Digital Commons Network^™

Analyzing Vulnerabilities In The Northwest Arkansas Highway Network Using Mathematical Optimization, Brandon Jerome

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

The highway and bridge network is a critical infrastructure that allows for the free transportation of citizens and enables truck-borne freight transportation. Disruption of this system could be caused by a terrorist attack, natural disaster, growth of population, required repairs and upgrades, or collapse caused by old age or malfunction. In the event of a disruption cities and regions can experience increased traffic and supply chain shortages, thus causing cascading effects throughout surrounding areas. With this motivation, we develop a network interdiction optimization model to identify a limited subset of roads that, if disrupted, causes the greatest increase in the …

Implementing The Cms+ Sports Rankings Algorithm In A Javafx Environment, Luke Welch

Industrial Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Every year, sports teams and athletes get cut from championship opportunities because of their rank. While this reality is easier to swallow if a team or athlete is distant from the cut, it is much harder when they are right on the edge. Many times, it leaves fans and athletes wondering, “Why wasn’t I ranked higher? What factors when into the ranking? Are the rankings based on opinion alone?” These are fair questions that deserve an answer. Many times, sports rankings are derived from opinion polls. Other times, they are derived from a combination of opinion polls and measured performance. …

Enhancing Stability Of High-Nickel Cathodes For Lithium-Ion Batteries Through Additive Manufacturing Of Cathode Structure, Matthew Sullivan

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) are currently the best method to store electrical energy for use in portable electronics and electronic vehicles. New cathode materials for LIBs are consistently studied and researched, but few are as promising and attainable as nickel-rich transition metal oxides such as LiNi1-x-yMnxCoyO2 (NMC). NMC materials exist with many different mass ratios, but higher nickel content materials provide higher energy density. With this increase in capacity comes a sacrifice with cyclability, as high-nickel NMC variants are prone to structure collapse, transition metal dissolution, and cracks due to volume change. In this report, mechanical modification of the electrode by …

Atomic Force Microscopy Based Dna Sensing And Manipulation, Matthew Shubert

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Sequencing DNA provides a positive impact for the biomedical community by understanding a wide variety of applications such as human genetics, disease, and pathogens. The reason the Arkansas Micro & Nano Systems lab is involved with research in DNA sequencing is due to the current, leading industry method. Nanopore sequencing was developed by Oxford Nanopore Technology in which its sequencing method separates double stranded DNA to electrically characterize individual nucleotides traveling through a charged nanopore. Unfortunately, nanopore sequencing uses biological materials that require a shelf life and drives high cost. Therefore, the Arkansas Micro & Nano Systems lab has developed …

Durability Of Non-Metallic Materials For Additively Manufactured Heat Spreader Fabrication, Rafael Estrella

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Power electronics are necessary to convert power from DC sources for AC applications. As this technology trends toward smaller packaging for denser power loads, the increased electrical losses result in deleterious excess heat. Thermal management devices are required to prevent the effects of thermal runaway from shortening the longevity of these modules. Nonmetallic jet impingement heat spreaders provide several benefits in terms of weight and performance over conventional cold plates while not accentuating EMI from the switches in the power module; however, the polymer makeup of the materials previously used for fabricating these devices raises durability concerns under the high …

Disparity Outcomes In Patients Undergoing Pancreas Surgery At An Urban Tertiary Care Center, Mariam A. Saad, Kendyll J. Gartrelle, Rupen Shah, Julie Clark, Kyra Langley, Erin Field, Christopher P. Steffes, David S. Kwon

Hematology/Oncology Meeting Abstracts

INTRODUCTION: Previous studies have shown significant disparities in pancreas cancer outcomes in African American (AA) compared to non-AA patients. Pancreas surgery continues to be associated with significant morbidity, however, there is little reported data on pancreas surgical outcomes by race. We sought to evaluate how race would affect surgical outcomes in an urban tertiary care center for patients undergoing pancreas surgery.

