Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Counter Machines And Crystallographic Structures, Natasha Jonoska, Mile Krajcevski, Gregory Mccolm

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

One way to depict a crystallographic structure is by a periodic (di)graph, i.e., a graph whose group of automorphisms has a translational subgroup of finite index acting freely on the structure. We establish a relationship between periodic graphs representing crystallographic structures and an infinite hierarchy of intersection languages DCL_d,d=0,1,2,…, within the intersection classes of deterministic context-free languages. We introduce a class of counter machines that accept these languages, where the machines with d counters recognize the class DCL_d. An intersection of d languages in DCL₁ defines DCL_d. We prove that there is …

Creation Of A New Type Of Ion Exchange Material For Rapid, High-Capacity, Reversible And Selective Ion Exchange Without Swelling And Entrainment, Baiyan Li, Yiming Zhang, Dingxuan Ma, Zhenyu Xing, Tianliang Ma, Zhan Shi, Xiulei Ji, Shengqian Ma

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Ion-exchange materials, currently dominated by resins, are widely used in a plethora of areas. However, the drawbacks of conventional resins necessitate the creation of a new model of ion exchange materials that feature controllable swelling, easily accessible ion exchange sites, high ion exchange capacity, fast ion exchange kinetics, and high chemical stability as illustrated herein in the context of functionalizing a porous organic polymer (POP) with ion exchange groups. The advantages of POP-based ion exchange materials in comparison with conventional resins and other types of ion exchange materials have been highlighted through an evaluation of their performances in scavenging precious …

U-Pb Dating Of Speleogenetic Dolomite: A New Sulfuric Acid Speleogenesis Chronometer, Victor J. Polyak, Paula P. Provencio, Yemane Asmerom

International Journal of Speleology

The 1100-meter Big Room elevation level of Carlsbad Cavern, New Mexico USA, formed 4 Ma by hypogenic sulfuric acid speleogenesis (SAS). The age of the Big Room level of 4.0 ± 0.2 Ma was previously determined by dating alunite, a byproduct of speleogenesis, using the ⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar method. Duplication of these results is possible by radiometric dating of other byproducts interpreted to be speleogenetic (a byproduct of speleogenesis) such as calcite and dolomite in certain settings. XRD and TEM analyses of sample 94044, a piece of crust collected within the Big Room level of SAS just below Left …

Chemical Investigation Of Antarctic Marine Organisms & Their Role In Modern Drug Discovery, Jacqueline Lee Fries

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The chemicals produced by biological systems, whether proteins, peptides, or terpenes, will always provide an intriguing topic for researchers. Invisibly controlling every aspect of nature, these molecules are responsible for life, evolution, and death. Specifically, here is described the secondary metabolites produced by Antarctic marine organisms as well as others, and how they are used to defend or attract other animals while potentially providing health benefits to mankind. This is done through collection, extraction, and separation of individual specimens. The respective mixtures of compounds after isolation are then analyzed via spectroscopic methods such as nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy, mass spectrometry, …

Synchronicity Between Ice Retreat And Phytoplankton Bloom In Circum‐Antarctic Polynyas, Yun Li, Rubao Ji, Meibing Jin, Julienne Stroeve

Marine Science Faculty Publications

Phytoplankton in Antarctic coastal polynyas has a temporally short yet spatially variant growth window constrained by ice cover and day length. Using 18‐year satellite measurements (1997–2015) of sea ice and chlorophyll concentrations, we assessed the synchronicity between the spring phytoplankton bloom and light availability, taking into account the ice cover and the incident solar irradiance, for 50 circum‐Antarctic coastal polynyas. The synchronicity was strong (i.e., earlier ice‐adjusted light onset leads to earlier bloom and vice versa) in most of the western Antarctic polynyas but weak in a majority of the eastern Antarctic polynyas. The west‐east asymmetry is related to sea …

The Hominin Sites And Paleolakes Drilling Project: Inferring The Environmental Context Of Human Evolution From Eastern African Rift Lake Deposits, Jonathan Wynn, J. N. Wilson

Geology Faculty Publications

The role that climate and environmental history may have played in influencing human evolution has been the focus of considerable interest and controversy among paleoanthropologists for decades. Prior attempts to understand the environmental history side of this equation have centered around the study of outcrop sediments and fossils adjacent to where fossil hominins (ancestors or close relatives of modern humans) are found, or from the study of deep sea drill cores. However, outcrop sediments are often highly weathered and thus are unsuitable for some types of paleoclimatic records, and deep sea core records come from long distances away from the …

