Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Investigation Of The Natural Degradation Of Selected Endocrine Disrupting Compounds In Wastewater, Toni Carrick

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Endocrine disrupting compounds (EDCs) are a class of compounds that are of concern for their potentially adverse effects on fish, wildlife, and humans. They can cause developmental and reproductive anomalies at concentrations in the low ppb to ppt levels. Studies have shown the primary route of exposure of EDCs within the environment is through the discharge of effluent wastewater. Removal efficiencies of wastewater treatment plants have been studied extensively, however, in rural or developing areas, which often lack secondary or tertiary wastewater treatment, little is known about the stability of these compounds and the rate at which they degrade in …

Understanding The Contractional History Of Surprise Canyon, California Through Digital Field Mapping, 3d Modeling, And U-Pb Zircon Geochronology, Joshua A. Cobb

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Detailed digital mapping of lower-middle Surprise Canyon has revealed a more complex structure than previously interpreted. Rock units derived from the metamorphosed equivalents of the Pahrump Group exposed in Surprise Canyon display juxtapositions inconsistent with stratigraphic variations suggested in previous studies. This study proposes a contractional history of the central Panamint Mountains defined by two kinematically distinct and geochronologically constrained deformation events. D1 is characterized by a shallow dipping, NNW striking L and LS tectonite fabric ubiquitously observed in all metasedimentary and basement units. F1 folds are mesoscopic in scale and isoclinal with an axial planar S1 foliation. A prominent …

Transition States And Modeling For Co9s8/Mos2 Catalysis, Gabriel Angel Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Transition state computational studies of the sulfur removal from dibenzothiophene (DBT) molecule have herein been performed considering the Co9S8/MoS2 interface existing on unsupported Co/MoS2 catalysts. The linear synchronous transit (LST) and quadratic synchronous transit (QST) methods integrated in a density functional theory (DFT) program such as Dmol3 were used for the calculations of energy barriers of the transition states. Three different configurations present on the Co9S8/MoS2 interface have been envisaged as possible catalytic sites: sulfur-sulfur (S, S) sites, and molybdenum-sulfur (Mo, S) and molybdenum-molybdenum (Mo, Mo) edge sites. This study revealed that the (Mo, Mo) edge site is the most …

The Meteorological Conditions Affecting The Propagation Of Respiratory Diseases, Rosette Maria Gonzalez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Valley Fever, also known as Coccidioidomycosis, is endemic of the US Southwest. In 2012 this disease was the second most-reported disease in Arizona, according to the New Yorker January 2014 edition. The Paso Del Norte Region (PdN) is a semi-arid region with significant agricultural acreage and Valley Fever is known to be a threat in this region. It is our goal in this Thesis work to apply an existing PBL Height Program (e.g., Liu, et.al.) to the Paso Del Norte Region (PdN) to study the effect it has in the transmission of Valley Fever. Obtaining the PBLH as it evolves …

Multi-Expert Multi-Criteria Decision Making, Joel Henderson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Expert analysis and decisions are highly valued assets in a wide variety of fields, from social services to grant funding committees. However, the use of experts can be prohibitive due to either lack of availability or cost. As such, it is desirable to be able to replicate such decisions. However, there are many obstacles that impede an accurate simulation of expert decisions. For example, despite looking at the same information, two experts may disagree on the decisions. In addition, a single expert may make inconsistent decisions across similar scenarios.

In this work, we focus on multi-criteria decision making and in …

Transition Metal Carbide (Tmc) Novel Materials For Novel Catalytic Applications, Svetlana Lagoykina

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Transition metal carbides (TMC) constitute a diverse class of materials and traditionally have many technological applications. TMC became a subject of extensive research since 1973, when their platinum -like properties were discovered. They demonstrated high catalytical activity and selectivity in a variety of chemical reaction and have potential for some novel catalytic application.

This research is an effort to design new high effective, selective and stable bimetal or alkali promoted TMC catalyst. After extensive theoretical research a wide range of TMC, including bimetal and alkali promoted carbides, were synthesized by different methods. All solids were characterized by XRD and microscopy. …

Ac-Susceptibility Investigations Of Superspin Blocking And Freezing In Interacting Magnetic Nanoparticle Ensembles, Joshua Logan Morris

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

We have investigated the effect of dipolar interactions on the superspin blocking and freezing of 10 nm average size Fe3O4 magnetic nanoparticle ensembles. Our dynamic susceptibility data reveals a two-regime behavior of the blocking temperature, TB, upon diluting a Fe3O4/hexane magnetic nanoparticle fluid. As the nanoparticle volume ratio, Phi, is reduced from an as-prepared reference Phi = 1 to Phi = 1/96, the blocking temperature decreases from 46.1 K to 34.2 K, but higher values reenter upon further diluting the magnetic fluid to Phi = 1/384 (where TB = 42.5 K). We show that cooling below TB within the higher …

