Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Economic Entanglement: The Quantum Race Between The United States And China, Isabella Willhite

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

The United States and China are both currently home to the strongest economies and militaries in the world. Despite their interdependence, trade wars have escalated between the two countries in the past few years. While past trade wars have been focused on purely economic protectionism or ideological stances, the trade wars of today signify a shift towards protecting critical emerging technologies. The important emerging technology of today is quantum computing, which will forever change the way that computers encrypt, process, and decode information. The United States and China are on the eve of the “quantum race,” in which they will …

Household Water Conservation For The Upper Colorado River Basin, Lauren Ott

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Fresh, clean, potable water is the most important natural resource to sustain human life. Concern over the continued, equitable and affordable access to such water is therefore top of mind. Calls for climate change mitigation practices, improved natural resource management, and enhanced attention to water conservation have therefore become increasingly prevalent. These water conservation practices require population-wide political, attitudinal and behavioral shifts and it will be especially impactful for wealthy nations and wealthy people to be mindful of instituting these changes in their own spaces.

In this project, I conduct a literature review to investigate current challenges surrounding water from …

Ms Environmental Biology Capstone Project, Denise Corona

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Land-use change (LUC) is a key driver of biodiversity loss, altering the structure and function of ecosystems through human activities such as urbanization and agriculture. This change has led to habitat loss and fragmentation, resulting in the rapid decline of avian populations globally. Wildlife rehabilitation centers are the primary responders for injured birds and their records provide valuable data to monitor potential factors impacting bird populations. However, these datasets are underutilized in research. This study examined how LUC in the Front Range affects the likelihood and circumstances of admission of injured birds to the Rocky Mountain Wildlife Alliance (RMWA) in …

On Generative Models And Joint Architectures For Document-Level Relation Extraction, Aviv Brokman

Theses and Dissertations--Statistics

Biomedical text is being generated at a high rate in scientific literature publications and electronic health records. Within these documents lies a wealth of potentially useful information in biomedicine. Relation extraction (RE), the process of automating the identification of structured relationships between entities within text, represents a highly sought-after goal in biomedical informatics, offering the potential to unlock deeper insights and connections from this vast corpus of data. In this dissertation, we tackle this problem with a variety of approaches.

We review the recent history of the field of document-level RE. Several themes emerge. First, graph neural networks dominate the …

Utilizing Isotope Tracing To Assess Land Use Implications To Tap And Stream Water Chemistry, Katrina Alexis Mcfadden

Theses and Dissertations--Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

Water quality is an issue that continues to be worsened by extreme flooding, specifically in Eastern Kentucky. The most recent 2022 flooding event in Eastern Kentucky resulted in loss of human life, over $23.3 billion in damaged infrastructure, and impaired human health. Infrastructure failures, such as leaky pipes, are a growing challenge in these regions as rebuilding has occurred. Therefore, the goal of this project was to evaluate water quality in two of the counties most impacted by the 2022 flood in Kentucky, Breathitt and Perry Counties, using sulfur isotopes as a novel tracer to identify potentially failures in distribution …

The Efficacy Of Wetland Treatment Systems Used To Treat Runoff Mixtures From Different Landscapes Across Kentucky, Emily Nottingham

Theses and Dissertations--Biosystems and Agricultural Engineering

The overarching goal was to improve our understanding of the cumulative effect of increased use and occurrence of commonly detected contaminants of potential concern (CPCs) on nitrogen (N) transformation processes in wetlands. The central hypothesis was that those various mixtures of nutrients and CPCs entering treatment wetlands impact N removal pathways. The first study assessed the current state of the literature on the implications to N removal in wetlands in the presence of pesticides and antibiotics. 181 primary studies were identified. Removal efficiencies for nitrate varied widely across the studies, with CPCs impacting microbial communities. A knowledge gap remains in …

Contrastive Learning, With Application To Forensic Identification Of Source, Cole Ryan Patten

