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Title: The Mechanics of Traumatic Brain Injury : From Blunt to Blast Loading
Creator: Kerwin, Joseph Augustus
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Traumatic brain injury (TBI) is an endemic problem in both civilian and military populations. In the United States, the incidence of civilian TBI is over a million cases annually, with some years (2014) reaching over 2.5 million TBI-related emergency department visits. In recent decades, a new category of TBI has emerged - primary blast loading or otherwise known as, blast-induced traumatic brain injuries (bTBI). bTBI has become the ``signature wound'' of the Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom ...
Show moreTraumatic brain injury (TBI) is an endemic problem in both civilian and military populations. In the United States, the incidence of civilian TBI is over a million cases annually, with some years (2014) reaching over 2.5 million TBI-related emergency department visits. In recent decades, a new category of TBI has emerged - primary blast loading or otherwise known as, blast-induced traumatic brain injuries (bTBI). bTBI has become the ``signature wound'' of the Iraq (Operation Iraqi Freedom [OIF]) and Afghanistan (Operation Enduring Freedom [OEF]) conflicts as it has accounted for nearly 70% of all of the injuries to military service members. Until recently, bTBI has been almost entirely isolated to conflict regions. In August 2020, a catastrophic detonation accidentally occurred in Beirut, Lebanon that instantly affected over 300,000 people.The high prevalence of TBIs in both the civilian and military communities has led to a significant societal burden and is one of the leading public health problems we face today. The treatment and prevention of TBIs has become a major focus within the past decade for all of the United States military branches. The increased awareness of TBI/bTBI has brought about great understanding in both the medical and research fields of neurology; however, it has also shed light on just how little we previously understood about this injury. TBI is a multifaceted problem that encompasses multiple length scales, complex anatomical geometries, and nonlinear biological responses and has various time-scales depending on the severity of the injury. The objective of this research is to investigate the potential injury-causing mechanisms present during the biomechanical loading of TBI events. More specifically, it focuses on the parallels between TBI and bTBI. The bTBI community is actively debating several potential damage-causing primary mechanisms: direct cranial transmission, skull flexure, skull orifices, and thoracic surge. To this end, a brain-tissue phantom was created to investigate its response to different biomechanical loading scenarios. The phantom was fabricated into a three-dimensional extruded ellipsoid geometry made out of Polyacrylamide gelatin that incorporated gyri-sulci interaction. Additionally, the dominant length scales of the sulci, gyri, gray matter thickness, and overall brain dimensions were incorporated into the gelatin brain phantom. The phantom was assembled into a polylactic acid 3D-printed skull, surrounded with deionized water, and enclosed between two optical windows to create a human head surrogate. In this work, the response of the human-head surrogate was evaluated under two biomechanical loading conditions: blunt-force impacts and blast loading. A custom-built drop-tower apparatus was used for the blunt-force impacts and a state-of-the-art blast chamber was employed to characterize the human-head surrogate under blast conditions. These two experimental apparatuses aided in the investigation into the potential damage-causing mechanisms associated with TBI/bTBI. A noninvasive high-speed imaging system was used to capture the surrogate-head response from each biomechanical loading condition. Finally, digital image processing techniques were used to evaluate the kinematic motion of the entire surrogate head, but more importantly the direct response of the gelatin-brain phantom itself.
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Title: NEW APPROACHES FOR STUDYING THE ARCHITECTURE OF URBAN TREES
Creator: Arseniou, Georgios
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: ABSTRACTNEW APPROACHES FOR STUDYING THE ARCHITECTURE OF URBAN TREES By Georgios Arseniou The study of the architecture of urban trees is important for the management of urban forests to optimize their ecological and socioeconomic services. Trees have a fractal-like architecture which is disrupted by competition for light. Therefore, studying the architecture of open-grown urban trees should provide a better understanding of the inherent fractal-like character of trees. Terrestrial Laser...
Show moreABSTRACTNEW APPROACHES FOR STUDYING THE ARCHITECTURE OF URBAN TREES By Georgios Arseniou The study of the architecture of urban trees is important for the management of urban forests to optimize their ecological and socioeconomic services. Trees have a fractal-like architecture which is disrupted by competition for light. Therefore, studying the architecture of open-grown urban trees should provide a better understanding of the inherent fractal-like character of trees. Terrestrial Laser Scanning (TLS) technology provides detailed data of tree architecture. The main scope of this dissertation was to model the fractal-structural complexity of urban trees based on different fractal analysis methods in relation to their physiological and functional traits. In the second chapter of the dissertation, a variant of the "two-surface" method was used to estimate the fractal dimension of thousands of urban tree crowns from a publicly-available dataset across the USA. It was found that urban trees reduced their crown fractal dimension to reduce water loss through transpiration in hotter cities depending on the level of urbanization at smaller spatial scales. The functional group and the life-history traits of the studied urban trees significantly affected their crown fractal dimension in response to their growing environment. In the third chapter, forty-five trees of different deciduous species (Gleditsia triacanthos L., Quercus macrocarpa Michx., Metasequoia glyptostroboides Hu & W.C. Cheng) were laser scanned in leaf-on and -off conditions on the Michigan State University campus to study the role of leaves in the fractal-structural complexity of urban trees using the "box-dimension" (Db) metric. It was found that the presence of leaves significantly increased the Db metric of all study trees, and the contribution of leaves decreased as branch network complexity increased. The leaf-on laser point clouds of the study trees were also virtually defoliated with a leaf-removal algorithm. It was found that the algorithmic leaf-removal caused biased estimates of the Db of the G. triacanthos and M. glyptostroboides trees. In the fourth chapter, the leaf-off laser point clouds of fifty-six urban trees of the aforementioned species were used to generate quantitative structural models (QSMs) to quantify their woody surface area (WSA) allometry. It was found that the variation in the above-ground WSA of the study trees related to their fractal dimension quantified with the Db metric and the distribution of "path" lengths from the tree base to every branch tip. It was also found that the urban trees allocated the largest portion of their WSA to their branches, which varied with branch order, branch-base diameter, and branch-base height. This study also showed a positive relationship between the WSA and the crown surface area of the urban trees. The fifth chapter included laser point clouds of thirty-one trees of deciduous and evergreen species that were sampled on the Michigan State University campus and the Harvard Forest in Petersham, MA, USA to model their above-ground woody biomass. QSMs were generated to estimate the total tree volume and component volumes of the study trees. Biomass estimates were produced by multiplying the TLS-based volumes with measurements of tree basic density from sample disks from stems and branches obtained after destructively sampling the trees, and also with published basic density values at species level. The leaves of the trees that were scanned in leaf-on condition were artificially removed before QSM generation. It was found that TLS technology can be used to produce reliable total and component biomass estimates of trees. The biomass estimates quality can be affected by the growing environment, the leaf condition of the laser-scanned trees and the basic density values that are used.