Ac-Susceptibility And Epr Investigations Of Superspin Dynamics In Magnetite Nanoparticles, Alex D. Price

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this investigation we use two complementary techniques to distinguish between superparamagnetic blocking (SPB) and superspin-glass (SSG) freezing phenomena in magnetite nanoparticles. While these manifestations of the superspin dynamics are fundamentally different, they have similar "signatures", especially in dc-magnetization experiments. Even if ac-susceptibility measurements are employed, careful use of mathematical models to analyze the data are needed to uncover which type of phenomena (SPB or SSG freezing) occurs within the material. Yet, by utilizing electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) on a 10 nm Fe3O4 nano-powder as well as on a ferrofluid (based on the same nanoparticle ensemble) we found a very …

Heat Absorption Analysis By Falling Particles At High Temperatures For Concentrating Solar Power Systems, Arturo Sepulveda Fernandez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

High temperature Heat Transfer Fluid (HTF) with Thermal Energy Storage (TES) for the Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) technology can provide a large and relatively cheaper storage option, as opposed to limited and expensive electrical battery storage with PV technology, and hence, it has potential to maintain a constant production when no sunlight is available. Research of material like aluminum, silicon, graphite could be potential candidates to work as thermal energy storage. Currently, nitrate and chloride molten salts are widely used as the TES medium for a CSP plant. However, molten salt, especially chlorides, must be handled carefully at high temperature …

Stochastic Differential Equation Applied To High Frequency Data Arising In Geophysics And Other Disciplines, Osei Kofi Tweneboah

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Estimating future seismic hazards of a region constitutes an important study many scholars have shown a renewed interest in the past few decades. A good estimation of the seismic hazard in a region requires predicting the location and magnitude of future seismic events. As the knowledge of the geophysical mechanisms that drive seismic events have increased, so have the corresponding mathematical model representations.

This Thesis is devoted to the study of modeling geophysical data. We propose a stochastic differential equation arising on the superposition of independent Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes driven by a Gamma process.

Superposition of independent Gamma Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes offers …

Optimization Schemes For The Inversion Of Bouguer Gravity Anomalies, Azucena Zamora

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Data sets obtained from measurable physical properties of the Earth structure have helped advance the understanding of its tectonic and structural processes and constitute key elements for resource prospecting. 2-Dimensional (2-D) and 3-D models obtained from the inversion of geophysical data sets are widely used to represent the structural composition of the Earth based on physical properties such as density, seismic wave velocities, magnetic susceptibility, conductivity, and resistivity. The inversion of each one of these data sets provides structural models whose consistency depends on the data collection process, methodology, and overall assumptions made in their individual mathematical processes. Although sampling …

Development Of 3-D Shear Wave Models Using A Multi-Objective Optimization Scheme, Lennox Emmanuel Thompson

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Evidence of geologic activity still occurring in Rio Grande Rift (RGR) includes quaternary faulting, seismicity, and widening at a small rate. We map the crustal thickness and seismic velocity ratio to create crustal model cross sections that highlights the regional extension of the Southern Rio Grande Rift (SRGR). Specifically, we compute receiver functions and receiver function stacks for 147 USArray and previously collected data, and interpolate the crustal and velocity results using a kriging interpolation scheme. By incorporating gravity, magnetics, receiver functions, velocity models, and the interpretation of seismic reflection/refraction data, we produce a constrained crustal model that characterizes the …

The Role Of Collaborative Ontology Development In The Knowledge Negotiation Process, Norma Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Interdisciplinary research (IDR) collaboration can be defined as the process of integrating experts' knowledge, perspectives, and resources to advance scientific discovery. The flourishing of more complex research problems, together with the growth of scientific and technical knowledge has resulted in the need for researchers from diverse fields to provide different expertise and points of view to tackle these problems. These collaborations, however, introduce a new set of "culture" barriers as participating experts are trained to communicate in discipline-specific languages, theories, and research practices. We propose that building a common knowledge base for research using ontology development techniques can provide a …

Challenges In Assessing College Students' Conception Of Duality: The Case Of Infinity, Grace Olutayo Babarinsa-Ochiedike

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Interpreting students' views of infinity posits a challenge for researchers due to the dynamic nature of the conception. There is diversity and variation among students' process-object perceptions. The fluctuations between studentsâ?? views however reveal an undeveloped duality conception. This study examined college students' conception of duality in understanding and representing infinity with the intent to design strategies that could guide researchers in categorizing students' views of infinity into different levels.

