Open Source GIS: From QGIS to Python

This workshop will guide attendees through open source GIS workflows using QGIS's approachable user interface and demonstrate how to replicate those processes programmatically in Python for enhanced reproducibility and efficiency. GIS beginners can expect a well rounded introduction to geospatial data and software, while seasoned users will benefit from techniques for automating their workflows with Python.UT Librarie

Effects of key, controversial dietary factors on inflammation, glycemic control and expression of circulating microRNAs, novel biomarkers with identified signatures in cardiometabolic disease

Dysregulation of metabolism is a common factor across obesity, type 2 diabetes (T2D) and cardiovascular disease (CVD) and disturbs metabolic pathways that are tightly regulated at the genetic level. At this level, post-transcriptional modifiers known as microRNA are aberrantly expressed in a state of dysregulation, released into circulation and contribute to the development and severity of chronic conditions. Although a number of dietary factors influence cardiometabolic health, it is unclear whether they do so through altered miRNA expression. Therefore, we aimed to examine the impact of consuming 1) diets with and without fresh, lean beef; 2) energy-restriction diets containing higher- vs normal-protein, animal source foods; and 3) breakfasts varying in protein content on 12 a priori circulating miRNA associated with cardiometabolic disease risk in healthy, overweight populations. In our first study, we aimed to identify whether a healthy dietary pattern containing fresh, lean beef influences the expression of miRNA compared to a healthy dietary pattern void of fresh, lean beef. Further, this study sought to understand the potential associations between changes in circulating miRNA expressions and markers of cardiometabolic disease risk. The expression of miR-15b-5p was higher following the consumption of a diet containing 2 servings of fresh, lean beef/d vs. a diet void of fresh lean beef. In our second study, we aimed to identify whether an energy-restriction, higher-protein diet, containing approximately 4 servings of fresh, lean beef alters expression of circulating miRNA selected based on their recorded signatures in obesity, T2D and CVD compared to an energy-restriction, normal protein diet containing approximately 1 serving of fresh, lean beef. No differences in miRNA expression were detected between diets. The third and final study sought to examine whether the consumption of breakfast, varying in protein quantity, alters the expression of miRNA associated with cardiometabolic disease risk compared to skipping breakfast. The habitual consumption of HP breakfast resulted in higher expression of miR-126-3p and miR-223-3p compared to breakfast skipping. Collectively, these studies aid in informing future dietary recommendations concerning the impact of key dietary factors on metabolic disease risk and assist in understanding the contribution of miRNA activity in this context.Nutritional Science

A comparative analysis of cost and schedule performance in public and private construction projects

This research investigates the cost and schedule performance differences between construction projects from public and private organizations, emphasizing the significance of effective management for successful project execution. Utilizing data from the Construction Industry Institute (CII), the study analyzes 481 projects from both sectors through statistical methods and benchmarking techniques. The analysis did not find statistically significant differences in the overall cost and schedule performance between public and private projects in the dataset, with an average cost factor of 0.99 for both and average schedule factors of 1.08 for public projects and 1.06 for private projects. However, a few specific subsets of projects did show statistically significant differences. For instance, projects with budgets over 100 million dollars and modernization projects with budgets under 50 million dollars demonstrated that private projects outperformed public projects, showing better performance and greater consistency in term of cost performance. Thus, the study's findings indicate that while both public and private sectors generally manage costs effectively, schedule management poses a more significant challenge across the board. Public projects, in particular, show higher variability in scheduling, often leading to delays.Civil, Architectural, and Environmental Engineerin