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Title: SUBJECTIVE AND OBJECTIVE STRESS RESPONSES AMONG YOUNG AUTISTIC ADULTS
Creator: Peña, Jarhed Macarubbo
Date: 2022
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: This study was conducted to examine the subjective (psychological) and objective (physiological) stress responses of autistic individuals guided by the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping by Lazarus and Folkman (1984). Subjective stress responses were measured through a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) rating by the participants on their stress perception and objective stress responses were measured through heart rate variability (HRV) using a heart rate monitor as participants underwent a...
Show moreThis study was conducted to examine the subjective (psychological) and objective (physiological) stress responses of autistic individuals guided by the Transactional Theory of Stress and Coping by Lazarus and Folkman (1984). Subjective stress responses were measured through a Visual Analog Scale (VAS) rating by the participants on their stress perception and objective stress responses were measured through heart rate variability (HRV) using a heart rate monitor as participants underwent a standardized online Trier Online Stress Test (TSST; Kirschbaum et al., 1993) protocol to stimulate a social evaluative stress protocol. A systematic and qualitative interview was followed to investigate the appraisal of participants’ perception on the TSST. Literature suggests lack of insight and poor reporting of stressful experiences among autistic individuals. Participants consisted of 12 young adults with autism spectrum disorder (ASD) and 24 typically developing young adults currently attending college. Both subjective and objective stress quantitative analyses resulted in non-significant findings. However, findings suggested some between-group differences in subjective stress responses and objective stress responses for each phase of the stress stimulation (i.e., Baseline, Stress Task, Recovery). Particularly, higher observed stress perception and HRV were noted during Baseline and Recovery and lower observed stress perception and HRV were noted during the Stress Task in the ASD group. Further exploration of qualitative data findings revealed that both groups were able to have insight and self-report physical stress response such as increased heart rate and sweating, further supporting the importance of the appraisal of the stressful experience. Clinical, education, and research implications are also addressed. In terms of clinical implications, the current study highlighted young adults are susceptible to stress and can benefit from stress management intervention regardless of ASD diagnosis. Early intervention to teach autistic individuals stress management skills may also be beneficial. Furthermore, the use of objective measures can raise the awareness of one’s stress response, and that the appraisal of one’s subjective perception of stress is equally important in understanding individual differences in the stress experience. In terms of education implications, educators should train health professionals such as rehabilitation counselors in understanding diverse ways of stress manifestation and coping. They should also be trained to teach stress coping skills when working with clients, including autistic individuals. In terms of research implications, the unique methodology to combine psychological data with physiological data, as well as appraisal process to obtain cognitive information to gain a more holistic perspective on the stress experiences of participants. Future research recommends increasing sample size and diverse demographic participants, matching participants with ASD with those without, re-examining different methods to characterize potential similarities and differences among ASD, typically developing and other clinical groups, further examining not only the stress phase but also the baseline and recovery phases of the stress stimulation, improving the ASD screening to verify autism diagnosis, recruiting participants who have not received stress management intervention or training, examining the impact of in person and online TSST, and investigating the impact of comorbid conditions on stress responses in the ASD population.
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Title: Construal Level is Stable Within-Person Over Time : A Repeated-Measures Study of Construal Level and Outcomes
Creator: Morrison, Michael
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Construal level — essentially, whether you are focusing on the forest or the trees — hasproven itself a consequential and highly-predictive variable in the workplace. This paper aimed to extend the construal level literature in two major areas. First, it attempted to develop and validate a new measure of construal level capable of capturing the four dimensions of psychological distance that underpin construal level. Second, this study aimed to understand individual differences in construal...
Show moreConstrual level — essentially, whether you are focusing on the forest or the trees — hasproven itself a consequential and highly-predictive variable in the workplace. This paper aimed to extend the construal level literature in two major areas. First, it attempted to develop and validate a new measure of construal level capable of capturing the four dimensions of psychological distance that underpin construal level. Second, this study aimed to understand individual differences in construal level more deeply by capturing a distribution of daily construal levels within-person, and testing whether patterns of stability and fluctuation in these distributions are associated with meaningful differences in work-related outcomes between-person. A new measure of psychological distance was constructed with four independent factors, and it was shown to predict several work-related outcomes relevant to construal level. However, the new measure did not correlate with existing measures of construal level. Next, in a repeated measures study, construal level measured with the Behavior Identification Form exhibited excellent within-person stability across five days. Average construal level was shown to positively predict visioning behaviors, and negatively predict avoidance motivation. Ultimately, this dissertation bolsters the case that there are stable individual differences in construal level between-person, and provides some initial evidence that these differences have work-related consequences.
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Title: CORE THERAPIST SKILLS SUPPORTING IMPLEMENTATION OF EVIDENCE-BASED PRACTICES WITH SERIOUS EMOTIONALLY DISTURBED CHILDREN IN COMMUNITY MENTAL HEALTH SETTINGS : A MODIFIED MIXED METHODS DELPHI STUDY
Creator: Miller, Debra Lynn
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Although evidence-based practices (EBPs) exist to support emotional and behavioral health for children and their families, their adoption in community settings remains startlingly low. While therapist training is a promising method to promote the successful adoption of EBPs, there is often a lack of agreement on the foundational skills therapists need to be successful in learning and adopting specific EBP approaches. Unfortunately, this absence of agreement hinders the advancement of training...
