Digital Commons Network^™

The Relationship Between The Environment And Pollution With Surgical Outcomes And Disparities, Wendelyn Marie Oslock

ETDs from 2020-2029

Air pollution exposure has been linked to many surgically managed diseases and adverse health events that occur in the postoperative period. Despite this, the impact of air pollution on postoperative recovery is poorly understood. This knowledge gap may be one of the underlying mechanisms for persistent disparities in surgical outcomes. Previous studies have found racial and economic disparities in air pollution exposure. These same communities have been shown to experience worse surgical outcomes. The goal of this thesis is to explore if exposure to air pollution impacts surgical outcomes and determine if disparities in socioeconomic factors impact this relationship. The …

Predictors And Outcomes Of Reading Intervention Success In Autistic Children: Memory And Brain Connectivity, Meagan Elizabeth Beckerson

ETDs from 2020-2029

Reading comprehension is a complex skill that relies on linguistic and cognitive abilities, including executive control processes. Creating a cohesive representation of text involves maintaining visual and verbal information in short term memory (STM) and using executive control skills to integrate information, apply it to questions, and draw inferences. Many autistic children demonstrate strong individual word reading (decoding) but poor comprehension, resulting in a discrepant reading profile. The role of STM and executive control—along with the underlying neural systems that support these processes—in reading comprehension and response to intervention has not been examined in autistic children with this profile. The …

Distribution, Abundance And Habitat Utilization Of Sea Turtles In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, With An Emphasis On Coastal Mississippi, Theresa Rose Madrigal

ETDs from 2020-2029

The Gulf of Mexico represents important habitat for a variety of sea turtle species. This includes habitats for the various life history stages ranging from the oceanic stage of hatchling and post-hatchling turtles, neritic subadults, to the adult foraging and reproduc-tive stages. In contrast to many areas of the Gulf of Mexico, there has been a limited amount of data reported on sea turtle nesting as well as sea turtle foraging and develop-mental habitat in the north central Gulf of Mexico. This thesis includes two studies which investigate the importance of the coastal areas of Mississippi as sea turtle habitat. …

Researcher Uses Award To Study Nanoscale Reactions For Cleaner Fuels, Clara Turnage

University of Mississippi News

OXFORD, Miss. – A University of Mississippi researcher has earned a National Science Foundation CAREER Award to study how tiny structures can make clean energy production more efficient.

Multispecies Mutualistic Resilience: Riverine Lifeworlds Along The Irrawaddy River, Phyo Su San, Maya Kóvskaya

Forest and Society

This article advances the concept of multispecies mutualistic resilience to analyze how human and more-than-human communities in Myanmar's Irrawaddy Delta navigate ecological rupture under conditions of extractive infrastructure and climate crisis. Drawing on ethnographic research in the Ywar Thit village tract, including life-story and semi-structured interviews, digital ethnography, and analysis of vernacular cultural texts, we examine how deltaic communities attune to kaing grasses (Saccharum spontaneum) as land-making agents and vernacular indexical signs of alluvial transformation, and the Irrawaddy River as a living semiosic and material force. Rather than treating resilience as a return to prior equilibrium or as …

Rules And Roles In The Political Economy Of Peatland Fires In Ketapang, West Kalimantan, Indonesia, Ali Yansyah Abdurrahim, Atiek Widayati, Edi Purwanto, Meine Van Noordwijk

Forest and Society

Peatland fires in Indonesia represent a critical socio-ecological system failure, generating transboundary haze, biodiversity loss, and severe human health impacts. In Ketapang Regency, West Kalimantan, the persistence of fires illustrates the tensions between protection and production in the local political economy. On the one hand, peatlands are legally designated for conservation under national regulations and regional initiatives, such as Regulation No. 48/2023 on peatland fire prevention. On the other hand, they remain under sustained pressure from the expansion of palm oil, transmigration schemes, and local livelihood needs. This study applies a political economy (stakes) and political ecology (status-power) lens to …

Ischaemic Conditioning To Improve Patient And Organ Outcomes After Kidney Transplantation, Robert Stabler, Helen Mckenna, Madelaine Gimzewska, Dan Harvey, Muhammad A Khurram, Kieran Mccafferty, Kristin Veighey, Jeremy Fabes

Peninsula Medical School

This is a protocol for a Cochrane Review (intervention). The objectives are as follows: To evaluate the benefits and harms of ischaemic conditioning on patient and organ outcomes in kidney transplantation.

