Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Optimal Latin Hypercube Designs For Computer Experiments Based On Multiple Objectives, Ruizhe Hou

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Latin hypercube designs (LHDs) have broad applications in constructing computer experiments and sampling for Monte-Carlo integration due to its nice property of having projections evenly distributed on the univariate distribution of each input variable. The LHDs have been combined with some commonly used computer experimental design criteria to achieve enhanced design performance. For example, the Maximin-LHDs were developed to improve its space-filling property in the full dimension of all input variables. The MaxPro-LHDs were proposed in recent years to obtain nicer projections in any subspace of input variables. This thesis integrates both space-filling and projection characteristics for LHDs and develops …

Quantifying The Effect Of Topographic Slope On Lava Flow Thickness: A First Step To Improve Lava Flow Volume Estimation Methods, Steven R. Rizo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The volume of lava flows provide important information on the magnitude of volcanic eruptions, and accurate volumes are necessary to produce reliable models of lava flow emplacement or constrain the internal structure of volcanoes. The most accurate lava flow volumes are obtainable when the topography before and after an eruption are both known, but information for the topography before lava flow emplacement is absent in non-historic lava flows. To calculate the volume of non-historic lava flows, this pre-emplacement topography needs to be reconstructed. Common methods for this include using inverse distance-weighted averages or global polynomial interpolation methods, but these can …

Reconstructing Historical Hurricane Tracks In The Atlantic Basin: Three Case Studies From The 1840s, Emily L. Cerrito

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Analyzing past tropical cyclone activity enables researchers to recognize patterns of hurricane variability, estimate hurricane return periods, and assess local risk to future storms. This paleotempestology study used original primary data to make the historical record as comprehensive and accurate as possible for three major hurricanes: October 1844, October 1846, and September 1848. This thesis presents the reconstructed storm tracks, assesses the societal impacts, and evaluates the storm intensity of these three major hurricanes for the eastern U.S. and Cuba. The data utilized in this study include ship logbooks, newspapers, diaries, and instrumental meteorological records. A geographic information system (GIS) …

A Point Cloud Approach To Object Slicing For 3d Printing, William Edward Oropallo Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Various industries have embraced 3D printing for manufacturing on-demand, custom printed parts. However, 3D printing requires intelligent data processing and algorithms to go from CAD model to machine instructions. One of the most crucial steps in the process is the slicing of the object. Most 3D printers build parts by accumulating material layers by layer. 3D printing software needs to calculate these layers for manufacturing by slicing a model and calculating the intersections. Finding exact solutions of intersections on the original model is mathematically complicated and computationally demanding. A preprocessing stage of tessellation has become the standard practice for slicing …

Parallelizing Tabu Search Based Optimization Algorithm On Gpus, Vinaya Malleypally

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There are many combinatorial optimization problems such as traveling salesman problem, quadratic-assignment problem, flow shop scheduling, that are computationally intractable. Tabu search based simulated annealing is a stochastic search algorithm that is widely used to solve combinatorial optimization problems. Due to excessive run time, there is a strong demand for a parallel version that can be applied to any problem with minimal modifications. Existing advanced and/or parallel versions of tabu search algorithms are specific to the problem at hand. This leads to a drawback of optimization only for that particular problem. In this work, we propose a parallel version of …

Supported Perovskite-Type Oxides: Establishing A Foundation For Co2 Conversion Through Reverse Water-Gas Shift Chemical Looping, Bryan J. Hare

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Perovskite-type oxides show irrefutable potential for feasible thermochemical solar-driven CO₂ conversion. These materials exhibit the exact characteristics required by the low temperature reverse water-gas shift chemical looping process. These properties include structural endurance and high oxygen redox capacity, which results in the formation of numerous oxygen vacancies, or active sites for CO₂ conversion. A major drawback is the decrease in oxygen self-diffusion with increasing perovskite particle size. In this study, the La_0.75Sr_0.25FeO₃ (LSF) perovskite oxide was combined with various supports including popular redox materials CeO₂ and ZrO₂ along with more abundant …

Design And Implementation Of A Ferrocement Improved Cookstove In Rural Panama, Josh Donegan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Household air pollution contributes to the premature death of more than 4 million people annually. Improved cookstoves are one technological intervention that can potentially reduce exposure to household air pollution. However, improved cookstove implementation programs need to consider measures to increase sustainability and promote long-term adoption. The objectives of this research were 1) to develop and implement a new ferrocement cookstove for Peña Blanca, a rural indigenous community in the Ngäbe-Bugle region of Panama, 2) to evaluate its potential sustainability in comparison to the most common cooking technologies observed in the community, 3) to prepare a construction manual for the …

New Records Of Guano-Associated Minerals From Caves In Northwestern Borneo, Donald A. Mcfarlane, Joyce Lundberg

International Journal of Speleology

Recent studies of ancient bat guano deposits in the caves of Gunung Mulu National Park and Niah National Park, Sarawak, Malaysia, have resulted in noteworthy records of phosphate minerals from these environments, including variscite, nano-particulate silica, fluorapatite, and niter.

