Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Local Zeta Functions And Koba–Nielsen String Amplitudes, Miriam Bocardo-Gaspar, Hugo García-Compeán, Edgar Y. López, Wilson A. Zúñiga-Galindo

School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

This article is a survey of our recent work on the connections between Koba–Nielsen amplitudes and local zeta functions (in the sense of Gel’fand, Weil, Igusa, Sato, Bernstein, Denef, Loeser, etc.). Our research program is motivated by the fact that the p-adic strings seem to be related in some interesting ways with ordinary strings. p-Adic string amplitudes share desired characteristics with their Archimedean counterparts, such as crossing symmetry and invariance under Möbius transformations. A direct connection between p-adic amplitudes and the Archimedean ones is through the limit p→1. Gerasimov and Shatashvili studied the limit p→1 of the p-adic effective action …

In-Depth Analysis Of N2o Fluxes In Tropical Forest Soils Of The Congo Basin Combining Isotope And Functional Gene Analysis, Nora Gallarotti, Matti Barthel, Elizabeth Verhoeven, Engil Isadora Pujol Pereira, Marijn Bauters, Simon Baumgartner, Travis W. Drake, Pascal Boeckx, Joachim Mohn, Manon Longepierre

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Primary tropical forests generally exhibit large gaseous nitrogen (N) losses, occurring as nitric oxide (NO), nitrous oxide (N2O) or elemental nitrogen (N2). The release of N2O is of particular concern due to its high global warming potential and destruction of stratospheric ozone. Tropical forest soils are predicted to be among the largest natural sources of N2O; however, despite being the world’s second-largest rainforest, measurements of gaseous N-losses from forest soils of the Congo Basin are scarce. In addition, long-term studies investigating N2O fluxes from different forest ecosystem types (lowland and montane forests) are scarce. In this study we show that …

Population Properties Of Compact Objects From The Second Ligo–Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, S. Abraham, Ofek Birnholtz, F. Acernese, Teviet Creighton, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov, Karla E. Ramirez, W. H. Wang

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We report on the population of 47 compact binary mergers detected with a false-alarm rate of < in the second LIGO–Virgo Gravitational-Wave Transient Catalog. We observe several characteristics of the merging binary black hole (BBH) population not discernible until now. First, the primary mass spectrum contains structure beyond a power law with a sharp high-mass cutoff; it is more consistent with a broken power law with a break at or a power law with a Gaussian feature peaking at (90% credible interval). While the primary mass distribution must extend to or beyond, only of systems have primary masses greater than . Second, we find that a fraction of BBH systems have component spins misaligned with the orbital angular momentum, giving rise to precession of the orbital plane. Moreover, %–% of BBH systems have spins tilted by more than 90°, giving rise to a negative effective inspiral spin parameter, . Under the assumption that such systems can only be formed by dynamical interactions, we infer that between 25% and 93% of BBHs with nonvanishing are dynamically assembled. Third, we estimate merger rates, finding for BBHs and for binary neutron stars. We find that the BBH rate likely increases with redshift ( credibility) but not faster than the star formation rate ( credibility). Additionally, we examine recent exceptional events in the context of our population models, finding that the asymmetric masses of GW190412 and the high component masses of GW190521 are consistent with our models, but the low secondary mass of GW190814 makes it an outlier.

Tidal Deformability Of Strange Stars And The Gw170817 Event, Odilon Lourenço, Cesar H. Lenzi, Mariana Dutra, Efrain J. Ferrer, Vivian De La Incera, Laura Paulucci, J. E. Horvath

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this work we consider strange stars formed by quark matter in the color-flavor-locked (CFL) phase of color superconductivity. The CFL phase is described by a Nambu-Jona-Lasinio model with four-fermion vector and diquark interaction channels. The effect of the color superconducting medium on the gluons are incorporated into the model by including the gluon self-energy in the thermodynamic potential. We construct parametrizations of the model by varying the vector coupling GV and comparing the results to the data on tidal deformability from the GW170817 event, the observational data on maximum masses from massive pulsars such as the MSP J0740+6620, and …

Study Of Efficient Methods Of Detection And Reconstruction Of Gravitational Waves From Nonrotating 3d General Relativistic Core Collapse Supernovae Explosion Using Multilayer Signal Estimation Method, Soma Mukherjee, Gaukhar Nurbek, Oscar Valdez