Impaired Mitochondrial Function Due To Familial Alzheimers Disease-Causing Presenilins Mutants Via Calcium Disruptions, Patrick T. Toglia, King-Ho Cheung, Don-On Daniel Mak, Ghamim Ullah

Physics Faculty Publications

Muatans in presenilins (PS1 or PS2) is the major cause of Familial Alzheimer's disease (FAD). FAD causing PS mutants affect intracellular Ca²⁺ ([Ca²⁺]_i) homeostasis by enhancing the gating of inositol trisphosphate (IP₃) receptor (IP₃R) Ca²⁺ release channels on the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), leading to exaggerated Ca²⁺ release into the cytoplasm (Cheung et al., Neuron 2008:871, Sci. Signal 2010:ra22). Using experimental IP₃R-mediated Ca²⁺ release data, in conjunction with a computational model of cell bioenergetics (Cortassa et al., Biophys. J. 2003:2734, 2004:2067), we explore how the differences in …

Label Noise Cleaning Using Support Vector Machines, Rajmadhan Ekambaram

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Mislabeled examples affect the performance of supervised learning algorithms. Two novel approaches to this problem are presented in this Thesis. Both methods build on the hypothesis that the large margin and the soft margin principles of support vector machines provide the characteristics to select mislabeled examples. Extensive experimental results on several datasets support this hypothesis. The support vectors of the one-class and two-class SVM classifiers captures around 85% and 99% of the randomly generated label noise examples (10% of the training data) on two character recognition datasets. The numbers of examples that need to be reviewed can be reduced by …

Design, Synthesis And Screening Of Peptidomimetics For Anticancer And Antiviral Drug Candidates, Yi Liang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The high demand of novel peptide and peptidomimetics based on the amount of genomic and proteomic data need be matched by synthesis and screening. The design and synthesis of peptide and peptidomimetics are so important because the peptide and protein-protein interaction play a key role in molecule recognition and signaling. The modified peptides have better stability and pharmacokinetic properties which may be guided by rational design and molecular modeling. Now many organic and medicinal chemists have chosen peptide and peptidomimetics as potential drug candidates for many targets.

In this dissertation, research efforts in design and synthesis of cyclic peptides with …

New Urjc-1 Material With Remarkable Stability And Acid-Base Catalytic Properties, Pedro Leo, Ferdnando Martinez, Guillermo Calleja, David Briones, Lukasz Wojtas

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Emerging new metal-organic structures with tunable physicochemical properties is an exciting research field for diverse applications. In this work, a novel metal-organic framework Cu(HIT)(DMF)_0.5, named URJC-1, with a three-dimensional non-interpenetrated utp topological network, has been synthesized. This material exhibits a microporous structure with unsaturated copper centers and imidazole–tetrazole linkages that provide accessible Lewis acid/base sites. These features make URJC-1 an exceptional candidate for catalytic application in acid and base reactions of interest in fine chemistry. The URJC-1 material also displays a noteworthy thermal and chemical stability in different organic solvents of different polarity and boiling water. Its catalytic …

Ultra‐Long‐Range Hydroacoustic Observations Of Submarine Volcanic Activity At Monowai, Kermadec Arc, D. Metz, A. B. Watts, I. Grevemeyer, Mel Rodgers, M. Paulatto

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Monowai is an active submarine volcanic center in the Kermadec Arc, Southwest Pacific Ocean. During May 2011, it erupted over a period of 5 days, with explosive activity directly linked to the generation of seismoacoustic T phases. We show, using cross‐correlation and time‐difference‐of‐arrival techniques, that the eruption is detected as far as Ascension Island, equatorial South Atlantic Ocean, where a bottom moored hydrophone array is operated as part of the International Monitoring System of the Comprehensive Nuclear‐Test‐Ban Treaty Organization. Hydroacoustic phases from the volcanic center must therefore have propagated through the Sound Fixing and Ranging channel in the South Pacific …

Ehugs: Enhanced Hierarchical Unbiased Graph Shrinkage For Efficient Groupwise Registration, Guorong Wu, Xuewei Peng, Shihui Ying, Qian Wang, Pew-Thian Yap, Dan Shen, Dinggang Shen