Effectiveness Of Biocide Substitution And Management Plan Implementation For The Control Of, Adelmarie Bones

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

After the notorious outbreak and discovery of Legionella bacteria in 1976, the waterborne pathogen was added to the list of disease-causing agents associated with the built environment. Legionella pneumophila was discovered when it was identified as the agent that caused 34 deaths and an outbreak of pneumonia-like symptoms in several attendees of the 1976 American Legion Convention held in Philadelphia (OSHA, 2017).

Recently published data from the year 2015 reported more than 6,000 Legionnaires’ cases identified in the United States (CDC, 2016). This is a concerning number given that one in every ten infected persons will die of the disease. …

Synthesis: Plutons: Investigating The Relationship Between Pluton Growth And Volcanism In The Central Andes, M. E. Pritchard, S. L. De Silva, G. Michelfelder, G. Zandt, Stephen R. Mcnutt

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The Central Andes is a key global location to study the enigmatic relation between volcanism and plutonism because it has been the site of large ignimbrite-forming eruptions during the past several million years and currently hosts the world’s largest zone of silicic partial melt in the form of the Altiplano-Puna Magma (or Mush) Body (APMB) and the Southern Puna Magma Body (SPMB). In this themed issue, results from the recently completed PLUTONS project are synthesized. This project focused an interdisciplinary study on two regions of large-scale surface uplift that have been found to represent ongoing movement of magmatic fluids in …

Angiostrongylus Cantonensis: Epidemiologic Review, Location-Specific Habitat Modelling, And Surveillance In Hillsborough County, Florida, U.S.A., Brad Christian Perich

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Angiostrongylus cantonensis is a parasitic nematode endemic to tropical and subtropical regions and is the leading cause of human eosinophilic meningitis. The parasite is commonly known as rat lungworm because the primary host in its lifecycle is the rat. A clinical overview of rat lungworm infection is presented, followed by a literature review of rat lungworm epidemiology, risk factors, and surveillance projects. Data collected from previous snail surveys in Florida was considered alongside elevation, population per square kilometer, median household income by zip code territory, and normalized difference vegetation index specific to the geographic coordinates from which the snail samples …

City Of Tampa Tree Canopy And Urban Forest Analysis 2016, Shawn M. Landry, Andrew K. Koeser, Robert J. Northrop, Drew Mclean, Geoffrey Donovan, Michael G. Andreu, Deborah Hilbert

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Strategies To Adjust For Response Bias In Clinical Trials: A Simulation Study, Victoria R. Swaidan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Background: Response bias can distort treatment effect estimates and inferences in clinical trials. Although prevention, quantification, and adjustments have been developed, current methods are not applicable when subject-level reliability is used as the measure of response bias. Thus, the objective of the current study is to develop, test, and recommend a series of bias correction strategies for use in these cases. Methods: Monte Carlo simulation and logistic regression modeling were used to develop the strategies, examining the collective impact of sample size (N), effect size (ES), reliability distribution, and response style on estimating the treatment effect size in a series …

Caves As Observatories For Atmospheric Thermal Tides: An Example From Ascunsă Cave, Romania, Virgil Drăgușin, Laura Tîrlă, Nicoleta Cadicheanu, Vasile Ersek, Ionuț Mirea

International Journal of Speleology

As part of a microclimate study at Ascunsă Cave, Romania, we used Gemini Tinytag Plus 2 data loggers to record cave air temperature variability. At one of the monitoring points we recognized the presence of semidiurnal cycles on the order of a few thousands of a degree Celsius that could be produced under the influence of the semidiurnal tidal components of the Sun (S₂) or the Moon (M₂). Using a Gemini Tinytag Plus 2 data logger with an external probe we measured core rock temperature and showed that it does not influence the cave air temperature …

First Assessment On The Air Co2 Dynamic In The Show Caves Of Tropical Karst, Vietnam, Duc A. Trinh, Quan H. Trinh, Angel Fernández-Cortés, David Mattey, Javier G. Guinea

International Journal of Speleology

In this study, air, water, and host rock in show caves in a Vietnam’s karst region was monitored and analyzed to identify the ventilation regime and track the cave air CO₂ sources. In general, the studied caves are well ventilated. In dynamic – multiple entrance caves, air ventilation is described with the use of U shape model. In static – single entrance cave, air circulation is explained by cold air trap model. Both ventilation models suggest that air is more circulated in winter than in summer. Seasonally, the cave air CO₂ increases from early spring to summer. Value …