Getting Close, Sadie Laufe Mccarthy

Dissertations and Theses

"Getting Close" is a collection of short pieces, some fiction and some memoir. It's not important which is which.

I'm interested in the barriers we face when it comes to connection, and how aloneness can often be more sensual than togetherness. I'm interested in the places we find respite from the pain of existing within societal pressures.

I'm not interested in acceptability. I write toward a world in which we do not have to be anything other than ourselves.

Growing Pains: The Loss Of Plasticity To Extreme Anoxia In Developing Embryos Of Austrofundulus Limnaeus, Patrick Ryan Clouser

Dissertations and Theses

Oxygen plays a pivotal role for most animal life on Earth, so much so that even short exposures to no oxygen, anoxia, can have severe effects on the animal's wellbeing. Conversely, aerobic recovery after anoxic insult can be just as detrimental. Some animals are the exception to this rule and demonstrate survival through anoxia and recovery. There has been a great deal of research around anoxia tolerant animals, but what remains unclear are the genetic underpinnings that determine the anoxia tolerant phenotype. RNA sequencing allows for the quantification of RNA transcripts within a sample, which can indicate if a gene …

Pieces Of The Pathway: A Qualitative Exploration Of Social Support For Individuals Navigating Houselessness, Desiree' Jane Duboise

Dissertations and Theses

Houselessness has long been an issue of pressing concern in the United States; and in Multnomah County, Oregon, approximately 10,526 people are experiencing houselessness. Social support has been identified as a critical factor in helping people navigate houselessness and will be explored in the current study. Specifically, the current study examines social support among populations with lived experience of houselessness as they navigate pathways through houselessness. The current study is situated within a broader study examining journeys through houselessness called the Pathways study, and it utilizes a subsample of individuals involved in the Pathways study. The Pathways study and the …

Emotion-Focused Teaching And Preschool Children's Social, Emotional, And Self-Regulatory Development, Brielle Emily Petit

Dissertations and Theses

Contributing to the literature on supportive mechanisms for children's development of social, emotional, and self-regulatory competencies, the current study examines the contributions of emotion-focused teaching in preschool classrooms. Emotion-focused teaching is a framework used within preschool classrooms that encompasses three domains of teaching that support children's development of emotion skills—how teachers display their own emotions or emotion-related behaviors and actions (modeling), the ways they respond to children's emotional expressions (responding), and how instruction is used to inform children about emotions and related processes (instructing). More frequent emotion-focused teaching has been shown to be a …

Investigating How Llm Trading Agents Integrate External Signals, Rohan Ray

Computer Science Senior Theses

Large Language Models are increasingly deployed in systems that assume more information leads to better decisions: RAG pipelines inject retrieved documents, tool-augmented agents call external APIs, and multi-model architectures route signals between specialized components. Whether this holds when both the information and the outcomes are noisy, and decisions compound over time, has received limited empirical attention. This thesis tests that assumption on LLM-based trading agents. Using StockBench (Chen et al., 2025) as our benchmark, we ran 150 backtests across 2 frontier LLMs (Kimi K2 and Qwen3-235B-Instruct), 12 augmentation strategies, and 5 random seeds, over 82 trading days — a period …

Bad Mothers In Translation: Early Motherhood In Contemporary Turkish Editions, Merve Sevtap Süren

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This article examines how three recent Anglophone novels of early motherhood, namely, Szilvia Molnar’s The Nursery (as Süt Lekesi), Rachel Yoder’s Nightbitch (as Gece Kancığı), and Claire Kilroy’s Soldier Sailor (as Asker ile Denizci), circulate in Turkish translation in a context shaped by pronatalist moral economies. Pairing peritextual analysis (covers, back-cover copy, blurbs, and bio notes) with close readings of selected key scenes of postpartum crisis, feral transformation, and toddler-year burnout, I show how Turkish editions both render and manage maternal negativity: translation choices modulate voice, affect, and register, while peritexts frame these mothers for local readability …