Switch-mode active EMI filtering

Power converters often require EMI filtering which usually involves bulky passive components. Active EMI filters (AEF) can reduce size but incur heavy losses in their linear amplifiers when designed to filter large ripple currents. This work proposes two different approaches for active EMI filters with a switch-mode amplifier to achieve reduced size and low loss penalty: a high-frequency AEF and a synchronous AEF. The high frequency AEF features a switching amplifier operating at 31 MHz to keep its own EMI out of the regulated EMI range. A fractional-order filtering technique is used to design the feedback compensation loop, achieving a high loop gain and thus high current attenuation of 30 dB from the active circuit at the dc-dc boost fundamental frequency of 150 kHz, while consuming only 1W for an output power of 120 W. The proposed high frequency AEF is compared to a passive LC filter for the same application and is shown to have a volume that is eight times smaller than that of the size-optimized LC filter. The proposed synchronous AEF, in contrast to the high-frequency AEF and other typical AEF circuits, does not use feedback, thereby avoiding the bandwidth and attenuation limitations associated with feedback stability. This AEF also has very low energy storage requirements compared to passive EMI filters and achieves very high efficiency compared to typical AEF circuits with linear amplifiers. Furthermore, it can simplify circuitry by directly utilizing the same gate signals as the main power converter. Additionally, the AEF does not interfere with the closed-loop controller of the main converter, a common challenge in the design of passive EMI filters or feedback-based AEFs. We demonstrated the proposed synchronous AEF through simulations and hardware prototypes for both a boost power factor correction (PFC) and a dc-dc boost converter, operating at different current control modes and switching frequencies. The AEFs achieved high differential-mode current attenuation from 20 dB to 65 dB at different harmonic frequencies and provided significant common-mode current attenuation of over 29 dB by injecting a common-mode current that largely cancels the common-mode current generated by the boost PFC. Additionally, the volumes of the synchronous AEFs are significantly smaller than those of conventional passive LC filters — approximately 1/16 to 1/32 of the size-optimized LC filter. They also have very low power consumption, with a maximum efficiency penalty of less than < 0.7% when filtering high current ripple ratios of up to R = 100% from the boost PFC, in contrast to AEFs based on linear amplifiers. Both AEF proposals present very promising approach to (mostly) replace the conventional LC filter and linear-mode AEFs for smaller volume and high efficiency. At the end of this work, we present the design and implementation of two ultra-fast isolated gate drivers with 2-8 ns propagation delays, one of which will be used to design the gate driver of the high-frequency AEF. This will help improve the compensator bandwidth of the high-frequency AEF, which is limited by propagation delays primarily caused by the bootstrap gate driver and the comparator in the previous design.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

“The City Residents Do Not Get Involved”: Understanding Barriers to Community Participation in a Small Texas Boomtown

Background: Professional communication researchers have engaged communities through community research and interventions, such as town halls, charettes, and participatory design work. Such interventions rely on community members who are willing to get involved, voicing their perspectives, and engaging in productive dialogue. Yet, some communities do not have these precursor conditions for intervention: they face significant social barriers that make such interventions unlikely to succeed. In an interview- and document-based study, we examine the social barriers described by interviewees in “Permia,” a small town in the Texas Permian Basin region. In contrast to the five other communities we studied, Permia participants demonstrate little readiness to engage in community dialogue. We explore how Permia interviewees made sense of unwillingness to participate in its public life, how their understandings contrasted with the other communities we investigated, and how this research might guide professional communicators as they plan future community-based interventions. Literature review: We review the professional communication research on community interventions as well as relevant sociological literature on boomtowns. Research questions: 1. How do community leaders understand their community heritage as constraining or enabling development? 2. Where do community leaders and members see potential for change and growth in community development? Where do they see barriers, threats, and hard choices? 3. How do community leaders describe the relations among community development stakeholders? How do they describe expectations and trust among them on interpersonal, intergroup, and interorganizational levels? Research methodology: We collected documents and statistics about six small Texas towns, then interviewed community leaders about the towns’ advantages and challenges. Based on those interviews, we collected further documents. We analyzed the data using deductive and inductive coding, as well as narrative analysis. Results/discussion: Through coding, we determined that interviewees saw Permia’s residents as unwilling to engage in deliberations in traditional forums such as city council meetings, and that their explanations for this unwillingness fell into three categories of barriers: distrust of institutions, dwindling personal ties, and lack of moral expectations for residents to engage in community dialogue. These three categories contrast with the other communities we studied. Through narrative analysis, we identify stories that were told by the interviewees to explain how these barriers developed in Permia. Conclusion: We conclude by discussing how professional communicators might survey barriers to community dialogue. Such surveys can help professional communicators choose a pathway for intervention in their community projects.IC2 Institut

Physical activity participation, physical fitness, psychosocial characteristics and academic achievement among adolescents