Data for the study were collected from N=238 college students enrolled in Calculus sequence courses (Pre-Calculus, Calculus I through Calculus III) at one of the southwestern universities in the U.S. …

Salt And Mineral Recovery From High Salinity Waters, Osvaldo Alejandro Broesicke

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Natural salt springs in the Salt Fork Basin in Crosby County, Texas, result in the natural salt pollution of the Brazos River, rendering it unusable for most potable purposes. Previous research indicates that by intercepting the source of the pollution, water quality of the Brazos River can be greatly improved. This paper investigates and assesses two strategies for salt and mineral recovery using natural brine collected from the Salt Fork Basin, the first of which is presented in a separate work.

The research described in this paper evaluates the potential of a desulfation, soda-caustic softening, acidification/decarbonation, and evaporation process to …

Study Of A Directly Heated Oxy-Fuel Supercritical Power Generation System, A S M Arifur Rahim Chowdhury

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Directly heated supercritical oxy-fuel gas turbines have the potential to become an important addition to current power generation systems. They provide a higher thermal efficiency and more effective carbon capture techniques than existing gas turbines. Due to the higher density of the working fluids, the turbomachinery size in these systems can be reduced significantly; this will facilitate to minimize the operational cost. To achieve supercritical working fluid at the turbine inlet combustion needs to be conducted under enormous amounts of pressure; these values are is about 10 times those found in the present gas turbines. Additionally, existing material operational …

Among Several Successful Algorithms, Simpler Ones Usually Work Better: A Possible Explanation Of An Empirical Observation, Vladik Kreinovich, Olga Kosheleva

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Often, several different algorithms can solve a certain practical problem. Sometimes, algorithms which are successful in solving one problem can solve other problems as well. How can we decide which of the original algorithms is the most promising -- i.e., which is more probable to be able to solve other problem? In many cases, the simplest algorithms turns out to be the most successful. In this paper, we provide a possible explanation for this empirical observation.

Granularity Explains Empirical Factor-Of-Three Relation Between Probabilities Of Pulmonary Embolism In Different Patient Categories, Beverly Rivera, Francisco Zapata, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Pulmonary embolism is a very dangerous difficult-to-detect medical condition. To diagnose pulmonary embolism, medical practitioners combine indirect signs of this condition into a single score, and then classify patients into low-probability, intermediate-probability, and high-probability categories. Empirical analysis shows that, when we move from each category to the next one, the probability of pulmonary embolism increases by a factor of three. In this paper, we provide a theoretical explanation for this empirical relation between probabilities.

How To Gauge Unknown Unknowns: A Possible Theoretical Explanation Of The Usual Safety Factor Of 2, Joe Lorkowski, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

To gauge the accuracy of a measuring instrument, engineers analyze possible factors contributing to the instrument's inaccuracy. In addition to known factors, however, there are usually unknown factors which also contribute to the instrument's inaccuracy. To properly gauge the instrument's accuracy -- and thus, to make sure that we do not compromise our safety by underestimating the inaccuracy -- we need to also take these "unknown unknowns" into account. In practice, this is usually done by multiplying the original estimate for inaccuracy by a "safety" factor of 2. In this paper, we provide a possible theoretical explanation for this empirical …

Examining The Consistence Of Futures Margin Levels Using Bivariate Extreme Value Copulas, X. Gong, Hung T. Nguyen, Vladik Kreinovich, Songsak Sriboonchitta

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

This study examines the consistence of the futures margin levels of different commodities and combinations in the CME group by Extreme Value Copula (EVC). We find that if we ignore the co-movements of the commodities, the margins become consistent with each other, and the margin violation rates hover around 0.5%. However, if we consider the co-movement of the related commodities using EVC, the margin levels are found to be not consistent anymore, especially in the combinations of strongly related commodities which are in the same category. Therefore, we suggest that the CME group should try to harmonize the margins policy …

Fuzzy Intervals As Foundation Of Metrological Support For Computations With Inaccurate Data, Konstantin K. Semenov, Gennady N. Solopchenko, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In this paper, we discuss the possibility of using the formalism of fuzzy intervals as a basis for computational metrology. We consider advantages of using fuzzy intervals instead of the traditional intervals as a characteristic of uncertainty of the results of computations with inaccurate data.

Formalizing The Informal, Precisiating The Imprecise: How Fuzzy Logic Can Help Mathematicians And Physicists By Formalizing Their Intuitive Ideas, Olga Kosheleva, Renata Reiser, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Fuzzy methodology transforms expert ideas -- formulated in terms of words from natural language -- into precise rules and formulas. In this paper, we show that by applying this methodology to intuitive physical and mathematical ideas, we can get known fundamental physical equations and known mathematical techniques for solving these equations. This fact makes us confident that in the future, fuzzy techniques will help physicists and mathematicians to transform their imprecise ideas into new physical equations and new techniques for solving these equations.