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Forensic identification of source problems often fall under the category of verification problems, where recent advances in deep learning have been made by contrastive learning methods. Many forensic identification of source problems deal with a scarcity of data, an issue addressed by few-shot learning. In this work, we make specific what makes a neural network a contrastive network. We then consider the use of contrastive neural networks for few-shot learning classification problems and compare them to other statistical and deep learning methods. Our findings indicate similar performance between models trained by contrastive loss and models trained by cross-entropy loss. We …

Effects Of Low-Cost, Low-Tech Tools For Riparian Restoration On Prairie Streams In Western South Dakota, James Andrew Joseph Bolyard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Despite making up less than two percent of the overall landscape in the arid and semi-arid western US, riparian areas are a crucial resource for agriculture, livestock, and wildlife. However, many have impaired function and reduced riparian cover. Low-Cost, Low-Tech Tools (LCLTT) are a subset of Process-Based Restoration (PBR) used for riparian restoration that were chosen for their cost-effectiveness and minimal technical requirements. LCLTT has been tested in mountainous areas of the western US but only recently implemented in the Northern Great Plains (NGP). Given their novelty as an approach toward restoration for the region, professional restoration and landowner communities …

Various Surfactant Soil Conditioner Effect On Plant Nutrient Concentration, Soil Nutrient Depletion, Soil Volumetric Water Content, Plant Biomass And Yield In Corn, Timothy Veldkamp

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Soil conditioners help improve soil structure by increasing aeration, water infiltration and water holding capacity leading to nutrient availability and reduced irrigation needs. The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of multiple soil conditioners (SC1, SC2, SC3, SC4, and SC5) on corn (Zea mays L.) and their ability to reduce irrigation by 30%. This was evaluated in the field in 2022 and 2023 by Aurora, SD using a Randomized Complete Block Design with six replications. Conditioners were applied as broadcast pre-emergence treatments with 70% irrigation. Control treatments of 70% and 100% irrigation, respectively were included. SC1 application …

Power Centres: A Collaborative Development Proposal For Addressing Poverty And Related Challenges In Rural Communities In Kenya, Kennedy Okello Miruka, Kennedy Okello Miruka

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

In Homa Bay County, Kenya, a community-led development initiative called the Power Centre is transforming the fight against poverty and powerlessness. Grounded in principles of decolonization and participatory action, this project addresses the root causes of marginalization by empowering residents of Kokal Village to become active agents of change. Through a robust mixed-methods research approach, the project identifies systemic challenges and leverages existing social networks to build a sustainable, locally-owned model for development. The Power Centre implements a three-pronged strategy, focusing on increasing community participation, strengthening existing groups, and fostering collaborative networks to weave a robust support system. By addressing …

Monarch Butterfly (Danaus Plexippus) Oviposition Preferences And A Survey Of Fungal Pathogens On Native Milkweeds (Asclepias) Of The Northern Great Plains, Grace Damiano

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

North American monarch butterfly (Danaus plexippus) populations are experiencing significant declines due to habitat loss caused by land use changes. Much of the American Midwest where milkweed, the only host plant of the monarch butterfly, was once much more abundant has been converted to a predominantly agricultural landscape. There are nineteen species of milkweed native to the northern Great Plains region occupied by South Dakota, North Dakota, and Minnesota. Some of these milkweed species may be preferable to monarch butterflies for different reasons, including morphological factors such as stem length, species-level chemical factors, and temporal factors. As monarch …

Bidirectional In-Situ Analysis And Visualization Of Fluid Structure Interactions With Applications In Blood Flow, Nazariy Tishchenko

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Interactive blood flow simulation has applications in the understanding of complex fluids,training medical professionals, diagnostics, and surgical procedure planning. Bidirectional in situ visualization and analysis are much needed to streamline the analysis of large-scale patient-specific blood flow simulations. The in situ component ensures the live visualization of the simulation results while the simulation is running, and the bidirectional component allows for real-time control and configuration of the simulation parameters (i.e., setting and retrieving the simulation parameters and data based on need). In this project, a highly accurate multiphysics simulation was instrumented to work with an existing bidirectional in situ framework. …