METHODS: A retrospective single-center analysis of patients undergoing pancreas surgery between January 2013 and September 2021 was performed. Patient demographics and post-surgical complications were collected and stratified by race. Area Deprivation Index (ADI) was used to determine patient socioeconomic …

An Oral History On Material Culture In Greencastle, Indiana: Investigating The Importance Of Movable Objects To Individual, Familial, And Community Relationships, Brenna Milligan '22

Honor Scholar Theses

If things could talk, what would they tell us? Specifically, what do the things within the walls of our own homes, or tucked away in a box for safe-keeping, or stuffed in our backpack—things of ordinary value or small-scale worth— say about life in the 21st century? While objects displayed in museums provoke visitors to consider the mastery of artistic skill, or the desirability of rare materials, what does the family photograph in the pocket of the museumgoer signify about human relations to things? This project explores why everyday things and personal artifacts are worthy of academic research. Specifically, it …

Collegiate Football Players Perception Of The Covid-19 Virtual College Experience, Cole L. Laliberty

Leadership Education Capstones

The world was faced with chaos as the COVID-19 virus surged impacting the lives of everyone around the world. Quickly, nations and states began to lockdown as people were required to stay inside and socially distance from one another. The pandemic changed the lives of collegiate football players’ drastically. It left collegiate football players stranded away from teammates, coaches, families, and resources. The research design was a mixed method design consisting of both qualitative and quantitative data. The data obtained from this research focused on major themes of how collegiate football players perceived the pandemics virtual college experience, the challenges …

In Memoriam, Phillip Blumberg (1919–2021), Carol Weisbrod

Connecticut Law Review

Phillip I. Blumberg served as Dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law from 1974 to 1984. These remarks were first shared, via email, with the University of Connecticut School of Law’s faculty after Dean Blumberg’s death. They have been lightly edited for publication.

Overseeing Oversight, Michael Karanicolas, Margaret B. Kwoka

Connecticut Law Review

Accountability is at the core of democratic governance. In the United States, the administrative state is formally situated within the executive branch, but the unelected nature of agency officials, combined with the vast power they wield, has long been cause for concern. A crucial tool for establishing accountability within this so-called “Fourth Branch” is the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), which provides ordinary members of the public with a mechanism for direct oversight of how administrative agencies function. Similar right-to-information laws have been implemented in over one hundred countries. However, in contrast to most of its international counterparts, the FOIA …

In Memoriam, Phillip Blumberg’S Legacy: A Dean’S Perspective, Timothy Fisher

Connecticut Law Review

Phillip I. Blumberg served as Dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law from 1974 to 1984. These remarks were first delivered at the University of Connecticut School of Law’s tribute to Dean Blumberg, “Honoring Phillip I. Blumberg,” held on December 10, 2021. They have been lightly edited for publication.

Brains Without Money: Poverty As Disabling, Emily R.D. Murphy

Connecticut Law Review

The United States has long treated poverty and disability as separate legal and social categories, a division grounded in widespread assumptions about the “deserving” and “undeserving” poor. In the case of disability, individuals generally are not thought to be morally responsible for their disadvantage, whereas in the case of poverty, individuals are assumed to be at fault for their disadvantage and are therefore less deserving of aid. This Article argues that recent advances in brain and behavioral science undermine the factual basis for those assumptions. Poverty inhibits brain development during childhood and, later in life, adversely affects cognitive capacities that …

A Sixth Amendment Inclusionary Rule For Fourth Amendment Violations, Scott W. Howe

Connecticut Law Review

Early in the tenure of Chief Justice Roberts, a five-Justice majority of the Supreme Court signaled that it was ready to consider eliminating the exclusionary rule as a remedy for Fourth Amendment violations. The central concern was that, even after decades of limiting the rule through new exceptions, it purportedly lacked utility in balancing protections against the competing dangers of crime and police abuse, the only rationale on which it has been grounded in the modern era. That existential reappraisal never openly occurred, and the exclusionary rule, in further reduced form, still survives. Yet, given the Court’s recent conservative shift, …

An Indispensable Man, In Memoriam, Thomas Morawetz

Connecticut Law Review

Phillip I. Blumberg served as Dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law from 1974 to 1984. These remarks were first delivered at the University of Connecticut School of Law’s tribute to Dean Blumberg, “Honoring Phillip I. Blumberg,” held on December 10, 2021. They have been lightly edited for publication.

