Community Planning in Urban Gardens: Integrating Children as Participants in the Local Food System

It is well established that urban gardens, when properly managed, positively impact food security, youth development, and social inclusion. However, few researchers focus on how they impact childhood food security specifically, and even fewer focus on how this effect can be increased through the inclusion of youth in community planning. This question is important because increasing children’s participation in urban gardens increases their access to food, which increases their food security. Therefore, if we can adequately find ways to integrate children as participants in the community planning of urban gardens, we will be able to increase their food security. This type of integration requires children to be involved in the creation and recreation of the garden’s physical and social environment, which can be done using Universal Design (inclusive design that increases a space's usability for the widest range of people possible) and Participatory Placemaking (the social and material process of recreating space). Literary analysis is used to develop a conceptual framework for Universal Design, Participatory Placemaking, and youth participation in community planning. Participation action research, which is based on visual survey results from a local garden program at the Boys & Girls Club (BGC), is used to understand how these concepts currently exist in Brazos Valley. Overall, this research will address how children can be integrated as active and legitimate participants in urban gardens and other community spaces

Scalability of Atomic-Thin-Body (ATB) Transistors Based on Graphene Nanoribbons

A general solution for the electrostatic potential in an atomic-thin-body (ATB) field-effect transistor geometry is presented. The effective electrostatic scaling length, {\lambda}eff, is extracted from the analytical model, which cannot be approximated by the lowest order eigenmode as traditionally done in SOI-MOSFETs. An empirical equation for the scaling length that depends on the geometry parameters is proposed. It is shown that even for a thick SiO2 back oxide {\lambda}eff can be improved efficiently by thinner top oxide thickness, and to some extent, with high-k dielectrics. The model is then applied to self-consistent simulation of graphene nanoribbon (GNR) Schottky-barrier field-effect transistors (SB-FETs) at the ballistic limit. In the case of GNR SB-FETs, for large {\lambda}eff, the scaling is limited by the conventional electrostatic short channel effects (SCEs). On the other hand, for small {\lambda}eff, the scaling is limited by direct source-to-drain tunneling. A subthreshold swing below 100mV/dec is still possible with a sub-10nm gate length in GNR SB-FETs.Comment: 4 figures, accepted by ED

Junior Recital: Grace Gatto, Saxophone; Lu Witzig, Piano; February 19, 2023

Kemp Recital HallFebruary 19, 2023Sunday Evening6:30 p.m

Senior Recital, November 6, 2021

Kemp Recital Hall November 6, 2021 Saturday Afternoon 2:00 p.m

Senior Recital: Grace Gatto, Saxophone; Lu Witzig, Piano; December 1, 2023

Kemp Recital HallDecember 1, 2023Friday Evening6:30 p.m

Differential and Joint Effects of Metformin and Statins on Overall Survival of Elderly Patients with Pancreatic Adenocarcinoma: A Large Population-Based Study.

Background: Published evidence indicates that individual use of metformin and statin is associated with reduced cancer mortality. However, their differential and joint effects on pancreatic cancer survival are inconclusive.Methods: We identified a large population-based cohort of 12,572 patients ages 65 years or older with primary pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma (PDAC) diagnosed between 2008 and 2011 from the Surveillance, Epidemiology, and End Results (SEER)-Medicare-linked database. Exposure to metformin and statins was ascertained from Medicare Prescription Drug Event files. Cox proportional hazards models with time-varying covariates adjusted for propensity scores were used to assess the association while controlling for potential confounders.Results: Of 12,572 PDAC patients, 950 (7.56%) had used metformin alone, 4,506 (35.84%) had used statin alone, and 2,445 (19.45%) were dual users. Statin use was significantly associated with improved overall survival [HR, 0.94; 95% confidence interval (CI), 0.90-0.98], and survival was more pronounced in postdiagnosis statin users (HR, 0.69; 95% CI, 0.56-0.86). Metformin use was not significantly associated with overall survival (HR, 1.01; 95% CI, 0.94-1.09). No beneficial effect was observed for dual users (HR, 1.00; 95% CI, 0.95-1.05).Conclusions: Our findings suggest potential benefits of statins on improving survival among elderly PDAC patients; further prospective studies are warranted to corroborate the putative benefit of statin therapy in pancreatic cancer.Impact: Although more studies are needed to confirm our findings, our data add to the body of evidence on potential anticancer effects of statins. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev; 26(8); 1225-32. ©2017 AACR

Large spatial datasets: Present Challenges, future opportunities

The key advantages of a well-designed multidimensional database is its ability to allow as many users as possible across an organisation to simultaneously gain access and view of the same data. Large spatial datasets evolve from scientific activities (from recent days) that tends to generate large databases which always come in a scale nearing terabyte of data size and in most cases are multidimensional. In this paper, we look at the issues pertaining to large spatial datasets; its feature (for example views), architecture, access methods and most importantly design technologies. We also looked at some ways of possibly improving the performance of some of the existing algorithms for managing large spatial datasets. The study reveals that the major challenges militating against effective management of large spatial datasets is storage utilization and computational complexity (both of which are characterised by the size of spatial big data which now tends to exceeds the capacity of commonly used spatial computing systems owing to their volume, variety and velocity). These problems fortunately can be combated by employing functional programming method or parallelization techniques

Sample Size Formulas For Estimating Areas Under the Receiver Operating Characteristic Curves With Precision and Assurance

The area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC) is commonly used to quantify the discriminative ability of tests with ordinal or continuous test data. When planning a study to evaluate a new test, it is important to determine a minimum sample size required to achieve a prespecified precision of estimating AUC. However, conventional sample size formulas do not consider the probability of achieving a prespecified precision, resulting in underestimation of sample sizes. To incorporate the assurance probability, asymptotic sample size formulas were derived using different variance estimators for AUC in this thesis. The precision of AUC estimations was quantified by either lower confidence limits or interval width. The performance of proposed sample size formulas was evaluated through simulation studies. Simulation results show that the formula based on lower limits with the nonparametric method performs best and can be used with both ordinal and continuous data. The methods are illustrated with examples from previously published data