University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture
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Human vs. Transhuman: Act One
No full textThis work investigates the conflict between human and transhuman; to that end, the performance employs visual representations of human and transhuman interaction. The music and visual realms interact in real time to enhance the immersive experience of understanding the tension between machines and humans. Voice improvisation also interacts with live processing to create a unique sonic landscape. Overall, this is a multimedia, experimental contemporary performance at the intersection of technology and acoustic music
Sound Of Nangqên
No full textTape Piece is part of a series of single-sound-source daydream pieces, where a solitary object or family of objects is repurposed to create an otherworldly soundscape. This work uses tape--masking, scotch, aluminum, packing, and duct--sometimes recognizable, and sometimes heavily processed. The familiar is juxtaposed with the fresh, and what starts out with unrolling and tearing quickly unravels as sounds evocative of gunfire, of bombs and explosions, and of Geiger counters suggesting the downfall of civilization. New creatures emerge throughout, each trying to find their place in a world that has come unglued
Mitigation Strategies of 42K Background and Development of Radiopure Materials for the LEGEND-1000 0νββ Decay Experiment
No full textNeutrinoless double-beta (0νββ) decay, if discovered, provides clear evidence of the existence of Majorana neutrinos and constrain or measure effective Majorana neutrino mass. Total lepton number conservation is violated in this decay, leading to the interpretation of matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. Due to the very low probability of such a process, extremely low background conditions are required to observe the 0νββ decay signal (monoenergetic peak at 2039 keV for 76Ge). The next-generation LEGEND-1000 experiment aims to observe 0νββ decay with 1000 kg of high-purity enriched germanium 76Ge detectors submerged in liquid argon located deep underground. 42K is one of the radioactive isotopes produced in natural liquid argon; its β-decay overlaps the 0νββ decay signal region and causes a significant background. Monte Carlo simulations are performed to study the impact of 42K background on the germanium detector. The encapsulation of germanium detectors with low-background (radiopure) material would be an efficient and effective way to suppress the 42K background. In collaboration with the LEGEND group at ORNL, my work focuses on the R&D of the 3D-printing of low-background materials that can be used to encapsulate germanium detectors and also build radiopure detector components. We developed procedures and equipment to build ultra-clean 3D- printable materials. We also developed a vacuum system to measure outgassing rates of the 3D-printed materials. We performed the Monte Carlo simulation for the gamma-ray spectrometer and performed radioassay. Radiopurity results of 3D-printed samples are presented
Intermingling of the Old and New: The Formation of Various German-American Medical Culture in Colonial and Early America, 1730-1820
No full textMy dissertation explores educated medical practice within the wider landscape of healing in German-speaking communities in colonial and early America (c. 1730-1820) rather than treating medicine as the domain of elite, university-trained men. Centered on Pennsylvania and specific sites in the South, this study argues that “German-American” medicine was made in practice. In particular, eighteenth-century Pennsylvania was home to German communities and a bustling print culture providing valuable insights into their social, cultural, and political activities. Whereas Germans in Europe were more accustomed to a structured system of medical care, Germans in North America found themselves in a strange, new land with both new remedies and new local diseases. As there was little trained medical assistance in the colonies, Germans resorted to medical books and recipes brought from home. As such, there was an intermingling of both untrained and trained laymen, women, clergy, and physicians who provided medical care from transatlantic prescriptions and local ecologies in German communities in colonial America. My project serves to examine the emergence of “German-American” medical practices and networks that integrated new knowledge of their local surroundings with knowledge utilized back home
Leading Well: A Case Study on the Role of Higher Education Administrators in Advancing Workplace Wellness
