Digital Commons Network^™

Everyone, Karisa Kinard

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Avant-garde is described as an experimental technique of art, whether it be fashion, painting, or theater. These methods have been effective in helping the audience connect to the script. This script, entitled Everyone, echoes the high emotional value placed on common human themes; depression, hatred, faith, isolation, self-consciousness, and education are aspects of life we have all experienced and have had adverse and inescapable influences on our health. Everyone is a way to describe the cycle of life revolving around us. The theater has always been a conduit for catharsis, evolving from stringent rituals to emerging contemporary works. Over time, …

Altering The Genome Of The Microcrustacean, Daphnia, With Exposure To The Mutagen, Proflavine, Eesha Khan

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

DNA can be altered by introducing mutagens that can induce mutations and alter the genomes of organisms. The microcrustacean, Daphnia, was exposed to Proflavine, a mutagenic disinfectant, and the effects were seen by breeding the organisms and sequencing their genomes. Isolates of Daphnia were collected, and then solutions with the mutagen were prepared to determine the adequate concentration to utilize for exposure. After successive reproductions, the babies were monitored, then sent to sequencing to examine mutations present in the DNA. After many trials, the optimal concentration for Proflavine was determined to be 35 ug/mL, showing the ability of Daphnia to …

The Skull Of The Semi-Aquatic Neotropical Lizard Echinosaura Horrida (Squamata Gymnopthalmidae: Cercosaurinae) And New Synapomorphies For The Genus, Alison Ngo

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Echinosaura is a semi-aquatic group of lizards of the Gymnophthalmidae family, which inhabits the streams of the tropical forests of Costa Rica down to Ecuador along the Andes mountains. Echinosaura is composed of seven species: E. brachycephala, E. centralis, E. horrida, E. keyi, E. orcesi, E. palmeri, E. panamensis. Recent studies have proposed a well-resolved phylogenetic hypothesis for this genus, based on molecular data. However, there is a lack of knowledge on morphological aspects, such as their osteology. Here, we perform a bone-by-bone description and illustration of the skull of E. horrida using CT-scan data. We found variation in characters …

The Visualization Of Wireless Network Data In Augmented Reality, Tiffany Frias

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

The visualization of wireless networks has been a research topic so computer scientists can understand what cannot be seen with the naked eye and advance in specialized fields such as data visualization, cyber security, and computer networking. Flying a drone with a microcontroller around a building, signal strength and location data points of wireless networks can be collected and uploaded into a cloud database like AWS (Amazon Web Services), or Microsoft Azure Cosmos DB. On the Unity platform used for game development, developers can create a program that pulls such data from the cloud in real-time. Using this data, they …

Texas Poker Vr, Allison Gardiner

2021 Fall Honors Capstone Projects - Archive

Texas Poker VR is a virtual reality (VR) poker game that provides players with the ability to play privately among friends. The Texas Game Developers team is working to develop a VR poker game that has a focus on the private room and socialization aspects of the game. The application is for the Oculus Quest 2, using the Unity game engine. We will be using a subscription server that will allow players to create a private room with other players they invite, visualize the poker screen, socialize with each other, and keep track of the fake money, all on a …

Development And Characterization Of Novel A Tcrm Antibody And Its Application As An Immune Checkpoint Blocker, Soroush Ghaffari

Biology Dissertations - Archive

Immunotherapy, the treatment of diseases via targeted immune system activation, has recently shown extraordinary success in clinical trials for multiple malignancies. In contrast to a routine therapeutic regimen for cancer, effective immunotherapies can stimulate the innate and adaptive immune system to marsh specific and durable responses against tumors. Immunotherapies come in many shapes and forms. Immune checkpoint blockade (ICB) is an example of immunotherapy that revolutionized the field of immuno-oncology. Considering the recent success of ICB therapies, the scientific community tried to discover new inhibitory molecules and pathways as a new target for cancer immunotherapy. Indeed, CD94/NKG2A receptor is an …

Development Of New Techniques To Dissect The Genetic Basis Of Population-Level Variation Of Recombination Rates In The Daphnia Model System, Swatantra Neupane

