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SWCPC 438 Negatives #43 George W. Saunders, undated.
No full textThe collection features portraits of sixty-one prominent cattle ranchers, both male and female, who were considered to be the “Cattle Kings of Texas.
A Comparative Study of Common Anesthetics Propofol, Sevoflurane, Isoflurane and Ketamine on Lipid Membrane Fluidity
No full textThe membrane fluidity increases induced by popular anesthetic agents (propofol, isoflurane, sevoflurane, and ketamine/xylazine) were measured at the clinical and supra-clinical concentrations in red blood cell (RBC) membrane as well as four model membranes. Membrane fluidity changes were monitored using the excimer/monomer (E/M) ratio of dipyrene-PC and fluorescence anisotropies of DPH-PC and TMA-DPH. Propofol, sevoflurane and isoflurane increased membrane fluidity instantaneously. The largest increase occurs in membranes made of saturated lipids. RBCs were labeled with TMA-DPH, and the increase in membrane fluidity at clinical concentrations of isoflurane and sevoflurane was more than that induced by ten times the legal limit of alcohol in human blood. However, membrane fluidity was essentially unchanged by ketamine/xylazine up to 210 µM. These results strongly correlate with our recent in vivo experiments and reveal a clear connection between increasing membrane fluidity in model membranes, increasing the blood–brain barrier (BBB) permeability in mice, and inducing effective anesthesia in animals. Interestingly, at the most commonly used clinical concentrations, the membrane fluidity increases induced by propofol, sevoflurane, and isoflurane were very similar, despite the fact that different categories of anesthetics were used and their chemical concentrations were different by 100 times. This indicates that at clinical concentrations of these anesthetics, a similar level of membrane disruption at the BBB is achieved. Thus, our results strongly support the lipid hypothesis of the mechanism of general anesthetics
Dual-Working-Pattern Nanosheet-Based Hydrogel Sensors for Constructing Human-Machine and Physiological-Electric Interfaces
No full textWhile hydrogels are ideal building blocks for fabricating next-generation epidermal electronics to acquire high-fidelity electrical signals induced by motion and physiological activities, an unresolved issue remains: the differentiation and selection of sensing modes in hydrogel sensors. The novel design leverages numerous conductive nanosheets, randomly arranged in a series-parallel configuration, embedded within a highly compliant dielectric hydrogel. For the nanosheets, poly(3,4-ethylenedioxythiophene) (PEDOT) is deposited on the surface of sulfonated cellulose nanosheets (SCNS) to function as microelectrodes (PEDOT@SCNS). The resulting nanosheet-based hydrogel (NSH) demonstrates remarkable stretchability (1356%), excellent adaptability (storage modulus of 102 Pa), and self-adhesiveness (21.7 kPa on pigskin). The nanosheet microelectrodes enable the formation of both microcapacitor arrays and conductive paths within the ultrasoft hydrogel, facilitating the construction of high-fidelity capacitive sensors and bioelectrodes for the real-time monitoring and classification of human activities and physiological states, respectively. This NSH, which significantly reduces skin-interfacial impedance, has demonstrated strong potential as candidate sensors for advanced applications in EMG, facial nerve monitoring, ECG, and brain activity monitoring, achieving reduced RMS noise (9.7 µV) and minimal motion artifacts.This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Nos. 32101453 and 32371508) and the Scientific Research Foundation of Zhejiang A&F University (No. 2024LFR086)
An Annotated Bibliography of Prepared, Solo Vibraphone Literature Published in the United States Between 1983-2024
No full textSince 1965, works have been written for solo vibraphone that utilize preparation techniques akin to what John Cage utilized in his works for prepared piano. “Preparing” the vibraphone involves manipulating the timbre, pitch, or sustain of the instrument by inserting foreign objects into the instrument’s body and/or through the use of extended techniques or non-traditional playing implements. There has been research conducted on individual prepared vibraphone solo works and works for prepared marimba, but none that contain a resource with all prepared, solo vibraphone works published in the United States.
This study bridges a gap in current keyboard percussion scholarship by creating an annotated bibliography of prepared, solo vibraphone works published in the United States between 1983-2024. All works examined are published by American publication companies that have a substantial output of percussion literature. Additionally, works will be codified in tables using the following headings: 1) Composer, 2) Title, 3) Publisher, 4) Publication Date, 5) Number of Movements 6) Duration, 7) Preparation Used, 8) Non-Traditional Implements Used, and 9) Non-Traditional Techniques Used. Each table is followed by a short description of performance considerations for each work. This study also includes an appendix of selected works of prepared, solo vibraphone literature that are self-published by the composer. In addition to the annotations, this document contains a brief history of the vibraphone and its development, as well as the origins of commonly used extended techniques on the instrument
Handling techniques and risk factors reported by veterinary professionals during dog examinations: a cross-sectional survey across Canada and the United States
No full textIntroduction: Handling techniques are known to influence dog stress in veterinary settings; however, little is known about the current handling techniques applied to dogs during routine veterinary care or risk factors associated with their use. This cross-sectional survey aimed to assess common handling techniques used on calm, fearful, and aggressive dogs by veterinary professionals in Canada and the United States and identify risk factors for minimal and full-body restraint.