In this dissertation we will examine the effects of physical activity (PA) and physical fitness (PF) on academic achievement (AA), mediated by the psychosocial constructs of grit, self-efficacy (SE) and modality of physical education (PE). Given the known relationship between PF and AA (Castelli, Hillman, Buck & Erwin, 2007) the purpose of study one was to determine how psychosocial characteristics of grit and SE contribute to this relationship. Students completed the Perceptions of Barriers to PA (Motl, 2000) and the Short Grit Scale (Duckworth, Peterson & Mathews, 2007) at the beginning and end of the school year. PF was measured using the FitnessGram® test (Cooper Institute; Dallas, TX.). Results revealed students with higher grit (r [subscript s] = 0.21, P < 0.001) and had less school absences (r [subscript s] = -0.35, P < 0.001) performed better on AA (β = 0.13, P < 0.01and β = -0.35, P < 0.001, respectively). Despite PA’s connection to optimized cognitive functioning, the results among adolescents have been equivocal based on PA sampling technique (Tremblay, Inman, & Williams, 2000; Donnelly et al., 2016). The purpose of study two was to determine if objectively measured PA is related to AA in a low SES school setting and whether the psychosocial characteristics of grit and SE mediate this relationship. Student PA was sampled across four ten-hour periods. Results revealed that PF accounted for 5.8% of the variance in AA suggesting a non-significant relationship among the sample population. In study three a PE alternative (APE) was compared to traditional PE (TPE) examining if modality moderates the relationship of PF, AA, and grit. APE was a running club offered at low SES schools in the district as an option to TPE. Study methods were similar to previous studies, with the added independent variable of PE modality (traditional or APE). Results of MANOVA revealed despite the two populations similarity at onset for PF and grit. There was a 6.5% variance in AA that was accounted for by modality to the benefit of the APE (Pillais’ Trace = .065, F (14,700), p <.01 with η² = .065).Curriculum and Instructio

Examining physical activity among US college students following COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns : the role of race/ethnicity and acculturation

Objective: This study examined physical activity among US college students in the context following COVID-19 outbreaks and lockdowns, with a focus on racial/ethnic and cultural determinants. Sample: This study used cross-sectional data of the COVID-19 University Research on Education and Sustainability (CURES) project. Participants were college students from 7 public universities in the US (N = 1210; 75% female; 33.5% White, 9.1% Black, 47.6% Hispanic, and 7.1% Asian; Mage = 21.06; 85.6% born in the US, 51.6% had mother born in the US, and 49% had father born in the US). Method: The International Physical Activity Questionnaire - short form (IPAQ-SF) was used to assess physical activity and the Vancouver Index of Acculturation (VIA) – the American version was used to assess levels of heritage and US acculturation. Results: White students reported statistically significant higher physical activity than Hispanic (p < .05, Cohen’s d = .19) and Asian (p < .05, Cohen’s d = .36). In sedentary level, White students reported statistically significant lower levels than Asian (p < .05, Cohen’s d = -.45). Asian reported lowest physical activity, highest sedentary level, and highest prevalence of not meeting physical activity recommendation. Small negative correlation was found between heritage cultural level and total weekly physical activity among Hispanic students (r = - .09, p < .05). Conclusion: Race/ethnicity and cultural perception and practices could play a role in determine physical activity and sedentary behaviors among college students. The study calls for more qualitative research, and racial/ethnic and cultural-specific interventions to improve physical activity among Hispanic/Latin and Asian student populations.Kinesiology and Health Educatio

Microdroplet assay development for metabolic engineering and synthetic biology applications

Sustainable, efficient production of societally relevant chemicals in microorganisms is the epicenter of the field of metabolic engineering. Modern developments in DNA synthesis and sequencing have enabled high-information gene perturbation and protein engineering libraries that require reliable, reproducible, high throughput screening assays. Detailed herein are examples of utilizing growth-based assays and microfluidic screening to extract pertinent information from different gene perturbation libraries, microbial consortia, and engineered proteins. The first study details an approach to regulate gene expression in S. cerevisiae through utilization of a single-guide RNA library paired with dCas9 fused to either Mxi1 or VPR. Through these fusions and targets of guide RNAs, genes are either up or down regulated at increasing degrees. Using this library it was possible to identify target genes for moderate up and down regulation to improve growth on alternative carbon sources, namely glycerol and galactose. Final analysis of enriched guides via next generation sequencing identified moderate down regulation of essential genes, novel perturbations that would not have been isolated in traditional gene knock-out approaches. The studies detailed in chapters 3 and 4 delve into technical applications of microfluidics to screen for improved small molecule production. In chapter 2, the library detailed above is utilized to screen for gene targets that improve small molecule production in S. cerevisiae. This study also results in the development of a pico-injection microdroplet approach that utilizes cell-based biosensors to transduce small molecule production into a fluorescent signal. The study in chapter three characterizes this application further, ultimately leading identifying gene perturbations that improve early productivity or higher overall production, based on the time at which they were screened. In the fourth study, a previously developed CuAAC probe for extracellular electron transfer (EET) is ported into droplets to analyze an environmental microbial consortium. This study centers on the development of an oxygen-limited platform for anaerobic microbe cultivation in microdroplets, ultimately enriching environmental microorganisms previously uncharacterized for EET. This work expands the range of microorganisms compatible with this microdroplet system. In the final study, the microorganism array is expanded further through the development of a cytotoxicity assay for Sf9 insect cells is developed for use in microdroplets. This work lays a foundation for future applications to identify novel insecticidal toxins from engineered protein libraries. Collectively, these studies establish generalizable assays for high throughput screening of a wide array of organisms related to the field of synthetic biology.Biochemistr