Performing Nefertiti: Feminist Afterlives Across Museum, Digital, And Cosmetic Cultures, Zaryab Khan

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This article examines the afterlives of Nefertiti’s bust as performances that stage the intersections of gender, empire, and visual culture. Moving beyond biographical reconstruction, it argues that the bust operates as a repertoire of performances continually re-scripted across cultural sites. Three case studies structure the analysis: the staging of Nefertiti in Berlin’s Neues Museum, which performs colonial possession and the aestheticization of feminine beauty; the digital intervention The Other Nefertiti (2015), which performs resistance through the circulation of unauthorized 3D scans; and the cosmetic “Nefertiti lift,” which performs the queen’s visage through contemporary bodies, inscribing antiquity as a template for …

Fixing Furiosa’S Feminism: Gender And Genre In Feminist Criticism Of Mad Max: Fury Road (2015), Maik Stanitzke

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

This article examines how the figure—or genre—of “woman” is produced and contested within the traditionally masculine action film through the critical reception of Mad Max: Fury Road. While debates over whether the film is feminist appear to center on representation, they reveal a deeper investment in stabilizing “woman” as a coherent political object. Drawing on feminist film theory, I argue that if the film seems nostalgic for a regenerative birth mother at a moment when sexual difference is reconfigured by queer and trans studies, feminist criticism’s investment in what Robyn Wiegman calls “the world-making stakes of identity knowledge” (2012, …

“Subjugated Knowledge And Narrative Justice”: An Interview With Grace M. Cho, Anupama Arora, Yuni Kim

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

No abstract provided.

Beyond Liberal Apologies, Toward Abolitionist Trans Politics, Koda Sokol, Kaden Paulson-Smith

Journal of Feminist Scholarship

In the wake of Trump’s second election, the liberal fantasy of a benevolent state reared its head: the right policy, politician, or police officer will end anti-trans oppression. This article heeds the warning from generations of abolitionists before us that violence is not a defect of the state but endemic to it. By consequence, reforms that strengthen the state by expanding avenues for criminalization, resourcing the police, and incorporating more people into the military further jeopardize those subject to premature death, trans or otherwise. The current U.S. political regime’s overt cruelty provides an opening for widespread reckoning with the state’s …

From Dysbiosis To Resistome: Antibiotic-Driven Selection Pressure And Multi-Class Resistance Gene Enrichment In The Autism Gut Microbiota, Dalia Abuljadayel, Reem Farsi, Bodoor Alotibi, Asma Almuhammadi

The Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Science

Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD) is associated with alterations in the composition of the gut microbiota, which have been implicated in neurological manifestations via the gut–brain axis. Early-life exposure to antibiotics constitutes a key environmental factor shaping microbiota development; however, the resistome profile underlying ASD-associated dysbiosis remains insufficiently defined. In this metagenomic investigation, we assessed the abundance and diversity of antibiotic resistance genes (ARGs) in fecal samples obtained from four children with ASD and their four neurotypical siblings. High-throughput shotgun sequencing generated 10-15 Gb of data per sample. Resistome characterization was performed using the Comprehensive Antibiotic Resistance Database (CARD) and the …

Novel Meristic Changes In The Flowers Of Ziziphus Spina-Christi (Rhamnaceae), Tawfiq Alfaifi

The Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Science

The study focuses on the Flower meristic changes that occur in Ziziphus. DNA analysis was conducted for the Ziziphus species in the study area to determine the species. Then, the flowers were pictured for the species that frequently exhibit changes in flower structure. The results show that Z. spina-christi exhibits this phenomenon while the other species do not. In addition, the study shows that not all flower organs change; the ovary retains the same structure in both pentamerous and tetramerous flowers.

