Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Evaluation Of 'Structure-From-Motion' From A Pole-Mounted Camera For Monitoring Geomorphic Change, Rebecca K. Rossi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Emerging "Structure-from-Motion" (SfM) photogrammetry techniques encourage faster, cheaper, and more accessible field methods for accurately reconstructing 3D topography. The SfM method consists of collecting sets of overlapping images of the ground surface with a point and shoot camera, and reconstructing surface topography from the images with developed software programs. This research develops and implements a SfM image acquisition method and post-processing workflow as a supplemental technique to the traditional total-station method to aid in monitoring sandbar change in Marble and Grand Canyons along the Colorado River in Arizona. Due to permitting in Grand Canyon National Park, a 4.9 m pole-mounted …

International Revitalization: A Study Of Projects From The Intermountain West And Iberian Regions Of The Globe, Emmalee Mangum

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The focus of this study was to study the characteristics of three projects in the Intermountain West region of the United States and three projects in the Iberian region of Europe to analyze the differences within the profession of landscape architecture around the world. The project begins by defining urban revitalization and its importance in the development of urban spaces, as well as studying two projects where urban revitalization attempts were not successful. Then, each project was studied in detail to learn how the project was started and the desired outcome of each project. This study included the "big picture" …

Relations Between Theta Functions Of Genus One And Two From Geometry, Thomas Hill

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Genus-two curves with special symmetries are related to pairs of genus-one curves by two and three-sheeted ramified coverings. This classical work dates back to early 20th century and is known as Jacobi and Hermite reduction. Jacobians of genus-two curves can be used to construct complex two-dimensional complex projective manifolds known as Kummer surfaces. On the other hand, the defining coordinates and parameters of both elliptic curves and Kummer surfaces can be related to Riemann Theta functions and Siegel Theta functions, respectively. This result goes back to the seminal work of Mumford in the 1980s. We use the geometric relation between …

Universal Mobile Service Execution Framework For Device-To-Device Collaborations, Minh Le

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

There are high demands of effective and high-performance of collaborations between mobile devices in the places where traditional Internet connections are unavailable, unreliable, or significantly overburdened, such as on a battlefield, disaster zones, isolated rural areas, or crowded public venues. To enable collaboration among the devices in opportunistic networks, code offloading and Remote Method Invocation are the two major mechanisms to ensure code portions of applications are successfully transmitted to and executed on the remote platforms. Although these domains are highly enjoyed in research for a decade, the limitations of multi-device connectivity, system error handling or cross platform compatibility prohibit …

Learning Logic: A Mixed Methods Study To Examine The Effects Of Context Ordering On Reasoning About Conditionals, Christina W. Lommatsch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Logical statements are prevalent in mathematics, the sciences, law, and many areas of everyday life. The most common logical statements are conditionals, which have the form “If H..., then C...,” where “H” is a hypothesis (or condition) to be satisfied and “C” is a conclusion to follow. Reasoning about conditionals is a skill that is only superficially understood by most individuals and depends on four main conditional contexts (e.g., intuitive, abstract, symbolic, or counterintuitive). The purpose of this study was to test a theory about the effects of context ordering on reasoning about conditionals. To test the theory, the researcher …

In Situ Detection Of Road Lanes Using Raspberry Pi, Ashwani Chahal

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A self-driven car is a vehicle that can drive without human intervention by making correct decisions based on the environmental conditions. Since the innovation is in its beginning periods, totally moving beyond the human inclusion is still a long shot. However, rapid technological advancements are being made towards the safety of the driver and the passengers. One such safety feature is a Lane Detection System that empowers vehicle to detect road lane lines in various climate conditions.

This research provides a feasible and economical solution to detect the road lane lines while driving in a sunny, rainy, or snowy weather …

Understanding The Late Mesoproterozoic Earth System From The Oldest Strata In Grand Canyon: C-Isotope Stratigraphy And Facies Analysis Of The 1254 Ma Bass Formation, Grand Canyon Supergroup, Az., Usa, Erin C. Lathrop

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Rocks provide insight into ancient times before complex animals existed. The oldest sedimentary rocks in Grand Canyon (the Bass Formation) allow us to glimpse into what things might have been like over a billion years ago. These rocks record the time known as the Mesoproterozoic Era (1.6 to 1.0 billion years ago), otherwise known as the ‘boring billion’. These rocks are thought to be the right age to indicate the end of an oddly stable world when continents were quiet and life was calm, yet they predate younger rocks that record extreme events. The Bass Formation, some of the only …

Impacts Of Hydroelectric Dams On Aquatic Macroinvertebrate Oviposition Strategies: The Role Of Desiccation, Jesse R. Fleri