A Friend To The Law School, In Memoriam, Sean J. Griffith

Connecticut Law Review

Phillip I. Blumberg served as Dean of the University of Connecticut School of Law from 1974 to 1984. These remarks were first delivered at the University of Connecticut School of Law’s tribute to Dean Blumberg, “Honoring Phillip I. Blumberg,” held on December 10, 2021. They have been lightly edited for publication.

Evaluating The Constitutionality Of Marital Status Classifications In The Regulation Of Posthumous Reproduction And Postmortem Sperm Retrieval, Alison Jane Walker

Connecticut Law Review

In Eisenstadt v. Baird, the Supreme Court held that a state law prohibiting the provision of contraceptives to unmarried persons violated the Fourteenth Amendment’s rational basis test because of the disparate treatment it afforded to married and unmarried individuals. Eisenstadt stands for an individual’s right to make their own procreative decisions, free from governmental intrusions which impose arbitrary classifications on privacy and freedom. This Note focuses on posthumous reproduction and, more specifically, postmortem sperm retrieval: the process of using a deceased male’s frozen sperm after his death to produce his biological children at the request of his spouse or intimate …

Development And Prototyping Of Motion Capture Hand Cluster Using 3d Printing, Griffin Adcock

Honors Theses

Motion capture is being used to analyze the pitching motion of Mississippi State’s softball pitchers. The motion capture requires that the athletes be covered in clusters of reflective markers for the cameras to track their movement. The current cluster responsible for tracking the pitching hand of a softball player is continually being destroyed as the outer edge of the pitcher’s hand and the cluster contact her thigh. A new cluster was designed to only cover a small portion of the back of the hand, which eliminated the risk of breaking the cluster during pitching. The hand cluster was produced using …

Recent Developments: State V. Miller, Chelsea Roberts

University of Baltimore Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Recent Developments: Madrid V. State, Erin Carrington Smith

University of Baltimore Law Forum

No abstract provided.

Himmelfarb Headlines - May/June 2022, The George Washington University, Himmelfarb Health Sciences Library

Himmelfarb Headlines (2009 - present)

News, information, and resources relating to Himmelfarb Library that is of interest to patrons.

Experimental Validation Of A Reflective Long Period Grating Design Methodology, Sohel Rana, Nirmala Kandadai, Harish Subbaraman

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this work, we present an experimental demonstration of our previously published modeling work on reflective long period grating (LPG). To provide the practical realization of the modeling work, we coat a long segment of fiber both in the tail length and the end facet beyond the gratings with silver to invert the transmission mode LPG to reflection mode LPG. We then measure the LPG characteristics in both the transmission and reflection mode and validate our findings from modeling work. We further build temperature and refractive index (RI) sensors and demonstrate temperature sensing from 21 °C to 191 °C with …

The Garden Of Secrets And Truths, Chloe Martin

Departmental Honors & Graduate Capstone Projects

This essay, entitled “The Garden of Secrets and Truths,” was written for ENGL 470C-01, Seminar in Creative Writing: Nonfiction, with Professor Colin Rafferty. This piece consists of excerpts from Frances Hodgson Burnett’s The Secret Garden coupled with nonfiction flash essays about life, growing up, and ambition. This essay was born from the “Public Domain” challenge in this course which prompted students to take a work of literature that is within the Public Domain and use it as a springboard to tell their original nonfiction story or stories. It follows a sort of call-and-response pattern where a quote from The Secret …

