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A motor-mouthed rapper with a perfect ear wants to turn a golden-voiced oddball into a music superstar but his popstar ex-lover threatens to blow up her meteoric rise.

The purpose of the study was twofold. The first purpose of the study was to determine if a correlation existed between the Standardized Test for the Assessment of Reading (STAR), created and distributed by Renaissance, and the Tennessee Comprehensive Assessment Program (TCAP) Achievement Test in Math and Reading for grade 3, grade 4, and grade 5. The second purpose of this study was to evaluate the relationship between the percentile category of the STAR test and the TCAP test. The factor variable, identified as the percentile category, included three levels: Urgent Intervention, Intervention, and At/Beyond Benchmark. The dependent variable was the TCAP score. The study included 3rd-grade, 4th-grade, and 5th-grade students during the 2016-2017 school year who had taken the STAR reading and STAR math assessments and had taken the TCAP reading and TCAP math assessment. Based on the findings of this study, a strong correlational relationship does exist between the STAR and TCAP assessments. Overall, the strong correlation between the STAR and the TCAP were consistent across Math and Reading in 3rd, 4th, and 5th grades. Since the ANOVA was significant, a post hoc multiple comparisons was conducted to evaluate pairwise difference among the means of the three groups. Overall, the At/Beyond Benchmark group was significantly higher than both the Urgent Intervention group and the Intervention group in Math and Reading for 3rd grade, 4th grade, and 5th grade. There was not a significant difference between the Urgent Intervention group and the Intervention group, the exception was 5th grade math.

College athletics have faced a lot of challenges and changes in the last two decades. Sports like football and basketball have been the main money-making streams for NCAA. With the popularity of college athletics growing, members of the business community have seen this as an opportunity to make money, especially members of the media. In turn, student-athletes have factored the ability to make money off of their own name, image, and likeness (NIL) into their college education decision. In order to explore this relationship between college athletics and the media industry, I analyzed how media rights in college basketball have affected college basketball recruiting over the last five years. Teams are not only recruiting players from high school, but they have to work hard and recruit players from the transfer portal, which allows for mid-collegiate-career changes. With the introduction of NIL, recruiting highly ranked players has become a complex process in that teams with smaller budgets feel helpless because money is not an issue for the bigger schools. In my research, I analyzed players and teams from all levels within Division 1 basketball, and through statistical analysis, The research found that better players are attracted by more affluent athletic programs. Teams with higher media rights revenue and overall revenue have a big advantage when it comes to recruiting highly rated high-school players or transfers. School enrollment does not play a significant role in some cases because student-athletes are mostly focused on their athletic experience.

Cortisol, a hormone produced by a hormone produced by the adrenal gland, is responsible for many regulatory functions in the body. Cortisol release is mediated by adrenocorticotrophic hormone, or ACTH, through the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal or HPA axis. This HPA axis is the major release pathway used during acute stress, during which the levels of ACTH parallel those of cortisol. However, in states of chronic stress, the level of ACTH drops dramatically, while cortisol remains high. This study focuses on the pathway of cortisol release during these chronic stress states, specifically examining the role of IL-6 with respect to STATs and the Jak/STAT pathway. It has been shown that IL-6 increases cortisol levels, and that IL-6 utilizes the Jak/STAT pathway. Also, the steroidogenic acute regulatory (StAR) promoter contains multiple STAT binding sites. Thus, STATs could be mediating the effects of IL-6 in the chronic release of cortisol by inducing expression of StAR. Experiments were performed to identify whether IL-6 has a direct effect on StAR promoter activity, StAR mRNA and StAR protein levels. Electromobility Shift Assays (EMSA) were performed to show that STATs bind to the full STAT site within the StAR promoter region. Various experiments were also carried out in the presence of IL-6 alone or, congruently with either a Jak (AG490) or STAT3 (Piceatannol) inhibitor, to show the effects of STATs and the Jak/STAT pathway on StAR. Luciferase assays were performed in order to observe the effects on induction of the StAR promoter. RT-PCR and western blots were also performed to observe the effect of Jak/STAT inhibition on both StAR mRNA levels and StAR protein levels. These experiments showed a marked decrease in the IL-6-stimulated StAR promoter activity, mRNA and protein expression when treated with wither Jak or STAT inhibitor. Therefore, IL-6 regulates expression of StAR through utilization of the Jak/STAT pathway; which phosphorylates and subsequently dimerizes STAT, allowing STAT to translocate to the nucleus and bind to the StAR promoter, thus increasing StAR expression and thereby inducing synthesis of cortisol.

In this research, we study how a finite-temperature nuclear equation of state suitable for astrophysical simulations impacts the oscillation modes of neutron stars. We chose the Shen equation of state (EOS) because it accurately describes both stable and unstable nuclei as well as nuclear incompressibilities. I modified the existing MHD code at BYU, the HAD code, to call a lookup table for the Shen EOS for use at run time, and added a Newton-Raphson method algorithm to convert conserved variables to primitive variables. The algorithm was tested and verified by evolving a stable neutron star for several dynamical times and evolving the same star at different resolutions. The normal mode frequency of the neutron star with the Shen EOS was measured and compared to those for neutron stars with an ideal gas EOS found by Font et. al. We found that the fundamental mode of the neutron star using the Shen EOS was slightly larger than that of the ideal gas EOS. This difference is due to the Shen EOS producing stars that are stiffer, increasing the sound speed.

