Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Rhetoric On Climate Change And The Effects On Public Perceptions, Hailey Mina Rose Dossey

Cal Poly Humboldt Capstone Honor Roll

One of the extraordinary challenges humans are facing today is climate change and over the past two decades, the majority of the world has moved from questioning its legitimacy to accepting it as fact. With most people having accepted climate change as a reality, the goal of climate communication has shifted from spreading awareness to motivating audiences to take action. Through this analytical discussion, we will look into effective and ineffective methods of rhetoric as it can help guide us to a better understanding of why certain rhetoric that has previously been successful in other fields may not be the …

The Integration Of Neuromorphic Computing In Autonomous Robotic Systems, Md Abu Bakr Siddique

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have come a long way in many cognitive tasks by training on large, labeled datasets. However, this method has problems in places with limited data and energy, like when planetary robots are used or when edge computing is used [1]. In contrast to this data-heavy approach, animals demonstrate an innate ability to learn by communicating with their environment and forming associative memories among events and entities, a process known as associative learning [2-4]. For instance, rats in a T-maze learn to associate different stimuli with outcomes through exploration without needing labeled data [5]. This learning paradigm …

Discontinuous Galerkin Methods For Compressible Miscible Displacements And Applications In Reservoir Simulation, Yue Kang

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

This dissertation contains research on discontinuous Galerkin (DG) methods applied to the system of compressible miscible displacements, which is widely adopted to model surfactant flooding in enhanced oil recovery (EOR) techniques. In most scenarios, DG methods can effectively simulate problems in miscible displacements.
However, if the problem setting is complex, the oscillations in the numerical results can be detrimental, with severe overshoots leading to nonphysical numerical approximations. The first way to address this issue is to apply the bound-preserving
technique. Therefore, we adopt a bound-preserving Discontinuous Galerkin method
with a Second-order Implicit Pressure Explicit Concentration (SIPEC) time marching
method to …

The Influence Of Volcano Edifice Resonance On The Seismic Triggering Of Thermal Activity At Active Volcanoes, Morgana M. Wilke

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports

There is an established correlation between large earthquakes and volcanic unrest, however the mechanisms between this connection are not well understood. Relatively small changes in stress within a volcanic system could be enough to initiate a response. One aspect that could serve to amplify small dynamic stress changes is volcanic edifice resonance triggered by surface waves at resonant frequency. In this paper, we investigate the relationship between thermal activity of volcanoes and various minimum thresholds of Love wave amplitudes at resonance caused by teleseismic earthquakes above a 7.0 M. Satellite-derived thermal data from 25 volcanoes are modeled in relation to …

Learn From The Past: Using Peer Data To Improve Course Recommendations In Personalized Education, Colton Walker

Masters Theses

"This work describes a recommendation approach designed to enhance student success by identifying semester schedules and graduation paths. The primary objective is to provide personalized graduation path recommendations rooted in individual student performance and draw insights from the academic journeys of similar students who successfully graduated. The original research contribution of this work lies in the development of a graduation path recommender system that leverages a combination of Markov Decision Process, Q-Learning, and collaborative filtering techniques to pinpoint graduation paths with a higher likelihood of leading students to success based on their academic progress thus far. The effectiveness of the …

Advanced Mass Spectrometry Method Development And Applications For Assessment Of Traumatic Brain Injury And Legionella Pneumophila Dissinfection With Copper, Austin Chase Sigler

Doctoral Dissertations

"Pathological processes often involve complex biochemical changes which can be assessed using advanced mass spectrometry. In this present dissertation, two fields were studied: traumatic brain injury (TBI), and water contamination by L. pneumophilia. TBI is a pressing public health concern for which current clinical tools remain inadequate. We present newly developed mass spectrometric methods to access metabolites associated with blast induced TBI. We applied these methods to the biofluids of soldiers conducting explosives training. Significant changes in several metabolites were observed between pre- and post-blast specimens, including changes that increased with repeated exposure. These changes point to the possibility of …

Analytical Methods For Monitoring Traumatic Brain Injury Biomarkers/Treatment And Pharmaceutical Residual Solvents, Olajide Philip Adetunji

