Article describes how complexes with closed-shell (d10–d10) interactions have been studied for their interesting luminescence properties in organic light-emitting diode (OLED) devices. The present computational study aims at understanding the chemical bonding/interactions in a series of molecules with unusually short metal–metal bond distances between monovalent coinage-metal (d10–d10) centres.

Article describes how photoconductivity is the crucial benchmark to assess the potential of any emerging material for future solar applications. This tutorial aims to familiarize the reader with the main THz techniques used to explore emerging materials.

Article describes how the intramolecular hydrogen-shift rate coefficient of the CH3SCH2O2 (methylthiomethylperoxy, MSP) radical, a product formed in the oxidation of dimethyl sulfide (DMS), was measured using a pulsed laser photolysis flow tube reactor coupled to a high-resolution time-of-flight chemical ionization mass spectrometer that measured the formation of the DMS degradation end product HOOCH2SCHO. Measurements performed over the temperature range of 314–433 K yielded a hydrogen-shift rate coefficient of k1(T) = (2.39 ± 0.7) × 109 exp(−(7278 ± 99)/T) s–1 Arrhenius expression and a value extrapolated to 298 K of 0.06 s–1.

Article describes how C-lignin is a homopolymer of caffeyl alcohol present in the seed coats of a variety of plant species including vanilla orchid, various cacti, and the ornamental plant Cleome hassleriana. The authors used information from a transcriptomic analysis of developing C. hassleriana seed coats to suggest strategies for engineering C-lignin in a heterologous system, using hairy roots of the model legume Medicago truncatula.

Article describes how, in efforts to prevent extinction, resource managers are often tasked with increasing genetic diversity in a population of concern to prevent inbreeding depression or improve adaptive potential in a changing environment. The authors used whole-genome resequencing to generate over two million single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) from multiple individuals of all peregrine falcon subspecies.

Article describes how connecting organic building blocks by covalent bonds to design porous crystalline networks has led to covalent organic frameworks (COFs), consequently transferring the flexibility of dynamic linkages from discrete architectures to extended structures. Authors state that this review article highlights the fundamental of COFs, including designing principles, coupling reactions, topologies, structural diversity, synthetic strategies, characterization, growth mechanism, and activation aspects of COFs.

Article describes how authors examined publications of medical N-of-1 trials to examine whether they meet the evidence standards and the criteria for demonstrating evidence of a relation between an independent and an outcome variable per the What Works Clearinghouse (WWC) standards for SCEDs. The authors also examined the appropriateness of the data analytic techniques in the special context of N-of-1 designs.

Linguistic racism is faced by non-native customers due to their different language style when they go through the service exchange process. Despite its prevalence and importance, there is a dearth of research about linguistic racism in the marketing literature, especially from consumers' perspectives. This dissertation thus aims to address this gap by focusing on consumers' cognitive and affective responses as a result to their linguistic racism experiences when they interact with service employees (native speakers) from the host country. Toward this goal, first (Essay 1), a qualitative study is performed to anchor the dissertation in the customers' real-life experiences and to help identify key associated themes which are further empirically examined (Essay 2 & 3) in this three-essay format dissertation. Essay 2 empirically investigates if the identity assignment through ones' language style makes customers feel stigmatized and influence their psychological well-being. In addition, how these experiences subsequently influence their inclination to use technology-mediated interfaces. Similarly, the main objective of Essay 3 was to employ a sociological perspective to examine the impact of language-based chronic social exclusion on non-native customers' psychological and behavioral responses in the marketplace. Moreover, their intention to pay higher tip as a refocusing strategy when these customers …

Article describes how the simulation exercise simulates an emergency in which an elaboration or description of the response is applied. The purpose of the study was to review disaster preparation exercises conducted by various national, non-government, and academic institutions.

Article asserts that Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is a neurodegenerative disease that affects millions of people worldwide. The authors of the article propose two deep learning architectures based on RNN, namely Predicting Progression of Alzheimer’s Disease (PPAD) and PPAD-Autoencoder.

Article asserts that the COVID-19 pandemic spurred older adults to use information and communication technology (ICT) for maintaining connections and engagement during social distancing. This paper highlights the gap in the literature regarding the increased privacy and data security risks for older adults adopting technology due to isolation during the pandemic.

