Balulalow

A cappella choral setting of a 16th-century Scottish carol text by Robert, James and John Wedderburn. Completed on 31 March 2009. Published by Oxford University Press, 27 May 2010. Three commercial recordings to date, of which the most recent is cited here

RANIA: A Framework for a Modular, Voice Enabled, GeronTechnology-Centric, Smart-Home System

In the United States, the proportion of senior citizens is expected to rise significantly over the next few decades. This increasing number of senior citizens combined with the increasing demand for at home healthcare workers is putting a strain on the elderly healthcare system. Smart-home healthcare technology { such as smart medication dispensers, fall detection systems, smart pantry systems, etc. { has the potential to alleviate this strain on the elderly healthcare system. Smart devices can give an individual more autonomized and personalized surveillance of their health and well-being. While these devices are beneficial as standalone devices, they would be more accessible and extensible under a single, modular smart-home system. For these reasons, the GeronTechnology Lab at West Virginia University is developing the Residents Aware Network for Intelligent Assistance (RANIA) system. RANIA is a modular smart-home system that is designed to integrate numerous types of devices for aiding elderly residents in aging at home. This thesis presents a generalized framework for integrating RANIA devices within the RANIA smart-home system. The novel aspects of this project are the one-click device connection/disconnection and automated package management for devices connected to the RANIA Hub. Other functionalities outlined include system messaging and Amazon Alexa Echo system integration

Safety Performance Prediction of Large-Truck Drivers in the Transportation Industry

The trucking industry and truck drivers play a key role in the United States commercial transportation sector. Accidents involving large trucks is one such big event that can cause huge problems to the driver, company, customer and other road users causing property damage and loss of life. The objective of this research is to concentrate on an individual transportation company and use their historical data to build models based on statistical and machine learning methods to predict accidents. The focus is to build models that has high accuracy and correctly predicts an accident. Logistic regression and penalized logistic regression models were tested initially to obtain some interpretation between the predictor variables and the response variable. Random forest, gradient boosting machine (GBM) and deep learning methods are explored to deal with high non-linear and complex data. The cost of fatal and non-fatal accidents is also discussed to weight the difference between training a driver and encountering an accident. Since accidents are very rare events, the model accuracy should be balanced between predicting non-accidents (specificity) and predicting accidents (sensitivity). This framework can be a base line for transportation companies to emphasis the benefits of prediction to have safer and more productive drivers

Challenges in implementing single-use processing for the purification of polysaccharides

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Effect of trail bifurcation asymmetry and pheromone presence or absence on trail choice by Lasius niger ants

During foraging, ant workers are known to make use of multiple information sources, such as private information (personal memory) and social information (trail pheromones). Environmental effects on foraging, and how these interact with other information sources, have, however, been little studied. One environmental effect is trail bifurcation asymmetry. Ants forage on branching trail networks and must often decide which branch to take at a junction (bifurcation). This is an important decision, as finding food sources relies on making the correct choices at bifurcations. Bifurcation angle may provide important information when making this choice. We used a Y-maze with a pivoting 90° bifurcation to study trail choice of Lasius niger foragers at varying branch asymmetries (0°, [both branches 45° from straight ahead], 30° [branches at 30° and 60° from straight ahead], 45°, 60° and 90° [one branch straight ahead, the other at 90°]). The experiment was carried out either with equal amounts of trail pheromone on both branches of the bifurcation or with pheromone present on only one branch. Our results show that with equal pheromone, trail asymmetry has a significant effect on trail choice. Ants preferentially follow the branch deviating least from straight, and this effect increases as asymmetry increases (47% at 0°, 54% at 30°, 57% at 45°, 66% at 60° and 73% at 90°). However, when pheromone is only present on one branch, the graded effect of asymmetry disappears. Overall, however, there is an effect of asymmetry as the preference of ants for the pheromone-marked branch over the unmarked branch is reduced from 65%, when it is the less deviating branch, to 53%, when it is the more deviating branch. These results demonstrate that trail asymmetry influences ant decision-making at bifurcations and that this information interacts with trail pheromone presence in a non-hierarchical manner

Quantitative characterization of all single amino acid variants of a viral capsid-based delivery vehicle