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

In the post-detection era of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy, core collapse supernovae (CCSN) are one of the most interesting potential sources of signals arriving at the Advanced LIGO detectors. Mukherjee et al. have developed and implemented a new method to search for GW signals from the CCSN search based on a multistage, high accuracy spectral estimation to effectively achieve higher detection signal to noise ratio (SNR). The study has been further enhanced by incorporation of a convolutional neural network (CNN) to significantly reduce false alarm rates (FAR). The combined pipeline is termed multilayer signal estimation (MuLaSE) that works in an …

Disentangling The Effects Of Vapor Pressure Deficit And Soil Water Availability On Canopy Conductance In A Seasonal Tropical Forest During The 2015 El Niño Drought, Yilin Fang, L. Ruby Leung, Brett T. Wolfe, Matteo Detto, Ryan G. Knox, Bryan Powell, Charlotte Grossiord, Chonggang Xu, Bradley O. Christoffersen, Pierre Gentine

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

Water deficit in the atmosphere and soil are two key interactive factors that constrain transpiration and vegetation productivity. It is not clear which of these two factors is more important for the water and carbon flux response to drought stress in ecosystems. In this study, field data and numerical modeling were used to isolate their impact on evapotranspiration (ET) and gross primary productivity (GPP) at a tropical forest site in Barro Colorado Island (BCI), Panama, focusing on their response to the drought induced by the El Niño event of 2015–2016. Numerical simulations were performed using a plant hydrodynamic scheme (HYDRO) …

A Game Theoretical Analysis Of Non-Linear Blockchain System, Lin Chen, Lei Xu, Zhimin Gao, Ahmed Sunny, Keshav Kasichainula, Weidong Shi

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent advances in the blockchain research have been made in two important directions. One is refined resilience analysis utilizing game theory to study the consequences of selfish behavior of users (miners), and the other is the extension from a linear (chain) structure to a non-linear (graphical) structure for performance improvements, such as IOTA and Graphcoin. The first question that comes to mind is what improvements that a blockchain system would see by leveraging these new advances. In this paper, we consider three major properties for a blockchain system: 𝛼-partial verification, scalability, and finality-duration. We establish a formal framework and prove …

Temporal Convolutional Neural Network For Intrusion Detection, Luis Javier Romo Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Intrusion detection is an important endeavor for large organizations who are constantly targeted by malicious actors. The nature of network traffic data creates many challenges for researchers that want to create an accurate and efficient system for detecting attacks on networks. Many machine learning algorithms have been developed to take on this task. In this paper, we will review some of these techniques, some data sets used to test these techniques, and an experiment where we developed an intrusion detection system that uses a convolution neural network that can perform sequence modeling. This convolutional neural network outperformed a long-shorted term …

Factors That Influence Teachers' Utilization Of Siop Learning Strategies When Teaching English Language Learners, Courtney R. Stuart

Theses and Dissertations

Despite standardized certification tests and popular English Language Learner trainings, the strategies and methods used in two educators’ classes would not be identical. In this case-study we look to see what variables cause teachers to utilize certain strategies and how these variables affect the number of strategies used consistently when teaching ELLs. We study the effect of teachers’ language experiences, certifications, participation in SIOP trainings, education levels, perceived preparedness, and years spent in the classroom.

Using quantitative and qualitative data we conclude that dual-language fluency and professional advancements can lead to teachers using more ELL learning strategies in their classrooms, …

Topologically Robust Bulk State In Non-Hermitian Acoustic System, Jannatul Ferdous

Theses and Dissertations

A closed system associated with Hermitian Hamiltonian allows real eigenvalues. However, the behavior and dynamics an open system (with gain and loss) will be addressed through the Non-Hermitian Hamiltonian. Though a non-Hermitian operator can allow only imaginary eigenvalues, if the Hamiltonian of a non-Hermitian operator obey the combined parity time (PT)-reversal symmetry it exhibits the real eigenvalues or energy spectrum. That is where the topology comes into account. If we add gain, loss or disorder in the system in such a way that the topology of the system does not change and keeping the …

Enhanced Detection Efficiencies And Reduced False Alarms In Searching For Gravitational Waves From Core Collapse Supernovae, Gaukhar Nurbek

