Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Frozen In Time: A Numerical Modeling Approach To The Study Of Ice Bearing Planetesimals Through Carbonaceous Chondrites, Jasmine M. Bayron

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Icy planetesimals are significant objects of study for meteoritics, planetary science, and astrobiology due to their connections to the origins of life and liquid water on Earth. An existing closed system aqueous alteration model was adapted to simulate several scenarios involving early Solar System geologic processes occurring in an icy planetesimal interior. The model described in this work has been developed not only to test the validity of constraints currently thought to apply to CM1 parent bodies, but to directly compare the implications of these constraints for the isotopic composition and the modal mineralogy of carbonaceous chondrites. Isotopic ratios of …

3d Object Detection, Instance Segmentation And Classification From 3d Range And 2d Color Images, Xiaoke Shen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

We address the problem of 3D object detection and instance segmentation by proposing a novel object segmentation and detection system. First, we detect 2D objects based on RGB, Depth only, or RGB-D images. A 3D convolutional-based system, named Frustum VoxNet, is proposed. This system 1) generates frustums from 2D detection results, 2) proposes 3D candidate voxelized images for each frustum, and uses a 3D convolutional neural network (CNN) based on these candidates voxelized images to perform the 3D instance segmentation and object detection. Although the volumetric data representation is widely used for 3D object classification, there are fewer works on …

Third Harmonic Generation: A Method For Visualizing Myelin In The Murine Cerebral Cortex, Michael Redlich

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Here we present the use of Third Harmonic Generation (THG) for the label-free imaging of myelinated axons in the murine cerebral cortex. Myelin plays an important role in the processes of learning and disease. However, much of the myelin biology research thus far has focused on white matter tracts where myelin is more visible. Much is still unknown, particularly with regard to myelin in gray matter. First, we engage in THG microscopy using an optical parametric oscillator pumped by a titanium-sapphire laser to demonstrate the utility of the technique for imaging myelin in vivo. Second, we investigate the use of …

Using The Marcus Inverted Region And Artificial Cofactors To Create A Charge Separated State In De Novo Designed Proteins, Eskil Me Andersen

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

To create an efficient de novo photosynthetic protein it is important to create long lived charge separated states. Achieving stable charge separation leads to an increase in the efficiency of the photosynthetic reaction which in turn leads to higher yields of end products, such as biofuels, electrical charge, or synthetic chemicals. In an attempt to create charge separated states in de novo proteins we hypothesized that we could engineer the free energy gaps in the proteins from excited primary donor (PD) to acceptor (A), and A back to ground state PD such that the forward electron transfer (ET) would be …

Introduction To Computers And Programming Using Python: A Project-Based Approach, Esma Yildirim, Daniel Garbin, Mathieu Sassolas, Kwang Hyun Kim

Open Educational Resources

Welcome to the “Introduction to Computers and Programming using Python: A Project-based Approach”. This book is designed to teach basic programming skills to students who are new to the field of computing using a project-based learning approach. It has been designed to give freedom to the instructor, both in format and topics ultimately used throughout the course. While we provide 13 turnkey projects, it is only expected that 3 or 4 are used over the course of a semester, and all projects are provided both as textual instructions (the student version of this OER) and Jupyter Notebooks (one with and …

Impacts Of Hurricane Maria On Land And Convection Modification Over Puerto Rico, Nathan Hosannah, Prathap Ramamurthy, J. Marti, Jonathan Munoz, Jorge E. González

Publications and Research

Hurricane Maria drastically altered the landscape across the island of Puerto Rico. This article investigates modifications to surface-atmospheric interactions due to Hurricane Maria induced land damage and the associated impacts on local convective dynamics. Herein, we employed LANDSAT-8 image mosaics to quantify the hurricane induced land modification. Results of the analysis indicate that the island suffered significant forest damage—much of which registered as a 28.35% increase in barren land and a 10.85% increase in pasture. Smaller changes included a decrease in cultivated agricultural land cover by 0.76%, along with wetland and water increases of 0.62% and 0.25%, respectively. Pre and …

Accessibility: Disabilities Treasure Hunt, Devorah Kletenik

Open Educational Resources

This is a treasure hunt game that simulates various disabilities and gives a sense of how frustrating non-accessible content can be for people with disabilities. Suitable for a general audience, no programming experience necessary.

An editable copy is also given, along with ideas about how to make it more accessible.