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Effective and efficient spatial normalization of a large population of brain images is critical for many clinical and research studies, but it is technically very challenging. A commonly used approach is to choose a certain image as the template and then align all other images in the population to this template by applying pairwise registration. To avoid the potential bias induced by the inappropriate template selection, groupwise registration methods have been proposed to simultaneously register all images to a latent common space. However, current groupwise registration methods do not make full use of image distribution information for more accurate registration. …

Scaling Law For Electrocaloric Temperature Change In Antiferroelectrics, Sergey Lisenkov, B. K. Mani, E. Glazkova, C. W. Miller, Inna Ponomareva

Physics Faculty Publications

A combination of theoretical and first-principles computational methods, along with experimental evidence from the literature, were used to predict the existence of a scaling law for the electrocaloric temperature change in antiferroelectric materials. We show that the temperature change scales quadratically with electric field, allowing a simple transformation to collapse the set of ΔT(E) onto a single curve. This offers a unique method that can be used to predict electrocaloric behavior beyond the limits of present measurement ranges or in regions where data are not yet available.

A Decade Of Modern Cave Surveying With Terrestrial Laser Scanning: A Review Of Sensors, Method And Application Development, Idrees Mohammed Oludare, Biswajeet Pradhan

International Journal of Speleology

During the last decade, the need to survey and model caves or caverns in their correct three-dimensional geometry has increased due to two major competing motivations. One is the emergence of medium and long range terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) technology that can collect high point density with unprecedented accuracy and speed, and two, the expanding sphere of multidisciplinary research in understanding the origin and development of cave, called speleogenesis. Accurate surveying of caves has always been fundamental to understanding their origin and processes that lead to their current state and as well provide tools and information to predict future. Several …

Parts Of The Whole: Teaching Quantitative Reasoning In The Predator-Prey Model, Dorothy Wallace

Numeracy

The classical predator-prey equations are in nearly every differential equations text and mathematical biology text. Usually they are presented fait accompli, leaving the student to analyze them or play with a computer program. Here we show that the process of fully understanding where these equations come from and how they are derived provides numerous opportunities to teach or reinforce quantitative reasoning skills necessary to future scientists. This example is used to invoke logic, systems thinking, causal reasoning, understanding functions of one or more variables, quantities versus rates of change, proportional reasoning, unit analysis, and comparison to data.

Open Access!: Review Of Online Statistics: An Interactive Multimedia Course Of Study By David Lane, Samuel L. Tunstall

Numeracy

David M. Lane (project leader). Online Statistics Education: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study (http://onlinestatbook.com/)
Also: David M. Lane (primary author and editor), with David Scott, Mikki Hebl, Rudy Guerra, Dan Osherson, and Heidi Zimmer. Introduction to Statistics. Online edition (http://onlinestatbook.com/Online_Statistics_Education.pdf), 694 pp.

It is rare that students receive high-quality textbooks for free, but David Lane's Online Statistics: An Interactive Multimedia Course of Study permits precisely that. This review gives an overview of the many features in Lane's online textbook, including the Java Applets, the textbook itself, and the resources available for instructors. A discussion …

Infographics As Eye Candy: Review Of World War Ii In Numbers: An Infographic Guide To The Conflict, Its Conduct, And Its Casualties By Peter Doyle (2013), Joel Best

Numeracy

Peter Doyle. World War II in Numbers: An Infographic Guide to the Conflict, Its Conduct, and Its Casualties, illustrated by Lindsey Johns (Buffalo NY: Firefly Books, 2013). 224 pp. ISBN: 177085195X.

Doyle’s book contains dozens of graphs of statistical data dealing with World War II. Many of these graphs are visually striking. However, they often violate fundamental graphing principles, in that they distort quantitative relationships, use unidentified scales, and often make it difficult to compare quantities. Graphic software makes it easy to create imaginative images, but these can fail to communicate the very information that is the graph’s purpose.

Applied Mathematics In The Humanities: Review Of Nonparametric Statistics For The Behavioral Sciences By Sidney Siegel And N. John Castellan, Jr. (2nd Ed., 1988), Paul H. Grawe

Numeracy

Sydney Siegel and N. John Castellan, Jr. Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, Second Edition (New York NY: McGraw Hill, 1988). 399 pp. ISBN: 9780070573574.