Sentiment Analysis Of Medical School Interview Reports: Do Race, Gender, And Sexuality Matter?, Alix Masters, Ms3, Ashley B. Zhang, Ms1, Anjali Upadhyaya, Ms2, Priyanga Selvakumar, Ms 2, Bernard Lopez, Md, Alisa Losasso, Md

Health Equity and Quality Improvement (HEQI) Summit

Presented at the 2022 House Staff Quality Improvement and Patient Safety Conference

Identifying Athletes At Risk For Asthma: A Prevalence Study Of An Urban, Athletic Adolescent Population, C. Siegel, E. Tecce, A . Maheu, J. Vaile, J. Close

Health Equity and Quality Improvement (HEQI) Summit

Objectives

• To assess the prevalence of asthma in an urban, athletic adolescent population using PPE data
• To identify social factors that place adolescent athletes at risk for developing asthma

An Occupational Justice Approach To Addressing Inequities In The School District Of Philadelphia: Outcomes Of An Advocacy-Based Interdisciplinary Intervention, Hal Martin, Otd, Grace Denfeld, Msot, Teresa Ioannucci, Msot, Young Sheng, Ms4, Sabrina D'Mello

Health Equity and Quality Improvement (HEQI) Summit

Project AIM: By the Summer of 2022, our interdisciplinary, advocacy based group will take direct steps to improve awareness of chronic underfunding in the School District of Philadelphia and increase stakeholder engagement. These steps will be evidenced by 1) Increased connections and joint projects with partner organizations, 2) Expanded publications through varied forms of media, 3) Direct communication with an increased number of stakeholders.

Lgbtq+ Inclusive Cancer Screening Guidelines, Jacob Nair, Stephanie Perez

Health Equity and Quality Improvement (HEQI) Summit

Aims:

1. Development of an organ -based screening tool to collect health information that is pertinent to cancer risk
2. Creation of an inclusive cancer screening algorithm that is tailored to patients based on their individual risk factors

Deafness And Medicine: A Pilot Program For Increasing Medical Student Awareness Of The Deaf Community, Natalie Perlov, Bs, Zachary Urdang, Md, Phd, Arielle Spellun, Md, Irina Middleton, Aud, Julia Croce, Aud

Health Equity and Quality Improvement (HEQI) Summit

Aims: Curate a five-lecture series at Jefferson for medical students throughout the fall semester on topics in Deaf culture and American Sign Language (ASL), with a focus on application in medical settings

Does Treatment At A Level I Trauma Center Reduce Disparities In Patient Outcomes For Open Tibia Fractures?, Nicholas Zingas, Lily R. Mundy, Md, Ronnie L. Shammas, Md, Tracy Truong, Ms, Sarah B. Peskoe, Phd, Scott T. Hollenbeck, Md, Mark J. Gage, Md

Health Equity and Quality Improvement (HEQI) Summit

Aims: Do Level I trauma centers improve outcomes in patients shown to be at high risk of experiencing adverse outcomes due to differences in race and insurance status?

Disparities In Head And Neck Cancer Survival And Treatment By Race And Socioeconomic Status At A Single Institution In Philadelphia, Sarah Wagoner, Mph(C), R. Axelrod, Md, S. W. Keith, Phd, W. Vervilles, Mph(C), C. Zeigler-Johnson, Phd, Mph

Health Equity and Quality Improvement (HEQI) Summit

Aims:

1. Assess the individual associations of Black, White, and Asian race and neighborhood SES on HNC mortality
2. Analyze and assess for a moderating relationship between race and socioeconomic status in HNC mortality
3. Investigate a disparity in receipt of surgical treatment by race and socioeconomic status

Does Maternal Race Influence Indication For Ntsv Cesarean Delivery?, Simone Reaves, Rebecca Mercier, Ryan Brannon

Health Equity and Quality Improvement (HEQI) Summit

Aiims:

• Examine the NTSV CD rate by race and identify differences in indication by race at our institution
• We hypothesize that after controlling for confounding variables there will be no difference in rate of CD or indication for CD by race