In Essay 1, we seek to expand the insights on an individual's decision to share group content. Social networking sites (SNS) have become a ubiquitous means of socializing in the digital age. Using a survey, we collected data from 520 respondents with corporate work experience to test our research model. Our analysis highlights the complex interplay between individual and group factors that shape users' risk-benefit analysis of sharing group content on social networking sites. Furthermore, the results of this study have important implications for social networking site design and policy, particularly with regard to providing granular control over the privacy settings of group content and clear and concise information about the potential risks and benefits of sharing group content. Essay 2 aims to extend the knowledge of information security policy (ISP) compliance. Using a comprehensive approach, we extended the perspective of control mechanisms in the context of ISPs. It is evident that maintaining information security is an important concern for organizations of all sizes and industries. Organizations can establish policies and procedures to regulate and ensure compliance with information security policies, and various control mechanisms can be employed to ensure compliance. Among these control mechanisms, enforcement, punishment, evaluation, and recognition …

Article describes how the Aberrant Salience Inventory (ASI) is a useful tool to measure salience abnormalities among the general population. The authors claim that there is strong clinical and scientific evidence that salience alteration is linked to psychosis.

Article asserts that this research presents a novel and environmentally friendly approach for the synthesis of multifunctional nanobiocomposites for the efficient removal of toxic heavy metal and dye, as well as the disinfection of wastewater microorganisms. The synthesized bioinspired nanocomposite KAC-CS-AgNPs could be an innovative solution for effective and sustainable wastewater treatment and has great potential for commercial applications.

Crude oil commonly enters freshwater aquatic ecosystems as thin sheens forming on the water surface. Oil contains mixtures of toxic compounds called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), some of which are known to be photodynamic, increasing toxicity when combined with ultraviolet radiation. Benthic macroinvertebrate communities are commonly utilized as bioindicators, and as such rely on abundant data in literature concerning benthic macroinvertebrates' relative tolerances to a wide range of pollutants. A series of 10 plastic traps, half of which were filtered from UV radiation, were deployed in an urban pond for 27 days to determine colonization preferences of benthic macroinvertebrates to UV exposure. Results of this in situ experiment indicated that the majority of aquatic insects collected from traps inhabited the UV exposed treatment group, particularly the nonbiting midge, Chironomidae. A series of bioassays were then completed to investigate the sensitivities of a Chironomidae species to thin sheens of crude oil in the presence and absence of UV radiation. All bioassays were conducted using 10 day old Chironomus dilutus larvae cultured in the lab. The series of C. dilutus bioassays were all conducted under the same water quality parameters, temperatures, and oil sheen dosing methods, under a 16:8 photoperiod and exposed …

This dissertation consists of three studies that investigate the information privacy & security associated with healthcare technology use. Essay 1 PRISMA-style systematically reviews the existing literature on privacy information disclosure in IoT technology and serves as the theoretical foundation of the current research. It is crucial to comprehend why, how, and under what consequences individuals choose to disclose their personal and health information since doing so is beneficial to the company. This SLR method allows us to find those factors that significantly impact individuals' behavioral intention to disclose personal information while using IoT technologies. Essay 2 posits, develops, and tests a comprehensive theoretical framework built upon the theory of planned behavior and the health belief model to examine factors affecting willingness to disclose PHI in order to use WFDs. A research survey is designed and distributed to a crowdsourcing platform, Mechanical Turk (M-Turk). Research hypotheses are tested using partial least square – structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM). To achieve this purpose, Essay 3 extends the findings from the previous essay and further investigates the caregiver context. Therefore, we developed a novel theoretical model utilizing privacy calculus theory and the technology acceptance model to investigate the willingness of the elderly to disclose …

Article discusses how integrated pest management (IPM) is a wide-ranging strategy that involves tactics for the structural control of pests and diseases, also known as integrated pest control (IPC). The authors' prime aim of this study is to explore global scientific publications regarding integrated pest management and map the recent global trends in this innovative research domain, thereby providing future research directions based on dynamic observations.

Environmental monitoring is becoming increasingly important, primarily in urban areas due to the concentrated levels of human activities. The air sampling device presented is a novel method to sample air which harnesses the power of paper spray ionization paired with the intrinsic advantages of mass spectrometry such as high sensitivity, high selectivity, high throughput, and the ability to monitor multiple compounds at once.

