13251 research outputs found
Sort by
An Examination of Perceptions and Preferences For Tiny House Villages For the Homeless in Missouri
No full textHomelessness is increasingly being addressed with tiny house villages. These developments face barriers, the greatest of which is NIMBYism (Not-in-my-backyard sentiment) (Evans, 2021). Through a stakeholder survey, this research examines community perceptions of, and preferences for, various visual, physical, and social factors related to tiny house villages for the homeless. The survey finds that stakeholders do have distinct preferences for certain physical characteristics and traits related to tiny house villages for the homeless. The research suggests that taking such preferences into account may result in tiny house villages for the homeless that enjoy greater community support than those that do not
U-Pb Apatite Chronometry of Intrusions in an Accretionary Metamorphic Belt in Western Idaho, USA
No full textThe Salmon River suture zone in west-central Idaho, USA records the tectonic processes where island arcs, similar to modern-day Japan, were accreted to the North American continent in the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods (160-90 million years ago). This suture zone contains metamorphic rocks that were buried deep within the crust at depths of 20 kilometers or more and have subsequently been brought to the surface. The exhuming processes responsible for the metamorphic rocks in the Salmon River suture zone remains unclear. Two competing hypotheses have been proposed to explain the transport of the rocks from the Salmon River suture zone to the surface: (1) buoyancy changes in the crust from lithosphere delamination or (2) thrust faults bringing rocks to the surface. I present apatite closure temperature estimates with apatite, zircon, and rutile ages to test the two competing hypotheses that have been proposed to explain the transport of the rocks from the Salmon River suture zone to the surface. U-Pb radiometric ages and closure temperature estimates have been collected from the mineral\u27s apatite, zircon, and rutile to investigate age and cooling trends in deformed igneous intrusions. U-Pb apatite ages record cooling temperatures from a 350-500 °C cooling window, this can be refined depending on the grain size of apatite. When combined with garnet, hornblende, muscovite and biotite ages and closure temperatures, a full multi-mineral temperature time path can be created to give insight on the exhumation processes of the region
Decomposition and Macroinvertebrate Shredder Colonization of Autumnal Shed Sycamore Leaves in Mining-Contaminated Streams
No full textLeaf decomposition in streams is an important ecological function facilitated by bacteria, fungi, and macroinvertebrates. Metal contamination can decrease leaf decomposition rates and reduce macroinvertebrate abundance and diversity. In the current study, I focused on mining-contamination in well-buffered streams in two different Missouri mining districts with varying extents of mining contamination, Big River and Pierson Creek. I measured decomposition rates of sycamore leaves, and abundance and diversity of macroinvertebrate shredders in leaf pack experiments with a full-factorial design to determine the effects of metal contamination of leaves and stream substrates. Comparisons were made between leaf packs upstream and downstream of mining contamination sources, as well as between the origin location of leaves. In Big River, leaf decomposition rates were higher downstream of mining contamination than leaves upstream. Overall, mining contaminated leaves had higher decomposition rates than non-contaminated leaves, regardless of reach placement over the 123-day winter experiment. In Big River, macroinvertebrate shredder abundance was higher and diversity of macroinvertebrate shredders was lower upstream of mining contamination. Opposite decomposition and macroinvertebrate trends were observed in Pierson Creek over the 50-day spring experiment. Decomposition rates were higher in leaves upstream of mining contamination than leaves downstream. In Pierson Creek, macroinvertebrate shredder abundance was higher downstream of mining contamination and macroinvertebrate shredder diversity was lower downstream of mining contamination. Contaminated leaves had higher decomposition rates than non-contaminated leaves in Big River, regardless of reach placement, while decomposition rates were similar in Pierson Creek. This could be due to differences in the magnitude of mining contamination. Leaf type did not influence macroinvertebrate shredder abundance or diversity for either stream, but reach location did. This could be due to physical and chemical stream characteristics. Future studies on mining contamination effects on leaf quality and substrate characteristics and subsequent impacts on decomposition rates could lead to a better understanding of specific ecosystem interactions and inform future management decisions
Analysis of Root System Architecture and QTL Identification in Grapevines
