Open Research Oklahoma
ORO serves as the home for Oklahoma State University's open-access intellectual output. It includes digital dissertations, faculty publications, OSU Extension publications, undergraduate research, open educational resources, and more. Email openresearch@okstate.edu to see how your Oklahoma-based institution can join.
Recent Submissions
Publication AI extension in OpenRefine(Oklahoma State University, 2025-06-25)This presentation highlights the AI Extension for OpenRefine, which integrates large language model features like translation, sentiment analysis, and summarization directly into data workflows. It covers installation, provider setup, and practical use cases to help attendees enhance their data refinement projects with AI-powered tools.Publication Construction fall hazard safety training assessment using digital communications(Oklahoma State University, 2025-06-25)Fall protection is a critical concern for the construction industry. Every year, related accidents in buildings cause fatalities, deadly injuries to humans, and tremendous damage to the economy. Workers’ actions and site conditions are the two main issues that cause accidents at construction sites. Fall protection on construction sites has been widely studied as an on-site safety management. Because construction sites are unique in nature, each environment has different safety practices to maintain risk management. Moreover, stakeholders overlook the importance of hazard recognition knowledge, which can improve decision-making skills in times of emergencies. Traditional methods of risk analysis and training systems can be replaced with a virtually simulated environment, which can save a lot of time and money. Virtual Reality (VR) stands apart from traditional risk assessment approaches like risk matrices, risk checklists, expert judgment, and historical data by offering a computer-simulated method. VR can potentially be a proper medium for training workers as it can realistically simulate an actual construction worksite in a computer environment where a person can train themselves through by not putting themselves in danger of actual worksite hazards and conduct a fall protection training to use the safety knowledge. Recent research on fall safety simulations through VR was mostly on training or education. An immersive training program influences learning performance through motivation, cognitive load, and a sense of presence. A VR safety management framework can potentially improve construction safety when integrated with construction 3D models and add interactivities for performing safety training to test the effect of immersion. However, these hazard recognition skills and VR training performances can be compared with traditional approaches, like images and videos. It is vital to identify the key differences between traditional methods and game engine software performance. If a replicated construction environment can provide effective safety training, the construction industry can greatly benefit from this approach.Publication Effects of common management practices on heart rate of virtually-fenced beef cattle(2024-12)An experiment was conducted to evaluate the impact of virtual fencing (VF) on heart rates (HR) of trained beef heifers when challenged to remain within known VF boundaries. The study tested how 3 different attractants related to common management practices within the exclusion zone - water, supplement and a feed siren - affect the heifers’ HR as well as their willingness to cross the VF. A group of 3 heifers were equipped with GPS-based VF collars, HR equipment and one with a GoPro, were initially placed in a pen for a 5-min period to stabilize their HR. They were then moved to the trial pen where they interacted with the VF. Following this, a 5-min baseline period was observed. Followed by the test phase, where the heifers were exposed to one of 3 attractants—water, supplement, or a feed siren—for 5 min. This was followed by a 5-min recovery phase. Data was analyzed using R (R Core Team; 2024), HR data with two linear models evaluated via ANOVA and emmeans, while heifers’ VF crossings was evaluated with chi-squared test and pairwise comparisons. Virtual fence crossings were defined as the heifer moving towards the attractant during the test phase, disregarding the VF (despite previously interacting with it and receiving either an auditory or electrical cue). The exclusion zone containing the feed siren led to significantly more heifer crossings over the VF compared to water (P<0.05). The absence of crossing for water suggests reduced enticement, likely due to the winter season or disruptions in the grazing pattern during the trial. Baseline HR significantly influenced HR responses during test and recovery phases (P<0.05), with higher baseline rates correlating to increased HR responses in subsequent phases. No significant differences (P>0.05) in HR were found between attractants, suggesting that physiological responses may be more affected by pre-trial conditions than by the type of attractant itself. These data suggest that attractants such as feed siren entices heifers to cross VF, even when they are trained and aware of it. All heifers would eventually return to the grazing