Open Research Oklahoma (Oklahoma State Univ.)
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Improving microbial safety of non-heat treated energy drink using novel antimicrobial
No full textThis research was designed to determine the suitability of using SAS and Prolong Liquid 2.0 as antimicrobials in energy drinks. In the first part of the study, the energy drink formulation was prepared based on maximum daily intake per person on each ingredient. Then, the antimicrobial efficacy of room temperature energy drinks with novel antimicrobial to reduce Listeria monocytogenes, Salmonella Typhimurium, and Escherichia coli O157:H7 was investigated. Once the energy drinks were prepared, the inoculated energy drinks were subjected on of the eight treatments: Sodium Acid Sulfate (SAS) 0.1%, 0.5%, 1.0%, Prolong Liquid 2.0 (L) 0.1%, 0.5%, 1.0%, 2.0%, Sodium Benzoate with Potassium Sorbate (C). The antimicrobials SAS 0.5%, 1.0% and C were the most effective among all treatments investigated. It was observed that SAS 0.5%, 1.0%, and C could reduce all target pathogens to non-detectable levels within 1 to 3 days and were statically not different from each other. The antimicrobial treatments SAS 0.5%, and 1.0% reduced L. monocytogenes, and S. Typhimurium to non-detectable levels within days 2, and 1, respectively. For E. coli O157, only SAS 1,0% was able to reduce the pathogens to a non-detectable level within a day, while it took two days for L 2.0%, C to achieve the same reduction. This study revealed that SAS 0.5%, 1.0%, and L 2.0% could become alternative antimicrobials for the energy drink industry
Paraprofessional assistant teachers: An untapped resource for quality Pre-K
No full textIn 4-year-old publicly funded Pre-Kindergarten (Pre-K), paraprofessional assistant teachers (PATs) typically serve within the 1:10 adult-child ideal ratio, yet many do not meet the higher education requirements for teachers. Little is known about the impact this may have on the experiences of children in their classrooms. Using a transdisciplinary approach, two research studies were developed and a summary report written for the government organization that helped conceptualize the research topic. Study 1 utilized a mixed methods design to identify PAT job duties and characteristics of the PATs and their classroom contexts. PAT job descriptions from across Oklahoma (n = 12) were analyzed using qualitative content analysis. Survey questions were then developed based on the identified duties and quantitative data of the duty statements, PAT characteristics, and PAT context were collected online (n = 118). PAT characteristics and context were analyzed using a combined Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) and Latent Class Analysis (LCA) that resulted in a two-profile solution. Using the duties from the qualitative analysis, an LCA found a two-class solution that predicted responses on a co-teaching versus hierarchical classroom structure question. The two-profiles of characteristics did not predict the two-classes of duties. Study 2 used Connors’ (2016) Cultures of Learning Model (CLM) as a conceptual framework to investigate the professional environment surrounding PATs. Data were collected from dyads/triads of respondents: PATs, lead teachers, and principals and included respondent characteristics and PAT duty frequency. PATs also reported on the classroom teaching structure, paid planning time, and supports and barriers to continuing education. Few significant relations were found among the CLM variables (the culture of continuous improvement and culture of collaboration), and no significant relations were found between the cultures and PAT-reported barriers to continuing education. However, there was some support for significant differences in respondent-type of PAT duties with small to large effect sizes. Thus, the respondent-type for PAT duties should be carefully considered in future studies. Findings from both studies and the summary report support the idea that research studies focused on PATs are needed, and that investigating PAT environments may benefit the academic research literature, policies, and practices
Searches for vector-like quarks with the ATLAS detector and design of the Type-0 services for the ITk upgrade
No full textThe Standard Model (SM) of Particle Physics has enjoyed unprecedented success in describing the universe at the subatomic level. Yet, it must not be a complete theory of nature as it does not include gravity, cannot explain dark matter, provides no insight into huge hierarchies in forces and masses, and so on. Many extensions to the SM aimed at addressing these shortcomings predict the existence of a new type of particle called vector-like quarks (VLQs). This thesis presents the latest status of two searches for VLQs using the full Run 2 data set of 13 TeV pp collisions produced by the LHC and recorded by the ATLAS detector. The main focus will be on a new search for the pair-production of VLQs that each decay into a light SM quark and W boson. The second search targets top-partner VLQs produced in pairs, each VLQ then decaying to a W boson and b-quark. These represent the latest status of searches for VLQs with charged current decays with the current ATLAS detector. Looking to the future, the ATLAS detector will soon undergo an extensive upgrade in preparation for the High-Luminosity LHC, including installing a completely new, all-silicone tracking system called the Inner Tracker (ITk). This thesis highlights the development and design of the Type-0 electrical services for the all-new ITk Pixel tracking system that will lie at the heart of the upgraded ATLAS detector