Methods: A convenience sample of veterinary professionals completed an online questionnaire. It collected information on participant characteristics and clinic experience (e.g., gender, Ten Item Personality Index, bite history, stress-reducing certification), participant professional quality of life (using the ProQOL scale), general examination practices (e.g., use of treats), perceptions and importance of examination factors (e.g., staff safety), and frequency of using 14 different dog handling techniques. Logistic regression models were used to identify risk factors for the use of minimal and full-body restraint on fearful and aggressive dogs.
Results: Participants (N = 691) were veterinarians (39.2%, 271/691) and non-veterinarians (60.8%, 420/691), who routinely handle dogs during routine examinations in Canada (21.7%, 150/691) and the United States (79.1%, 541/691). Minimal restraint was reported to be used for calm (82.7%, 566/684), fearful (73.1%, 499/683), and aggressive (51.9%, 352/678) dogs during routine examinations. Full-body restraint was commonly reported to be used for calm dogs (58.5%, 400/684) and most frequently reported for fearful (63.9%, 434/679) and aggressive dogs (68.6%, 465/678). Handling decisions were influenced by factors including age, gender, practice type, graduation year, bite history, stress-reducing certification, and owner presence. Professionals prioritizing staff safety and using stress-reducing strategies (e.g., treats) were more likely to use minimal restraint, while owner presence and focus on examination completeness were linked to full-body restraint. Personality traits and professional well-being, particularly extraversion and secondary traumatic stress, also influenced handling choices.
Discussion: Handling techniques vary with dog behavior and are shaped by numerous factors, highlighting the complex relationship between personal and clinic-level influences on veterinary staff interactions with dog patients. These findings generate hypotheses for future observational research exploring factors that support stress-reducing techniques to improve dog welfare in clinical settings
Machine Learning Implementations for Electron Nuclear Dynamics Simulations
No full textThis dissertation presents a simplest-level electron nuclear dynamics (SLEND)/ machine learning (ML) framework: SLEND/ML, to predict various classical and quantum observables in ion-molecule reactions relevant to ion cancer therapy (ICT). SLEND is a time-dependent, variational, on-the-fly, and non-adiabatic dynamical method to simulate chemical reactions. SLEND evolves classical nuclear degrees of freedom in conjunction with an electronic single-determinantal wavefunction in the Thouless parameterization. This formulation avoids the Born–Oppenheimer approximation, capturing nonadiabatic effects, electron-nuclear couplings, and symmetry-breaking processes while remaining tractable for medium-sized systems. Despite these advantages, SLEND requires the simulation of a large number of trajectories across multidimensional spaces spanned by projectile-target orientations (α, β, γ), projectile impact parameters (b), and spin symmetry-breaking parameters (ϕ). The high computational cost of such sampling motivates the development of data-driven surrogate models capable of reproducing SLEND-level predictions at a fraction of the cost.
To overcome this limitation, this work integrates supervised ML models trained on SLEND data to predict a range of chemical and physical properties, enabling fast, accurate, and scalable simulation of ICT-relevant reactions. The SLEND/ML pipeline is applied across three core application domains—each corresponding to a chapter—ranging from classification and regression of final-state quantities to the forecasting of complete time-dependent SLEND trajectories.
In the first application (Chapter 4), SLEND/ML is used to classify reaction channels and predict final fragment charge distributions in the H⁺ + C₂H₄ reactive system at a collision energy of 30 eV. SLEND simulations were performed from 120 projectile-target orientations α, β, γ, 107 projectile impact parameters b, and three symmetry-breaking parameter ϕ values—ϕ₁ = 0.000000000° (no symmetry breaking), ϕ₂ = 0.140377830° (slight symmetry breaking), and ϕ₃ = 10.241572180° (low symmetry breaking) that generate a total of 38,520 trajectories. Twelve distinct reaction types (channels) were detected through topological and structural analysis of the final molecular geometries. For channel predictions, RNN classifiers trained on α, β, γ, b, and ϕ achieved an overall accuracy of 98.23%, macro F1-score = 0.92, and MCC = 0.94. RNN-based regression models also predicted fragment products Mulliken charges with MAE = 0.02, RMSE = 0.037, R² = 0.87, and PCC = 0.89. These results confirm that initial geometry alone contains sufficient information to infer both reaction types and final charge distribution when learned through recurrent architectures.