No full textThis qualitative case study investigated the perceptions of higher education administrators regarding workplace wellness, particularly as adult learners, and examined the factors influencing leadership practices within a university context. The research focused on how administrators conceptualize workplace wellness and their roles in promoting a culture of wellness at the institution. Drawing on Mezirow\u27s 0(1978, 1991) Transformative Learning Theory and Herzberg\u27s (1966) Two-Factor Theory of Motivation, alongside wellness-centered conceptual frameworks, the study explored the relationships between personal wellness, leadership practices, and institutional wellness initiatives. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews with 12 administrators at Newtown University (a pseudonym), representing various divisions and leadership roles, complemented by secondary data analysis of institutional wellness programs and resources. Employing Braun and Clarke\u27s (2022) thematic analysis method, five principal themes emerged: (1) Defining Wellness as Balance Across Multiple Dimensions; (2) Leadership Modeling of Workplace Wellness; (3) Relational Leadership Centered on Empathy and Authenticity; (4) Learning and Development for Wellness-Centered Leadership; and (5) Institutional Structures and Cultures: Workplace Wellness Boosters and Blockers. The findings indicate that workplace wellness, a core value among administrators, is both a personal journey and an institutional imperative that requires intentional integration, investment, and accountability. Despite expanded institutional wellness initiatives and resources, there remains an opportunity to better align efforts by engaging administrators as change agents to enhance a comprehensive culture of wellness. The results have implications for leadership development, institutional planning, and the framing of workplace wellness as an essential organizational value. The research underscores the link between the well-being of leaders and that of employees, demonstrating how the personal experiences and initiatives of administrators can influence the culture of an institution. It contributes to scholarship on adult learning and leadership development and offers a framework for advancing workplace wellness through transformative wellness-centered leadership
Vegetative Succession after Volcanic Eruptions: Review, Patterns and Processes
No full textDisturbance is a fundamental part of ecosystems but varies in scale, intensity, frequency and resulting influence on species. Large infrequent disturbances are extreme in two or more of those aspects and may have disproportionate influences on resulting communities. Humans are altering landscapes at an unprecedented rate and frequently want to manage resulting landscapes for ecosystem services and quick recovery. By studying the way ecosystems reassemble after naturally occurring large, infrequent disturbances we can gain insight into how to effectively manage anthropogenically altered landscapes. Volcanic eruptions provide an excellent opportunity to study ecosystem assembly processes after disturbance because they often involve several disturbances differing in scale and severity but not in timing, thereby providing excellent opportunities to infer differences in processes. This thesis focuses mostly on vegetative recovery after volcanic debris avalanches, volcanic landslides, but will also addresses recovery processes within areas devastated by lateral blasts, pyroclastic flows and lahars. In each chapter vegetative community assembly after disturbance is examined from a different scale, starting with a global review of the literature. Next is a comparison of different volcanic disturbances at Mount St. Helens after its 1980 eruption, and finally, drivers of vegetation change are examined in detail on the debris avalanche deposit at Mount St. Helens
Deep Learning Model Applications in Broiler Welfare and Breeder Production Management
No full textPoultry is the leading source of animal-based protein worldwide. Its growing demand has significantly increased pressure on the stakeholders to handle major industry-wide challenges. Therefore, poultry research has been highly invested in applying technological advancements. Specifically with the advent of deep learning methods (DL) feasible livestock solutions through precision technologies have gained traction. This dissertation explores the application of DL technology to address key issues in broiler welfare management and broiler breeder production. Specifically, it focuses on automatic quantification of mobility and exploring dynamics of mating behavior in broiler breeders and its effects on egg fertility through DL model applications. Chapters one and two addressed the gap in detecting and tracking individual broilers in pen settings. The feasibility of DL models and existing algorithms was explored in this context. While DL models could effectively detect broilers but tracking individual broilers was not as successful. In chapter three, the continuous identification issue of broilers was tackled by color-coding them uniquely. A DL model was applied to detect and classify individual color-coded broilers, hence providing their continuous mobility in the pen, leading to an alternative automatic gait scoring approach. Chapter four provides a study about understanding the tibia bone strength in broilers as affected by their mobility and physiological parameters such as weight. The mobility of individual broilers, provided by a DL model application, and the tibia bone strengths did not show significant correlations, partly due to the multifactorial nature of bone health. Chapter five is about mating behavior in broiler breeders detected through vision-based DL models. The mating sub-actions, mounting and tail movement, were accurately detected and classified by the model. The results showed a decreasing trend in rooster mating behavior as affected by age, weight, gait and footpad dermatitis. Chapter six, logistic regression statistical modeling was utilized to analyze mating behavior sub-actions’ effect on egg fertility levels in four pens. The results indicated that roosters were impacting fertility levels by the number of mating per day, selective behavior in mating, the hens were consequential with mating receptivity, gait and welfare conditions