Biology Dissertations - Archive

We know very little about the determining genetic factors that control the recombination events within a genome. Moreover, the cause of recombination rate variation in population-level remains poorly understood, especially in non-mammalian species. The scarcity of population-level recombination rate data makes pinpointing genetic loci responsible for recombination rate variation even more challenging. Due to a lack of population-level recombination data, this hypothesis remains untested mainly in natural systems, like Daphnia. In response to the limitation of genetic tools used to dissect the genetic determinant of a trait in Daphnia, we put an effort to address these shortcomings in the Daphnia …

Design For Older Adults – Functional Limitations And Human Factors Engineering, Megumi Sato Hice

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Engineering Dissertations - Archive

Background: Throughout the aging process, people experience changes in functional ability and such changes can happen in physical and mental functions. As a result, older adults develop limitations in their capabilities to perform daily activities. Although many studies have done to identify functional limitations for elderly, many older adults still face negative consequences in daily living conditions due to their functional declines. One of the possible causes may be a lack of feedback or participations of elderly users in the design process. Other reason could be a lack of consideration to identify the needs for a specific task associated with …

The Effects Of Hyperbaric Oxygen Therapy On Pain Thresholds And Anxiodepressive Behaviors In A Pre-Clinical Fibromyalgia Pain Model, Cassie Mae Argenbright

Psychology Theses - Archive

Fibromyalgia (FM) is a chronic, widespread pain disorder generally of a non-inflammatory nature. FM has many known affective and cognitive comorbidities, including fatigue, sleep disturbances, cognitive deficits, and mood disturbances. As a result, FM treatment approaches are mixed in nature and lack a robust characterization that address symptoms on a sensory, affective, and cognitive level. However, there is promise in the implementation of hyperbaric oxygen therapy (HBOT) for alleviating fibromyalgia pain and comorbidities, despite no work investigating the efficacy of this treatment in prominent preclinical FM models. Thus, this project aims to investigate the affective components, specifically anhedonia and anxiety, …

Multi-Parametric And Multi-Objective Optimization Of Heatsinks For Forced And Natural Convection Based Single-Phase Immersion Cooling Of Server, Tushar Rohidas Wagh

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

An increase in utility of internet-based services, cloud computing and greater performance demands due to rising AI and ML applications have led to a steep growth in GPU and CPU thermal design power. Efficient thermal management of these processors has become a bottleneck in performance enhancement and corresponding power densification of these components. Furthermore, increased pressure on data center owners to reduce power demands and move towards green computing has exacerbated the data center cooling challenges. Single-phase immersion cooling allows data center owners to not only dissipate the increasing heat fluxes efficiently but can also potentially improve equipment reliability as …

Study Of Sac Solder Interconnect Parameters In Microelectronic Semiconductor Packaging And Their Effects On Electromigration Failure Mechanisms, Allison Theresa Osmanson

Material Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

As the shrinkage of electronic devices becomes more appealing, so do their high capacity and efficiency. This demand for ever-shrinking sizes of electronic devices follows the trend predicted by Moore’s Law. To achieve smaller devices, reduced sizes of solder joints, Cu traces, Cu pads, and other components in packages are implemented with tighter tolerances for geometries and layouts. With each incremental change in dimension or material, new reliability challenges emerge. Electromigration (EM), the directional diffusion of atoms with the flow of electrons, has been an inevitable reliability concern for microelectronic device packaging. It is one common failure mechanism in wafer-level …

Study On Forming Dna-Mediated Nanoparticle Conjugates: Toward Detection Of Covid-19, Chinmay Nitin Afzulpurkar

Material Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

The objective of this thesis is to establish a rapid, robust, and reproducible procedure to controllably assemble DNA-functionalized Au nanoparticles (AuNPs) into satellite-shaped nanostructures using sequence-specific DNA hybridization. A target DNA strand with COVID-19 sequence (t-DNA) is used as a bridge to connect a capture DNA functionalized on a 50nm gold nanoparticle (C-AuNP) and a probe DNA functionalized on a 30nm nanoparticle (P-AuNP), creating C-AuNP/t-DNA/P-AuNP conjugates. The C-DNA is complementary to a portion of t-DNA, and P-DNA is complementary to the other portion of t-DNA. The parameters that affect the conjugate formation, including hybridization buffer strength, hybridization temperature, and DNA …