No-reference image and video quality assessment for user-generated media

User-generated content (UGC) constitutes a significant portion of global internet traffic, with billions of videos and images shared daily on social media and streaming platforms. Despite its ubiquity, UGC often suffers from diverse and complex perceptual quality issues due to distortions introduced during capture, processing, and sharing. Addressing these challenges is critical for improving user experience, enabling better content optimization, and providing tools for inclusive content creation. This dissertation focuses on three critical problems in no-reference (NR) perceptual quality assessment for UGC: video quality prediction, image quality enhancement for visually impaired users, and the quality assessment of text embedded in multimedia content. First, we tackle the challenging and unsolved problem of NR video quality assessment (VQA) for UGC. Traditional VQA models struggle to generalize to the diverse and “in-the-wild” nature of UGC. To address this gap, we developed the largest subjective video quality dataset to date, containing 38,811 real-world distorted videos, 116,433 space-time localized video patches, and 5.5 million human perceptual quality annotations. Using this dataset, we proposed two novel NR-VQA models: (a) Pathc-VQ (PVQ), a region-based architecture that captures local-to-global quality relationships, achieving state-of-the-art performance on three benchmark UGC datasets, and (b) PVQ Mapper, the first space-time video quality mapping tool that visualizes and localizes perceptual distortions. These models advance the state of the art in VQA, offering robust predictions and actionable insights into the quality of real-world UGC videos. Second, we address the unique challenges faced by visually impaired users in capturing high-quality images. This demographic often produces content exhibiting severe distortions, including blur, noise, and poor exposure, which pose significant barriers to quality assessment and actionable feedback. To address these issues, we created the LIVE-Meta VI-UGC Database, the largest dataset of its kind, comprising 40,000 distorted images, 40,000 patches, and 2.7 million human perceptual quality and distortion labels. Leveraging this dataset, we developed a blind image quality predictor that models local-to-global spatial relationships, achieving state-of-the-art prediction accuracy on VI-UGC data. Furthermore, we designed a prototype feedback system based on a multi-task learning framework, empowering visually impaired users with actionable insights to improve their photography and confidently share higher-quality content on social media. Third, we investigate the underexplored problem of assessing the quality and legibility of text embedded in UGC, particularly in short-form videos. The quality of embedded text significantly affects user comprehension and the overall perception of multimedia content, as well as applications like visual search and recognition. To advance this domain, we created two novel datasets: the LIVE-COCO Text Legibility Database, featuring 74,440 text patches with subjective legibility annotations, and the LIVE-YouTube Text-in-Video Quality Database, containing approximately 19,000 subjective quality ratings on 405 videos and 641 text patches. Using these datasets, we developed models capable of predicting both text quality and legibility. We further introduced a multi-task model that simultaneously predicts overall video quality and local text quality, addressing the interplay between text legibility and multimedia quality in UGC. Overall, this dissertation presents a comprehensive approach to improving the perceptual quality of UGC through the development of advanced datasets, innovative quality prediction models, and user-centric tools. By addressing the diverse challenges of video, image, and text quality in UGC, this work provides solutions that enhance user experience, optimize content, and support accessibility. The outcomes of this dissertation are expected to benefit applications such as quality monitoring, content creation tools, accessibility enhancements, and user guidance, ultimately improving the global experience of social media and streaming platforms.Electrical and Computer Engineerin

Beyond the personal income tax : direct taxation without representation in colonial Africa

Recent work has emphasized the rise of direct taxation after World War I as a phenomenon of Western Europe and the United States, mostly due to the establishment of the personal income tax. However, other forms of direct taxation have been more prevalent throughout history. I analyze the example of sub-Saharan African colonies during the early twentieth century. Colonial rule in Africa reached its peak in the interwar period, consolidating dramatically after World War I. I explain this consolidation through the rise of direct taxes. I develop a theory on the shift to direct taxation, mostly in the form of head and hut taxes, as a result of increasing revenue pressures due to World War I. The theory is informed by qualitative historical evidence from British and Portuguese colonies documenting the choice by colonial administrators to increase and establish new direct taxes. A synthetic control method expands the analysis. I propose that in the colonial context, a shift to direct taxation need not be redistributive at all.Governmen