area indicating they were correctly trained. VF does not induce significant physiological stress in beef cattle, as evidenced by HR responses during the test and recovery phases. Instead, pre-trial conditions had a greater impact on subsequent heart rate phases. Further research is needed with a more detailed analysis of HR and HRV, along with additional indicators, to better understand the impact of VF on stress. Overall, VF shows a promise as a useful tool for ranchers in the near future.Publication Evaluating the effects of moisture variability and simulated exudate inputs on nitrogen availability in contrasting tillage systems(2024-12)Nutrient losses in soils are associated with the long-term degradation of soil health and can be attributed to inadequate management practices or worsened by climate change. Semi-arid regions experience varying environmental conditions, such as fluctuation in rainfall and drought events, which can contribute to soil nitrogen (N) losses. However, N losses can be mitigated through conservation management, such as conversion to no-till (NT) and promoting plant root inputs, which can enhance nutrient cycling and potentially improve climate resilience compared to conventional tillage (CT). To address these knowledge gaps in nutrient management and N losses, we conducted lab incubations under controlled environmental conditions using soils from contrasting tillage systems. The primary objectives of the research were to (1) evaluate how N dynamics are affected by simulated root exudates in no-till and conventional tillage systems, (2) explore how fluctuating moisture conditions affect N dynamics in no-till and conventional tillage systems, and (3) determine how N dynamics are affected by the combination of exudates and moisture content in soils. During an eight-day incubation, we simulated moisture fluctuations and root exudate inputs. In these experiments, exudate treatments included oxalic acid, glucose, and water, and moisture treatments included soils undergoing a wet-dry cycle or held at constant moisture. Samples were collected post-harvest in May 2023 and during the fallow period in August 2023 across various locations in Oklahoma. The combination of root exudates and moisture had variable effects on N dynamics across the different management systems. N mineralization rates and microbial biomass N were elevated under wet-dry cycling compared to the constant moisture treatment. This suggests that alternating periods of drought and moisture could accelerate N mineralization and potentially create more opportunities for N loss. In general, we observed a greater sensitivity of N measurements to the simulated moisture fluctuations than to the contrasting tillage treatments. Simulating wet-dry cycles and effects on microbial processes may be a sensitive soil health indicator that warrants further investigation.Publication Species’ movement influences responses to habitat fragmentation(2024-12)Habitat fragmentation is considered a prevalent threat to biodiversity. Many species experience negative impacts in fragmented environments, however, there have been studies showing species benefiting from these changes. This has led to ongoing debate regarding what is causing these different impacts. Some examples include the amount of resources, the movement capabilities of the species in the habitat and external factors such as advection. A growing problem in field research, however, is that it is difficult to control these various factors, and these studies generally take a large amount of time and resources to complete. To overcome these challenges, in my research, I used C. elegans as a model organism to explore the impacts of habitat fragmentation in different scenarios. By using C. elegans we were able to grow strains of worms with different characteristics such as movement speed to see how well low dispersers did compared to high dispersers. Also, we were able to avoid some of the issues with field work, such as controlling the amount of resources and collecting data in a timely fashion. In my first chapter, we explored the habitat amount hypothesis by covering 83% vs 33% of the environment with resources and then splitting the environment to simulate habitat fragmentation while maintaining the same amount of resources. We found that low dispersers were more impacted by the fragmentation than the high dispersers, especially when the amount of resources was lower. For my following chapter, I sought to how external factors such as advection could impact the success of species in fragmented environments. I used 2 columns of resources that were fragmented along a gradient. I then used deionized water to push the C. elegans towards their starting position (left), away from their starting position (right), and along their starting position (down) and compared those results to trials with no advection. We saw that high dispersers saw a wide range of changes in the various environments with different directions of drift, while low dispersers stayed relatively constant. This research highlights the importance of dispersal in fragmented environments and offers a promising alternative to habitat fragmentation research.
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