Almost 60 years ago, Sidney Siegel wrote a stellar book helping anyone in academe to use nonparametric statistics, but ironically, 60 years after that achievement, American higher education confesses itself to be in the worst Quantitative Teaching Crisis of all time. The key clue to solving that crisis may be in Siegel and Castellan’s title, Nonparametric Statistics for the Behavioral Sciences, which quietly and perhaps unconsciously excludes the Humanities.

Yet it is in humanistic …

Random Number Simulations Reveal How Random Noise Affects The Measurements And Graphical Portrayals Of Self-Assessed Competency, Edward Nuhfer, Christopher Cogan, Steven Fleisher, Eric Gaze, Karl Wirth

Numeracy

Self-assessment measures of competency are blends of an authentic self-assessment signal that researchers seek to measure and random disorder or "noise" that accompanies that signal. In this study, we use random number simulations to explore how random noise affects critical aspects of self-assessment investigations: reliability, correlation, critical sample size, and the graphical representations of self-assessment data. We show that graphical conventions common in the self-assessment literature introduce artifacts that invite misinterpretation. Troublesome conventions include: (y minus x) vs. (x) scatterplots; (y minus x) vs. (x) column graphs aggregated as quantiles; line …

Remembering Lynn Steen: A Steen-Numeracy Citation Index (2008-2015), H. L. Vacher

Numeracy

This editorial memorializes Lynn Arthur Steen (1941-2015) with a bibliographic resource that indexes all of his writings (papers, books, edited volumes, and papers contained therein) that are cited in papers in Numeracy. The citation index contains 67 cited works, each accompanied with a list of linked Numeracy papers that cite them. All told, there are 68 such citing papers (called sources); they cite the 67 cited works a total of 290 times and are listed alphabetically in a source index with links. The paired citation and source indexes provide a vehicle for easy browsing by which those familiar with …

Effects Of Nutrient Supplementation On Host-Pathogen Dynamics Of The Amphibian Chytrid Fungus: A Community Approach, Julia C. Buck, Jason R. Rohr, Andrew R. Blaustein

Integrative Biology Faculty and Staff Publications

1. Anthropogenic stressors may influence hosts and their pathogens directly or may alter host–pathogen dynamics indirectly through interactions with other species. For example, in aquatic ecosystems, eutrophication may be associated with increased or decreased disease risk. Conversely, pathogens can influence community structure and function and are increasingly recognised as important members of the ecological communities in which they exist.
2. In outdoor mesocosms, we experimentally manipulated nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus) and the presence of a fungal pathogen, Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd), and examined the effects on Bd abundance on larval amphibian hosts (Pseudacris regilla: Hylidae), amphibian traits and community dynamics. We …

Electrical Efficiency Of A Solar Cell, Johnnie Cairns

Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two

Our goal was to determine the electrical efficiency of a solar cell, specifically a CuInGaSe2 solar cell. Solar cells work by converting energy from the sun in the form of photons to electrical energy in the form of electrons. However, the solar energy converted into electrical energy is limited by a property of solar cells called the quantum efficiency. The quantum efficiency of a solar cell is the fraction of photons hitting the cell that are converted into electrons; quantum efficiency varies as a function of wavelength. Another key component which also varies as a function of wavelength is spectral …

Assessment In Mathematics Education: Large-Scale Assessment And Classroom Assessment, Christine Suurtamm, Denisse R. Thompson, Rae Y. Kim, Leonora D. Moreno, Nathalie Sayac, Edward Silver, Stefan Ufer, Pauline Vos

Teaching and Learning Faculty Publications

This volume draws on research to discuss these topics and highlights some of the differences in terms of challenges, issues, constraints, and affordances that accompany large-scale and classroom assessment in mathematics education as well as some of the commonalities.

Geographically Isolated Wetlands Are Part Of The Hydrological Landscape, Mark Rains, S. G. Leibowitz, M. J. Cohen, I. F. Creed, H. E. Golden, J. W. Jawitz, P. Kalla, C. R. Lane, M. W. Lang, D. L. Mclaughlin

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

Volcanic Lightning In Eruptions Of Sakurajima Volcano, Harald E. Edens, Ronald J. Thomas, Sonja A. Behnke, Stephen R. Mcnutt, Cassandra M. Smith, Alexandra Farrell, Alexa R. Van Eaton, Corrado Cimarelli, Valeria Cigala, Ken Eack, Graydon Aulich, Christopher Michael, Daisuke Miki, Masato Iguchi