Forecasting The One Month Ahead Joint Distribution Of The Carhart Four Factor Model Using A Copula Method, Michael Nebor

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The Fama and French created factors of Market minus Risk Free (Mkt-RF), Small minusBig (SMB), High minus Low (HML), and the Carhart developed factor of Momentum (MOM) are frequently used together as a four factor model to explain the variation in returns of financial equities. This paper analyzes the joint distribution of these factors by forecasting the one month ahead joint distribution using various copula based methods. The VaR quantiles are calculated throughout the forecasted distribution at the .01, .05, .25, .50, .75, .95, and .99 quantiles. The forecasted distributions are compared against each other by analyzing the exceedances of …

Ai-Based Defect Detection In Aerospace Ultrasonic Signals, Rami Issac Lake

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Ensuring the safety and integrity of materials and structures throughout the manufacturing cycle is a critical concern across various industries, including aerospace, automotive, oiland gas, and civil engineering. Non-Destructive Inspection (NDI) techniques allow for the examination of materials without causing damage or alteration, enabling the early detection of potential issues before materials are utilized in the field. The inspection of fuselage composites presents a particular challenge due to their complex structures, diverse materials, and differences in thickness, making defect detection a challenging yet crucial task. Moreover, defects of various types and causes can emerge across all depths of the material …

On The Ground And From Above: A Multi-Factor Analysis Of The Direct And Indirect Drivers Of Tallgrass Prairie Small Mammal Communities, Erin Rowland-Schaefer

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Tallgrass prairies are among the most globally threatened ecosystems, with only one percent of the historical extent remaining in Illinois. Prairie restoration is an essential strategy to preserve biodiversity and reestablish threatened species. Practitioners use management tools to shift the landscape context of prairie restoration sites, such as prescribed fire and land cover change. Managers can also impact the landscape connectivity and edge proximity of certain areas through the use of mowed driving lanes. The effects of these factors on small mammals, which are central in tallgrass prairie food webs and relevant to human health and restoration success, are not …

The Effects Of Bureaucratic Corruption On The Financial Constraints Of Nigerian Small Businesses, Obinna Franklin Ezeibekwe

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In this paper, I conduct the first empirical analysis to examine the impact of bureaucratic corruption on small business financial constraints in Nigeria. This study is also the first to compare the average treatment effect (ATE) with the local average treatment effect (LATE) framework to account for potential variations in treatment effects for small Nigerian firms with less than 100 employees. Using the bivariate probit method and two binary instruments, I find that corruption significantly increases the likelihood of financial constraints for a typical micro, small, and medium enterprise (MSME) by approximately 64 to 68 percentage points. When I use …

Hunting Types In North American Eocene And Oligocene Carnivores And Implications For Nimravid Extinction, Miguel Andres Castellanos

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The late Eocene and Oligocene is traditionally seen as a time of great climactic shift, with open habitats beginning to appear and forests receding. This time period saw both the diversification and subsequent extinction of North American nimravids. The causes of the extinction of this early sabertooth group in the Arikareean remain unclear. One possibility for their decline is that nimravids were competitively disadvantaged in open habitats relative to contemporary, possibly more cursorial caniform predators. Here I analyze and compare the hunting styles of Eocene and Oligocene predators in correlation with their ecological implications via discriminant function analysis of the …

Modulating Co2 Electrocatalytic Conversion To Organics Pathway By Nanoconfinement Effects And The Catalytic Site Dimension, Jianxin Wang

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation presents a comprehensive study on the catalyst supports and the size of catalytic active sites. From a microscopic perspective, this research elucidates the implications of the nanoconfinement effects and the size effects of active sites in the electrocatalytic CO2 reduction process. It lays a solid foundation for the future development of superior catalysts.Electrochemical conversion of CO2 into value-added fuels and chemical feedstocks can serve future energy demands by storing renewable energy and reducing anthropogenic emissions of CO2. CO2 reduction reaction (CO2RR) to multi-carbon chemicals have generated growing interest in recent years, stimulated not only by the economic benefit …

