The purpose of this study is to determine the effect of temperature on inducing an alkaline-tolerance response in L. monocytogenes (Lm) serotypes 1/2a and 4b. When Lm cells were pre-exposed to a sublethal alkali pH of 9.0 at different temperatures, two main patterns were observed: (1) Alkali-stress adaptation was readily induced in Lm when cells were pre-exposed to a sublethal alkali pH of 9.0 for 5-15 min at 37°C or 22°C; and (2) Alkali-stress adaptation was not induced in Lm when cells were pre-exposed to a sublethal alkali pH of 9.0 for 1 h at 4°C. However, exposure of Lm to 4°C for 24 h enhanced its survival against lethal alkaline challenge (pH 11.5). Also, alkali-stress adaptation if occurred at 37°C or 22°C was highly stable at 4ºC even in the absence of mild alkaline stress which should be taken into account while conducting risk analysis for this pathogen.

No description available.

Many states and municipalities are using climate forecasts and vulnerability analyses to prepare comprehensive frameworks designed to guide adaptation actions (Hamin, 2012). The responsibility for facilitating the development and adoption of these frameworks, also known as climate adaptation plans, often lies with planning practitioners. However, if planning is understood to be the organization of hope and its language that of the future (Baum, 1997), planning practitioners must consider how to effectively uphold these disciplinary concepts when addressing climate change—an issue with the propensity to stimulate fear and despair for a future marked by uncertainty. Developing and implementing adaptation policies and practices designed to increase community resilience in the face of a changing climate require negotiating a balance between pessimistic feelings that climate change is already underway and won’t be stopped and optimistic feelings that actions taken now will matter. Employing qualitative research methods informed by grounded theory, this research examines a set of state-level climate change adaptation plans to identify the key elements within and their implications for negotiating the despair and hope associated with climate change. Research methods from the field of narratology provide a basis for understanding these elements as components of a narrative. Findings suggest that state-level adaptation plans, understood as narratives, are comprised of elements that can be employed to balance the despair and hope associated with climate change. These findings support research emerging from the field of planning theory, which suggests that persuasive narratives may have relevance in mobilizing action on climate-related issues. Informed by research from diverse fields of inquiry, recommendations that guide the use of select elements in adaptation plans were developed to aid in overcoming the barriers that uncertainty, fear and despair play in limiting effective action on climate change.

This thesis aims to explore whether and how the frequency and severity of climate-related hazards are associated with changes in adaptive capacity. Despite increased hazard frequency and severity in the world, it is still contested whether hazard frequency and severity are associated with changes in adaptive capacity, often referred to as the preconditions necessary to enable adaptation. The ‘disaster-reform’ position holds that increased frequency and severity can create critical junctures providing legitimacy for governmental action and windows of opportunity for change in adaptive capacity. The ‘conservative’ position holds that exposure to frequent and severe climate-related hazards tends to be overwhelming and create a policy environment where change is unlikely. It further argues that exposure can hinder change in adaptive capacity due to the complexity in maintaining public support long enough for substantial changes in adaptive capacity since initial improvements can be perceived as successes. The method of choice to explore the association is linear regression analysis on the correlation between the frequency and severity of climate-related hazards measured in the International Disasters Database 2008-2016 and changes in adaptive measured in the World Risk Index for 180 countries in 2011-2019. This study shows that climate-related hazard frequency and severity are generally unassociated with adaptive capacity change in line with the ‘conservative’ position. Despite the lack of a global correlation, some countries deviate from the pattern by having significant improvements in adaptive capacity after exposure to frequent and severe climate-related hazards, thus confirming the ‘disaster-reform’ position. In addition to supporting the ‘conservative’ position, these results highlight the potential for future studies on the causal mechanisms behind the countries deviating from the overall pattern.