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Previous studies quantifying the density, distribution and diversity of aquatic insects overwhelmingly focus on larval life stages. However, many aquatic insects exhibit selective oviposition behaviors, with a preference for emergent substrates along a river's edge. The practice of hydropeaking creates an artificial intertidal zone that is absent from natural rivers and to which freshwater organisms are not adapted. We hypothesized that this novel disturbance could reduce the availability and temporal persistence of oviposition habitats resulting in egg mortality. To test this hypothesis, we quantified the oviposition behavior of four aquatic insects using a hierarchical field survey of habitat availability and …

Algorithmic Trading For Cryptocurrencies, Michael Ward

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

This project takes several common strategies for algorithmic stock trading and tests them on the cryptocurrency market. The three strategies used are moving average crossover, mean reversion, and pairs trading. Data was collected every five minutes for the top one hundred cryptocurrencies between October 5, 2017, and January 24, 2018. Due to the high volatility of the market, the data includes various market situations. Three noted situations are a rising market, falling market, and relatively stable market. The three strategies were modified to optimally follow each market situation. Modifications include adjusting parameters used in each strategy as well as mixing …

Investigating The Climatology Of Mesospheric And Thermospheric Gravity Waves At High Northern Latitudes, Michael Negale

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

An important property of the Earth's atmosphere is its ability to support wave motions, and indeed, waves exist throughout the Earth's atmosphere at all times and all locations. What is the importance of these waves? Imagine standing on the beach as water waves come crashing into you. In this case, the waves transport energy and momentum to you, knocking you off balance. Similarly, waves in the atmosphere crash, known as breaking, but what do they crash into? They crash into the atmosphere knocking the atmosphere off balance in terms of the winds and temperatures. Although the Earth's atmosphere is full …

Quaternary Incision, Salt Tectonism, And Landscape Evolution Of Moab-Spanish Valley, Utah, James P. Mauch

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

To study the history of processes that shape the Earth’s surface, geologists look for markers in the landscape that they can date and use to measure change. Rivers leave such markers in their deposits and terrace landforms and in the overall shape of their elevation profile from head to toe. This thesis uses luminescence and cosmogenic methods to date the sediment in terraces to determine when the river deposited it. Field mapping and global positioning system (GPS) surveying are also used to measure the distance between terrace levels to quantify how much change has occurred. This study seeks to answer …

Low Offspring Survival In Mountain Pine Beetle Infesting The Resistant Great Basin Bristlecone Pine Supports The Preference-Performance Hypothesis, Erika L. Eidson, Karen E. Mock, Barbara J. Bentz

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

The preference-performance hypothesis states that ovipositing phytophagous insects will select host plants that are well-suited for their offspring and avoid host plants that do not support offspring performance (survival, development and fitness). The mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae), a native insect herbivore in western North America, can successfully attack and reproduce in most species of Pinus throughout its native range. However, mountain pine beetles avoid attacking Great Basin bristlecone pine (Pinus longaeva), despite recent climate-driven increases in mountain pine beetle populations at the high elevations where Great Basin bristlecone pine grows. Low preference for a potential …

The Relationship Between Measures Of Annual Livestock Disturbance In Western Riparian Areas And Stream Conditions Important To Trout, Salmon, And Char, Lindsey M. Goss, Brett B. Roper

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Managing livestock disturbance in riparian zones in a manner that provides economic returns to ranchers while protecting streams is an important aspect of rangeland management on public lands in the western United States. Attempts to balance economic and ecologic outcomes have been made more difficult due to the presence of several salmonid species that are protected under the Endangered Species Act. One approach to proper management of livestock use near streams has been to define the allowable limits of disturbance using 2 metrics, streambank alteration and stubble height. We evaluated 153 stream reaches within the Interior Columbia Basin to determine …

Building Up Biogeography: Pattern To Process, William D. Pearse, A. Marcia Barbosa, Susanne A. Fritz, Sally A. Keith, Luke J. Harmon, John Harte, Daniele Silvestro, Xiao Xiao, T. Jonathan Davies

Ecology Center Publications

Linking pattern to process across spatial and temporal scales has been a key goal of the field of biogeography. In January 2017, the 8th biennial conference of the International Biogeography Society sponsored a symposium on Building up biogeography—process to pattern that aimed to review progress towards this goal. Here we present a summary of the symposium, in which we identified promising areas of current research and suggested future research directions. We focus on (1) emerging types of data such as behavioral observations and ancient DNA, (2) how to better incorporate historical data (such as fossils) to move beyond what we …

Solar Observatory: Shedding Light On The Surface Of The Sun, Zane F. Davis

Physics Capstone Projects

The Solar Observatory was used to observe the photosphere of the sun. The main focus to observer the photosphere are the sunspots and prominences that develop on the surface. These phenomenon can lead to Coronal Mass Ejections (CME’s). After taking pictures and analyzing them, there was only one day that had any activity on the photosphere. It was concluded that the sun is at it’s solar minima. This means that there is little to zero activity on the suns photosphere. With this, and more data over an extended period of time, it is possible to calculate a solar cycle.