A Catalog Of While Loop Specification Patterns, Aditi Barua, Yoonsik Cheon

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

This document provides a catalog of while loop patterns along with their skeletal specifications. The specifications are written in a functional form known as intended functions. The catalog can be used to derive specifications of while loops by first matching the loops to the cataloged patterns and then instantiating the skeletal specifications of the matched patterns. Once their specifications are formulated and written, the correctness of while loops can be proved rigorously or formally using the functional program verification technique in which a program is viewed as a mathematical function from one program state to another.

Kekule's Benzene Structure: A Case Study Of Teaching Usefulness Of Symmetry, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Benzene is one of the basic building blocks of organic molecules. One of the reasons for benzene's ubiquity is its unusual ring structure first discovered by Kekule in 1865. In this paper, we show that a simple symmetry-based analysis can narrow down possible benzene structures to three ring ones, including the Kekule's ring. Thus, Kekule's benzene structure provides a good pedagogical example on which one can explain usefulness of symmetries.

Construction Of Shear Wave Models By Applying Multi-Objective Optimization To Multiple Geophysical Data Sets, Lennox Thompson, Aaron A. Velasco, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

For this work, our main purpose is to obtain a better understanding of the Earth's tectonic processes in the Texas region, which requires us to analyze the Earth structure. We expand on a constrained optimization approach for a joint inversion least-squares (LSQ) algorithm to characterize a one-dimensional Earth's structure of Texas with the use of multiple geophysical data sets. We employed a joint inversion scheme using multiple geophysical datasets for the sole purpose of obtaining a three-dimensional velocity structure of Texas in order to identify an ancient rift system within Texas. In particular, we use data from the USArray, which …

What If We Only Have Approximate Stochastic Dominance?, Vladik Kreinovich, Hung T. Nguyen, Songsak Sriboonchitta

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many practical situations, we need to select one of the two alternatives, and we do not know the exact form of the user's utility function -- e.g., we only know that it is increasing. In this case, stochastic dominance result says that if the cumulative distribution function (cdf) corresponding to the first alternative is always smaller than or equal than the cdf corresponding to the second alternative, then the first alternative is better. This criterion works well in many practical situations, but often, we have situations when for most points, the first cdf is smaller but at some points, …

Constructive Mathematics In St. Petersburg, Russia: A (Somewhat Subjective) View From Within, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In the 1970 and 1980s, logic and constructive mathematics were an important part of my life; it's what I defended in my Master's thesis, it was an important part of my PhD dissertation. I was privileged to work with the giants. I visited them in their homes. They were who I went to for advice. And this is my story.

Using Second-Order Probabilities To Make Maximum Entropy Approach To Copulas More Reasonable, Hung T. Nguyen, Vladik Kreinovich, Berlin Wu

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Copulas are a general way of describing dependence between two or more random variables. When we only have partial information about the dependence, i.e., when several different copulas are consistent with our knowledge, it is often necessary to select one of these copulas. A frequently used method of selecting this copula is the maximum entropy approach, when we select a copula with the largest entropy. However, in some cases, the maximum entropy approach leads to an unreasonable selection -- e.g., even if we know that the two random variables are positively correlated, the maximum entropy approach completely ignores this information. …

R-Bounded Fuzzy Measures Are Equivalent To Epsilon-Possibility Measures, Karen A. Richart-Ruiz, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Traditional probabilistic description of uncertainty is based on additive probability measures. To describe non-probabilistic uncertainty, it is therefore reasonable to consider non-additive measures. An important class of non-additive measures are possibility measures, for which m(A union B) = max(m(A), m(B)). In this paper, we show that possibility measures are, in some sense, universal approximators: for every epsilon > 0, every non-additive measure which satisfies a certain reasonable boundedness property is equivalent to a measure which is epsilon-close to a possibility measure.

How To Assign Weights To Different Factors In Vulnerability Analysis: Towards A Justification Of A Heuristic Technique, Beverly Rivera, Irbis Gallegos, Vladik Kreinovich

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

The main objective of vulnerability analysis is to select the alternative which is the least vulnerable. To make this selection, we must describe the vulnerability of each alternative by a single number -- then we will select the alternative with the smallest value of this vulnerability index. Usually, there are many aspects of vulnerability: vulnerability of a certain asset to a storm, to a terrorist attack, to hackers' attack, etc. For each aspect, we can usually gauge the corresponding vulnerability, the difficulty is how to combine these partial vulnerabilities into a single weighted value. In our previous research, we proposed …