The second application (Chapter 5) focuses on the regression of continuous scattering observables and product charges in the H⁺ + C₂H₄ reactive system at 30 eV and employs the same datasets of the previous application. From these simulations, the rainbow scattering angles (θPRLab ) their corresponding impact parameters bₚᵣ, and final fragment products Mulliken population were computed. KRR models using Laplacian and χ² kernels achieved MAE below 0.81°, RMSE of approximately 1.3°, and R² values greater than 0.90 in predicting rainbow scattering angles (θPRLab) and their corresponding impact parameters (bₚᵣ). SEM outperformed all other regressors in charge prediction, producing MAE = 0.034, RMSE = 0.062, R² = 0.86, and PCC = 0.88. To address sparsity in angular distributions, SMOGN-based augmentation was applied, improving accuracy in low-sample, high-deflection regions without inflating global error metrics. These findings confirm that SLEND/ML can generalize across structured parameter spaces and accurately predict continuous observables even under mild electronic asymmetry.
The third application (Chapter 6) extends the SLEND/ML framework to the forecasting of full time-dependent trajectories. Two hydrogen-based systems were analyzed: nuclear anchored H₂⁺ and nuclear-anchored H₂ molecules. Anchored systems were simulated under ϕ = 0 to 5. Each SLEND trajectory generated a univariate time series of a Thouless parameter, which served as the target for time-series prediction. Gated Recurrent Unites (GRUs) are trained on lagged input windows of 20 steps predicted the next timestep’s full quantum state. In anchored systems, sequence MAE for Thouless parameters prediction remained below 0.015 with R² > 0.93. The GRU models accurately tracked oscillatory dynamics, charge localization and transfer far outperforming classical regressors which failed to preserve temporal structure beyond short horizons. These results demonstrate the viability of trajectory-level SLEND emulation using deep sequence models trained on modest data fractions.
Taken together, this dissertation establishes SLEND/ML as a general-purpose surrogate modeling framework for quantum molecular dynamics. It enables high-fidelity prediction of reaction outcomes, scattering properties, and real-time evolution from minimal input features. The framework is compatible with both spin-restricted (no symmetry breaking) and spin-unrestricted (symmetry breaking) regimes, and extensible across molecular systems. By combining physics-based trajectory data with flexible ML architectures—including RNNs, GRUs, KRR, and SEM—this work advances the frontier of quantum modeling for ICT. It provides a scalable path toward fast screening of projectile-target interactions, orientation-sensitive observables, and symmetry-breaking scenarios in radiobiological and therapeutic contexts
Tracing the Effects of Studentification in a Mid-Sized City: Lubbock, Texas Tech University, and the Five Surrounding Neighborhoods
No full textStudentification, urban transformation driven by the influx and concentration of student populations, leads to significant socio-economic and demographic changes in urban neighborhoods. This phenomenon has been largely understudied in mid-sized college towns, especially in the United States. This study explores the effects of studentification on five neighborhoods surrounding Texas Tech University in Lubbock, Texas, a mid-sized city, using U.S. census data from 1990 to 2020. This census data was augmented with data gathered through interviews with residents of these neighborhoods and archival materials documenting the changes in these neighborhoods. The study neighborhoods include North Overton, South Overton, Arnett Benson, Heart of Lubbock, and Tech Terrace. The study tracks demographic shifts, housing market dynamics, and socio-economic transformations over three decades. Additionally, this research examines the trend of parents purchasing homes for their college-aged children, resulting in significant levels of demographic shifts — a largely overlooked phenomenon in studentification research. These findings contribute to the broader discourse on urban change and offer critical insights for policymakers and urban planners aiming to mitigate the adverse effects of studentification
The Camming (in)Experience: Examining Sexually Inexperienced Users Interactions on Camsites as Related to In-Person Sexual and Relationship Expectations
No full textPrior research has demonstrated that sexual scripts (Simon & Gagnon, 1986) are often acquired online through sexual media, in which individuals learn about, confirm, and enact scripts witnessed through pornography (see 3AM Model, Wright, 2011; 2014; Wright et al., 2022). However, such research has yet to be extended to other forms of sexual media, including erotic webcamming. This study sought a mixed-methods approach to examine perspectives from erotic webcamming members (N = 2,920) who have limited in-person sexual experience about their camming experiences online and interaction with models. Two primary motivations for using the platform emerged which were associated with a variety of outcomes. Individuals motivated by sexual knowledge encountered a functional camming experience, which was seen as a setting to learn about, rehearse, and navigate scripts pertaining to offline sexual and romantic relationships. Whereas those motivated to form parasocial relations with models encountered either a superficial camming experience, in which a fulfillment with the ‘girlfriend experience’ (Bernstein, 2007) led to an inhibition of script application and perusal of offline partners and experiences altogether, or a transactional camming experience, in which a perceived lack of reciprocity was associated with the reliance on previously-activated scripts. As such, findings suggest that motivation and experience type are key in assessing script acquisition, activation, and application (Wright, 2011) in more hyperpersonal forms of computer-mediated settings (Walther, 2008)