Show moreAlthough evidence-based practices (EBPs) exist to support emotional and behavioral health for children and their families, their adoption in community settings remains startlingly low. While therapist training is a promising method to promote the successful adoption of EBPs, there is often a lack of agreement on the foundational skills therapists need to be successful in learning and adopting specific EBP approaches. Unfortunately, this absence of agreement hinders the advancement of training interventions that can better support EBP implementations in community health settings and provide families with access to research-based care.To address this concern, this study produced consensus on the core therapist skills and corresponding training methods that support the adoption of family focused EBPs in community health settings. Using a mixed method modified Delphi study process, data were collected from a group of 51 panel experts representing 11 family focused EBP models commonly implemented in community mental health settings to treat SED symptoms in youth. This expert panel reached consensus on 175 skills considered most important for successful EBP adoption. Follow up semi-structured interviews with participants yielded agreement on the training methods most promising to support therapists in acquiring these foundational skills. Research findings establish a specific skillset not presently found in the literature that crosscuts multiple family focused EBPs. These findings have significant implications to inform future training interventions supportive of EBP adoption in community health settings. Results are applicable to community health providers and leaders making strategic decisions about investment in EBP training and workforce development. Moreover, a call to clinical training programs is established suggesting this core therapist skillset be used to guide future curriculum development and assessment of strengths and capacity of therapists in training.
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Title: Mass Measurement of the Lightweight Self-Conjugate Nucleus zirconium-80 and the Development of the Single Ion Penning Trap
Creator: Hamaker, Alec Scott
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: An atom's mass provides a unique probe to the various interactions occurring within its nucleus. Hence, precise atomic mass measurements are fundamental for nuclear physics research. Penning trap mass spectrometry (PTMS) is currently the most precise method for performing these measurements. The Low Energy Beam and Ion Trap (LEBIT) Facility at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) uses PTMS to measure the masses of rare isotopes produced via projectile fragmentation. In...
Show moreAn atom's mass provides a unique probe to the various interactions occurring within its nucleus. Hence, precise atomic mass measurements are fundamental for nuclear physics research. Penning trap mass spectrometry (PTMS) is currently the most precise method for performing these measurements. The Low Energy Beam and Ion Trap (LEBIT) Facility at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) uses PTMS to measure the masses of rare isotopes produced via projectile fragmentation. In this work, mass measurements of 80-83Zr and the development of the single ion Penning trap, both performed at the LEBIT facility, are presented.Protons and neutrons in the atomic nucleus move in shells analogous to the electronic shell structures of atoms. The nuclear shell structure varies due to changes of the nuclear mean field with the number of neutrons N and protons Z. These variations can be probed by measuring mass differences between nuclei. The N=Z=40 self-conjugate nucleus 80Zr is of particular interest as its proton and neutron shell structures are expected to be very similar, and its ground state is highly deformed. Here, evidence for the existence of a deformed double-shell closure in 80Zr is presented through precision mass measurements of 80-83Zr. The measurement shows that 80Zr is significantly lighter, and thus more strongly bound than predicted. This can be attributed to the deformed shell closure at N=Z=40 and the large Wigner energy. A statistical Bayesian-model mixing analysis employing several global nuclear mass models demonstrates difficulties reproducing the observed mass anomaly using current theory.To refine the deformed shell closure, high-precision mass measurements in the 80Zr region are needed, which will be made possible with next-generation radioactive ion beam facilities such as the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB) and higher sensitivity mass measurement techniques. Current PTMS techniques used for rare isotope mass measurements are destructive. While these methods are flexible, they require a significant number of detected ions (~ 100 ions). The most exotic isotopes, however, may only be delivered at rates on the order of one ion per day, making mass measurements with the destructive techniques nearly impossible due to time restraints. To this end, LEBIT has developed a new single ion Penning trap (SIPT), which makes use of the non-destructive narrowband Fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance (FT-ICR) technique. Although FT-ICR is a widely used technique, it has never been applied to rare isotope mass measurements. SIPT’s key features, development, and commissioning are presented in this work.
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Title: Coalescence and Animal Use : Examining Community Building at the Multi-Ethnic Morton Village Site
Creator: Painter, Autumn Marie
Date: 2022
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Across human history, groups of people have come together, found commonalities, and negotiated their differences in order to form new communities; a process known as coalescence. Until recently, archaeologists have primarily studied this social phenomenon by looking at the large-scale changes that occur, including settlement aggregation and demography. New research has begun to focus on smaller scales of analysis, including aspects of daily life and the role of common behaviors in bringing...
Show moreAcross human history, groups of people have come together, found commonalities, and negotiated their differences in order to form new communities; a process known as coalescence. Until recently, archaeologists have primarily studied this social phenomenon by looking at the large-scale changes that occur, including settlement aggregation and demography. New research has begun to focus on smaller scales of analysis, including aspects of daily life and the role of common behaviors in bringing people together. One such aspect of daily life is food. While previous research has recognized that changes in subsistence systems, such as a need to intensify the production of food to feed larger numbers of people, are commonly part of the coalescence process, little has been done to understand how these changes would affect a community or how a socially charged medium, such as food, may have contributed to ongoing coalescence. In this dissertation, I examine how animal use intersects with the broader process of coalescence through a multidimensional analysis of faunal remains from Morton Village, a site of on-going coalescence in the central Illinois River valley. Specifically, three aspects of animal use during the coalescence process were examined: 1) studying the overall diet as it intersects with the negotiation of everyday life, 2) animal access strategies including foodsharing practices, and 3) the use of animals and animal symbolism in ritual activities as a part of the long-term process of coalescence. These analyses found that the occupants of Morton Village used a diverse range of animal species, avian symbolism, and foodsharing/distribution practices within a variety of social interactions and practices. From this data, I argue that the use of animals played an important role in the coalescence process at Morton Village by assisting in building social relationships that were critical to community formation and maintenance during the coalescence process. This study demonstrates that the study of animal use is a fruitful avenue of research that can reveal several mechanisms for how social relationships are formed and community building processes occurred during coalescence.