Doctoral Dissertations

"The development of highly sensitive and efficient analytical methods utilizing advanced instrumentation is necessary to help improve disease diagnosis and therapeutics. A major neuro-consequence of traumatic brain injury (TBI) is oxidative stress from the generation of reactive oxygen species and the depletion of antioxidant defenses. Alteration in concentrations of certain small molecules also occurs with the disease progression and can help understand TBI pathophysiology. Two analytical methods employing liquid chromatography with tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) were developed and validated to monitor the potential small-molecule TBI biomarkers at sub-ppb levels. Subsequently, the neuroprotective effect of an antioxidant prodrug, N-acetylcysteine amide (NACA), …

Catalytic Control Of The Nanomorphology And Mechanical Properties Of Aliphatic Shape-Memory Aerogels, A B M Shaheen Ud Doulah

Doctoral Dissertations

"Shape-memory poly(isocyanurate-urethane) (PIR-PUR) aerogels are nanoporous solids that can return to their original shape after being compressed, through a heating actuation step. This thesis compares the effectiveness of various metal ions as catalysts in the formation of PIR-PUR aerogels, and explores the correlation between catalytic activity, nanomorphology, and mechanical properties of the resulting aerogels. The gelation rate was found to increase from Fe to Cu and then decline from Cu to Ga in the periodic table. CuCl₂ was found to be the fastest catalyst, and FeCl₃ the slowest. The morphology of the aerogels changed from bicontinuous to spheroidal …

Secure And Privacy-Preserving Federated Learning With Rapid Convergence In Leo Satellite Networks, Mohamed Elmahallawy

Doctoral Dissertations

"The advancement of satellite technology has enabled the launch of small satellites equipped with high-resolution cameras into low Earth orbit (LEO), enabling the collection of extensive Earth data for training AI models. However, the conventional approach of downloading satellite-related data to a ground station (GS) for training a centralized machine learning (ML) model faces significant challenges. Firstly, the transmission of raw data raises security and privacy concerns, especially in military applications. Secondly, the download bandwidth is limited, which puts a stringent limit on image transmissions to the GS. Lastly, LEO satellites have sporadic visibility with the GS, and orbit the …

A Multiple-Case Study On The Impact Of An Introductory Real Analysis Course On Undergraduate Students' Understanding Of Function Continuity, Ryan Joseph Rogers

Theses and Dissertations--Mathematics

Undergraduate students' understanding of function continuity has not been explored broadly in previous research. The relevant findings in the literature are predominantly concerned with calculus students' understanding and misconceptions of continuity. Many of these misunderstandings are tied to the relationships which continuity has with limits and differentiability. This multiple-case study explores how, if at all, an introductory real analysis course impacts undergraduate students' understanding of function continuity and its connections to the notions of limits and differentiability. We embed our findings within the theoretical framework of Tall's three worlds of mathematics, namely, the embodied, symbolic, and formal worlds.

The cases …

Assessing Interatomic Potentials For Molecular Dynamics Simulation Of Soybean Oil Pyrolysis, Tanner Garrett Rust

MSU Graduate Theses

The world today relies on hydrocarbon combustion for many reasons, including its high energy density that provides ease of transportation. However, hydrocarbons sourced from fossil fuels are not expected to last forever. Biodiesel, a renewable alternative, has many attractive benefits but comes with other downsides. Biodiesel can gel in cold environments and may leave residue in an engine. Pyrolysis of biodiesel has shown promise in addressing these common detriments. Inducing pyrolysis on biodiesel feedstock (commonly soybean oil in the USA) would be an attractive option presuming it continues to produce fossil fuel analogs similar to biodiesel pyrolysis. Herein, Langevin molecular …

Geology Of The Bishop 7.5-Minute Quadrangle And Geophysical Modeling To Constrain Syndepositional Deformation Of The Black Warrior Foreland Basin, Joseph Edward Lane