Ligand design is important due to a ligand's ability to tune properties of the transition metals, such as catalytic activity and selectivity. Gold(I) catalysts can be directly impacted by ligands electronically as well as with steric bulk when undergoing enantioselective and regioselective reactions. In the dissertation, a series of gold(I) acyclic diaminocarbenes were synthesized and used to explore the 1,6 enyne cyclization/hydroarylation. The use of metal templated synthesis of the gold(I) acyclic diaminocarbenes allowed for the gradual increase in steric bulk of the catalysts. In the end, it was shown that electronics play the major role in the regioselectivity for the 1,6 enyne cyclization/hydroarylation but localized steric bulk can control the catalytic reaction if placed strategically. Cross-coupling reactions used to form carbon-carbon or carbon-heteroatom bonds are important in the production of pharmaceutical chemicals on a large scale. Iron, an extremely cheap and earth abundant first row transition metal, has had some success in cross-coupling reactions. Iron does not go through the same catalytic cycle for cross-coupling as most transition metals, the most common of which is palladium. In the dissertation, a ligand was developed to induce Iron to undergo the same cycle as palladium. In addition, the same ligand was …

In this dissertation I am using M. truncatula as a model legume that forms indeterminate nodules with rhizobia under limited nitrogen conditions. I take advantage of an M. truncatula Tnt1 mutant population that provides a useful resource to uncover and characterize novel genes. Here, I focused on several objectives. First, I carried out forward and reverse genetic screening of M. truncatula Tnt1 mutant populations to uncover novel genes involved in symbiotic nitrogen fixation. Second, I focused on reverse genetic screening of two genes, identified as encoding blue copper proteins, and characterization of their mutants' potential phenotypes. Third, I further characterized a nodule essential gene, M. truncatula vacuolar iron transporter like 8 (MtVTL8), which encodes a nodule specific iron transporter. I characterized the expression pattern, expression localization and function of MtVTL8. Additionally, I characterized several residues predicted to be essential to function using a model based on the known crystal structure of Eucalyptus grandis vacuolar iron transporter 1 (EgVIT1), a homologous protein to MtVTL8. I identified several potential essential residues of the MtVTL8 protein, mutagenized them, and through complementation experiments in planta and in yeast assessed functionality of the resulting protein. This helped us to better understand the potential mechanism by …

Article describes how an antagonistic hemolymph-muscular system is essential for soft-bodied invertebrates. The authors analyzed the entire circulatory system of the peripatopsid Euperipatoides rowelli and claimed they discovered a surprisingly elaborate organization.

Article describes how within the genome of a pathogen is the information regarding factors responsible for its pathogenicity. the authors of the article developed a novel pipeline that uses standard protocol in combination with gene co-expression network of a pathogen constructed using publicly available RNA-Seq data sets.

This dissertation investigates videoconference technology adoption by aging-in-place organizations to facilitate the social engagement of older adults. It comprises three studies that examine the initiation and coordination of technology adoption by aging-in-place organizations and addresses the factors associated with successful adoption of relational videoconference technology by older adults. The first study is a systematic literature review exploring the role of aging-in-place organizations in social engagement of older adults through videoconference technology. The second study is a survey of adult relatives and friends of older adults regarding videoconference technology adoption by older adults during the COVID-19 pandemic and their experience with facilitating resources. It applies technology adoption theory and a structural equation model to characterize the role of aging-in-place organizations. The third study is a pilot test of a new online platform called Circular that is designed to support social engagement of older adults. Through these studies, this research extends the existing body of knowledge regarding modes to facilitate adoption of relational technology by older adults and to empower senior centers and other aging-in-place organizations as they seek to socially engage the aging members of their communities.

Carbene ligands over these years have become a heavily utilizes and effective ligand for catalysis. The diamino carbene class of ligands are slightly less understood. The effects of bis(carbene) ligand structures of palladium (II) catalysts were investigated using the ETS-NOCV method. The results showed that the amount of π-backbonding played a major role in the rate of the reaction for these NHC complexes. The amount of pi acceptance from the ligand increased in correlation to the length of the methylene linkage in the ligand back bone resulting in increased catalytic activity. The ETS-NOCV method was used to determine the deformation densities that had a contribution to this interaction based on visual interpretation. The percent contribution of pi interactions provided a linear correlation to the natural log of the initial reaction rate, indicating that π-backbonding plays a crucial role in the overall catalytic activity of the palladium complexes. Gold (I) bis acyclic diamino carbenes (ADCs) were investigated for the possibility to be strong hydrogen bond catalysts. The ligand motif of the gold (I) bisADCs were found to be analogous thiourea compounds. Based on NBO analysis there were some improvements to hydrogen bond donicity in comparison to thioureas with the same functional …