, Megan T. Baldridge

2020-Current year OA Pubs

Increasing evidence points to the microbial exposome as a critical factor in maturing and shaping the host immune system, thereby influencing responses to immune challenges such as infections or vaccines. To investigate the effect of early-life viral exposures on immune development and vaccine responses, we inoculated mice with six distinct viral pathogens in sequence beginning in the neonatal period, and then evaluated their immune signatures before and after intramuscular or intranasal vaccination against SARS-CoV-2. Sequential viral infection drove profound changes in all aspects of the immune system, including increasing circulating leukocytes, altering innate and adaptive immune cell lineages in tissues, …

Impacts Of Employment Status, Partnership, Cancer Type, And Surgical Treatment On Health-Related Quality Of Life In Irradiated Head And Neck Cancer Survivors, Ching-Rong Lin, Tsung-Min Hung, Eric Yi-Liang Shen, Ann-Joy Cheng, Po-Hung Chang, Shiang-Fu Huang, Chung-Jan Kang, Tuan-Jen Fang, Li-Ang Lee, Chih-Hung Chang, Joseph Tung-Chieh Chang

2020-Current year OA Pubs

No abstract provided.

Dopamine-Mediated Interactions Between Short- And Long-Term Memory Dynamics, Cheng Huang, Junjie Luo, Seung Je Woo, Lucas A Roitman, Jizhou Li, Vincent A Pieribone, Madhuvanthi Kannan, Ganesh Vasan, Mark J Schnitzer

2020-Current year OA Pubs

In dynamic environments, animals make behavioural decisions on the basis of the innate valences of sensory cues and information learnt about these cues across multiple timescales

15-Gene Expression Profile And Prame As Integrated Prognostic Test For Uveal Melanoma: First Report Of Collaborative Ocular Oncology Group Study No. 2 (Coog2.1), J William Harbour, Kisha D Piggott, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

PURPOSEValidated and accurate prognostic testing is critical for precision medicine in uveal melanoma (UM). Our aims were to (1) prospectively validate an integrated prognostic classifier combining a 15-gene expression profile (15-GEP) and

Aflibercept Biosimilar Myl-1701p Vs Reference Aflibercept In Diabetic Macular Edema: The Insight Randomized Clinical Trial, Susan B Bressler, Rajendra S Apte, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

IMPORTANCE: Biosimilars may be lower-cost alternatives to originator biologic products, potentially offering expanded access or reduced economic burden, but have not been evaluated with aflibercept in diabetic macular edema (DME).

OBJECTIVE: To compare efficacy and safety of MYL-1701P, an aflibercept biosimilar, with reference aflibercept (Eylea [Regeneron]) in DME.

DESIGN, SETTING, AND PARTICIPANTS: This was a double-masked, randomized clinical trial that included participants at 77 centers across the US, Europe, Japan, and India. Included in the analysis were individuals 18 years and older with type 1 or type 2 diabetes with central DME and best-corrected visual acuity (BCVA) letter score of …

Wounds, Ashlyn Hanson

English Student Projects

"Wounds" explores the parallels between physical and psychological healing, emphasizing the need for care, patience, and time. It reflects on the discomfort of confronting wounds—literal or emotional—and the temptation to abandon them. The work underscores the importance of persistence, support, and grace in recovery, offering a hopeful reminder that healing, though gradual, is always possible.

Fighter, Ashlyn Hanson

English Student Projects

"Fighter" portrays a woman’s journey through struggle, loss, and transformation. It explores her battles with oppression and inner turmoil, emphasizing her resilience and refusal to surrender. Despite overwhelming pressure, she chooses life, light, and healing, embodying strength and the will to rise.

Large-Scale Graph Label Propagation On Gpus, Chang Ye, Yuchen Li, Bingsheng He, Zhao Li, Jianling Sun

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Graph label propagation (LP) is a core component in many downstream applications such as fraud detection, recommendation and image segmentation. In this paper, we propose GLP, a GPU-based framework to enable efficient LP processing on large-scale graphs. By investigating the data processing pipeline in a large e-commerce platform, we have identified two key challenges on integrating GPU-accelerated LP processing to the pipeline: (1) programmability for evolving application logics; (2) demand for real-time performance. Motivated by these challenges, we offer a set of expressive APIs that data engineers can customize and deploy efficient LP algorithms on GPUs with ease. To achieve …

Hisoma: A Hierarchical Multi-Agent Model Integrating Self-Organizing Neural Networks With Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning, Minghong Geng, Shubham Pateria, Budhitama Subagdja, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Multi-agent deep reinforcement learning (MADRL) has shown remarkable advancements in the past decade. However, most current MADRL models focus on task-specific short-horizon problems involving a small number of agents, limiting their applicability to long-horizon planning in complex environments. Hierarchical multi-agent models offer a promising solution by organizing agents into different levels, effectively addressing tasks with varying planning horizons. However, these models often face constraints related to the number of agents or levels of hierarchies. This paper introduces HiSOMA, a novel hierarchical multi-agent model designed to handle long-horizon, multi-agent, multi-task decision-making problems. The top-level controller, FALCON, is modeled as a class …