Spanish in the college classroom: Investigating the linguistic ideologies behind students’ perceptions of language instructors
No full textWhile monolingual and standard language ideologies have been shown to be pervasive in U.S. society, it is particularly evident in educational contexts, principally in language classrooms. However, despite recent studies on the existent language attitudes within U.S. universities, the focus has primarily been on exploring teachers’ verbal or written narration of their own personal experiences, without a closer assessment of students’ perceptions of instructors. The current proposed study aims to fill in this gap by investigating how lower- and upper-level Spanish students evaluate instructors based on bilingualism type. The bilingualism types of interest in the present work are the following: Spanish-dominant Mexican Spanish (MS) (variety spoken by monolingually-raised speakers), US or heritage Spanish (USS) and second language Spanish (L2 Spanish). To achieve this goal, three experiments were designed and carried out, using a mixed-methods survey methodology for data collection, with both Likert-scale and open-ended questions, designed to identify language attitudes that reveal underlying linguistic ideologies prevalent in students’ evaluations. From the responses of 154 university students (male = 65, female = 84, Other = 5) enrolled in heritage and L2 Spanish courses, the current study analyzes how instructors are evaluated according to measures of teaching abilities, intersocial skills in the classroom, Spanish skills, and overall language command/fluency. Experiment 1 examines potential monoglossic language ideologies through students’ perceptions of instructors based on social information, presenting participants with three profiles representing the three bilingualism types of interest. Experiment 2 investigates possible standard language ideologies through a listening perception task in which participants listen to brief prompted auditory stimuli recorded by three instructors representing each bilingualism type. Experiment 3 further analyzes standard language ideologies by measuring responses to the use of lexical borrowings with phonological adaptation common in U.S. Spanish in a series of 1-2-second audio soundbites. Statistical and critical discourse analyses were carried out with the responses collected. In line with previous research, the overall results show a tendency for language learners to choose a monolingually-raised instructor over both a heritage and L2 instructor, regardless of the input provided. More specifically, Experiment 1 findings show that instructors with a more monolingual sociolinguistic background receive significantly higher ratings along measures of teaching abilities, but lower ratings in terms of perceived intersocial skills. Experiment 2 demonstrates a preference for monolingualism through higher evaluations for the MS speaker in terms of perceived Spanish skills over both the USS and L2 Spanish speakers, as well as lower ratings in terms of need to learn additional Spanish, indicating a perception of greater language dominance. Experiment 3 also suggested the existence of bilingualism preferences in the classroom for upper-level learners, with these ratings reflecting the presumption of a higher level of Spanish skills for speakers producing the more monolingually-associated lexeme over the lexical borrowing. The results from this investigative work add to the growing research on standard language and monoglossic ideologies as they appear in the public domain, focusing particular attention on how these influence language attitudes in an academic setting
Empathy and Victim-Blaming in the Aftermath of Sexual Violence: Exploring the Roles of Gender, Class, and Sexual Scripts
No full textTo create safer and more supportive environments for victims of sexual violence, it is crucial to understand the attitudes and beliefs that influence how individuals react to sexual violence, particularly in the context of college culture. Using intersectional feminist theory and sexual script theory, the current study examined victim empathy and victim-blaming attitudes among college students at a large public university in the Southwestern United States. This study explored how individuals’ perceived social class, gender, rape myth acceptance, heterosexual script endorsement, personal experience of sexual violence, and their conceptualization of those experiences were associated with reactions to sexual violence. Participants (N = 374) completed an online survey assessing attitudes and experiences related to sexual violence. The findings revealed that rape myth acceptance was linked to lower victim empathy, while heterosexual script endorsement was associated with both higher empathy and higher victim-blaming attitudes. Those with personal experience of sexual violence showed more empathy, however unacknowledged victims reported lower empathy and higher victim-blaming than acknowledged victims. Gender moderated the relationship between perceived social class and victim-blaming where higher perceived social class was linked to less victim-blaming among men but more victim-blaming among women. The findings support the need for additional research on how additional social identities and institutional factors interact with perceived social class and gender in shaping attitudes toward sexual violence