Theses and Dissertations

A supernova is a star that flares up very suddenly and then slowly returns to its former luminosity or, explodes violently with energy $10^{52}$ erg. There are stars which are 10 times or more massive than the Sun, which usually end their lives going supernova. When there is no longer enough fuel for the fusion process in the core of the star and inward gravitational pull of the star’s great mass takes place, the star starts to explode. A series of nuclear reactions starts taking place after the star begins shrinking due to gravity. In the final phase of this …

Optimal Quantization For Mixtures Of Two Uniform Distributions, Eduardo Orozco

Theses and Dissertations

The basic goal of quantization for probability distribution is to reduce the number of values, which is typically uncountable, describing a probability distribution to some finite set and thus approximation of a continuous probability distribution by a discrete distribution. Mixtures of probability distributions, also known as mixed distributions, are an exciting new area for optimal quantization. In this thesis, for a mixed distribution we determine the optimal sets of n-means and the nth quantization errors for all positive integers n.

Limits Of Variationality In Full Configuration Interaction For The H2 Model System, Oscar Obed Rodriguez Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

We proposed a framework for exploring the limits of variationality in full configuration interaction (FCI) calculation of molecular electronic structure. We performed FCI calculations on the minimal basis (STO-3G) H2 model for the energy, gradient, and derivative coupling. These calculations were validated by finite difference. These quantities were recalculated with controlled injection of error in the FCI coefficient. The gradient was observed to be highly sensitive to error, while the energy and derivative coupling were robust to errors in the coefficients of nearly 10%. This study lays the groundwork for calculation of other derived quantities, such as the Hessian, adiabatic …

Absolute Power Measurements For Advanced Ligo Photon Calibrator, Francisco Llamas Villarreal

Theses and Dissertations

Since its first detection in 2015, the Light Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory has been notably recognized for the successful measurement of gravitational waves. The successful detection of gravitational-waves comes from the effort of more than a thousand scientist working in collaboration. To characterize the change in displacement of the ETMs, LIGO uses several methods of calibration. The Photon Calibrator has gained significance to the point of becoming the primary calibration tool for the Advanced LIGO detectors. Relying on photon radiation pressure to calibrate the interferometer, the photon calibrator measures the change in displacement of the ETM in relation to the power …

Flexible And Surface Modified Znsno3 Nanocubes For Enhanced Piezoelectric Power Generation And Wireless Sensory Application, Sk Md Ali Zaker Shawon

Theses and Dissertations

Piezoelectric systems and their mechanisms are held in high regard, due to their cost-effective structure and mechanical proficiency to harvest renewable energy. In the present article, we propose an aluminum-doped zinc stannate (ZnSnO3) piezoelectric nanogenerator that can be employed for the harvest of energy and sensory applications. In order to ensure and further enrich the piezoelectric mechanics and product outcome in our device, ZnSnO3 was doped with 1 wt% to 5 wt% of aluminum nanoparticles. We reported that 2 wt% of aluminum-doped ZnSnO3 showed the highest electrical output in terms of open circuit voltages and short circuit current.

The nanogenerator …

Numerical Modeling For Patch Antennas, Luis Mario Bres Castro

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis will focus on creating a number of designs that will be tested in a simulation environment using an electromagnetic solver software called Computer Simulation Technology(CST) as well as we are going to develop our own model to be able to simulate more complex design due to the limitations of CST licensing. The simulations will help us optimize the parameters of gain-frequency allocation for future projects of antenna building. After doing a parametric study of a patch antenna we will develop a model for the return signal of a signal patch antenna, we will present four potential models. The …

Gupta, Ramanujan, Dyson And Ehrhart: Formulas For Partition Functions, Congruences, Cranks, And Polyhedral Geometry, Joselyne Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

We will revisit Gupta's result regarding properties of a formula for restricted partitions and generalize this. We will then use this result to prove an infinite family of congruences for a certain restricted partition function. We find and prove combinatorial witnesses, also known as cranks, for the congruences using polyhedral geometry.

Unravelling The Role Of Pgpr "Pseudomonas Fluorescens" In Semi- Arid Soils Of The Rio Grande Valley, Mandip Tamang

Theses and Dissertations

Chapter 1: In this chapter, we have provided a review on the components of rhizosphere engineering and the potential use of PGPR and its challenges to serve as an efficient component for sustainable agriculture.