MSU Graduate Theses

The Black Warrior basin is a foreland basin formed by the Ouachita–Appalachian orogeny during the late Paleozoic Era. Mississippian strata record the transition from the carbonate platform within the Tuscumbia Limestone to the clastic-rich units within the overlying Pride Mountain Formation and Hartselle Sandstone. The western and southern-most fringes of the Black Warrior basin are covered by thin, post orogenic Cretaceous sediments of the East Gulf Coastal Plain. Geological mapping of the Bishop 7.5-Minute quadrangle revealed subtle deformation in Mississippian strata in the form of gentle folds (

Development Of Functional Plasmonic Nanoceria For The Ultrasensitive Detection Of Ebola Glycoprotein, Carissa A. Sutton

MSU Graduate Theses

Infectious diseases have been increasing in both severity and prevalence, leading to increasing economic burdens and health concerns. Ebola hemorrhagic fever is an infectious disease that is both highly communicable and highly fatal. Current detection methods for the virus have high specificity and sensitivity but have long and/or complicated procedures that do not allow for early virus detection in highly affected areas. Compared to the lengthy procedure of reverse transcription-polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR), real-time RT-PCR is more time-efficient; however, specificity and sensitivity are reduced. Since early detection of the virus is the only way to increase survival rates, sensitive detection …

Inorganic Chemical Reasoning Skills: An Exploratory Study Into Understanding Students’ Choices And Thought Processes, Hannah P. Thompson

MSU Graduate Theses

Predicting the products of reactions is a fundamental skill for practicing inorganic chemists. However, the current knowledge of the strategies that students use to solve them is limited. Presumably, instructors of inorganic chemistry courses give complete-the-reaction assessment items hoping that students will use their knowledge of inorganic concepts to solve them; but it is conceivable that a successful student could use heuristics or domain general problem-solving methods. I proposed this study to determine which strategies were used by students when solving complete-the-reaction tasks in inorganic chemistry, and also to make qualitative connections between strategy and accuracy. This was done in …

Bank Erosion Dynamics In Response To Anthropogenic Disturbances In The Cuivre River Watershed Of Missouri, Usa, Nathan Douglas Sines

MSU Graduate Theses

Riverbank erosion is increasingly recognized as a pressing issue exacerbated by human activities. The Cuivre River, a tributary of the Mississippi River, located in northeast Missouri, has limited documentation on bank erosion, with the most recent study conducted in the early 1990s. This research aims to fill this gap by exploring the stream bank erosion dynamics from 1816 to 2015. The objectives are to: (i) understand the channel width dynamics for 1816 to 1994 ii) determine the sediment erosion and deposition volume along the riverbank in the period of 1994 to 2015. iii) identify the anthropogenic disturbances particularly land use …

Zeckendorf Representation Analysis On Third Order Fibonacci Sequences That Do Not Satisfy The Uniqueness Property, Samuel A. Aguilar

Honors College Theses

Zeckendorf's Theorem states that every natural number can be expressed uniquely as the sum of distinct non-consecutive terms of the shifted Fibonacci sequence (i.e. 1, 2, 3, 5, ...). This theorem has motivated the study of representation of integers by the sum of non-adjacent terms of Nth order Fibonacci sequences, including the characterization of the uniqueness of Zeckendorf representation based on the initial terms of the sequence. Moreover, when this uniqueness property is satisfied for third order Fibonacci sequences, the ratio of integers less than a given number X that have a Zeckendorf representation has been estimated by Dr. Sungkon …

Climate Change's Effect On Flow Regime, Alexander Ialenti

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

This project will test to see if there is a percent increase in non-perennial streams sampled from 2003-2021. Using data provided by The Cleveland Metroparks, sampling events will be separated by date, flow regime classification, and rain data. Current literature supports the claim that many perennial streams, streams that flow year-round, will become non-perennial streams over time. This shift is predicted to be caused by a change in rain patterns. Both the interval between rain events and the intensity of rainfall per event are predicted to increase. My hypothesis is that there will be an increase in the percentage of …