Any gesture: A collection of poems with a critical introduction
No full textAny Gesture follows a female speaker’s journey through death, loss, and the anxieties of survival. Comprised of four narrative threads, the speaker grapples with the memories of the witnessed death of a teenage girl from childhood, pre-mourns a sister on the brink of suicide, reconciles with miscarriage and infertility, and struggles to mourn the mass deaths experienced as a result of gun violence in America. The collection interrogates the notion that death is a singular event, as well as how to properly care for the dead in the face of escalating and dehumanized losses. Any Gesture responds to the literary tradition of the elegy and to contemporary mourning practices to question the conditions for mourning, occasions for mourning, and the degree to which grief affects an individual’s psychological and physical well-being over time
Surface wettability control by vapor-deposited nanocoatings for water harvesting
Get PDFEngineering the surface wettability of water harvesting devices is critical to improving water harvesting performance. This dissertation presents five research projects. First, vapor-deposited fluorinated polymer nanocoatings were developed to improve membrane surface hydrophobicity. The coated membranes showed salt rejection rates of >99.99% in membrane distillation (MD) of saltwater, in contrast to the uncoated membranes failing to reject salts. Besides, the coated membranes exhibited 48.0–73.0% improvement in water flux as the membrane pores increased from the conventional small size of 0.2 μm to the large size of 2.0 μm. Second, Janus membranes with hydrophilic and hydrophobic nanocoatings on each side were developed for MD desalination of oil-contaminated saltwater. The solvent-free nature of the coating deposition circumvented the challenge of interfacial incompatibility between the hydrophilic and hydrophobic layers. Third, a method for hydrophilic modification of microfiltration membranes was developed using vapor-deposited silica nanocoatings, which enabled efficient removal of oil contaminants in the microfiltration of emulsified wastewater, as well as the improved membrane anti-fouling performance against humic substances and bovine serum albumin proteins. Fourth, a novel surface wettability patterning method was developed based on ultraviolet-assisted vapor deposition of hydrophilic poly(4-vinyl pyridine) polymers onto hydrophobic primers. This patterning method can be applied to nearly any substrate without the restriction by substrate chemical composition or physical morphology, addressing the challenge that most existing methods are limited to certain substrates. The wettability patterned surfaces demonstrated significantly higher efficiency than homogeneously wetting surfaces in collecting water from moisture air. Fifth, a new strategy to separate oil-water microdroplets using wettability-patterned surfaces was developed, and its application for the rapid detection of cholesterol in aqueous samples was demonstrated
Investigating the influence of communication strategies on food waste reduction intention in sporting events
No full textMassive food waste is generated from the foodservice and event industry because food and beverages have been served more than needed. Despite the importance and advantages of mitigating food waste issues, little attention has been paid to reducing food waste in events. This study aims to examine communication strategies using message framing and investigate the factors affecting food waste reduction intention in sporting events. This research included two studies using a two-by-two between-subjects factorial experimental design. Study 1 focused on testing the effectiveness of message framing and identifying the moderating effect of price sensitivity on food waste reduction intention. Study 2 focused on validating message framing effects on consumers’ intention to reduce food waste. Study 2 also examined the moderating effect of sports stadium atmosphere and the mediating effect of perceived corporate social responsibility (CSR) on food waste reduction intention. Data were analyzed by utilizing the Process Macro model. It was found that goal message framing and price sensitivity interacted with waste reduction intention in Study 1. Particularly, when price sensitivity is low, gain and loss-framed messages showed significant results on food waste reduction intention. Furthermore, it was identified that goal message framing and sports stadium atmosphere interactively affect food waste reduction intention through perceived CSR in Study 2. Additionally, the sports stadium atmosphere moderates the relationship between goal message framing and perceived CSR, eventually affecting food waste reduction intention. This study contributes to the literature by identifying the optimal communication strategies and factors influencing food waste reduction intention in sporting events
Japanese disaster warning: Honorifics, multimodality, identity and ideology
No full textThis three-part study examines the construction of disaster warnings through linguistic theoretical and methodological insights from usage-based analysis, multimodal discourse analysis, and Folk Linguistics.