Spatiotemporal Change Patterns Of Coastlines In Zhejiang Province, China, Over The Last Twenty-Five Years, Jialin Li, Mengyao Ye, Ruiliang Pu, Yongchao Liu, Qiandong Guo, Baixiang Feng, Ripeng Huang, Gaili He

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Spatiotemporal analysis of coastline land utilization is important for strengthening coastline resource management and promoting sustainable development in coastal zones. In this study, basic spatiotemporal characteristics of coastline land utilization in Zhejiang Province, China, were analyzed using remote sensing (RS) and GIS techniques. For this case, Landsat Thematic Mapper and Operational Land Imager remote-sensing image data acquired from 1990 to 2015 were collected and processed. Several indices and metrics used for quantifying and analyzing the coastline utilization in Zhejiang Province were defined and calculated through processing remote sensing data and using GIS tools. They included the intensity index of coastline …

Assessing The Impacts Of Climate Change On Streamflow And Reservoir Operation In Central Florida, Toni Panaou

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Climate change is a global concern as it may affect many aspects of life, including water supply. A tool used to model climate change’s impacts is called a General Circulation Model (GCM). GCMs project future scenarios including temperature and precipitation, but these are designed at a coarse resolution and require downscaling for employment for regional hydrologic modeling. There is a vast amount of research on downscaling and bias-correcting GCMs data, but it is unknown whether these techniques alter precipitation signals embedded in these models or reproduce climate states that are viable for water resource planning and management. Using the Tampa, …

Review Of Painting By Numbers By Jason Makansi, Thomas J. Pfaff

Numeracy

Makansi, Jason. 2016. Painting By Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the "Experts." (Tucson, AZ: Layla Dog Press, 2016). 196 pp. ISBN 978-0-9984259-0-0.

In Painting by Numbers Jason Makansi adds another book to the quantitative literacy bookshelf, with a book focusing on models. The book offers twelve commandments to aid the reader in assess quantitative models. The second section of the book offers examples to apply the models. Increasing quantitative literacy is crucial and generally, the more books the better. Unfortunately, this book is too superficial, often misses key ideas, and can easily lead a person …

Life, The Universe, And Numeracy: Review Of A Numerate Life By John Allen Paulos (2015), Kira H. Hamman

Numeracy

John Allen Paulos. 2015. A Numerate Life: A Mathematician Explores the Vagaries of Life, His Own and Probably Yours (Buffalo, NY: Prometheus Books) 200 pp. ISBN: 978-1633881181

John Allen Paulos, author of Innumeracy and many other books addressing quantitative literacy and numeracy in society, tackles autobiography in this quirky "anti-memoir."

Models As Weapons: Review Of Weapons Of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality And Threatens Democracy By Cathy O’Neil (2016), Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

Cathy O’Neil. 2016. Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy (New York, NY: Crown) 272 pp. ISBN 978-0553418811.

Accessible to a wide readership, Cathy O’Neil’s Weapons of Math Destruction: How Big Data Increases Inequality and Threatens Democracy provides a lucid yet alarming account of the extensive reach of mathematical models in influencing all of our lives. With a particular eye towards social justice, O’Neil not only warns modelers to be cognizant of the effects of their work on real people—especially vulnerable groups who have less power to fight back—but also encourages laypersons to take initiative …

Why I Believe People Need Painting By Numbers, Jason Makansi

Numeracy

Jason Makansi.2016. Painting By Numbers: How to Sharpen Your BS Detector and Smoke Out the Experts (Tucson AZ: Layla Dog Press). 196 pp. ISBN 978-0998425900.

This piece briefly introduces my Painting By Numbers, which aims to take the core messages of the QL/QR community from academic and professional circles to the rest of the citizenry. I describe the book in the context of the critical need for the most basic numeracy tools to help consumers of news, information, and analysis—delivered through traditional and contemporary social media outlets—determine where a reported numerical result lies on the scale from utter nonsense …

A Few Reflections On A Numerate Life, John Allen Paulos

Numeracy

John Allen Paulos. 2015. A Numerate Life: A Mathematician Explores the Vagaries of Life, His Own and Probably Yours (Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books). 200 pp. ISBN 978-1633881181.

This piece briefly introduces and excerpts A Numerate Life: A Mathematician Explores the Vagaries of Life, His Own and Probably Yours, written by John Allen Paulos and published by Prometheus Books. The book shares observations on life—many biographical—from the perspective of a numerate mathematician. The excerpt uses basic statistical reasoning to explore why we should expect that being odd is a most normal experience.