Liutex Analysis By Pod And Dmd In Turbulent Flow After/ In Micro Vortex Generator, Xuan My Trieu

Mathematics Dissertations - Archive

Although vortex has been studied more than one hundred year, we still have not had universally accepted definition. A few well-known vortex identification methods are introduced ��,∆, ��2,������ criteria to identify coherent vortex structures the last three decades. A new Omega vortex identification method, which is defined as a ratio of the vorticity tensor norm squared over the sum of the vorticity tensor norm squared and deformation norm squared, was proposed in 2016. Two year later, the new vortex vector named Liutex (previously called Rotex) was proposed by Liu et al. with direction of local rotation axis (an eigenvector of …

Change In Sedimentation Regime Due To Bridge Construction Activities: A Field Study At Fm 2478 Bridge Over Wilson Creek, Mckinney, Texas, Subhas Kandel

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

Bridge construction activities can cause soil disturbances that introduce sediments into a receiving stream and potentially impact its quality and the ecosystem. The impacts of bridge construction activities are studied in two ways: overland erosion and in-stream sediment concentration. For this research, the overland erosion of Wilson Creek in McKinney, Texas was monitored from four erosion plots constructed on its banks, near the bridge construction activities zone. The instream water quality was examined during the construction period by measuring the Total Suspended Solids (TSS) and the turbidity of water samples, and the sediment and water samples were collected and analyzed …

Carbon Footprint Assessment And Emissions Reduction Strategies For The University Of Texas At Arlington, Dravid Sabarish Villavan Kothai

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

In the past decade, many universities have started to ascertain their emissions and benchmark their progress towards sustainability and climate control. The University of Texas at Arlington (UTA) is no exception in working toward the goal of carbon neutrality. While UTA continues to grow and transform, its goal is to simultaneously reduce energy intensity and greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. To this end, the Office of Sustainability is maintaining a carbon inventory for each year to track GHG emissions and provide information to guide reduction strategies. The primary objectives of this research were: 1. To update UTA’s greenhouse gas emissions inventory …

The Influence Of Black Greek Membership On The Academic Engagement Of African American Male Students, Cedric D. Shelby

Educational Leadership & Policy Studies Dissertations - Archive

The purpose of this qualitative study was to better understand the experiences of Black male students who are members of Black Greek Letter Fraternities (BGLF) while attending a large institution. This study examines the academic practices of the fraternity members, and the effects fraternity membership has on their academic progress. For this study, four Black male undergraduate fraternity members and five graduates shared stories of their undergraduate experiences and how being in a fraternity impacted their academic progress. Semi-structured questions were used during the interviews to explore the student’s academic engagement and they focused on the following research question: 1. …

One Step At A Time: Improving The Fidelity Of Geospatial Agent-Based Models Using Empirical Data, Amy A. Marusak

Industrial, Manufacturing, and Systems Theses - Archive

Agent-based modeling is frequently used to produce geospatial models of transportation systems. However, reducing the computational requirements of these models can require a degree of abstraction that can compromise the fidelity of the modeled environment. The purpose of the agent-based model presented in this thesis is to explore the potential of a volunteer-based crowd-shipping system for rescuing surplus meals from restaurants and delivering them to homeless shelters in Arlington, Texas. Each iteration of the model’s development has sought to improve model realism by incorporating empirical data to strengthen underlying assumptions. This thesis describes the most recent iteration, in which a …

2021-December-01-Meet Pamela AvendañO-Rubi, University Marketing And Communication, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

Language is what ties everything and everyone together for Pamela Avendaño-Rubi, whose native language of Spanish has been the key to relationships and opportunities throughout her time at East Tennessee State University.