Applying Bioinformatics and Machine Learning Techniques to Investigate the Cultivability and Slow Growth of Uncultured Microbes
No full textUncultured microbes constitute the vast majority of microbial diversity on Earth, presenting significant obstacles to understanding their ecological roles and physiological adaptations through traditional cultivation techniques. The advent of metagenome-assembled genomes (MAGs) has greatly expanded our insights into uncultured microbes, but major challenges remain in linking genomic traits to culturability and growth potential. This dissertation addresses a subset of these challenges by investigating genomic traits associated with culturability, exploring unexpected slow growth adaptation in cold environments and applying deep learning models to predict microbial growth rate directly from the genomic sequences. In the first part of this work, I analyzed 52,515 MAGs from the Genomes from Earth’s Microbiomes (GEM) catalog to examine functional novelty and culturability across phylogenetic lineages. Uncultured MAGs, particularly among Archaea, were found to encode significantly more divergent proteins. Using pathway enrichment analysis, LASSO regression, and permutation-based feature importance, I identified a core set of genomic traits predictive of culturability, suggesting that culturability is linked to conserved functional signatures across microbial lineages. Cultured MAGs were enriched in vitamin and cofactor biosynthesis, which were also strong predictors of microbial culturability. The second part of this study focuses on permafrost soils, where energy availability is chronically low. Here, I tested the hypothesis that thermophilic traits may confer an advantage to extremely slow-growing microbes in cold environments. Genomic indicators of thermophilicity were positively correlated with predicted doubling times in permafrost, revealing a counterintuitive pattern in which thermophilic traits appear to be adaptive for persistence under slow-growth conditions. This trend was reversed in seasonally thawed active layer soils, where periodic energy influx supports faster microbial growth. To improve prediction of microbial growth rate, I developed LGMrib, a transformer-based deep learning model fine-tuned on ribosomal protein-coding sequences. This model significantly outperforms traditional codon usage-based methods, particularly for slow-growing microbes. Applied across 25,000+ genomes, it reveals pervasive cultivation biases toward fast growers across diverse environments. Collectively, this work integrates computational and machine learning techniques to advance our understanding of microbial growth potential, culturability, and environmental adaptation, also offering frameworks for guiding cultivation strategies and predicting microbial traits from metagenomic data
Morphological and dynamic perturbations of autorotating samaras
No full textSamaras, the winged seeds of trees such as maple, ash, and poplar, utilize passive aerodynamic mechanisms for wind-driven dispersal. While maple samaras are well-documented for their stable autorotation, rolling samaras, including those from ash and poplar species, exhibit a coupled rolling-autorotative motion that remains less understood. The aerodynamic mechanisms governing both maple and rolling samaras are characterized, with a particular focus on their response to morphological and dynamic perturbations. High-speed imaging, wind tunnel experiments, and computational modeling quantify the kinematics, aerodynamic stability, and recovery mechanisms of samaras under controlled conditions. The influence of mass distribution, wing morphology, and environmental perturbations—such as crosswinds and raindrop impacts—on dispersal efficiency is analyzed. Experimental results demonstrate that maple samaras maintain robust autorotation despite external disturbances, rapidly recovering from transient aerodynamic disruptions. In contrast, rolling samaras exhibit a more complex aerodynamic response, where rolling motion influences both stability and lateral displacement in turbulent environments. Bridging gaps in the understanding of natural dispersal mechanisms advances ecological studies of wind-dispersed seeds and informs bio-inspired flight applications, particularly in passive aerial vehicle design. Insights from this work contribute to improving seed dispersal models, optimizing conservation strategies, and inspiring innovations in bio-inspired robotics and micro-airborne systems
Focus of Clinical Supervision in Integrated Behavioral Health (IBH) Settings
No full textWe explored 18 mental health counselor trainees’ (MHCT) experiences regarding the focus of supervision they received in Integrated Behavioral Health settings. Utilizing Q methodology, we obtained Clinical Skill Development as a Counselor and Interdisciplinary Team Membership as the main areas of trainees’ supervision focus. More specifically, counselor trainees identified developing clinical skills related to client care, case conceptualization, and the delivery of clinical services, as well as strengthening their professional identity while integrating into an interdisciplinary team, as critical areas of their supervision. We discussed the findings along with practical and research implications as well as limitations of the study