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Title: A risk reduction approach to tsetse and African trypanosomiasis control : case study the canvas method
Creator: Jordan, Demetrice R.
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: African trypanosomiasis is an inherently multiscale human-animal-environment problem, with a spatially and environmentally constrained vector, a transnational disease distribution, two distinct disease strains (East and West African), innumerable human and animal reservoirs, and entrenched socio-cultural barriers and policy challenges. Colloquially known as 'sleeping sickness' and 'Nagana' in animals, African trypanosomiasis is a parasitic infection caused by pathogenic protozoa of the genus...
Show moreAfrican trypanosomiasis is an inherently multiscale human-animal-environment problem, with a spatially and environmentally constrained vector, a transnational disease distribution, two distinct disease strains (East and West African), innumerable human and animal reservoirs, and entrenched socio-cultural barriers and policy challenges. Colloquially known as 'sleeping sickness' and 'Nagana' in animals, African trypanosomiasis is a parasitic infection caused by pathogenic protozoa of the genus Trypanosoma. The parasite is transmitted through the salivary glands of tsetse fly during a blood meal. African trypanosomiasis is a major neglected tropical disease endemic to 36 countries in sub-Saharan Africa. Neglected tropical diseases are communicable, viral, parasitic, and bacterial infections that mainly affect poor people. Worldwide, neglected tropical diseases are not allotted the resources necessary to control and eradicate them. As a neglected tropical disease, African trypanosomiasis is given a lower global health priority which hinders control program effectiveness. Despite decades of research to control tsetse, trypanosomiasis continues to threaten the health and well-being of people and animals across sub-Saharan Africa. Compounded by resource constraints for control efforts, African trypanosomiasis is also poorly understood, severely underreported, often misdiagnosed, and fatal. The disease has a case fatality rate of nearly 100%, if untreated. While treatment is available, they are often expensive and toxic. Annual deaths attributed to African trypanosomiasis have a compounding impact across human and animal populations and the landscape. An estimated 60 million Africans and countless livestock are at risk of the infection, illuminating the need for risk reduction approaches to mitigate exposure. This dissertation examines tsetse and African trypanosomiasis control from an interdisciplinary perspective, combining health geography, disease ecology, diffusion of disease epidemiology, development economics, and global health policy. As a more general contribution, this dissertation presents a framework for addressing vector-host problems, using a multifaceted risk reduction and control strategy, innovative methodologies, and community participation to increase long-term success.
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Title: Determining Competencies for Managers in the Federal-State Vocational Rehabilitation System
Creator: Grivetti, Sara E.
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the profession of rehabilitation counseling. In the field of rehabilitation counseling, counselors focus their efforts on assisting people with disabilities attain employment, independent living and maximize functioning despite the disability. Many rehabilitation counselors work in the federal-state vocational rehabilitation system, with over 80 vocational rehabilitation agencies in the United States. Rehabilitation counselors in the federal-state...
Show moreThe year 2020 marks the 100th anniversary of the profession of rehabilitation counseling. In the field of rehabilitation counseling, counselors focus their efforts on assisting people with disabilities attain employment, independent living and maximize functioning despite the disability. Many rehabilitation counselors work in the federal-state vocational rehabilitation system, with over 80 vocational rehabilitation agencies in the United States. Rehabilitation counselors in the federal-state vocational rehabilitation system often get promoted to be a rehabilitation manager. Through role and function studies the competencies of a rehabilitation counselor have been researched. However, there is little research on the competencies of a rehabilitation manager. The literature indicates that the knowledge, skills and abilities of a manager are different than a counselor, however little empirical evidence is present. This study seeks to answer the research question: what are the competencies needed for a rehabilitation manager? This study uses the Delphi method of research by assembling a group of subject-matter experts who determine the competencies through a series of surveys. The Delphi method is a way of seeking consensus in an anonymous way, thus avoiding group think. Eighty (80) state directors in the federal-state vocational rehabilitation system received the first round of surveys. Of the eighty (80), seventeen (17) responded to the first survey, eleven (11) respond to the second round and ten (10) responded to the third round of surveys. Each round of surveys sought to lower the variance between responses. The research followed the theoretical framework of competency models that addresses knowledge, skills and abilities of the position in question. Through a series of surveys competencies are validated by subject-matter experts. All competencies received a somewhat important to extremely important rating, thus validating that all competencies are important. The final survey yielded one-hundred percent consensus of the following: effective communication skills, ability to handle high pressure situations and ability to lead staff. Additionally, ability manage partnerships, ability to think strategically, possession of emotional intelligence, ability to build trust, knowledge about relevant legislation and ability to independently and take initiative with minimal direction all achieved high ranking scores as necessary competencies for a rehabilitation manager to possess. Key words: management, competencies, rehabilitation management, rehabilitation counseling
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Title: Galois module structure of weakly ramified covers of curves
Creator: Lee, Sugil
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The main theme of our study is the obstruction to the existence of a normal integral basis for certain Galois modules of geometric origin. When G is a finite group acting on a projective scheme X over \\Spec Z and F is a G-equivariant coherent sheaf of O_X-modules, the sheaf cohomology groups H. i(X, \\F) are G-modules, and one asks if its equivariant Euler characteristic$$\\chi(X, F) := \\sum_i (-1). i [H. i(X, F)]$$can be calculated using a bounded complex of finitely generated free modules...