Floor Plan Assignment In Elementary Mathematics Education, Tunde Jakab

Open Educational Resources

In this upper elementary mathematics education assignment, the prospective teachers gain hands-on experience in measuring distances in feet and inches, calculating areas, and converting distance and area measurements. Moreover, they solve a real-life situation by choosing the most economical tiles for their kitchen. This last part (3) of the assignment develops critical thinking and expressing one's thought processes. Part 3 can be used as an in-class discussion, which further promotes reasoning skills.

Create A New Login Authentication And User Authorization Using Ms Sql Server, Safet Jahaj

Open Educational Resources

The document describes the steps on creating a new login authentication using the mixed mode, and adding user authorizations.

Public Interest Technology – Exploring Covid-19 Health Data, Sarah Zelikovitz

Open Educational Resources

This module is part of a Introduction to Data Science course that covers the different parts of the data science process: data acquisition, cleaning, exploratory data analysis, and modeling. The COVID-19 pandemic has created much interest in public health data, as well as interest in visualization of all types of data. Public health data has a set of challenges that is unique to health data, with HIPAA laws, and real time collection of data. With COVID-19, the challenges are particularly amplified, as data collection and statistics collected are constantly changing in response to feedback from labs, hospitals, drug companies, and …

Dynamics Of The Meromorphic Families $F_\Lambda=\Lambda \Tan^Pz^Q$, Tao Chen, Linda Keen

Publications and Research

This paper continues our investigation of the dynamics of families of transcendental meromorphic functions with finitely many singular values all of which are finite. Here we look at a generalization of the family of polynomials P_a(z) =z^d−1(z−da/(d−1)), the family f_λ=λtan^pz^q. These functions have a super-attractive fixed point, and, depending on p, one or two asymptotic values. Although many of the dynamical properties generalize, the existence of an essential singularity and of poles of multiplicity greater than one implies that significantly different techniques are required here. Adding transcendental methods to standard …

Interdisciplinary Thinking: Financial Literacy Crosses Disciplinary Boundaries, Marla A. Sole

Publications and Research

Financial literacy is ideally suited to be integrated into mathematics courses and taught in an interdisciplinary manner. Students learn best and are motivated when tackling real-world meaningful questions. This article shares how elementary mathematics was applied to better understand the debate about raising the minimum wage and the United States National Debt. To serve as a guide for other teachers who wish to incorporate financial literacy into their mathematics courses and take an interdisciplinary approach, this article suggests readings, data sets, and pedagogical practices. Students were engaged and enthusiastic to work on problems that challenged their thinking about financial issues.

Geol 746: Groundwater Hydrology, Tim Eaton

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Application Of The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation To Develop A Management Plan In The Chittagong Hill Tracts Region Of Bangladesh, Nira Rahman

Theses

Land degradation from soil erosion is a major issue in hilly areas of tropical regions such as the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) of Bangladesh. The combination of an elevated topography, high-intensity storms that are further exacerbated by the impacts of climate change, and farming practices increase the susceptibility of the region to soil erosion. The Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation (RUSLE) was developed in the mid-latitude dry climate zone of the United States during the 1990s to assist soil conservationists in implementing farming strategies that would address soil loss. Since then, researchers employed remote sensing and geographic information systems (GIS) …

Analysis Of Uncertainty In Hydrometeorological Ensemble Forecasts, Carolien N. Mossel

Dissertations and Theses

Ensemble hydrometeorological forecasting has great potential for improving flood predictions and use in water management systems, however, the amount of data used and created with an ensemble forecast requires a careful and intentional approach to understand how useful and skillful the forecast is. The NOAA National Water Model (NWM) was run using downscaled NOAA Global Ensemble Forecast System (GEFS) meteorological forcings for the 2016-2017 wet season (October-March) in California to create an 11-member hydrologic forecast ensemble. To evaluate the performance of these ensemble forecasts, we chose to study streamflow sites within Sonoma County, California, a rain-dominated region which includes the …

Comparison Of Calculated Normal Mode Molecular Vibrations With Experimental Gas-Phase Infrared Spectroscopy, Anila Renis Sutar

Dissertations and Theses

Computational vibrational spectroscopy serves as an important tool in the interpretation of experimental infrared (IR) spectra. Analysis of computational results provides a perspective over broader wavelength ranges and at higher precision. Although there are issues regarding accuracy, this can be approximated by using a scaling factor. High-resolution gas-phase FTIR spectroscopy at a resolution of 0.125 cm^-1 can partially resolve rovibrational transitions in the P, Q, and R bands and therefore identify fundamental frequencies with approximately 1 cm^-1 precision.

