Listeria monocytogenes contamination continues to pose challenges for the food industry and there is demand for effective methods of food preservation and protection that can also be considered clean label. A promising source of antilisterial compounds may be sourced from bacteria that produce novel byproducts. Ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified...
Robotic Bipedal locomotion holds the potential for efficient, robust traversal of difficult terrain. The difficulty lies in the dynamics of locomotion which complicate control and motion planning. Bipedal locomotion dynamics are dimensionally large problems, extremely nonlinear, and operate on the limits of actuator capabilities, which limit the performance of generic...
Smoldering combustion in wildland fires is a critical phenomenon that needs in-depth study because it can initiate with weaker ignition sources, can persist for long periods, is difficult to suppress, and can transit to flaming combustion. Cellulose, hemicellulose, and lignin are the major organic constituents within biomass, in varying proportions...
Alcohol is a widely consumed, nonessential, bioactive nutrient with end-organ effects on the skeleton. Moderate levels of alcohol consumption are generally associated with increased bone mineral density (BMD), whereas higher intake levels result in reduced bone formation, bone loss, and increased risk for osteoporotic fracture. Given the negative impact of...
Skeletal muscles provide several functions, including, yet not limited to, voluntary body movement and locomotion, posture and body position, and soft tissue support. Skeletal muscles also play a role in metabolism, requiring energy to facilitate contraction. Each skeletal muscle serves a different purpose despite seeming to perform the same task....
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...
Small-scale fisheries often suffer from weak, formal governance, and in response they organize in various ways. These self-organizational arrangements rely on the capacity of informal institutions, such as norms and communication, in generating social cohesion among actors in the supply chain and therefore improve the likelihood of generating commonly devised...
Anthropogenic land-cover change and climate change are the major drivers of the steep loss of avian biodiversity in past decades. Loss of avian biodiversity is predicted to result in the reduction of ecosystem services and ecological functions. Identifying avian population changes and the drivers of these trajectories is essential for...
Across the globe, Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) have been established to protect biodiversity, sustain fisheries, and preserve cultural resources. However, there exist broad differences among MPAs with respect to their establishment stage and protective regulations, making it difficult to quantify how much ocean protection is actually occurring. This thesis utilizes...
A novel high temperature thermal instrument is proposed, which utilizes a dual-sensing platinum resistor encased in a mono-crystalline alpha-alumina (sapphire) substrate. The instrument is comprised of four platinum trace elements, oriented with 90° rotational symmetry atop a 1120 oriented crystal lattice substrate. All four of these sensors measure temperature directly...