Inpainting Program, Owen Culmer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Image processing is a quickly developing field of computer science, especially with the growth of computer vision and generative artificial intelligence. For my project, I focused on object removal, where a targeted object or area can be removed from a digital image. I first accomplished this by implementing a seam carving algorithm, where rows or columns of pixels called seams are removed from an image, that prioritizes the removal of seams that include targeted areas. I next explored a digital inpainting algorithm that would replace targeted areas, rather than removing them, in order to maintain the exact image dimensions and …

Robot-Based 3d Printing, Aaron Hoffman

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Details of a large-format 3D printer created to print experimental materials, test multi-axis print techniques, and quickly print large objects. The printer consists of a 7-axis robotic arm and pellet extruder, which are controlled by a PC. Experimental materials such as recycled polymers or carbon-fiber reinforced materials can be easily tested with the pellet format of the extruder. The printer can perform different printing techniques and can be used to experiment with material properties when using these techniques with different polymers. The print surface is around 5 times larger than the average commercial 3D printer, and the robotic arm provides …

A Comparison Of Lexical Tokenization Methods, Nathan Culmer

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The purpose of this project was to compare tokenization methods, or methods of breaking up a text into meaningful parts for use in natural language processing. The effectiveness of several commonly used tokenization methods were investigated, including morpheme tokenization, which takes into account the linguistic features of the language. In addition, I proposed and implemented a new technique to consider the capitalization pattern of a word in the tokenization process, in order to allow this process to include more natural language features. The effectiveness of these methods was compared by using them in a sentiment analysis model for various datasets, …

Ensemble Classification: An Analysis Of The Random Forest Model, Jarod Korn

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

The random forest model proposed by Dr. Leo Breiman in 2001 is an ensemble machine learning method for classification prediction and regression. In the following paper, we will conduct an analysis on the random forest model with a focus on how the model works, how it is applied in software, and how it performs on a set of data. To fully understand the model, we will introduce the concept of decision trees, give a summary of the CART model, explain in detail how the random forest model operates, discuss how the model is implemented in software, demonstrate the model by …

A Petrographic And Geochemical Study Of The Rangataua Lava Flows, Mount Ruapehu, Aotearoa New Zealand, Lucy Smith

Scripps Senior Theses

Mount Ruapehu is a large stratovolcano on the North Island of Aotearoa New Zealand. The Rangataua lava flow is situated on the southern flanks of Ruapehu, and extends for 15-16 km. The flow is of andesite composition and comprised of three units: proximal, medial and distal. Mount Ruapehu is both scientifically and culturally significant.

Geochemical analyses of 13 whole rock samples, Electron Microprobe analyses of three polished thin sections, and geothermobarometry calculations were conducted to obtain data on pre-eruptive intensive parameters. Petrographic observations were used to investigate disequilibrium textures and shed light on magma chamber processes.

Results of this study …

Geographically Dependent Thermodynamic And Geochemical Evolution In The Post-Batholith Upper Mantle Beneath The Sierra Nevada: Analysis Of The Blue Knob Xenoliths, Eleanor Ruos

Scripps Senior Theses

Xenoliths entrained in recent (Miocene) volcanics from the Sierra Nevada provide insights into a continuously evolving upper mantle during post-batholith generation periods (early Cenozoic–present). Hypothesized mantle refertilization followed by subsequent delamination of the lithospheric root beneath the Sierra provides a contextual framework for analyzing how the upper mantle responds to such events. This study contributes new geochemical data from the ultramafic xenoliths of Blue Knob, including bulk-rock major and trace element data, thin-section petrography, mineral chemistry and thermobarometry, and oxygen isotopes (delta¹⁸O). Blue knob (Eastern Sierra) data are compared to previous works on xenoliths from Chinese Peak and …

Activation Of Hydrogen By Sterically Modulated Coinage Metal Catalysts Via Mutual Quenching Of Hard/Soft Acid/Base Mismatches, Zach Leibowitz

Honors Projects

To mitigate the devastating environmental impacts of climate change in the coming decades, it is imperative that we replace the use of fossil fuels with renewable energy sources such as wind, solar, and hydroelectric. As these renewable energy sources are inherently intermittent, there exists a need for sustainable mechanisms to store renewable energy for later use. While the direct use of dihydrogen (H₂) as a combustible fuel would allow for energy storage without the harmful release of carbon dioxide (CO₂) upon combustion, the practicality of H₂ as a synthetic fuel is limited by its low …