Chapter 2: In this chapter, we isolated 35 different strains of a PGPR, Pseudmonas fluorescens and characterized various plant growth promoting traits such as production of ammonia, protease, Indole acitic acid (IAA), 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylate deaminase (ACC) deaminase, ammonia, hydrogen cyanide (HCN), and souliblization of zinc and phosphate.

Chapter 3: In this chapter, we tested the influence of plant beneficial soil microbe, P. fluorescens, on the growth and …

Rare Earth Free Bright And Persistent White Light Emitting Zinc Gallo-Germanate Nanosheets: Technological Advancement To Fibers With Enhanced Quantum Efficiency, Bhupendra B. Srivastava, Santosh K. Gupta, Raul Barbosa, Alexa Villarreal, Karen Lozano, Yuanbing Mao

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Recent materials science and engineering research focused on defects, dopants, hosts, and morphological structures has resulted in novel cost efficient and sustainable phases with extraordinary properties and performance. Contributing in this direction we have designed dopant and rare earth free white lightemitting zincgallogermanate (ZGG) phosphors in nanosheet (NS) morphology. These ZGG NSs with interlayer and interfacial defects display bright white photoluminescence (PL) with significant quantum yield (QY). Thermal treatment of the as-synthesized ZGG NSs at 750 1C does not degrade their sheet-like morphology while resulting in long persistent luminescence (PerL) with a duration of approximately one hour. Furthermore, to improve …

Removal Of Arsenic (Iii) And Arsenic (V) From Aqueous Solution Via Solanum Lycopersicum Phytoremediation And Essential Nutrient Analysis, Grecia W. Garcia Salazar

Theses and Dissertations

ICP-OES was used to investigate the uptake of arsenic (V) and arsenic (III) from aqueous solution using tomato seedlings. The effect of arsenic on essential nutrient uptake by tomato was analyzed. The experiment was performed at three levels of arsenic: 1ppm, 2 ppm and 5 ppm [added as sodium arsenate (Na3AsO4) and arsenic trioxide (As2O3)], in nutrient solution. Plants remained in solution for two weeks. Arsenic accumulation depended on arsenic concentration in solution, when exposed to higher arsenic concentrations the plant uptake increased. The highest arsenic accumulation was found in roots, followed by stems and leaves in that order. Essential …

Design And Modeling A Tunable Non-Hermitian Acoustic Filter, Sandeep Puri

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, we explore an application of a non-Hermitian acoustic system with tunable loss in filtering specific frequencies from an upcoming signal at will. Using the commercial computational software, we design our proposed tunable filter made of a phononic super-lattice. The super-lattice consists of two sublattices connected in series. The first sublattice is Hermitian, whereas the other can be Hermitian or Non-Hermitian depending on the amount of loss induced in it. By introducing the loss in the system, we observe the generation of absorbed resonances that can be seen in the reflection spectrum. The range of the filtered frequencies …

Practical Challenges Of Using Sunn Hemp As A Cover Crop In The Lower Rio Grande Valley, Qulina Rai

Theses and Dissertations

Sunn hemp (Crotalaria junceae) is an emerging cover crop with many reported benefits such as nitrogen fixation, carbon sequestration, and suppression of weeds and nematodes. Relatively little is known about appropriate ways to inoculate sunn hemp ensuring nitrogen fixation, and diseases that affect sunn hemp within the Lower Rio Grande Valley of Texas.

Four sticking agents, peanut oil, jaggery, gum arabic, and water used to aid inoculation of Bradyrhizobium japonicum in sunn hemp was checked on nodulation. Water treatment was least effective. Peanut oil and jaggery treatment showed better performance in overall total nodules, and active nodules. Gum …

Automated Identification Of Lines In Data From Gravitational Wave Detectors, Thomas A. Cruz

Theses and Dissertations

On the frontier of gravitational wave (GW) astronomy, the LIGO detectors record vast quantities of data that need to be analyzed constantly for rare and transient GW signals. A foundational problem in LIGO data analysis is the identification of spectral line features in the Power Spectral Density (PSD) of the data. Such line features correspond to high power terrestrial or instrumental signals that must be removed from the data before any search for GW signals can take place. In this study the method developed aims to automate the extraction of the frequencies and bandwidths of the lines, treated as sharp …

Virtual Screening For Potential New Chemotherapeutic Agents For The Gpr119 Receptor, A Target For Type Ii Diabetes, Jennifer Lizeth Bravo