I have identified 51 young stellar object candidates in N206, an H II complex in the nearby Large Magellanic Cloud galaxy. Using archival images from the Spitzer Space Telescope, supplemented with other infrared and optical images, I located point sources in this region. I distinguished possible young stellar objects based on their spectral energy distributions, morphologies, and locations in color-magnitude space. I classified the young stellar object candidates based on their likelihood of being young stellar objects and based on their apparent evolutionary stages. The spatial distribution of these candidates in N206 indicates that star formation is being triggered in a giant molecular cloud in the region.

Esta tesis doctoral por compendio de artículos está formada por tres análisis en los que estudiamos observaciones tomadas con el telescopio XMM-Newton de tres fuentes diferentes: La fuente 4U0114+65 es uno de los púlsares más lentos conocidos hasta el momento. Está formado por una donante de alta masa de tipo espectral B1Ia y una NS que la orbita con un periodo de 11.6 d. La NS gira sobre su eje con un periodo de ~ 9350 s. Esta fuente podría ser un magnetar (NS con un campo magnético muy intenso, incluso para una NS). En este trabajo presentamos el análisis de una observación en periodo propietario realizada con el satélite XMM-Newton durante 49 ks, donde hemos estudiado el proceso de acreción, las propiedades del viento estelar y la naturaleza de los pulsos de rayos X. Cen X-3 es un sistema binario compacto de rayos X de alta masa. La acreción sobre el objeto compacto, una NS en este caso, tiene lugar mediante disco de acreción. En este trabajo hemos analizado dos observaciones llevadas a cabo con el telescopio XMM-Newton. Una de ellas tuvo lugar en el año 2001, durante las fases orbitales ∅= 0.0 − 0.37. Esta observación fue tomada durante la salida del eclipse del objeto compacto, cuando la fuente se encontraba en un estado súper-orbital hard-low, hard porque la emisión de rayos X es muy energética y low porque la intensidad es baja. La segunda observación tuvo lugar en el año 2006, durante las fases orbitales ∅= 0.35 − 0.8. En este caso la fuente se encontraba en un estado súper-orbital soft-high, es decir, la luz emitida no es tan energética como en la primera observación pero su intensidad es mayor. Por último, presentamos un análisis de la primera observación tomada con el observatorio XMM-Newton del sistema eclipsante HMXRB XTE J1855−026. La observación tuvo lugar totalmente durante el eclipse de la NS, cubriendo las fases orbitales ∅= 0.00 − 0.11. Hemos comparado nuestro análisis de la fuente en eclipse con uno previo realizado con Suzaku en las fases orbitales previas al eclipse y hemos estudiado el viento estelar retroiluminado de la donante tipo B0I.

Wading is the phenomenon where a vehicle drives through water with a relatively deep water level. Sincea large portion of the vehicle is submerged in water it can affect the driveability and function of individualcomponents. Wading is therefore an important phenomenon to be aware of especially today where society moves towards alternative energy sources. This includes water sensitive components when contact with water can generate major consequences. Previous knowledge and experience of wading has been from performing physical tests, but using Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to examine the phenomenon can accelerate the iterative design process. In this thesis, numerical method of wading simulations on complete heavy-duty vehicles using the software STAR-CCM+ are developed. Furthermore, the results from the numerical methods are validated against results from physical tests performed at Scania’s test facility in Södertälje. The numerical methods are divided into a simplified model of a Battery Electric Vehicle (BEV) and a detailed geometry of a gas-driven vehicle from Scania. Beside dividing the wading scenario into the geometries, two different methods are developed, Wave and Wading. The Wave-method includes the vehicle standing still while a water wave is fed in through the inlet of the domain, i.e. allowed to flush over the vehicle, with a velocity of 3.6 km/h and 8 km/h. This method is implemented for both a generic simplified BEV truck and a detailed real-life Scania truck. For the Wading-method, motion is applied to the vehicle where itis driving with a velocity of 3.6 km/h through a digital twin of the water trench available at the test facility. This method is further divided into two cases, Zero Gap and Floating, where the difference is the distance between the tires of the vehicle and ground of the domain. The Floating-case includes a 10 cm distance and the Zero Gap-case has no gap between the tires and ground. The Wading-method is only implemented for the simplified geometry due to the computational cost and complexity. All methods use the Volume of Fluid (VOF) method for multiphase modelling and the Zero Gap-case uses Overset Mesh for modelling motion. The validation of the simulations focuses on the water behaviour such as water surface topology and water flowing inside the vehicle while wading. The results for the Wave-method with both the simplified and detailed truck at 8 km/h shows similarities in the water surface topology between the numerical model and the physical test. The simulations of the Wading-method is not visualising any similarities since the visible wave pattern are few and unclear in the numerical model. An isosurface is used to visualise the surface of the water which generated a smooth topology since no other options, such as vector fields, are added. It is found that the water movement inside the vehicle will affect water sensitive areas, e.g. on the battery packs. It is concluded that the derived methods are a first draft and should be directed towards future development in optimising the methods to lower the computational cost, but also to improve the capturing of the interface between the two phases. Due to instability and computational cost the detailed geometry is not implemented in the Wading-method. The methods are adapted to use different vehicle types since the simplified and detailed geometry are a BEV and a gas-driven truck respectively.