“I was born and raised in Mexico, and it wasn’t until maybe seven or eight years ago that I first learned English. That was the biggest thing ever,” said the senior pre-medical student. “So, I empathize with a lot of people for whom English is a second language, even the professors here who have English as a second language and they struggle to express themselves. I am able …

An Investigation Of A Teacher Education Program And The Hiring Of Newly Certified Teachers In At-Risk And Non-At-Risk Schools, William Lancaster

Dissertations

Research has shown teachers are the most important factor when determining student success, even with the field of education in a constant state of uncertainty. Schools all over the nation are struggling to acquire quality teachers into their buildings, and teacher preparation programs are having a difficult time producing enough teacher candidates. This study investigated what initial jobs students choose to take in their first year after completing an educational degree from one study university’s teacher preparation program, through numerous secondary data points and a participant survey. The quantitative data suggests that recent graduates are just as likely to go …

Oportunidad En La Complejidad:Recomendaciones Para Una Resiliencia Climáticaequitativa En East Boston, Patricio Belloy, Antonio Raciti, Katsyris Rivera-Kientz, Rebecca Herst

Sustainable Solutions Lab

East Boston es un vecindario costero diverso y de clase trabajadora en la ciudad de Boston, el cual está experimentando una rápida gentrificación. Al mismo tiempo, problemas ambientales locales como la contaminación del aire y el ruido de la operación del cercano Aeropuerto Internacional Logan continúan perjudicando a los residentes, particularmente a las comunidades más marginadas. Además de las presiones inmobiliarias y la contaminación del aeropuerto Logan, las evaluaciones técnicas y científicas advierten que una gran parte del vecindario corre el riesgo de verse gravemente afectado por los impactos del cambio climático, como el aumento del nivel del mar, las …

I Want You To Panic: Leveraging The Rhetoric Of Fear And Rage For The Future Of Food, Iselin Gambert

Journal of Food Law & Policy

"Humanity Is About to Kill 1 Million Species in a Globe-Spanning Murder-Suicide. Only 11 Years Left to Prevent Irreversible Damage from Climate Change." Doomsday headlines like these are terrifying. But are they enough to make us act? The causes of the current climate crisis are many, but the science is clear that the meat and dairy industry shoulders much of the blame. Given the role the animal agriculture industry plays in perpetuating the climate crisis, combined with the harms the industry imposes on the animals and workers within it, politicians and governments—given their degree of power and influence—should ostensibly be …

The Right To Food Comes To America, Wendy Heipt

Journal of Food Law & Policy

The people of Maine recently exercised an opportunity no citizen of this country has ever had before: the ability to vote on whether to enshrine a right to food in their state constitution. This Essay provides an overview of Maine’s experience with food rights in order to explain how the state came to occupy this unique position.

France's Organisme De Défense Et De Gestion: A Model For Farmer Collective Action Through Standard Development And Brand Management, Christopher J. Bardenhagen, Philip H. Howard, Marie-Odile Noziéres-Petit

Journal of Food Law & Policy

Quality-based food production, often with a regional dimension, can provide farmers with new, value added markets. It can also provide consumers with access to place based high-quality products, and may benefit local economies through increased commerce. French Organismes de Défense et de Gestion (ODGs) illustrate a mode of quality-based agri-food business organization. ODGs focus on the development of production standards, as well as management of the intellectual property related to those standards. This mode, which is commonly used in Europe, has not often been used in the United States, despite its potential for regional food system development. The ODG mode …

China's Food Pagodas: Looking Forward By Looking Back?, Yifei Li, Dale Jamieson

Journal of Food Law & Policy

In this Article we provide a close analysis of the Chinese Dietary Guidelines – the Food Pagoda. Our focus on the dietary guidelines is motivated by two main considerations. First, the guidelines represent the most comprehensive, nationwide, state sponsored effort to educate the people of China about food. Like citizens in most countries, Chinese people are presented with numerous, often competing, messages from scientists, food gurus and online influencers. The dietary guidelines are different in that they are backed by an entire suite of governmental resources for nationwide dissemination through hospitals, schools, public billboards, TV and radio ads, among others. …

Adjunct Fenofibrate Up-Regulates Bile Acid Glucuronidation And Improves Treatment Response For Patients With Cholestasis, Gina M. Gallucci, Trottier, Christopher Hemme, David N. Assis, James L. Boyer, Olivier Barbier, Nisanne S. Ghonem

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

Accumulation of cytotoxic bile acids (BAs) during cholestasis can result in liver failure. Glucuronidation, a phase II metabolism pathway responsible for BA detoxification, is regulated by peroxisome proliferator–activated receptor alpha (PPARα). This study investigates the efficacy of adjunct fenofibrate therapy to up-regulate BA-glucuronidation and reduce serum BA toxicity during cholestasis. Adult patients with primary biliary cholangitis (PBC, n = 32) and primary sclerosing cholangitis (PSC, n = 23), who experienced an incomplete response while receiving ursodiol monotherapy (13-15 mg/kg/day), defined as serum alkaline phosphatase (ALP) ≥ 1.5 times the upper limit of normal, received additional fenofibrate (145-160 mg/day) as standard …