Visuomotor adaptation arises when reaching in an altered visual environment, where one’s seen hand position does not match their felt (i.e., proprioceptive) hand position in space. Here, we investigated if proprioceptive training (PT) benefits visuomotor adaptation, and if these benefits arise due to implicit (unconscious) or explicit (conscious strategy) processes. A total of 72 participants were divided equally into 3 groups: Proprioceptive training with feedback (PTWF), Proprioceptive training no feedback (PTNF), and Control (CTRL). The PTWF and PTNF groups completed proprioceptive training (PT), where a participant’s hand was passively moved to an unknown reference location and they judged the felt position of their unseen hand relative to their body midline on every trial. The PTWF group received verbal feedback with respect to their response accuracy on the middle 60% of trials. The CTRL group did not complete PT and instead sat quietly during this time. Following PT or time delay, all three groups reached when seeing a cursor that was rotated 30° clockwise relative to their hand motion, followed by a series of no-cursor reaches to assess implicit and explicit adaptation. Results indicated that the PTWF group improved their sense of felt hand position following PT. However, this improved proprioceptive acuity did not benefit visuomotor adaptation, as all three groups showed similar visuomotor adaptation across rotated reach training trials. Visuomotor adaptation arose implicitly, with minimal explicit contribution for all three groups. Thus, these results suggest that passive proprioceptive training with feedback does not benefit, nor hinder, implicit visuomotor adaptation.

No description available.

Adaptive all-hexahedral meshing algorithms have many desirable features. These algorithms provide a mesh that is efficient for analysis by providing a high element density in specific locations, such as areas of high stress gradient or high curvature and reduced mesh density in other areas of less importance. In addition, inside-out hexahedral grid based schemes, using Cartesian structured grids for the base mesh, have shown great promise in accommodating automatic all-hexahedral algorithms. In these algorithms mesh refinement is generally used to capture geometric features. Unfortunately, most adaptive mesh generation algorithms employ a 3-refinement method. This method, although easy to employ, provides a mesh that is coarse in most areas and highly refined in other areas. Because a single refined hex is subdivided into 27 new hexes, regardless of the desired refinement, there is little control on mesh density. This paper will present an adaptive all-hexahedral grid-based meshing algorithm that employs a 2-refinement insertion method. 2-refinement is based on dividing a hex to be refined into eight new hexes. This allows greater control on mesh density which in turn increases computational efficiency.

In this work, we propose using edge valence as a quality predictor when used as a driver for adapting all hexahedral meshes. Edge valence, for hexahedra, is defined as the number of faces attached to an edge. It has shown to be a more reliable quality predictor than node valence for hexahedral meshes. An edge valence of 3, 4, or 5 within the volume of a hexahedral mesh has provided at least a positive scaled Jacobian for all observed meshes, without the presence of over constraining geometry. It is often desirable to adapt an existing mesh through sheet operations such as column collapse, sheet insertion, or sheet extraction. Examples of hexahedral mesh adaptation include refining and coarsening. This work presents a general algorithm for a priori prediction of edge valence when used with column collapse and sheet extraction operations. Using the predicted edge valence we present a method for guiding the mesh adaptation procedure which will result in an overall higher quality mesh than when driven by mesh quality alone. Other quality metrics such as the Jacobian are unfit for predictive algorithms because of their heavy dependence on node positioning instead of hex topology. Results have been derived from application of the algorithm towards the localized coarsening process.

Electropalatography (EPG) is a computer-based device that uses a fitted pseudopalate (similar to an orthodontic retainer) with embedded electrodes to track tongue-to-palate contact during speech for the purposes of providing treatment for a variety of communication disorders. This study evaluated six elementary school-aged children's ability to adapt their speech to the presence of the pseudopalate in their mouth. The participants' adaptation for the consonants /t/ and /k/ was examined over eight time intervals throughout a two and half hour time period. Adaptation was evaluated by measuring the duration, spectral mean, spectral variance, and relative intensity of the target sounds. The participants demonstrated significant changes in speech patterns upon initial placement of the pseudopalate across the spectral parameters of mean, variance, and relative intensity. However, no significant differences in duration were found for either phoneme in the pseudopalate versus no pseudopalate conditions. Therefore, temporal parameters for consonant duration were relatively unaffected by the pseudopalate. The children in the study were able to make some speech adaptations to the pseudopalate, however evidence from the /t/ and /k/ productions indicated that the majority of participants were not able to fully adapt to the EPG device during the two and a half hour time period. Clinicians using EPG must take adaptation effects into consideration.

The problem with which this thesis is concerned is that of writing and directing an adaptation of the classic fairy tale, Cinderella. This study is a culmination of research on children's theatre, and the writing and producing of children's plays. The research led to the writing of the first draft of Cindy's Feller, an adaptation of Cinderella, beginning with a scenario which utilized a country-western theme. Upon completion of the first draft, the play was produced at North Texas State University during the summer of 1981. Stage directions of the play, a director's log of daily rehearsals, and an evaluation of the final productions were recorded to provide a stimulus for the writing of a final draft of Cindy's Feller and the preparation of this thesis.