Many home users nowadays use various smart devices to improve the efficiency and convenience of their home environments. Trigger-action platforms such as “If-This-Then-That” (IFTTT) enable end users to connect different smart devices and services using simple apps to control these devices and automate the tasks (e.g., if the camera detects...
Non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) is defined as excess hepatic lipid accumulation, in the absence of excess alcohol consumption and chronic liver disease. NAFLD can range in severity from simple fatty liver (steatosis) to non-alcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). NASH is defined as hepatic steatosis with inflammation and hepatic injury and describes...
A technique is developed and tested to analyze the interaction of flowing water,
bed topography, and bedload sediment transport in meandering channels where gravel
bars are removed. The method relates the local velocity distribution, bed shear stress and
sediment transport conditions to the local bed configuration in river bends before...
This qualitative study explores the "coming out" experience of gay males raised in conservative Christian environments. Seven men with varying ethnic and racial backgrounds, between the ages of 20 and 40 years old, participated. Each was raised in a conservative, Christian environment during his formative years and each was now...
The objective of this study was to identify usage of foodservice performance
measures, important activities in foodservice benchmarking, and benchmarking
attitudes, beliefs, and practices by foodservice directors. The design of this study
included two parts: (1) eleven expert panelists involved in a Delphi technique to
identify and rate importance of...
The aroma of milk has been often defined as bland and pleasant, yet characteristic. Conventional thermal processing of milk can certainly extend shelf life, but inevitably changes its flavor. High pressure processing has been suggested as an alternative for milk pasteurization with improved fresh flavor retention. The objective of this...
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....