Self-assembling protein containers are promising delivery vehicles for cellular and gene therapy applications, but the ability to predict how mutations alter self-assembly and other particle properties remains a significant challenge. Here, we combine comprehensive codon mutagenesis with high-throughput sequencing to characterize the assembly-competency of all single amino acid variants of a virus-like particle. The coat protein (CP) of MS2 bacteriophage was chosen because of its potential in targeted delivery and imaging. An assembly selection revealed a high-resolution fitness landscape that challenged several conventional protein engineering assumptions. Using the same approach with additional comprehensive mutagenesis strategies and selective pressures identified several other previously-uncharacterized variants for enabling efficient chemical and post-translational modifications as well as altered stability features. For example, the wild-type CP is acid tolerant down to pH 2, but we identified a variant with a single point mutation that confers stability at neutral pH but acid-triggered disassembly. Acid sensitivity is highly desirable in targeted delivery to improve the efficiency of endosomal release. In addition to providing a blueprint of how to tune the chemical and physical properties of the MS2 CP and other structurally-related virus-like particles, these techniques can readily be applied to the systematic study of other self-assembling proteins and protein-based delivery vehicles

Invisible Spread and Perceived Stress Amidst COVID-19

Introduction. There are limited reports on the mental health toll associated with the fear of spreading coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) and the associated stay-at-home orders. The goal of the present study was to characterize the self-reported stress of participants from the Kansas City Metropolitan Area (KCMA) and to examine the relation between potential for asymptomatic spread and perceived stress.  Methods. Enrollment of 461 participants occurred from May 4-May 22, 2020. The sample participants were predominantly women (69.6%). On average, participants were 44.9 years of age (SD = 14.6). Measures employed included the perceived stress scale-10 and a comprehensive COVID-19 questionnaire. Results. Worry about asymptomatic spread was significantly associated with greater perceived stress (p<0.001). Higher stress was reported among individuals who were women (p<0.001), Hispanic/Latinx (p=0.001), and non-Black/African American individuals (p<0.001), and those reporting the presence of COVID-19 symptoms (p=0.001).  Conclusions. The COVID-19 pandemic has caused significant economic, social, health, and other disruptions around the world. Distress is significantly related to concern over unintentionally contributing to the spread of SARS-CoV-2 through asymptomatic transmission. Future research should characterize the modifiable psychotherapeutic processes that might be targeted through intervention

Analyzing winter migration fidelity and movement of the wild Taimyr reindeer herd, Rangifer T. tarandus

The Taimyr Reindeer Herd (TRH) is the largest wild reindeer population in the world, and is located in the northern central region of Arctic Russia. Previous detailed research on the spatiotemporal dynamics of this herd have been conducted involving aerial population censuses for two of the three seasons for reindeer: calving (Meerdink, 2012) and summer (Cooney, 2014). The first part of this study continues with the methods of the previous studies, analyzing the spatiotemporal fidelity of the TRH in the winter season. This was completed using geospatial analysis of digitized historical aerial census data of reindeer locations, and analyzing areas of repeated reoccurrence by the herd. Findings included evidence of four regions of high reoccurrence within the winter range: three plateaus, two of similar latitude and one located to the northeast, and an outlier area in close proximity to human development. Using NASA’s remote sensed Modern-Era Retrospective Analysis for Research and Applications (MERRA) meteorological dataset for three chosen winter census years, a statistical analysis of the conditions and patterns of usage by reindeer for the areas of high fidelity were assessed. Results of this analysis suggest that weather variables, low surface temperatures, high total precipitation (snow) and snow depth, are deterrents for reindeer presence in specific areas of their wintering grounds. The second study within this thesis used data from the first ever satellite biotelemetry collaring of the TRH. By employing Argos collars, almost 11 months of location data was collected during the fall migration, winter season and spring migration of 2013-2014. These efforts produced data for eleven successfully monitored reindeer. A subset of reindeer within this sample were analyzed further to determine behavior of seasonal movements and migration distance. Analyses produced clear evidence of patterned fall and spring migration, as well as winter seasonal behavior. The subset of reindeer provided data regarding potential categorization of different sexes between reindeer by movement patterns alone. The results from both parts of the thesis were utilized to better understand site selection for the TRH’s winter season and migrations, giving clues to understanding the activities and survival of the herd during the extreme Siberian winter