Cold Testing Of A Prototype Superconducting Radiofrequency Electron Gun And Ancillary Systems For The Lcls-Ii-He Project, Kaela Michele Villafania

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Argonne National Laboratory is collaborating with Michigan State University (MSU), Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC) on the design, fabrication, and testing of a prototype superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) gun for the planned LCLS-II-HE upgrade at SLAC. This electron source will enable the generation of higher-brightness beams at a high repetition rate opening the path to expand LCLS-II-HE FEL performances. This thesis focuses on the cold testing of the prototype gun cavity and ancillary structures including the fundamental input-power coupler and tuning system. Numerical simulations are also presented to understand fields inside of the cavity as well as …

Julia Limiting Directions Of Quasiregular Maps, Julie Marie Steranka

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In this dissertation, we study the set of Julia limiting directions of quasiregular maps. The work combines the study of dynamics of quasiregular maps and applications of nonlinear potential theory to quasiregular maps. Our main result shows that the set of Julia limiting directions of a transcendental-type $K$-quasiregular map $f:\R^n\to \R^n$ must contain a component of a certain measure, depending on the dimension $n$, the maximal dilatation $K$, and the order of growth of $f$. In particular, we show that if the order of growth is small enough, then every direction is a Julia limiting direction. The main tool in …

Pathology And Diagnosis In Inflammatory-Related Diseases: Covid-19 And Age-Related Macular Degeneration, Zane Russell Lacasse

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Chronic inflammation and dysfunctional inflammatory responses are believed to be contributing factors to the severity of many diseases. Since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), it has been recognized that levels of inflammatory markers and the severity of coronavirus disease-2019 (COVID-19) cases are closely related. The work within this dissertation begins with establishing an alternative platform for the diagnosis of COVID-19 and explores ways to enhance the diagnostic utility of this platform. An alternative route for COVID-19 diagnosis was explored using matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization time-of-flight mass spectrometry (MALDI-ToF MS). The platform utilizes a non-invasive sampling technique …

Design And Performance Of Superconducting Switches For Nanowire Detectors In Magnetic Fields, Timothy James Draher

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Superconducting nanowire devices fit a broad spectrum of applications, including particle detection and quantum computing, and their expanding use across various fields highlights their role in the hybridization of superconducting and conventional semiconductor electronics. Despite their potential, the low signal output of these devices raises challenges in scalability and integration, particularly in applications for nuclear and high-energy physics, where resilience in magnetic fields is becoming a critical optimization factor. The superconducting nanowire cryotron (nTron) addresses these issues by providing operational gain and logic switching in superconducting nanowire circuits, demonstrating adaptability to multiple materials. This dissertation focuses on modifying the conventional …

Gas-Phase Mass Spectrometry Studies Of Ternary Metal Carboxylate Complexes, Anthony James Fanizza

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In the wake of climate change from rising CO2 emissions and with peak oil looming, the dive into sustainable fuels and energy is becoming increasingly essential. This dissertation investigates ternary ligand-metal cationic complexes for potential catalytic applications in the decarboxylation of carboxylic acids to produce bioavailable and carbon-neutral fuel sources. By utilizing gas-phase reactivity studies via mass spectrometry, namely, collision-induced dissociation and ion-molecule reactions, mechanisms can be elucidated in a regulated chemical environment. When paired with density functional theory calculations for molecular geometries, chemical interactions, charge densities, and energetics, system efficiencies can be further clarified presenting a more complete mechanistic …

Groundwater Flow And Water Clarity At Cenotes In The Yucatan Peninsula, Laura Rossana Fracica Gonzalez