No full textThe root system of the plant plays a vital role in water and nutrient uptake. Native North American grapevines adapted to a broad range of climatic and soil conditions, which led to the evolution of diverse root system architecture (RSA) within the Vitis genus. Despite the importance of RSA in viticulture, little is known about the genetic basis of the RSA in grapevine. I used novel root phenotyping tool, RhizoVision Analyzer to characterize the root system of 208 genotypes of an F1 grapevine progeny obtained from a cross between Vitis rupestris Scheele B38 and Vitis riparia Michx. HP-1. Dormant cuttings from these genotypes were grown for five weeks in controlled atmospheric conditions, and then twenty-six RSA traits were extracted from 2-D root images. Forty-seven female parental cuttings were also rooted, which enabled calculation of environmental and genetic variance in the F1 population. High heritability was found for number of root tips, total root length, and holes. Principal component analysis (PCA) conducted with diverse traits, demonstrated that PC1 explained 40.03% variation and it correlated well with medium angle frequency. A negative correlation was found between average root diameter and the number of root tips and total root length of the root system. Total root length, number of root tips, maximum and median number of roots were found to be significantly different between the female parent and the F1 population. Quantitative trait locus (QTL) analysis was conducted and genetic regions influencing total root length, maximum width, and surface area were identified in chromosome 2. Calcium, magnesium and zinc were found to be positively correlated with traits that increase the size of the root system. Canonical correspondence analysis (CCA) showed that manganese was associated with coarse diameter frequency and number of root tips, whereas iron was associated with medium angle frequency. The findings presented here offer insights into the genetic makeup of RSA in grapevine and provide breeders with actionable information to develop grapevine varieties that are better adapted to conditions brought by climate change
Project-Based Learning and Social-Emotional Learning in the Elementary Classroom: A Qualitative Study on Potential Opportunities for Student Self-Awareness and Social Awareness
No full textProject-based learning (PBL) is a student-centered instructional practice, emphasizing student agency, engagement, and learning opportunities through relevant problem-solving and interdisciplinary curriculum. PBL also helps students develop academic and social skills through real-world application of their learning. It is necessary for educators, administrators and interested parties in education to understand the potential of PBL and other student-centered practices on increasing student engagement and achievement in subject areas besides sciences and social studies, such as literacy, math, and social-emotional learning (SEL). SEL is necessary for all students to have access to, as engaging with activities that increase a person’s ability to understand themselves and the world around them help create well-rounded, empathetic citizens of the world. This study seeks to explore how opportunities may be created for students\u27 social-emotional learning and skill development when experienced through a PBL curriculum within an elementary setting, centering on opportunities for self-awareness and social awareness
On the admissibility of spherical spatial covariance functions in higher dimensions
No full textA mean zero spatial process X(t) on the n-dimensional Euclidean space Rn is isotropic if its covariance function (c.f.) is of the form: Rn(τ)=Cov[X(t),X(s)], where τ=|t−s|, t, s∈Rn, and Rn is an admissible function on R1. An isotropic spatial process X has a bounded range of dependence if sup{τ:Rn(τ)≠0}\u3c∞. Here we consider a class of isotropic c.f.’s Rn(τ), n=1,2,… with bounded ranges of dependence, among which there are R1, the classical triangular c.f. on the real line (n=1), and R3, the spherical c.f. in dimension three (n=3). For each dimension n≥1, the admissibility of Rn(τ) as a c.f. in higher dimensions is studied. While it is well known that for each n≥1, Rn is a legitimate c.f. on Rm for all m≤n but it is shown that the considered Rn is not a legitimate c.f. on Rm when m\u3en. Thus the spherical c.f. R3 cannot be a c.f. on Rn when n\u3e3. The issue of recognition of an isotropic c.f. on Rn is discussed, and simple procedures of constructing isotropic c.f.’s on Rn for every n≥1 are given. This article serves as one more reminder that caution must be taken concerning the legitimacy of a selected c.f. in the corresponding spatial dimensions
Speaker Encoding for Zero-Shot Speech Synthesis