Does Ceo Agreeableness Personality Mitigate Real Earnings Management?, Shan Liu, Xingying Wu, Nan Hu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Despite efforts to mitigate aggressive financial reporting, earnings management remains challenging to parties interested in inhibiting its dysfunctional effects. Using linguistic algorithms to assess CEO agreeableness personality from their unscripted texts in conference calls, we find that it is a determinant that mitigates a firm's real earnings management. Furthermore, such an effect is more pronounced when firms confront intensive market competition and financial distress and have weaker managerial entrenchment or when CEOs face stronger internal governance. Our findings persist even after we utilize several alternative real earnings management metrics and control other confounding personalities in prior earnings management studies. The …

Ocapo: Fine-Grained Occupancy-Aware, Empirically-Driven Pdc Control In Open-Plan, Shared Workspaces, Ravi Anuradha, Dulaj Sanjaya Weerakoon, Archan Misra

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Passive Displacement Cooling (PDC) is a relatively recent technology gaining attention as a means of significantly reducing building energy consumption overheads, especially in tropical climates. PDC eliminates the use of mechanical fans, instead using chilled-water heat exchangers to perform convective cooling. In this paper, we identify and characterize the impact of several key parameters affecting occupant comfort in a 1000m2 open-floor area (consisting of multiple zones) of a ZEB (Zero Energy Building) deployed with PDC units and tackle the problem of setting the temperature setpoint of the PDC units to assure occupant thermal comfort and yet conserve energy. We tackle …

On The Lossiness Of 2k-Th Power And The Instantiability Of Rabin-Oaep, Haiyang Xue, Bao Li, Xianhui Lu, Kunpeng Wang, Yamin Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Seurin PKC 2014 proposed the 2-ï /4-hiding assumption which asserts the indistinguishability of Blum Numbers from pseudo Blum Numbers. In this paper, we investigate the lossiness of 2 k -th power based on the 2 k -ï /4-hiding assumption, which is an extension of the 2-ï /4-hiding assumption. And we prove that 2 k -th power function is a lossy trapdoor permutation over Quadratic Residuosity group. This new lossy trapdoor function has 2 k -bits lossiness for k -bits exponent, while the RSA lossy trapdoor function given by Kiltz et al. Crypto 2010 has k -bits lossiness for k -bits …

Retrofitting A Legacy Cutlery Washing Machine Using Computer Vision, Hua Leong Fwa

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Industry 4.0, the digitalization of manufacturing promises to lead to lowered cost, efficient processes and even discovery of new business models. However, many of the enterprises have huge investments in legacy machines which are not 'smart'. In this study, we thus designed a cost-efficient solution to retrofit a legacy conveyor belt-based cutlery washing machine with a commodity web camera. We then applied computer vision (using both traditional image processing and deep learning techniques) to infer the speed and utilization of the machine. We detailed the algorithms that we designed for computing both speed andutilization. With the existing operational constraints of …

Motif Graph Neural Network, Xuexin Chen, Ruicui Cai, Yuan Fang, Min Wu, Zijian Li, Zhifeng Hao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Graphs can model complicated interactions between entities, which naturally emerge in many important applications. These applications can often be cast into standard graph learning tasks, in which a crucial step is to learn low-dimensional graph representations. Graph neural networks (GNNs) are currently the most popular model in graph embedding approaches. However, standard GNNs in the neighborhood aggregation paradigm suffer from limited discriminative power in distinguishing high-order graph structures as opposed to low-order structures. To capture high-order structures, researchers have resorted to motifs and developed motif-based GNNs. However, the existing motif-based GNNs still often suffer from less discriminative power on high-order …

Predicting The Limits: Tailoring Unnoticeable Hand Redirection Offsets In Virtual Reality To Individuals' Perceptual Boundaries, Martin Feick, Kora Persephone Regitz, Lukas Gehrke, André Zenner, Anthony Tang, Tobias Patrick Jungbluth, Maurice Rekrut, Antonio Krüger

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Many illusion and interaction techniques in Virtual Reality (VR) rely on Hand Redirection (HR), which has proved to be effective as long as the introduced offsets between the position of the real and virtual hand do not noticeably disturb the user experience. Yet calibrating HR offsets is a tedious and time-consuming process involving psychophysical experimentation, and the resulting thresholds are known to be affected by many variables—limiting HR’s practical utility. As a result, there is a clear need for alternative methods that allow tailoring HR to the perceptual boundaries of individual users. We conducted an experiment with 18 participants combining …