Saudi Vision 2030: How Can Mobile Pet/Ct Imaging Enhance Healthcare Delivery In Saudi Arabia?, Khalid G. Alsafi, Mahmoud A. Ahmed, Omar F. Iskanderani, Amirah A. Alolaymi, Arwa A. Alahdal, Hadeel H. Sofi, Shahd I. Almzarqah, Tala S. Shaath, Samia F. Aboushoushah

The Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Science

Objective: To address the PET/CT scanner shortage in Saudi Arabia amid rising cancer incidence by evaluating a mobile PET/CT unit. This study quantifies cancer burden and projected scanner needs by region and simulates radiation safety using American Association of Physicists in Medicine Task Group-108 (AAPM TG-108) guidelines. Methods: Cancer data (2001–2020) were extrapolated to 2030 using an exponential model. PET/CT distribution was analyzed against population projections to estimate needs at one scanner per 500,000 people. A mobile PET/CT using Fluorine-18 was modeled per AAPM TG-108. Dose distribution was calculated for 40 patients per week, using 555 MBq 18F-FDG per patient …

Differential Gene Expression Profiling Of Drought-Tolerant And Sensitive Rice Genotypes Identifies Key Regulatory Networks And Metabolic Pathways, Najla Bint Saud Al-Saud

The Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Science

Drought stress represents a critical constraint to rice productivity worldwide, necessitating a comprehensive understanding of the molecular mechanisms underlying stress tolerance. This study employed RNA sequencing to investigate drought-responsive transcriptional networks in root tissues of two contrasting rice genotypes: Azucena (drought-tolerant) and IR64 (drought-sensitive). Twenty-day-old seedlings were subjected to 14-day drought stress treatment, and transcriptomic profiles were analyzed using high-throughput sequencing. Quality-filtered reads achieved >95% Q30 scores with alignment rates of 94.48–96.55% to the reference genome. Differential expression analysis identified 30,419–31,052 differentially expressed genes across four comparison groups, with the drought-sensitive IR64 exhibiting approximately 15% more differentially expressed genes (DEGs) …

Algal-Mediated Green Synthesis Of Silver Nanoparticles And Their Antibacterial Activity, Yahya B. Alyoubi, Hassan A. Ewais, Magda M. Aly, Walied M. Alarif

The Journal of King Abdulaziz University: Science

A green, low-cost, and straightforward method was implemented for the synthesis of silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) using Digenea simplex Algal Extract (D. simplex). The formation of AgNPs was initially indicated by a golden yellow color of the solution and UV-Vis λ_max at 410 nm. Key factors such as reaction time, temperature, pH, concentrations of Ag⁺ and algal extract was also investigated. FTIR analysis confirmed the presence of alga-derived biomolecules which assets the reduction of silver ions. TEM analysis revealed the successful synthesis of spherical AgNPs with an average size of 12.86 ± 4.84 nm. The biosynthesized AgNPs exhibited a …

Fabrication Of Two-Dimensional Optoelectrical Devices, Holly Walworth

Honors Projects

Optoelectrical devices enable the exploration of interesting quantum states observed in two-dimensional (2D) condensed material systems. 2D materials, such as graphene and transition metal dichalcogenides, exhibit unique electronic properties, including the Fractional Quantum Anomalous Hall effect (FQAHE). The realization of the FQAHE offers a pathway toward topological quantum computing via non-Abelian anyons. Still, fabricating high-quality 2D optoelectrical devices remains a significant experimental challenge. Using mechanical exfoliation and stacking techniques within an inert argon environment, we attempted to fabricate optoelectrical devices using twisted molybdenum ditelluride (tMoTe2) and gallium telluride (GaTe). Three devices were successfully assembled; however, structural defects including hexagonal boron …

Barriers To Food Security In Supportive Housing Sites In Scc, Olivia Reifschneider, Addison Lewis, Will Jaspen

Environmental Studies and Sciences Senior Capstone

Using a community-engaged mixed-methods research study, we sought to determine the extent to which supportive housing residents in Santa Clara County (SCC) are food insecure, as well as the possible causes, and how this can be addressed by the County and connected non-profits. Through interviews and surveys, we found that 84.62% of the residents surveyed were food insecure, and 62% did not agree that their food insecurity had improved while being in supportive housing. These findings highlight the importance of understanding the cause of food insecurity, as many housing sites provide meals to their residents multiple times a day. We …

Lindquist Awarded Women In Optics Scholarship, Ann Aubry

Press Releases 2020-2029

No abstract provided.