Personal Digital Health In Parkinson's Disease: Case Histories And Commentary, Aidan T. Boving, L. Shuster, Theodore A. Walls, Todd Brothers

Pharmacy Practice and Clinical Research Faculty Publications

The use of self-tracking of bio-behavioral states along with prescription dosing information is increasingly popular in the care and study of many human diseases. Parkinson’s Disease is particularly amenable to such tracking, as patients live with the progressive disease for many years, increasing motivation to pursue quality of life changes through careful monitoring of symptoms and self-guided management of their medications and lifestyle choices. Through the use of digital self-tracking technologies, patients independently or in conjunction with professional medical advice are modulating their medications and behavioral regimens based on self-tracking data. Self-trackers engage in self-experimentation with their health, and more …

Combination Intrathecal Drug Therapy Strategies For Pain Management, Jay Karri, Mani Singh, Devas J Modi, Vwaire Orhurhu, Caleb Seale, Michael Saulino, Anuj Marathe, Darrell Vydra, Jonathan M Hagedorn, Brian Bruel, Alaa Abd-Elsayed

Department of Rehabilitation Medicine Faculty Papers

Background: Numerous combination intrathecal drug therapy (CIDT) strategies exist and are utilized for varying pain syndromes, typically when monotherapy dose escalation or medication alternation is deemed untenable or unfeasible. Unfortunately, the supportive evidence basis for the use of these strategies and specific drug combinations is generally lacking and unclear, with many medications being used for off-label indications.

Objective: In this manuscript, we provide a robust exploration and analysis of the literature to provide an evidence-based narrative for the use of CIDT strategies in regard to clinical indications, pharmacologic parameters, specific drug combinations, safety profiles, and future directions.

Study design: Narrative …

Vaccine Hesitancy - When Emotions Trump Reason, Lawrence C. Scharmann

Department of Teaching, Learning, and Teacher Education: Faculty Publications

Isn’t getting a vaccine a decision of choice or personal liberty? Yes, but only if personal choices don’t create health risks for other citizens. We no longer permit individuals to smoke in public spaces in which second-hand smoke can harm the health of others. In the case of COVID-19, at best, individuals whose choice it is not to be vaccinated slow progress toward herd immunity. At worst, if enough individuals choose not to vaccinate, this pandemic continues unabated, enabling variants of the original virus to emerge – variants that are often of increasing virulence. Fear of ingredients, however, is but …

Empowering Computing Students With Proficiency In Robotics Via Situated Learning, Weitian Wang, Constantine Coutras, Michelle Zhu

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

With the increasing employment of robots in multiple areas such as smart manufacturing and intelligent transportation, both undergraduate and graduate students from computing related majors (e.g., computer science and information technology) demonstrated strong interests in learning robotics technology to broaden their career opportunities. However, instilling computing students with robotics knowledge remains a challenge since most of them have limited pre-training in engineering subjects such as electronics and mechatronics. Therefore, robotics education for computing students demands an immersive real-world learning environment by considering both theories and intensive hands-on projects. Different from traditional textbook-directed robotics learning, in this study, a situated learning-based …

Design Of Miniaturized Antipodal Vivaldi Antennas And A Microwave Head Imaging System For The Detection Of Blood Clots In The Brain, Farhana Parveen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2020-2023

Traditional brain imaging modalities, for example, MRI, CT scan, X-ray, etc. can provide precise and high-resolution images of the brain for diagnosing lesions, tumors or clots inside the brain. However, these modalities require bulky and expensive test setups accessible only at specialized diagnostic centers, and hence may not be suitable or affordable to many patients. Furthermore, the inherent health risks limit the usability of these modalities for frequent monitoring. Microwave imaging is deemed a promising alternative due to its being cost-effective, portable, non-ionizing, non-intrusive. Therefore, this work aims to design an effective microwave head imaging system for the detection of …