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

In May 2015 a field program was undertaken to study volcanic lightning at the Sakurajima volcano in southern Japan. One of the main goals of the study was to gain a better understanding of small electrical discharges in volcanic eruptions, expanding on our earlier studies of volcanic lightning at Augustine and Redoubt volcanoes in Alaska, USA, and Eyjafjallajökull in Iceland. In typical volcanic eruptions, electrical activity occurs at the onset of an eruption as a near-continual production of VHF emissions at or near to the volcanic vent. These emissions can occur at rates of up to tens of thousands of …

Recent Increases In Arctic Freshwater Flux Affects Labrador Sea Convection And Atlantic Overturning Circulation, Qian Yang, Tim Dixon, Paul G. Myers, Jennifer Bonin, Don Chambers, M.R. Van Den Broeke, Mads H. Ribergaard, John Mortensen

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) is an important component of ocean thermohaline circulation. Melting of Greenland’s ice sheet is freshening the North Atlantic; however, whether the augmented freshwater flux is disrupting the AMOC is unclear. Dense Labrador Sea Water (LSW), formed by winter cooling of saline North Atlantic water and subsequent convection, is a key component of the deep southward return flow of the AMOC. Although LSW formation recently decreased, it also reached historically high values in the mid-1990s, making the connection to the freshwater flux unclear. Here we derive a new estimate of the recent freshwater flux from …

Thin Insb Layers With Metallic Gratings: A Novel Platform For Spectrally-Selective Thz Plasmonic Sensing, Shuai Lin, Khagendra Bhattarai, Jiangfeng Zhou, Diyar Talbayev

Physics Faculty Publications

We present a computational study of terahertz optical properties of a grating-coupled plasmonic structure based on micrometer-thin InSb layers. We find two strong absorption resonances that we interpret as standing surface plasmon modes and investigate their dispersion relations, dependence on InSb thickness, and the spatial distribution of the electric field. The observed surface plasmon modes are well described by a simple theory of the air/InSb/air tri-layer. The plasmonic response of the grating/InSb structure is highly sensitive to the dielectric environment and the presence of an analyte (e.g., lactose) at the InSb interface, which is promising for terahertz plasmonic sensor applications. …

Role Of Exponential Type Random Invexities For Asymptotically Sufficient Efficiency Conditions In Semi-Infinite Multi-Objective Fractional Programming, Ram U. Verma, Youngsoo Seol

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

First a new notion of the random exponential Hanson–Antczak type (α, β, ν, ε, η, ρ, h(∙,∙,∙), θ)-V-invexity is introduced, which generalizes most of the existing notions in the literature, second a random function h(∙,∙,∙) of the second order is defined, and finally a class of asymptotically sufficient efficiency conditions in semi-infinite multi-objective fractional programming is established. Furthermore, several sets of asymptotic sufficiency results in which various generalized exponential type HA(α, β, γ, ε, η, ρ, h(∙,∙,∙), θ)-V-invexity assumptions are imposed on certain vector functions whose components are the individual as well as some …

Cooling Achieved By Rotating An Anisotropic Superconductor In A Constant Magnetic Field: An New Perspective, Manh-Huong Phan, David Mandrus

Physics Faculty Publications

A new type of rotary coolers based on the temperature change (ΔT_rot) of an anisotropic superconductor when rotated in a constant magnetic field is proposed. We show that at low temperature the Sommerfeld coefficient γ(B,Θ) of a single crystalline superconductor, such as MgB2 and NbS2, sensitively depends on the applied magnetic field (B) and the orientation of the crystal axis (Θ), which is related to the electronic entropy (S_E) and temperature (T) via the expression: S_E=γT. A simple rotation of the crystal from one …

Encrustation Of Inarticulate Brachiopods On Scaphitid Ammonites And Inoceramid Bivalves From The Upper Cretaceous U. S. Western Interior, Neil H. Landman, Joshua S. Slattery, Peter J. Harries

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

The inarticulate brachiopod Discinisca is a rare faunal element in the Upper Cretaceous of the U.S. Western Interior. We report two occurrences of encrustation of Discinisca on a scaphitid ammonite (scaphite) and several inoceramids from the lower Maastrichtian Baculites baculus/Endocostea typica Biozones of the Pierre Shale at two localities. Six specimens of Discinisca are present on a single specimen of Hoploscaphites crassus from east-central Montana. They occur along the furrow at the mature apertural margin. Because the brachiopods are restricted to the margin and do not occur on the rest of the shell, it is likely that they …