Drawing on insights from usage-based analysis, the first study examined the linguistic realization of directives in official Japanese disaster warnings on Twitter over the course of two years. The findings revealed a high frequency of honorific request constructions in the call-to-action move in the disaster warnings. The results of the discourse analysis of the warnings also revealed style shifts between the two dominant honorific request constructions, Verb-te kudasai construction and o-Verb stem kudasai. We argue the two constructions signal different levels of urgency in accordance with the warning recipients’ degree of freedom of action upon complying with the recommended actions. The second study took a social semiotic approach to multimodality to analyze televised tsunami warnings produced by a Japanese public service media. This study demonstrated the moment-by-moment construction of a tsunami warning discourse through the interplay of language and other semiotic resources. Findings of the second study revealed a mixed use of Verb-te kudasai construction in the spoken text and Verb-te construction as part of the graphic text in framing institutional discourse and urgency. The third study examined Japanese and North American English speakers’ underlying beliefs and attitudes regarding language use in disaster warning contexts from warning recipients’ point of view. A thematic analysis of conversation data obtained from sociolinguistic interviews uncovered cross-cultural presumptions of marking social identities, affective stance, and urgency through language use.
This study brings into focus the linguistic concepts and perspectives on creating a sense of urgency when issuing disaster warnings. By illustrating the framing of urgency and other contextually relevant features through language use and other semiotic features in disaster warning contexts, this study suggests a promising trajectory of applied sociolinguistic research in hazard and disaster science
Mechanisms underlying complications during diabetes and respiratory infections: Novel insights into metabolic treatments
No full textDiabetes and respiratory infectious diseases are devastating on their own, but they become significantly more problematic when they intersect. Diabetes is characterized by the dysfunction of glucose utilization due to the lack of insulin production (type 1) or insulin action (type 2), leading to greater amounts of glucose remaining in circulation i.e. hyperglycemia. This resulting metabolic state is more detrimental to the host during respiratory infections such as: severe acute respiratory syndrome causing coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) and influenza A virus (IAV). Therefore, tight control of blood glucose is essential for diabetics, especially during times of peak respiratory infections. We demonstrated alterations in whole-body glucose metabolism of healthy domestic cats infected with SARS-CoV-2. Both the USA-WA1/2020 (WT) and B.1.617.2 (delta) isolates elevated blood glucose to a pre-diabetic level. Cortisol and angiotensin 2 were elevated while ketones remained unchanged. There was only decreased insulin 12 days following infection. GLUT expression varied depending on strain; the delta variant increased GLUT expression in the heart and lungs, yet GLUT expression was not altered in peripheral insulin sensitive tissues, i.e. skeletal muscle. Increased GLUT expression was accompanied by activation of AMPK. Concurrently, we cultured primary human bronchial epithelial cells (HBECs) in various metabolic modulators and assessed the effect on IAV H1N1 replication. Expectedly, increased glucose availability lead to greater IAV replication. However, we observed a divergent path when it comes to intracellular glucose utilization. Essentially, glucose allowed to metabolize in the cytosol, ultimately leading to lactate, allowed for greater IAV replication. On the other hand, shuttling glycolytic substrate to the mitochondria impaired IAV replication. In order to control glucose availability during infection, better long-term metabolic treatments are required. We have identified protein disulfide isomerase (PDI) as a potential therapeutic target for long-term glucose regulation. Exogenous PDI treatment was observed to increase glucose tolerance for up to 5 days post-delivery in mice. Overall, we have demonstrated that respiratory infections can co-opt metabolic mechanisms for its own benefit, which can be exacerbated during diabetes. Therefore, a better understanding of virus-host interactions and glucose control could lead to better outcomes for diabetes following respiratory infections