Basins Of Attraction And Metaoptimization For Particle Swarm Optimization Methods, David Ma

Honors Projects

Particle swarm optimization (PSO) is a metaheuristic optimization method that finds near- optima by spawning particles which explore within a given search space while exploiting the best candidate solutions of the swarm. PSO algorithms emulate the behavior of, say, a flock of birds or a school of fish, and encapsulate the randomness that is present in natural processes. In this paper, we discuss different initialization schemes and meta-optimizations for PSO, its performances on various multi-minima functions, and the unique intricacies and obstacles that the method faces when attempting to produce images for basins of attraction, which are the sets of …

Fall Forward, Spring Back: Drivers Of Synchrony In The Sea Star Crawl-Bounce Gait Transition, Brady R. Nichols

Honors Projects

The Froude number is the ratio of kinetic energy to gravitational potential energy used during locomotion and is often used to analyze gait transitions. Here, I compare and contrast the human walk-run gait transition, which occurs at a consistent Froude number of 1 because there exists a mechanical speed limit to walking, and the sea star crawl-bounce gait transition, which occurs around Froude numbers of 1*10^-3. In this thesis I investigate why sea stars exhibit two gaits despite lacking brains and moving at Froude numbers far below other known gait transitions, hypothesizing (1) that the crawl-bounce transition may be mechanical …

Tropical Fish Study In Tahiti, French Polynesia, Miranda Brainard, Caitlyn Swango, Paityn Houglan, Richard Londraville

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

In May of 2023, I embarked on an exciting research journey to Moorea, French Polynesia, alongside fellow students and faculty members from the University of Akron and Syracuse University. This expedition was part of the university-sponsored Tropical Vertebrate Biology course, where we delved into the exploration of various tropical species inhabiting the island, including sea urchins, geckos, and my primary focus, the blackspotted rockskipper.

My research team, composed of my co-authors and me, was particularly intrigued by the unique refuge-seeking behavior displayed by blackspotted rockskippers. These amphibious fish are renowned for their remarkable ability to inhabit tide pools and rocky …

Mitigating Cyber Espionage: A Network Security Strategy Using Notifications, Claire Headland

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

Network security and its mitigation of cyber espionage is paramount to the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of data within the intelligence field. With the advancing efficacy of social engineering to execute cyber espionage attacks, further measures and fail-safe mechanisms have become necessary. If a malicious actor successfully penetrates the network, suspending confidential data transmissions over the compromised network becomes crucial. However, connected users need a platform to receive security notifications and, therefore, need to know that their continued network use compromises more data. This project eliminates this by achieving two primary objectives: designing a multi- layered, hardened, and segmented network …

Statistical Modeling Of Bankruptcy Data, Andrew Elsfelder

Williams Honors College, Honors Research Projects

My project uses a dataset of bankrupt and non-bankrupt companies in Taiwan from 1999 to 2009. This data was collected from the Taiwan Economic Journal. The statistical methods I used to model the data are CHAID, CART, and logistic regression. The models created are tools that can predict if a company is bankrupt, or not-bankrupt based on other data about the company. I created multiple models for each of the methods to find the best model for each method. I then analyzed the output from each method. Lastly, I determined which model was the best for this data based on …

Extraction Of Capsaicin Using The Polyol Induced Extraction (Pie) Method, Orlando Herrera

All Student Theses and Dissertations

Polyol-induced extraction (PIE) is an extraction technique for separating organic solvents from water, using glycerol and polyol as separating agents. Glycerol binds water releasing the organic solvent as a separate liquid phase. this thesis, investigates how the PIE process may be used to separate caffeine and capsaicin. When acetonitrile and water are used as a 1:1 solvent mixture, two immiscible phases are created upon addition of the polyol, glycerol. Initially, for purposes of training on the PIE method, the studies primarly began with the extraction of pure caffeine. Using a 1:1 mixture of acetonitrile and water, 20 m/v % glycerol, …