Show moreThe main theme of our study is the obstruction to the existence of a normal integral basis for certain Galois modules of geometric origin. When G is a finite group acting on a projective scheme X over \\Spec Z and F is a G-equivariant coherent sheaf of O_X-modules, the sheaf cohomology groups H. i(X, \\F) are G-modules, and one asks if its equivariant Euler characteristic$$\\chi(X, F) := \\sum_i (-1). i [H. i(X, F)]$$can be calculated using a bounded complex of finitely generated free modules over Z[G]. Then we say that the cohomology of F has a normal integral basis. The obstruction to the existence of a normal integral basis has been of great interest in the classical case of number fields: As conjectured by Frohlich and proven by Taylor, when N/Q is a finite tamely ramified Galois extension with Galois group G, the Galois module structure of the ring of integers O_N is determined (up to stable isomorphism) by the root numbers appearing in the functional equations of Artin L-functions associated to symplectic representations of G. Chinburg started a generalization of the theory to some schemes with tame group actions by introducing the reduced projective Euler characteristic classes $\\overline{\\chi. P(X, F)$.These Euler characteristics are elements of the class group $Cl(Z[G])$ and give the obstruction to the existence of normal integral basis.Our aim is to generalize the theory to the 03000300simplest'' kind of wild ramification, namely to weakly ramified covers of curves over Spec Z. If N/Q is wildly ramified, then O_N is not a free Z[G]-module. Erez showed that when the order
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Title: ISOTOPE HARVESTING OF AQUEOUS PHASE IONS FROM HEAVY-ION FRAGMENTATION FACILITIES FOR THE PRODUCTION OF A Ca-47/Sc-47 GENERATOR
Creator: Abel, Emily Paige
Date: 2020
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Targeted internal radiotherapy is a promising new treatment method for metastatic cancer. Several scandium isotopes, Sc-43,44,47, could serve as paired diagnostic and therapeutic (or “theranostic”) isotopes for these diseases. While ideal production routes for diagnostic Sc-43,44 have been found using small medical cyclotrons, research to find a sustainable production method for the therapeutic isotope Sc-47 is ongoing. At the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) and in the...
Show moreTargeted internal radiotherapy is a promising new treatment method for metastatic cancer. Several scandium isotopes, Sc-43,44,47, could serve as paired diagnostic and therapeutic (or “theranostic”) isotopes for these diseases. While ideal production routes for diagnostic Sc-43,44 have been found using small medical cyclotrons, research to find a sustainable production method for the therapeutic isotope Sc-47 is ongoing. At the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) and in the future at the Facility for Rare Isotope Beams (FRIB), a supply of Ca-47, the parent of Sc-47, can be produced on a regular basis when the Ca-48 primary beam is used. While the main function of this accelerated primary beam is to produce a user-specified secondary radioactive beam for nuclear physics experiments, >90% of the accelerated primary beam goes unreacted and is collected in beam stops. When a beam blocker with a water interior is used, the Ca-48 primary beam produces Ca-47 as the most abundant fragment resulting from nuclear reactions in the beam blocker. This method of production termed “isotope harvesting”, allows for the use of unreacted, accelerated beams for isotope production. In the future at FRIB, production of Ca-47 through isotope harvesting is predicted to reach the TBq/day level when the Ca-48 is in use. This supply of Ca-47 will facility the production of Ca-47/Sc-47 generators for research quantities of Sc-47. Isotope harvesting methods for the generation of Sc-47, among other interesting products available through this production method, have been explored through several experiments at the NSCL and the Cyclotron Lab at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. An isotope harvesting system has been developed to include a flowing-water target, components to condition and monitor the water, and components to collect radionuclidic products of interest. The durability of this system to irradiation conditions has been tested using a low intensity Ca-40 irradiation and a high intensity proton irradiation. Through Ca-48 irradiations at the NSCL, methods to collect and purify Ca-47 have been tested and optimized. Using these methods, samples of Sc-47 with high radionuclidic purity have been generated and used to radiolabel DTPA-TOC, a biologically active molecule used to target neuroendocrine tumors. This work has verified the feasibility of using isotope harvesting to generate Sc-47 for nuclear medicine applications.
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Title: The influence of anisotropic slip and shear transformation on heterogeneous deformation based upon nanoindentation, crystal plasticity modeling, and artificial neural networks
Creator: Zhao, Zhuowen
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Most technological relevant structural materials are polycrystals that contain many (millions) so-called grains. Plastic deformation in polycrystalline metallic materials is not homogeneous at the microscale, but sometimes strongly heterogeneous among grains and varies spatially within an individual grain. The ability to predict the magnitude and spatial distribution of plastic inhomogeneity, particularly near grain boundaries (GBs), is crucial as it often results in a stress concentration...