Math Course For Liberal Arts Majors: A Pilot With Embedded Remediation, Eileen B. Perez, Hansun To, Mary Fowler, Linda Larrivee

Numeracy

This study was designed to determine if embedded remediation is significant in accelerating the pathway to completion of a college-level math course for students needing remediation. The project studied the impact on student success in a quantitative literacy course at a Massachusetts four-year state university with remedial material embedded. The course satisfies the university’s general education math requirement for students with liberal arts majors who are not required to complete college algebra or calculus-based courses. The paper begins with a presentation of the issues with remedial mathematics and its impact on students’ graduation and persistence. Next, the paper covers the …

Quantitative Map Literacy: A Cross Between Map Literacy And Quantitative Literacy, Ming Xie, H. L. Vacher, Steven Reader, Elizabeth Walton

Numeracy

We define quantitative map literacy (QML), a cross between map literacy and quantitative literacy (QL), as the concepts and skills required to accurately read, use, interpret, and understand the quantitative information embedded in a geospatial representation of data on a geographic background. Long used as tools in technical geographic fields, maps are now a common vehicle for communicating quantitative information to the public. As such, QML has potential to stand alongside health numeracy and financial literacy as an identifiable subdomain of transdisciplinary QL.

What concepts and skills are crucial for QML? The obvious answer is, “It depends on the type …

Quantitative Reasoning: A Guided Pathway From Two- To Four-Year Colleges, Eric Gaze

Numeracy

In this editorial, I place the Quantitative Reasoning (QR) movement within the national context of math pathways and the broader Guided Pathways initiative. Community colleges in particular are experiencing a radical re-envisioning of their math requirements. Thoughtful reflection on the communication and computation needs of their students for the 21^st century has led to state-wide adoption of QR curricula as an alternative pathway to the traditional College Algebra route. These Guided Pathways have shown great promise in boosting graduation rates and addressing equity and the achievement gap for our most vulnerable, first-generation, low-income students.

Polycrystalline Silicon Solar Module Power Max, Jaynil Patel

Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two

In recent years solar energy has started to make its impact in the sunshine state. The solar panels are made up of photovoltaic cells, which convert the sun’s rays into electricity. One of the ways to improve solar panel efficiency is to increase the power output of a solar collector. The maximum power is calculated by determining the maximum power for voltage and the current. This is done by adding the maximum values for the equation for power and then using differentiation. After the maximum values are found for each hour of the day from sunset to noon, each individual …

Volcanic Unrest And Hazard Communication In Long Valley Volcanic Region, California, David P. Hill, Margaret T. Mangan, Stephen R. Mcnutt

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The onset of volcanic unrest in Long Valley Caldera, California, in 1980 and the subsequent fluctuations in unrest levels through May 2016 illustrate: (1) the evolving relations between scientists monitoring the unrest and studying the underlying tectonic/magmatic processes and their implications for geologic hazards, and (2) the challenges in communicating the significance of the hazards to the public and civil authorities in a mountain resort setting. Circumstances special to this case include (1) the sensitivity of an isolated resort area to media hype of potential high-impact volcanic and earthquake hazards and its impact on potential recreational visitors and the local …

Assessing Effects Of Horizontal And Vertical Urban Vegetation Structures On Land Surface Temperature Using Multisensor Remote Sensing Data, Qiuyan Yu, Shawn M. Landry

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Archean Phosphorus Liberation Induced By Iron Redox Geochemistry, Barry Herschy, Sae Jung Chang, Ruth Blake, Aivo Lepland, Heather Abbott-Lyon, Jacqueline Sampson, Zachary Atlas, Terence P. Kee, Matthew A. Pasek

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The element phosphorus (P) is central to ecosystem growth and is proposed to be a limiting nutrient for life. The Archean ocean may have been strongly phosphorus-limited due to the selective binding of phosphate to iron oxyhydroxide. Here we report a new route to solubilizing phosphorus in the ancient oceans: reduction of phosphate to phosphite by iron(II) at low (°C) diagenetic temperatures. Reduction of phosphate to phosphite was likely widespread in the Archean, as the reaction occurs rapidly and is demonstrated from thermochemical modeling, experimental analogs, and detection of phosphite in early Archean rocks. We further demonstrate that the higher …

Tsunami Waves, Samantha Pennino

Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two

Predicting the travel time of tsunami waves is imperative to the safety and well-being of possibly affected communities since tsunami waves can happen incredibly fast. So, knowing how long an area is until a tsunami approaches dramatically helps with mitigation strategies. As an example we calculate the travel time of a tsunami wave to Somalia and Sri-Lanka that flowed an earthquake in 2004 in the Indian ocean off the coast of Sumatra. This is done by using the velocity from the shallow wave equation of the waves and piecewise integration.