This research has compared high-resolution gas-phase FTIR absorption peaks to calculated vibrational frequencies. In the calculation of normal mode frequencies, …

Dynamics Of Transmission In Disordered Topological Insulators, Yuhao Kang, Yiming Huang, Azriel Genack

Publications and Research

Robust transmission in topological insulators makes it possible to steer waves without attenuation along bent paths within imperfectly fabricated photonic devices. But the absence of reflection does not guarantee the fidelity of pulsed transmission which is essential for core photonic functionalities. Pulse transmission is disrupted by localized modes in the bulk of topological insulators which coexist with the continuum edge mode and are pushed deeper into the band gap with increasing disorder. Here we show in simulations of the Haldane model that pulse propagation in disordered topological insulators is robust throughout the central portion of the band gap where localized …

Potential Solar Replacement Of Hydroelectricity To Reopen Rivers: Maine As A Case Example, Shailesh Sharma, John Waldman

Publications and Research

Hydroelectricity provides 6% of U.S. electrical power needs, but hydro-dams also cause environmental harm, including the retardation or complete blockage of spawning runs of anadromous fishes. To facilitate fish movements, engineered-fishways have long been used but many have performed poorly. Dam-removal is the most effective way of restoring dwindling migratory fish populations by allowing unrestricted pathways to their spawning areas and for the downstream migrations of post-spawning adults and juveniles. However, removals of hydro-dams result in a loss of electricity production. For the replacement of energy foregone from hydro-dam removals, various alternative energy installations are now feasible. We present one-to-one …

Topological Terms And Diffeomorphism Anomalies In Fluid Dynamics And Sigma Models, V. Parameswaran Nair

Publications and Research

The requirement of diffeomorphism symmetry for the target space can lead to anomalous commutators for the energy-momentum tensor for sigma models and for fluid dynamics, if certain topological terms are added to the action. We analyze several examples . A particular topological term is shown to lead to the known effective hydrodynamics of a dense collection of vortices, i.e. the vortex fluid theory in 2+1 dimensions. The possibility of a similar vortex fluid in 3+1 dimensions, as well as a fluid of knots and links, with possible extended diffeomorphism algebras is also discussed.

Elementary College Geometry (2021 Ed.), Henry Africk

Open Educational Resources

This text is intended for a brief introductory course in plane geometry. It covers the topics from elementary geometry that are most likely to be required for more advanced mathematics courses. The only prerequisite is a semester of algebra. The emphasis is on applying basic geometric principles to the numerical solution of problems. For this purpose the number of theorems and definitions is kept small. Proofs are short and intuitive, mostly in the style of those found in a typical trigonometry or precalculus text. There is little attempt to teach theorem proving or formal methods of reasoning. However the topics …

Temperature Variance Portends And Indicates The Extent Of Abrupt Climate Shifts, Christine Ramadhin, Chuixiang Yi, George Hendrey

Publications and Research

Here, we show a discernable increase in temperature variance before a glacial termination by both the Ansari-Bradley test and the moving variance methods plus introduce the idea that there is a correlation between the peak variance and peak temperature increase. The behavior of temperature variance shows potential as a useful tool in analyzing time series data of Earth systems to assess the risk and extent of an upcoming abrupt climate transition.

Toward Transformable Photonics: Reversible Deforming Soft Cavities, Controlling Their Resonance Split And Directional Emission, Mark Douvidzon, Shai Maayani, Harel Nagar, Tamir Admon, Vladimir Shuvayev, Lan Yang, Lev Deych, Yael Roichman, Tal Carmon

Publications and Research

We report on reversible and continuously deformable soft micro-resonators and the control of their resonance split and directional emission. Assisted by computerized holographic-tweezers, functioning as an optical deformer of our device, we gradually deform the shape and change the functionality of a droplet whispering-gallery cavity. For example, we continuously deform hexagonal cavities to rectangular ones and demonstrate switching to directionally emitting mode-of-operation, or splitting a resonant mode to a 10-GHz separated doublet. A continuous trend of improving spatial light modulators and tweezers suggests that our method is scalable and can control the shape and functionality of many individual devices. We …

On The Improvements Of Boundary-Layer Representation For High Resolution Weather Forecasting In Costal-Urban Environments, David Melecio-Vazquez

Dissertations and Theses

As large urban centers around the world become more densely populated, the global conversion from natural to man-made land surfaces will only increase. These land-use changes affect the urban surface energy budget which in turn changes the structure of the planetary boundary layer (PBL) above. With current high-performance computing systems, meteorological and built environment information can be better utilized to quantify the anthropogenic effects of these modifications. Although these systems have improved forecasting near-surface weather conditions, a comprehensive approach to represent urban impacts on the PBL is still limited. Improved PBL representation can lead to better weather and climate forecasts, …

Discrete Mathematical Structures, Tugce Ozdemir

Open Educational Resources

No abstract provided.