Comparison Of Fish Biomass And Fish Carbon Content Associated With Reef Sites At The Rio Grande Valley Artificial Reef In The Gulf Of Mexico, Allison K. White, Md Saydur Rahman, Richard J. Kline

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

As global fisheries stocks have decreased due to overfishing and climate change, artificial reefs have gained significant attention. In addition to providing or restoring habitat, artificial reefs may serve as carbon capture sinks and potential climate mitigation strategies. The Rio Grande Valley (RGV) Reef is an artificial reef located in the northwestern Gulf of Mexico off the coast of Texas. The RGV Reef area spans 1,650 acres and is comprised of hundreds of groupings of recycled and pre-formed materials ranging from low relief (1–2 ft) to high relief (8–30 ft) reef structures. This reef provides a variety of novel habitat …

The Alaska Wolf War: Action On The Prince Of Wales Island Complex, Edward A. Fitzgerald

Alaska Law Review

This Article examines Alaska's management of the Alexander Archipelago wolf on the Prince of Wales Island Complex, pursuant to constitutional and statutory requirements. It begins by reviewing the history of unsuccessful efforts to declare the wolf a threatened or endangered species under the Endangered Species Act. It then analyzes Bennett v. State, which focused on the changed management regime and devastating wolf harvest of the 2019–20 season. The Article argues that the district and Alaska Supreme Court's decisions in the case were flawed because they failed to properly implement the "hard look" doctrine.

Image Processing In Self-Driving Cars, Julia Lin, Sid Kalidindi, Anushri Selva, Seana Corners

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

This thesis presents the development of a low-cost embedded image processing system for autonomous vehicle perception using the PYNQ-Z2 FPGA board. The project explores whether compact FPGA-based systems can provide efficient, low-latency perception for small-scale autonomous applications such as delivery robots, warehouse robots, and drones, where power efficiency and affordability are important design constraints.

The system uses Python and OpenCV for image preprocessing and color-based traffic sign segmentation, while a modified LeNet-5 convolutional neural network performs traffic sign classification. The model was optimized and deployed onto the FPGA using Vivado HLS and Vitis to accelerate inference on resource-constrained hardware. The …

High Altitude Lora Networking (Halon) For Crisis Communications, Sahana Prasanna Chandramohan, Vikram Rakesh Jangid

Interdisciplinary Design Senior Theses

Natural disasters, infrastructure failure, and politically motivated internet shutdowns can severely disrupt communication systems, preventing affected populations from coordinating emergency response, accessing information, and contacting others. Existing communication infrastructure relies heavily on centralized networks, fixed power availability, and costly deployments, making such systems vulnerable during periods of crisis. To alleviate these problems we propose High Altitude Long Range Networking (HALoN) for Crisis Communications, a rapidly deployable decentralized wireless mesh network designed for operation in infrastructure-denied environments. HALoN utilizes low-power long range (LoRa) communication and high-altitude deployment platforms such as balloons, drones and tall structures, among others, to create temporary communication …

Intrathecal Antibody Synthesis - Reiber Method Revisited, John J. Halperin, Dane Granger

Department of Neurology Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: CSF immunoglobulin (IgG) often informs diagnosis in CNS inflammatory disease- qualitatively (oligoclonal bands; OCBs), or quantitatively (CSF: serum IgG: albumin, e.g. IgG index). Most US laboratories estimate excess CSF IgG using linear models, most in Europe, Reiber's hyperbolic model - the latter often also incorporated into CSF pathogen-specific immunoreactivity calculations. We compared Reiber hyperbolic and linear approaches.

METHODS: Required data were available for 1,872 samples, Lyme-specific data for 1,365. We compared linear and Reiber's hyperbolic models to determine which better describes normal CSF: serum IgG/albumin, assessed correlations with OCBs using ROC analysis and compared Lyme-specific antibody indices (AI) by …