Environmental stressors and organizational inefficiencies: A critical analysis of emergency medical technicians in Inchoen, South Korea
No full textAs society changes and people's lifestyles change, various emergency dispatches are increasing year after year. Accordingly, there must be an appropriate number of Emergency Medical Technicians (EMTs) and ambulances to meet the growing demand for emergency calls. This study was conducted to find out how EMTs, who deal with the gradual increase in the number of EMS dispatches, think of organizational efficiency.This study conducted in-depth interviews on occupational stress and organizational inefficiency with EMTs belonging to the Incheon Fire Department in South Korea, and identified organizational problems. After reviewing related secondary data through a preliminary literature review, a total of 30 samples were recruited, and data were collected and analyzed using open-ended semi-structured qualitative interviews.In order to conduct a full-fledged qualitative research analysis, 24 phone call recording interviews and six written interviews were transcribed and translated from Korean to English. For qualitative research analysis, ATLAS.ti specialized software was used based on grounded theory. The analysis method went through the process of dividing and summarizing the corpus of extensive data into core categories through open coding, axial coding, and selective coding. Through repetitive analysis and revision work, three themes, eight categories, and 24 codes were formed. Critical common stress factors, administrative inefficiencies, administrative policies, and practical policies were formed as major categories to discuss in-depth ways to improve the problems that EMTs thought about and experienced during their daily work
Adversarial learning-assisted data analytics in manufacturing and healthcare systems
No full textAs data acquisition techniques develop rapidly, large amounts of data can be obtained easily in manufacturing and healthcare systems. However, it is hard to achieve satisfying performance to analyze data due to two main challenges: (1) The data may have quality issues. (2) Some desired data may be unavailable or difficult and costly to obtain. Specifically, these two challenges may lead to many related data-driven tasks in manufacturing and healthcare systems. Under such circumstances, generating synthetic data for analysis rather than directly utilizing the collected data becomes more and more popular. In recent years, the generative adversarial network (GAN)-based methods are widely applied since they could learn the data distributions to generate data without strict assumptions of data distributions. Hence, in this dissertation, a GAN-assisted methodological framework is developed to address the data-driven problems in the manufacturing and healthcare systems effectively and accurately. Specifically, four novel methodologies are developed as listed below: (1) The augmented time-regularized GAN (ATR-GAN) is initially proposed to select high-quality augmented samples with the consideration of sequential information for anomaly detection in manufacturing and healthcare systems. (2) A new imputation approach termed transformer-enabled GAIN with selective generation (SGT-GAIN) is developed with the incorporation of transformer-enabled architecture to impute missing regions in the data accurately. (3) The selective ensemble characteristic-to-expression synthesis (SE-CTES) incorporating adversarial learning and ensemble learning architecture is proposed to synthesize expressions under given characteristics where the characteristics are newly presented. (4) An optimization framework termed model-informed generative adversarial network (MI-GAN) framework is developed to solve optimal power flow (OPF) problems with the help of historical solutionsThe above-proposed methodologies are expected to synthesize desired data in manufacturing and healthcare systems effectively. Due to the GAN-based structure of the proposed methodologies, these methodologies are also integrated as a generic framework to capture the relationships among the data during the synthesis process. Thus, the integrated framework can utilize the relationships for risk management and decision making as well