Theses and Dissertations

Three frames from a molecular dynamics simulation run of a GPR119 receptor homology model were used for this study. The homology model was validated by virtually screening 76 known GPR119 receptor. 85% of these agonists bound to the receptor. Following the validation, 21,000 molecules were selected for the virtual screening study. 862 ligands came from the GPCR Selleckchem/Prestwick library, 42 compounds from the Prestwick Phytochemical library, 20,000 compounds from the ZINC library, plus four molecules from the literature. All ligands were built, geometry-optimized, and docked in the GPR119 models using a protocol combining High Throughput Virtual Screening, Standard Precision, and …

Blood Flow Through An Artery In The Presence Of A Stenosis, Martin Carrillo

Theses and Dissertations

We consider blood flow through an artery in the form of a cylindrical pipe in the presence of a stenosis. Here blood is treated as an incompressible, viscous and non-Newtonian Bingham plastic fluid. We derive the equation of continuity and the momentum equation which are obtained using mass conservation law and momentum conservation law, respectively. Assuming that the flow is due to the pressure drop and wall shear stress, we derive the expressions for the velocity component in the axial direction and the volumetric flow rate in an artery. Computational results for the axial velocity and flow rate are obtained …

Investigation Of The C—Cn Bond Activation Of Fluorinated Benzonitriles With [Ni(Dmpe)] And Dft Benchmarking Study With [Ni(Dippe)], Dominique C. Gallegos

Theses and Dissertations

Carbon-carbon bond activation has become a rapidly growing area of research due to its extensive range of applications. Despite the significant progress that has been made in this field, the cleavage of kinetically inert and thermodynamically stable C—C σ-bonds under mild homogeneous conditions remains a challenge. The activation is primarily limited to systems in which either relief of strain or aromatization serves as a driving force. A notable exception to this is the oxidative addition of unstrained C—CN bonds of nitriles. In this study, we are looking at the effect of fluoro substituents. We hypothesized …

Development Of A Cyberinfrastructure For Assessment Of The Lower Rio Grande Valley North And Central Watersheds Characteristics, Linda Isabel Navarro Navarro

Theses and Dissertations

Due to an increase in urbanization in the Lower Rio Grande Valley (LRGV), there have been substantial modifications to hydrology causing a decline in water quality to the Laguna Madre watershed. The major concern is the inflow of freshwater from the North and Central waterways released to the Lower Laguna Madre which is designated as an impaired watershed for high concentrations of bacteria and low dissolved oxygen. The objective of this study is to perform a watershed characterization to determine potential pollution sources of each watershed by developing a cyberinfrastructure and collect a wide inventory of data. The objective will …

Semantic Adversarial Attack On Support Vector Machine, Yessica Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

Despite the breakthroughs in machine learning, most classifiers are not robust against adversarial attacks. They can be easily fooled by adversarial examples. These examples can be created in a variety of ways. In this thesis, the ideas of detecting edges or critical pixels in an image are investigated that could be used for fooling classifiers. Identifying those critical pixels in an image can lead the way to fix the vulnerabilities and thus making it robust against cyber-attacks. For testing, a Support Vector Machine (SVM) is used to see the success of the adversarial examples generated.

Optimality Of Delaunay Triangulations, Estefania A. Sierra

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, we begin by defining and examining the properties of a Voronoi diagram and extend it to its dual, the Delaunay triangulations. We explore the algorithms that construct such structures. Furthermore, we define several optimal functionals and criterions on the set of all triangulations of points in Rd that achieve their minimum on the Delaunay triangulation. We found a new result and proved that Delaunay triangulation has lexicographically the least circumradii sequence. We discuss the CircumRadii-Area (CRA) conjecture that the circumradii raised to the power of alpha times the area of the triangulation holds true for all α …

A Study Of Nanogenerator Based Flow Sensor, Farzana Tasnim

Theses and Dissertations

The utilization of kinetic energy from fluid flow to power sensory systems is experiencing an all-time high research focus. Invention of nanogenerators have fueled this research focus with unprecedented flexibility of applications. Many studies have reported on utilizing the mechanism of nanogenerator for sensing fluid flow. In this short work, we have summarized different types of self-powered nanogenerator-based flow sensors and their applications. We have also classified the use of Nanogenerator based flow sensors in different fields, such as Bio-medical Application, Fluid velocity sensing, and Chemical Detection. In the Bio-medical field, the flow sensor can be used for the patient’s …