Introduction: Research has demonstrated that minimal shoes may help prevent ankle injuries by mimicking natural barefoot running. It has been proven that minimal shoes may help adults prevent injuries in the correct conditions, but little is known about the effect of minimal and barefoot running on youth kinematics. Purpose: To...
Background: 250,000+ individuals injure an anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in the United States annually. Individuals post-ACL surgical reconstruction (ACLR) are at elevated risk for ACL re-injury, potentially from kinematic and kinetic asymmetries. While studies have examined asymmetries at the hip and knee post-ACLR during landing, less is known about asymmetries...
Many jobs in the United States have shifted to requiring education beyond high school credentials. Many potential workers are enrolled in pre-postsecondary education, or basic skills. A small percentage of students transition from basic skills to postsecondary education. Research identifies key institutional practices and supports have shown to increase transitions,...
An important problem in computer graphics is to determine where contour lines and ridges appear in a surface constructed from a triangle mesh. In this presentation we will investigate a new answer to this problem – the horizon measure. The horizon measure determines the likelihood of contour lines to appear...
Background: Low drop cushioned running shoes have been popular over the past decade despite a lack of research on low drop shoes. There is some evidence that low drop cushioned shoes increase vertical ground reaction forces (VGRFs) and influence ankle kinematics but no study to date has focused on large...
Mapper is a tool designed by Gurjeet Singh, Facundo Mémoli, and Gunnar Carlsson for Topological Data Analysis (TDA) that constructs a simplicial complex from a finite subset of a metric space, which has been met with great success. Due to the many moving parts of Mapper and the potential it...
(Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons) PAHs are widespread in the environment, and are derived from both natural and anthropogenic sources. The physicochemical properties of PAHs along with the wide range of PAH sources leads to their persistence in the environment. Since PAHs are ubiquitous, and have the potential to illicit adverse effects,...
The focus of this thesis is to design, characterize, and apply novel computational methods and molecular systems to interrogate heterogeneous human gut microbiome-related phenomena. In Chapter 2, I design, implement, and characterize a method for embedding co-occurrence patterns derived from massive 16s amplicon datasets. I use this method to 1....
The Cone Penetration Test (CPT) has been widely-adopted for rapid, cost-effective exploration of the subsurface and reduction in the effort associated with drilling, sampling, and laboratory testing of soil. The adoption of the CPT has stemmed in part to the correlation of measurements to preliminary soil classification, stress history, drained...
Flesh & Blood is a 118-page horror-drama screenplay about a single mother struggling to control her cannibalistic urges while caring for her young daughter and evading an increasingly suspicious detective. Two primary themes of this screenplay are control and motherhood. The protagonist of the film, Christine, grapples with controlling her...
Onsite wastewater treatment systems (OWTS; septic systems, compost toilets, etc.) used to treat wastewater in rural areas have the potential to contaminate groundwater (that is used as a water source) with nitrate. There have been decades of scientific and political conflicts concerning the issue of nitrate from OWTS (NOWTS, pronounced...
Profile Hidden Markov Models utilize the information stored in a multiple sequence alignment such as its residues and conserved regions to assign probabilities at each column. This indicates areas in the sequences where similar functionality is observed. These probability weights are then combined to assign a sequence score, which is...
Cystic fibrosis is an inherited genetic disease caused by a single gene mutation in the CFTR protein. Affecting 70,000 people worldwide, this disease is debilitating to patients, resulting in persistent lung infections and decreased quality of life. Due to the various mutation types, there is not currently a single drug...
Emerging data showing the presence of atmospheric microplastics (MPs) has recently raised awareness surrounding the potential of human nanoplastics (NPs) exposure. Due to factors such as weathering, UV exposure, and other biodegradation processes, plastic pollution in the environment breaks down over time into micro (<5 micrometers) and nanoscale (<1000nm) particles....
Covering half of South America, Brazil is one of the largest agricultural and commercial forest producers globally, with a correspondingly complex road network necessary to support the production and marketing processes of such goods. Contrary to global statistics, almost 90% of the country’s road network is classified as unsealed or...
There is no standardized method for culture of intervertebral disc (IVD) cells when monitoring metabolic processes. We hypothesize that the metabolic rates of cells that are crucial to experiment designs depend on the cell culture method used. The glycolytic pathway and the tricarboxylic acid (TCA) cycle are the pathways through...
Douglas-fir needle midge (Contarinia pseudotsugae, Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) is a native invasive species in Pacific Northwest Christmas tree farms, seed orchards, and nurseries where Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii [Mirb.] Franco) is present. Douglas-fir needle midge (DFNM) causes discoloration and galls on the needles, thereby it affects the market value of the Christmas...
Engineering practice is aptly described as a unique culture, shaped by a long history of social learning, norms and values. As these systems and values have been constructed to the benefit of white men, it is unsurprising that the study of engineering culture has revealed many structures working against the...
At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the world was unprepared for such a massive challenge to global health. Individual testing kits and personal protective equipment were scarce. There were minimal ways to track the rapid spread of the disease, until researchers discovered that SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19,...
The seafood industry has a problem of underutilization of harvested and processed fish. Up to 60% of the weight of the fish is considered a byproduct that is typically made into fishmeal for livestock and aquaculture feed, a low-value and non-food grade product. Two species that make up major fisheries...