Jacobian Elliptic Kummer Surfaces And Special Function Identities, Elise Griffin, Andreas Malmendier

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

We derive formulas for the construction of all inequivalent Jacobian elliptic fibrations on the Kummer surface of two non-isogeneous elliptic curves from extremal rational elliptic surfaces by rational base transformations and quadratic twists. We then show that each such decomposition yields a description of the Picard-Fuchs system satisfied by the periods of the holomorphic two-form as either a tensor product of two Gauss' hypergeometric differential equations, an Appell hypergeometric system, or a GKZ differential system. As the answer must be independent of the fibration used, identities relating differential systems are obtained. They include a new identity relating Appell's hypergeometric system …

Microfluidic Chip For Non-Invasive Analysis Of Tumor Cells Interaction With Anti-Cancer Drug Doxorubicin By Afm And Raman Spectroscopy, Han Zhang, Lifu Xiao, Qifei Li, Xiaojun Qi, Anhong Zhou

Biological Engineering Faculty Publications

Raman spectroscopy has been playing an increasingly significant role for cell classification. Here, we introduce a novel microfluidic chip for non-invasive Raman cell natural fingerprint collection. Traditional Raman spectroscopy measurement of the cells grown in a Polydimethylsiloxane (PDMS) based microfluidic device suffers from the background noise from the substrate materials of PDMS when intended to apply as an in vitro cell assay. To overcome this disadvantage, the current device is designed with a middle layer of PDMS layer sandwiched by two MgF2slides which minimize the PDMS background signal in Raman measurement. Three cancer cell lines, including a human lung cancer …

Regional Trends In Early-Monsoon Rainfall Over Vietnam And Ccsm4 Attribution, Rong Li, S.-Y. Simon Wang, Robert R. Gillies, Brendan Buckley, Jin-Ho Yoon, Changrae Cho

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

The analysis of precipitation trends for Vietnam revealed that early-monsoon precipitation has increased over the past three decades but to varying degrees over the northern, central and southern portions of the country. Upon investigation, it was found that the change in early-monsoon precipitation is associated with changes in the low-level cyclonic airflow over the South China Sea and Indochina that is embedded in the large-scale atmospheric circulation associated with a “La Niña-like” anomalous sea surface temperature pattern with warming in the western Pacific and Indian Oceans and cooling in the eastern Pacific. The Community Climate System Model version 4 (CCSM4) …

Effect Of Magnesium Bond On The Competition Between Hydrogen Bond And Halogen Bond And The Induction Of Proton And Halogen Transfer, Hui-Li Xu, Qing-Zhong Li, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

HOX (X=Cl, Br, I, and At) can engage in either a H‐bond (HB) or halogen bond (XB) with a base‐like HCN, NH3, and imidazole. Although the former is energetically preferred for X=Cl and Br, it is the XB that is more stable for At, with I showing little preference. MgY2 forms a Mg‐bond with the O atom of HOX, which grows stronger in the order X=Cl

Multidecadal Variability In The Subseasonal Peak Of Low-Level Convergence Over The Pacific Warm Pool, Yen-Heng Lin, Shih-Yu (Simon) Wang

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

In the Western North Pacific (WNP), the atmospheric low-level convergence is one of the main factors that influences the genesis of tropical cyclones (TC). It has been observed that the timing of the seasonal maxima in the low-level convergence and TC genesis has shifted since the mid-1990s from mid-August to late-July, with this shift having also affected the number of TC. A multidecadal frequency of 20 years was revealed in the timing variation of the tropical intraseasonal oscillation (ISO) in the Western Pacific, in which a weak WNP low-level convergence in spring may trigger an advanced ISO phase in summer …

Spatial Processes Decouple Management From Objectives In A Heterogeneous Landscape: Predator Control As A Case Study, Peter J. Mahoney, Julie K. Young, Kent R. Hersey, Randy T. Larsen, Brock R. Mcmillan, David C. Stoner

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Predator control is often implemented with the intent of disrupting top‐down regulation in sensitive prey populations. However, ambiguity surrounding the efficacy of predator management, as well as the strength of top‐down effects of predators in general, is often exacerbated by the spatially implicit analytical approaches used in assessing data with explicit spatial structure. Here, we highlight the importance of considering spatial context in the case of a predator control study in south‐central Utah. We assessed the spatial match between aerial removal risk in coyotes (Canis latrans) and mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus) resource selection during parturition using …