No full textSpoken communication, for many, is an essential part of everyday life. Some individuals can lose or not be born with the ability to speak. To function on a day-to-day basis, these individuals find other ways of communication. Adaptive speech synthesis is one of those ways. It recreates a user’s previous voice or creates a voice that blends with their regional dialect. Current adaptive speech synthesis techniques that achieve human-like speech require thirty minutes, to a few hours of high-quality audio recordings of a target speaker. This amount of recorded audio is not commonly possessed by people in need of a speech synthesis system. One adaptive speech synthesis technique that requires only ten to thirty seconds of data is called zero-shot. However, there are currently no zero-shot speech synthesis methods able to produce human-like speech or replicate a speaker with a high degree of similarity. In this thesis, I propose a novel speaker encoder model to make zero-shot speech synthesis more human-like. The proposed model results in a speaker embedding vector called Multi-Scale Speaker (MSS) vectors. MSS-vectors aim to improve current state-of-the-art speaker embeddings for more natural and similar-sounding synthesized speech for unseen speakers in a zero-shot speech synthesis model. The proposed architecture relies on encoder layers, which are coupled with a multi-scale approach to learning both local and global mel-spectra features of a reference speaker. To evaluate the proposed approach, I compare the MSS-vectors model against a modified generalized end-to-end (GE2E) speaker encoder, as well as the s-vector speaker encoder. My comparison includes quantitative measures, such as mel-cepstrum distortion and cosine similarity measures, as well as subject mean opinion scores from human listening surveys. The experimental results from these evaluations indicate improvements over current state-of-the-art speaker encoder models, and thus a shift towards more human-like speech
An Analysis of Lightweight Convolutional Neural Networks for Parking Space Occupancy Detection
No full textCommercial parking space occupancy detection systems used to be mostly sensor-based. Very recently, we have seen great success in computer vision techniques which allow us to utilize the CCTV camera feed in real-time. In this paper, we review multiple existing convolutional neural network models of various sizes to analyze the benefits of using each model for parking space occupancy detection. We measure the accuracy, required floating point operations, and parameter counts of each model. We then compare model performance over different conditions such as camera perspectives, weather types, different parking lots, and lighting conditions. Based on our observations and experience, we introduce three novel architectures, two based on the DenseNet architecture - Mini DenseNet and Simple DenseNet, and CoarseNet - a multi-layer perceptron. We compare our proposed models to other models of various sizes. Performance results show that these three models have advantages over existing models in parameter counts, accuracy, and resilience to new camera perspectives
Effects of Lemongrass Essential Oil on Galleria Mellonella Hemocytes
No full textIn modern agriculture, the use of pesticides is unavoidable. However, improper use has resulted in pest resistance and negative impacts on the environment and human health. Changes are needed in the agricultural industry to account for the damage already caused. Researchers have turned to essential oils as key ingredients for potential biopesticides, with some mixtures already on the market. Most studies involving essential oils and a pest’s response concentrate on mortality or interruptions in development during and between life stages. My study, however, focused on immune responses; specifically, lemongrass essential oil’s impact on Galleria mellonella. Such responses include a change in hemocyte numbers and phagocytosis. This research concludes that lemongrass essential oil lowers the numbers of hemocytes in circulation of a triggered immune system, potentially also counteracting phagocytosis efficacy. This revelation could prove practical in integrated pest management strategies that involve biocontrol agents like parasitic nematodes
Stress and Its Interventions in Undergraduate College Students During COVID-19
No full textThough stress in postsecondary education is a highly researched topic, the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic has created many new questions that require answers. It is important to connect total perceived stress in undergraduate students with academic, COVID-19, and distance-learning factors and examine the effectiveness of interventions on stress and anxiety during the pandemic. This research determines the efficacy of mindfulness stress interventions (cognitive-behavioral, guided meditation, and music) for individual differences in stress, self- efficacy, and anxiety and links these variables to performance. This study measures levels of different types of stress (total perceived, distance-learning, academic, and COVID-19) for undergraduate students during the COVID-19 pandemic. I examined the effectiveness of mindfulness interventions and found that cognitive-behavioral, guided meditation, and music interventions all significantly reduced stress and anxiety and increased academic self-efficacy. There were no significant differences in type of intervention