Show moreMost technological relevant structural materials are polycrystals that contain many (millions) so-called grains. Plastic deformation in polycrystalline metallic materials is not homogeneous at the microscale, but sometimes strongly heterogeneous among grains and varies spatially within an individual grain. The ability to predict the magnitude and spatial distribution of plastic inhomogeneity, particularly near grain boundaries (GBs), is crucial as it often results in a stress concentration that could lead to nucleation of damage sites, which largely affect the lifetime of stressed components. Accurate modeling of such inhomogeneity depends on the reliable description of basic plastic micro-mechanisms, e.g., dislocation slip, and fine details such as interactions between slip and GBs. This study aims to facilitate the above need by 1) establishing consistent critical resolved shear stress (CRSS) values that form the basis of a phenomenological description of plasticity, 2) enhancing effective metric selection for slip transfer across GBs, and 3) improving the understanding of the kinematics of the phase transformation—an important thermo-mechanical treatment that strongly influences the microstructure for many hexagonal engineering alloys such as Ti and Zr alloys.The first part of the present work is to quantify the uncertainty of initial CRSS values determined from Inverse indentation analysis (IIA). This approach optimizes the adjustable parameters in a chosen constitutive description of crystal plasticity until the load–depth response and the residual surface topography match between real and simulated nanoindentation(s) into a particular grain. IIA was evaluated for hexagonal pure Ti (CP-Ti) and two Ti alloys (Ti-3Al-2.5V and Ti-6Al-4V) at different temperatures (ambient and 523 K) and is found to produce consistent CRSS values when the combined relative error is no more than 20 %.A novel approach to evaluate the effectiveness of slip transfer metrics (individually) and their combinations using a double-layer artificial neural network (ANN) is presented as the second part of the thesis. The considered metrics include the misorientation angle between two grains, m′αβ , SFα +SFβ, ∆bαβ, and some of their compounds. The accuracy of binary (slip transfer or not) classification reaches around 90 % based on data collected from pure Al oligocrystals deformed in tension, and it is around 80 % for tensile deformed polycrystalline Ti-5Al-2.5Sn samples. This approach extends the one- or two-dimensional projections formerly applied to analyze slip transfer and can be implemented into crystal plasticity model as an “intelligent” decision-maker for each individual slip–boundary interaction.Lastly, a method to calculate orientation and deformation gradient variants resulting from phase transformation between hexagonal α and body-centered cubic β phase is proposed based on a series of frame rotations and transformations. Furthermore, a cluster-based approach is presented to automate point-wise reconstruction of β orientations from α orientations in a large indexed area. This work will assist in analyzing research problems that often require historical information of the current microstructures, for instance, understanding variant selections during the α → β → α transformation. The proposed method will also facilitate the implementation of such transformation kinematics into continuum-based models as the deformation gradient that influences the transformation can be conveniently computed.
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Title: Using Eventual Consistency to Improve the Performance of Distributed Graph Computation In Key-Value Stores
Creator: Nguyen, Duong Ngoc
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Key-value stores have gained increasing popularity due to their fast performance and simple data model. A key-value store usually consists of multiple replicas located in different geographical regions to provide higher availability and fault tolerance. Consequently, a protocol is employed to ensure that data are consistent across the replicas.The CAP theorem states the impossibility of simultaneously achieving three desirable properties in a distributed system, namely consistency,...
Show moreKey-value stores have gained increasing popularity due to their fast performance and simple data model. A key-value store usually consists of multiple replicas located in different geographical regions to provide higher availability and fault tolerance. Consequently, a protocol is employed to ensure that data are consistent across the replicas.The CAP theorem states the impossibility of simultaneously achieving three desirable properties in a distributed system, namely consistency, availability, and network partition tolerance. Since failures are a norm in distributed systems and the capability to maintain the service at an acceptable level in the presence of failures is a critical dependability and business requirement of any system, the partition tolerance property is a necessity. Consequently, the trade-off between consistency and availability (performance) is inevitable. Strong consistency is attained at the cost of slow performance and fast performance is attained at the cost of weak consistency, resulting in a spectrum of consistency models suitable for different needs. Among the consistency models, sequential consistency and eventual consistency are two common ones. The former is easier to program with but suffers from poor performance whereas the latter suffers from potential data anomalies while providing higher performance.In this dissertation, we focus on the problem of what a designer should do if he/she is asked to solve a problem on a key-value store that provides eventual consistency. Specifically, we are interested in the approaches that allow the designer to run his/her applications on an eventually consistent key-value store and handle data anomalies if they occur during the computation. To that end, we investigate two options: (1) Using detect-rollback approach, and (2) Using stabilization approach. In the first option, the designer identifies a correctness predicate, say $\Phi$, and continues to run the application as if it was running on sequential consistency, as our system monitors $\Phi$. If $\Phi$ is violated (because the underlying key-value store provides eventual consistency), the system rolls back to a state where $\Phi$ holds and the computation is resumed from there. In the second option, the data anomalies are treated as state perturbations and handled by the convergence property of stabilizing algorithms.We choose LinkedIn's Voldemort key-value store as the example key-value store for our study. We run experiments with several graph-based applications on Amazon AWS platform to evaluate the benefits of the two approaches. From the experiment results, we observe that overall, both approaches provide benefits to the applications when compared to running the applications on sequential consistency. However, stabilization provides higher benefits, especially in the aggressive stabilization mode which trades more perturbations for no locking overhead.The results suggest that while there is some cost associated with making an algorithm stabilizing, there may be a substantial benefit in revising an existing algorithm for the problem at hand to make it stabilizing and reduce the overall runtime under eventual consistency.There are several directions of extension. For the detect-rollback approach, we are working to develop a more general rollback mechanism for the applications and improve the efficiency and accuracy of the monitors. For the stabilization approach, we are working to develop an analytical model for the benefits of eventual consistency in stabilizing programs. Our current work focuses on silent stabilization and we plan to extend our approach to other variations of stabilization.
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Title: QUEREMOS UN MUNDO DONDE QUEPAN MUCHOS MUNDOS (WE WANT A WORLD WHERE MANY WORLDS FIT) : A CULTURAL RHETORICS READING STRATEGY AND THEORY OF WRITING FOR ACTIVIST GENRES
Creator: Rodriguez, Eric
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: While much has been said about individualized rhetorical practice, a unifying theory about how writing functions to animate communities has yet to be articulated. Furthermore, the connection between cultural rhetorics and a theory of writing has yet to be further explored. The dissertation analyzes various texts created outside the university to form a reading strategy that will help understand how decoloniality, relationality, materiality, and cultural rhetorics converge to provide material...
Show moreWhile much has been said about individualized rhetorical practice, a unifying theory about how writing functions to animate communities has yet to be articulated. Furthermore, the connection between cultural rhetorics and a theory of writing has yet to be further explored. The dissertation analyzes various texts created outside the university to form a reading strategy that will help understand how decoloniality, relationality, materiality, and cultural rhetorics converge to provide material changes to the public beyond the classroom. This reading strategy focuses on understanding what makes texts produced by activists to animate communities particularly effective. The dissertation examines how the self-published newspapers written by the Young Lords exemplifies writing’s ability to animate communities. Through inductive analysis, I examine how Indigenous rhetorical practice engaged in by the Young Lords was particularly useful in effecting material change in their immediate communities. This reading strategy asks readers to identify if a text contemporizes relations, pursues materiality, and considers contextuality. Utilizing these strategies informs a cultural rhetorics theory of writing in which writers affect the nature of writing through their attunement to these practices. Additionally, this reading strategy exemplifies how politics, or how the mechanisms by which the public exercises its power over governing structures, relates to the practice of rhetoric.