Does The Black Hole Shadow Probe The Event Horizon Geometry?, Pedro V. P. Cunha, Carlos A. R. Herdeiro, Maria J. Rodriguez

All Physics Faculty Publications

There is an exciting prospect of obtaining the shadow of astrophysical black holes (BHs) in the near future with the Event Horizon Telescope. As a matter of principle, this justifies asking how much one can learn about the BH horizon itself from such a measurement. Since the shadow is determined by a set of special photon orbits, rather than horizon properties, it is possible that different horizon geometries yield similar shadows. One may then ask how sensitive is the shadow to details of the horizon geometry? As a case study, we consider the double Schwarzschild BH and analyze the impact …

Tests Of Radiation Damage Threshold Of Raspberry Pi Zerio In Leo Environment For Opal Cubesat Project, Jonh Mojica Decena, Jr Dennison, Brian Wood, Ryan J. Martineau, Michael J. Taylor

Posters

No abstract provided.

Gymnosperms On The Edge, Félix Forest, Justin Moat, Elisabeth Baloch, Neil A. Brummitt, Steve P. Bachman, Steffi Ickert-Bond, Peter M. Hollingsworth, Aaron Liston, Damon P. Little, Sarah Mathews, Hardeep Rai, Catarina Rydin, Dennis W. Stevenson, Philip Thomas, Sven Buerki

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Driven by limited resources and a sense of urgency, the prioritization of species for conservation has been a persistent concern in conservation science. Gymnosperms (comprising ginkgo, conifers, cycads, and gnetophytes) are one of the most threatened groups of living organisms, with 40% of the species at high risk of extinction, about twice as many as the most recent estimates for all plants (i.e. 21.4%). This high proportion of species facing extinction highlights the urgent action required to secure their future through an objective prioritization approach. The Evolutionary Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) method rapidly ranks species based on their evolutionary …

Genetic Variation Determines Which Feedbacks Drive And Alter Predator–Prey Eco-Evolutionary Cycles, Michael H. Cortez

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

Evolution can alter the ecological dynamics of communities, but the effects depend on the magnitudes of standing genetic variation in the evolving species. Using an eco‐coevolutionary predator–prey model, I identify how the magnitudes of prey and predator standing genetic variation determine when ecological, evolutionary, and eco‐evolutionary feedbacks influence system stability and the phase lags in predator–prey cycles. Here, feedbacks are defined by subsystems, i.e., the dynamics of a subset of the components of the whole system when the other components are held fixed; ecological (evolutionary) feedbacks involve the direct and indirect effects between population densities (species traits) and eco‐evolutionary feedbacks …

Radiation Damage Threshold Of Satellite Cots Components: Raspberry Pi Zero For Opal Cubesat, Jonh Mojica Decena, Brian Wood, Ryan J. Martineau, Jr Dennison, Michael Tayor

Posters

The use of inexpensive microprocessors or commercial of the shelf (COTS) components is one of the most common cost-saving methods in the constructions of CubeSats. Design of electronics that can maintain full functionality over the duration of the mission requires careful determination of the space radiation environment and total ionizing dose (TID) delivered to the components. Larger, more expensive or longer mission satellites tend to use more expensive components than the ones used in CubeSat to assure reliability. Radiation survivability of a Raspberry Pi Zero was studied with the USU Space Survivability Test Chamber using 0.2 to 2.5 MeV beta …

Analysis Of Electron Yield Properties Of Low-Density Polyethylene, Jr Dennison, Jordan Lee

Posters

At extremely high altitudes, spacecraft are submitted to solar radiation of varying charged-particle fluxes. This radiation can induce charging of the spacecraft itself, creating unwanted and disastrous effects on electrical components from electrostatic breakdown or arc-induced damage of structural or optical components. To prevent these effects, space-like environment tests are performed on materials to understand how they interact with the space plasma environment.

Analysis Of Electron Yield Properties Of Low-Density Polyethylene, Jordan Lee, Jr Dennison

Posters

No abstract provided.

Effects Of Acoustic Coupling Layer Electrical Conducitivity On Pulsed Electroacoustic Measurements, Zachary Gibson, Jr Dennison, Lee Pearson, Erick Griffiths, Anthony Pearson

Posters

No abstract provided.

Radiation Damage Threshold Of Satellite Cots Components: Raspberry Pi Zero For Opal Cubesat, Jonh Mojica Decena, Brian Wood, Ryan J. Martineau, Michael Tayor, Jr Dennison

Posters

No abstract provided.