Goes-R Supervised Machine Learning, Ronald Adomako

Dissertations and Theses

The GOES-R series is a product line of four satellite, with two currently on-orbit (GOES-16 “East” and GOES-17 “West”). GOES-17 is susceptible to a Loop-Heat-Pipe (LHP) phenomenon where during Fall and Spring seasons, there are times of day where some of the infrared bands records inaccurate readings from the Advanced Baseline Imager (ABI). This occurs from joint astronomical behavior and position of the GOES-17. This calibration issue occurs when the LHP instrument fails to radiate the heat of the sun out of ABI. Predictive Calibration (pCal) is an algorithm developed by instrument vendors for the National Oceanic Atmospheric Agency (NOAA) …

Understanding The Effect Of Climate And Hydrometeorological Extremes On Natural And Human-Induced Hydrosystems, Jeongwoo Hwang

Dissertations and Theses

The contemporary hydrosystems of the United States involve a complex combination of natural and modified basins in the presence of changing climate and anthropogenic impacts. An enhanced understanding of the interdependence between climate forcings, human-induced interventions, and water balance in both natural and modified basins are essential for developing reliable and resilient hydrosystems and for better water resources management. In response, this dissertation focuses on investigating the hydroclimatology of natural and modified basins across the contiguous United States. It has three research objectives: (1) to explain flow alterations due to anthropogenic activities, especially dam operations, in modified basins and understand …

Investigating The Effect Of Electrolyte Concentration And Charging Protocol On Materials Utilization In Rechargeable Zinc Manganese Dioxide Batteries, Snehal H. Kolhekar

Dissertations and Theses

Achieving a highly cyclable, high energy density battery with MnO₂ cathodes encounters many obstacles. Chief among these is the inability of the widely-used γ-MnO₂ polymorph to retain its structural integrity when cycled to near full one-electron discharge capacity, which is about 280mAh/g for commercially available electrolytic manganese dioxide (EMD). In this one-electron range, discharge occurs by proton insertion producing Mn⁺³ which then reverts to γ-MnO₂ on charging. In the first part of the thesis, we investigate the root cause of failure of MnO₂ cathodes under deep cycling in the one-electron discharge range and establish a …

Long Term Nutrient And Chlorophyll A Dynamics Across Long Island Sound And Impacts On Dissolved Oxygen Conditions Within The Western Sound (1991-2019), Sherry Perreira

Dissertations and Theses

Nitrogen overload, eutrophication, and hypoxia have been challenging and persistent water quality problems in Long Island Sound (LIS) over the past decades with major impacts on commercial industries, ecology, and recreational activities in the region. Recognizing these problems, the EPA enforced three phases of the Clean Water Act (CWA) to reduce nitrogen loads in an effort to improve this important estuary. This study examines how nitrogen (NH₃, NO_x & TDN), chlorophyll a (CHLA), and dissolved oxygen (DO) concentrations changed in LIS over the past 30 years, in response to water quality regulations as well as changes in …

Polarization Sensitive Imaging Techniques Using Quantum Entangled Qubits, Vitaly Sukharenko

Dissertations and Theses

The aim of this research is to study imaging techniques using quantum entangled qubits. These techniques extract information about the quantum state of two entangled qubits and corelate the degree of entanglement to each pixel. Imaging information of the underlying structure or material is decoded using the reconstruction of the quantum density matrix along with the calculated entanglement and concurrence levels between the two qubits. Reconstruction of a quantum state and quantum state tomography are of increasing importance in quantum information science. Quantum state tomography is used to describe entanglement of trapped ions [1] and photons [2]. Number of experiments …

Adsorption Kinetics And Phase Behavior Of Particles Adsorbed At An Interface, Shaghayegh Darjani

Dissertations and Theses

The ability to predict the adsorption dynamic, phase behavior, and surface pressure of a monolayer of adsorbed particles in two-dimensional systems are key aspects of many current research areas. Examples include phase transitions in amphiphilic monolayers, emulsion stability due to particle adsorption at interfaces, and melting at an interface.

In this thesis, a new approach for deriving the equation of state for a two-dimensional lattice gas is proposed, based on arguments similar to those used in the derivation of the Langmuir-Szyszkowski equation of state for localized adsorption. This work aims to predict the adsorption kinetics and phase behavior of a …