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Title: "I Filled a Lot of Gaps" : How and Why Early Career Teachers Expand Induction Support Systems with Social Media
Creator: Staudt Willet, Kenneth Bret
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Early career teachers face numerous challenges during their transition from teacher preparation programs into professional employment contexts. With many more opportunities for professional learning available today, early career teachers must navigate an increased number of potentially conflicting messages about what and how to teach. This study explores the support systems that early career teachers construct during induction and how they use social media for this purpose. These systems can...
Show moreEarly career teachers face numerous challenges during their transition from teacher preparation programs into professional employment contexts. With many more opportunities for professional learning available today, early career teachers must navigate an increased number of potentially conflicting messages about what and how to teach. This study explores the support systems that early career teachers construct during induction and how they use social media for this purpose. These systems can be understood as professional learning networks (PLNs) consisting of tools, people, and spaces and useful for improving teaching and learning. Interviews with early career teachers provide evidence of reasons why they develop PLNs as well as what tools, people, and spaces they include in these support systems. Findings demonstrate that early career teachers construct induction support systems to navigate change, scarcity of resources, and conflicting teaching beliefs. Early career teachers look for tools for planning, enacting practice in the classroom, and connecting socially. People in early career teachers’ support systems included both in-school and out-of-school connections. Interviewees described how they use various social media platforms in their induction support systems as well as boundaries they maintain around social media use. Finally, early career teachers described their engagement on social media in terms of browsing, asking, and exchanging. Implications of these findings are discussed for early career teachers, teacher educators, and education leaders—especially regarding how stakeholders can help alleviate induction pressures on early career teachers. This study contributes insight into the convergence of tensions experienced by early career teachers as they consider whether and how to construct support systems during induction, including if and how to look for help on social media.
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Title: INTEGRATING SUPERCONDUCTING QUBITS WITH QUANTUM FLUIDS AND SURFACE ACOUSTIC WAVE DEVICES
Creator: Lane, Justin R.
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Superconducting qubits, mesoscopic superconducting circuits with a single quantum co- herent degree of freedom, have emerged as both a promising platform for quantum compu- tation and a versatile tool for creating hybrid systems with quantum mechanical degrees of freedom. In this dissertation, we report on several experiments investigating the coupling of superconducting 3D transmon qubits to two different systems: superfluid helium and piezo- electrically actuated surface acoustic waves ...
Show moreSuperconducting qubits, mesoscopic superconducting circuits with a single quantum co- herent degree of freedom, have emerged as both a promising platform for quantum compu- tation and a versatile tool for creating hybrid systems with quantum mechanical degrees of freedom. In this dissertation, we report on several experiments investigating the coupling of superconducting 3D transmon qubits to two different systems: superfluid helium and piezo- electrically actuated surface acoustic waves (SAWs). We report the first measurements of superconducting qubits in the presence of superfluid helium, studying the spectroscopic and decoherence properties of this combined system. We analyze the spectroscopic properties of this composite system using the framework of circuit quantum electrodynamics, and in the presence of superfluid helium we observe modest increases in the pure dephasing time. We attribute this to improved thermalization of the microwave environment via the superfluid, raising hopes that thermalization mediated by superfluid helium may be a resource for ex- periments employing superconducting circuits. We also present ongoing work developing a new capacitive coupling scheme for creating hybrid superconducting qubit-SAW resonators. The tools developed to model and implement this experiment lay the groundwork for future experiments to achieve robust coupling between 3D transmon qubits and surface acoustic wave devices. Finally, we present results describing the first measurements of SAW induced transport in exfoliated graphene devices.
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Title: EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE FOR A C-PEPTIDE COMPLEX RECEPTOR ON RED BLOOD CELLS
Creator: Geiger, Morgan
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Pancreatic β-cells secrete insulin and C-peptide, a 31-amino acid peptide, in a 1:1 mole ratio. People with type 1 diabetes (T1D) require exogenous insulin to survive due to damaged or destroyed β-cells. However, even with regular insulin treatments, patients develop complications such as retinopathy, neuropathy, and nephropathy, and it has been proposed that poor blood flow could be causing these complications. Prior research has shown that C peptide increases microvascular blood flow,...
Show morePancreatic β-cells secrete insulin and C-peptide, a 31-amino acid peptide, in a 1:1 mole ratio. People with type 1 diabetes (T1D) require exogenous insulin to survive due to damaged or destroyed β-cells. However, even with regular insulin treatments, patients develop complications such as retinopathy, neuropathy, and nephropathy, and it has been proposed that poor blood flow could be causing these complications. Prior research has shown that C peptide increases microvascular blood flow, therefore, it could be a useful therapy to prevent these complications. The unknown C peptide receptor and mechanism has been a major roadblock in utilizing C-peptide as a therapeutic. Our group has reported that approximately 1,800 C peptide molecules bind per red blood cell (RBC) in the presence of albumin, while there was no detectable C-peptide binding per RBC without albumin. Thus, it is hypothesized here that C-peptide binds to RBCs through an albumin/C-peptide complex receptor, as opposed to binding to the RBC alone. The work in this dissertation focuses on analyzing the binding of bovine serum albumin (BSA) to RBCs using a radiolabeling method to attach technetium-99m (Tc99m) to BSA for gamma decay detection. A binding saturation experiment was conducted to examine the BSA specific binding to RBCs with and without C-peptide. The specific binding curves revealed that albumin saturates at 14,021 (±1,489) BSA molecules/RBC with a Kd of 1.14 (±0.07) x 10-7 M. Whereas, in the presence of C-peptide and Zn2+, albumin saturates at 16,695 (±1,479) BSA molecules/RBC with a Kd of 2.00 (±0.05) x 10 7 M. At saturation, the additional 2,700 BSA molecules/RBC in the presence of C-peptide and Zn2+ indicates that not only does an albumin receptor exist on RBCs, but also a separate receptor for an albumin/C peptide complex. Due to its role in the delivery of C-peptide, the molecular state of albumin may be critical. Albumin is more glycated in individuals with T1D in comparison to healthy controls. This dissertation utilizes the radiolabeling saturation experiment to analyze the effects of glycation on BSA binding to RBCs. Varying percentage of glycation (11-48%) were analyzed with and without C-peptide and Zn2+. As the glycation percentage increased, the number of BSA molecules binding per RBC increased; however, the difference between samples containing C-peptide to those without C-peptide decreased. In fact, at the higher glycation levels, there is more albumin binding in the absence of C peptide. Importantly, the amount of RBC C-peptide uptake decreased when carried by glycated BSA compared to normal BSA. Abnormal albumin delivery may not only be a determinant of disease in people with T1D. Albumin delivery of C-peptide was also examined in people with multiple sclerosis (MS, an autoimmune disease). When comparing BSA binding to MS RBCs to healthy control RBCs, more BSA molecules bound per MS RBC. Previous research in our lab has shown that MS RBCs binds more C peptide and release higher concentrations of ATP than healthy controls. This suggests that in unhealthy conditions, the albumin/C peptide/Zn2+ complex is binding differently than in healthy conditions, which results in abnormal downstream effects.
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Title: Measurement of Capture Excitation Functions with Neutron-Rich Nuclei
Creator: Watwood, Nathan
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: The study of heavy and superheavy elements is important for understanding nuclear structure at the limit of stability where macroscopic and microscopic effects are delicately balanced. It is a benchmark domain for a rich variety of calculations including time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TDHF) and density functional theory (DFT). One difficulty in studying these nuclei is the low formation probability. There is limited reliability in models to predict the outcome of superheavy particle formation...
Show moreThe study of heavy and superheavy elements is important for understanding nuclear structure at the limit of stability where macroscopic and microscopic effects are delicately balanced. It is a benchmark domain for a rich variety of calculations including time-dependent Hartree-Fock (TDHF) and density functional theory (DFT). One difficulty in studying these nuclei is the low formation probability. There is limited reliability in models to predict the outcome of superheavy particle formation due to the significantly large number of degrees of freedom. The fusion-fission process is a key reaction to access heavy element formation. Experiments were performed at the National Superconducting Cyclotron Laboratory (NSCL) at Michigan State University and at the Heavy Ion Accelerator Facility at Australian National University to measure fusion-fission excitation functions of two different combinations of Ca+Sm and K+Pb with varying neutron-richness. The excitation functions were measured at center-of-mass energies ranging from 1.1$\%$ to 0.9$\%$ above and below the predicted barrier heights. Measured cross sections were found to be comparable above the barrier regardless of neutron-richness. At and below the barrier, cross sections were enhanced for systems with positive Q-value neutron transfer channels. Furthermore the experiment performed at the NSCL was the first measurement of fusion-fission cross sections using the Active-Target Time Projection Chamber. This experiment demonstrated the successful reconstruction and identification of fission tracks and established the viability of performing similar experiments in the future.
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Title: Anarchist Mathematics Education : Ethic, Motivation, and Praxis
Creator: Bowers, David
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Anarchists and (mathematics) education researchers generally share convergent interests regarding social (in)equality—that is to say, both groups share a concern over noticing inequality and making efforts to pursue social justice. In this dissertation, I employ three tenets of anarchism (cooperation; mutual aid; freedom from unjustified, coercive hierarchy) to formulate and live out the beginnings of a mathematics education research approach rooted anarchism, in pursuit of the larger goal of...
Show moreAnarchists and (mathematics) education researchers generally share convergent interests regarding social (in)equality—that is to say, both groups share a concern over noticing inequality and making efforts to pursue social justice. In this dissertation, I employ three tenets of anarchism (cooperation; mutual aid; freedom from unjustified, coercive hierarchy) to formulate and live out the beginnings of a mathematics education research approach rooted anarchism, in pursuit of the larger goal of developing cohesion between my anarchist worldview and the possible/probable products of a career in research. In so doing, I aim to simultaneously: (1) Respond productively to critiques of mathematics education as atheoretical, (2) articulate one possible cohesion between anarchist worldview and research methods, (3) unsettle some of the taken-for-granted assumptions of the mathematics education research community, and (4) invite others into more radical forms of anti-oppressive research and praxis.
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Title: TEACHING STAFF TO IMPLEMENT MAND TRAINING WITH CHILDREN WITH ASD THROUGH TELEHEALTH
Creator: Rosalik, Shelby R.
Date: 2021
Collection: Electronic Theses & Dissertations
Description: Telehealth services have increased substantially in the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, though little research exists to empirically evaluate the efficacy of direct ABA telehealth treatment or more specifically, how behavior technicians can be trained to implement such treatment. The present investigation utilized a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants to evaluate the use of an online behavioral skills training (BST)...
Show moreTelehealth services have increased substantially in the field of applied behavior analysis (ABA) since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, though little research exists to empirically evaluate the efficacy of direct ABA telehealth treatment or more specifically, how behavior technicians can be trained to implement such treatment. The present investigation utilized a nonconcurrent multiple baseline design across participants to evaluate the use of an online behavioral skills training (BST) approach to teach behavior technicians to implement 20-min mand training sessions via telehealth with children diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder (ASD). The training phase of the study consisted of both role-play with feedback as well as feedback during sessions with the child participant. Results showed increases in behavior technician’s percentage of accurate implementation and rate of fully correct trials implemented following the training. Child participants also showed increased rates of independent mands following the BST implementation. Thus, BST may be an effective approach to teach behavior technicians to deliver mand training via telehealth.
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