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Characterizing and predicting groundwater flow in complex karst aquifers poses significant challenges. This study explores the potential application of Acoustic Doppler Current Profiler (ADCP) technology for in-situ groundwater flow measurement within sinkholes (cenotes) in the Yucatan Peninsula, Mexico. Two specific questions are addressed: 1) Can ADCP determine flow within Yucatan Peninsula sinkholes? 2) Are groundwater flow vectors related to water clarity in open cenotes? The geological setting of the Yucatan Platform is characterized by horizontal sedimentary strata with highly permeable limestones and extensive karst features. The research focuses on the Holbox fracture zone, where groundwater flow dynamics remain elusive. The …

Microwave Simulations Of A Beam Position Monitor And Circuit Designs Assisting Its Beam Testing, Marc Jacob Crowell

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Beam position monitors (BPMs) are non-destructive diagnostic devices widely used in particle accelerators. I will first introduce the need for precision beam position measurement in particle accelerators, and then provide an overview of various types of BPMs. For the first part of my work, I focus on the design and simulation of a button-BPM. Microwave and wakefield simulations were performed to characterize the output signals. Such a design could find a potential application at the Argonne Wakefield Accelerator (AWA) at the Argonne National Laboratory. Although no BPMs have been fabricated to this date, a future beam experiment will be needed …

Ms Environmental Biology Capstone Project, Klaudia Sowizral

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Thelephorales fungi are considered important ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) in forest ecosystems, yet the patterns of diversity and distribution and the processes that shape them remain poorly understood. This study aims to address this research gap by conducting an exploratory analysis of Thelephorales fungi in soil and litter across various habitat types and environmental characteristics. To do so, we used data collected and synthesized by the Climush project, a multi-year, systematic sampling of macrofungal diversity across North America, that aims to assess sexual (sporocarp and spore trap data) and asexual (soil and endophyte metabarcode data) diversity and distribution in relation to …

An Experiment To Determine Mineral-Associated Organic Matter Turnover In A Sandy Clay Loam, Samantha Abel

All Master's Theses

Soil is an important terrestrial carbon sink. Through regenerative land management, which includes minimizing soil disturbance, the carbon content of soil can be raised towards preindustrial levels. This feat requires effectively storing carbon in a natural system that is inclined to cyclicity. The most stable form of soil organic matter is mineral-associated organic matter (MAOM). This carbon labelling experiment was designed to identify short-term CO₂ fluxes within the soil-plant-atmosphere system, particularly those related to MAOM turnover in the rhizosphere. Basil (Ocimum basilicum) was planted on a plot at the campus farm at Central Washington University. Another plot …

River Response To Removal Of A Small Dam And Replacement With A Roughened Channel, Chandler Sabin

All Master's Theses

Relatively few studies have analyzed how the removal of small dams and re-engineering of the channel affect river channel processes. The low-head Nelson Dam was built in 1920 on the Naches River in central Washington, causing two miles of aggraded sediments. This resulted in upstream flooding and excessive downstream incision that led to ineffective irrigation diversions, and hindered fish spawning. Nelson Dam was removed in 2021 and replaced with a graded, roughened, nature-like channel and a newly engineered diversion that was completed in 2023. The research presented here quantifies the effects of the Nelson Dam removal and channel redesign on …

Assessing The Ore Mineralization Depth And Crustal History Of Plutons In Northeastern Washington Using Thermodynamic Modeling Of Wall Rock Assemblages, David William Miller

All Master's Theses

Critical minerals are essential for advanced technologies across all economic sectors, but domestic deposits are unconstrained and underutilized, leaving the U.S. economy vulnerable to disruption. In northeastern WA, several ore-bearing plutons may be a significant resource; however, their formation depths, a component responsible for ore genesis, are unknown. To constrain regional ore formation depths, the mineral assemblages of calc-silicate and pelitic rocks from the contact aureoles of two Cretaceous plutons, located in the Adams Mountain and Hunters (AMH) quadrangles in the hangingwall of the Kettle detachment fault (KDF), were quantitatively constrained with scanning electron microscopy and XMapTools and compared to …

Enhancing Terrain Creation In Unity With A Hybrid Modular Tool: Integrating Procedural Generation And Manual Input For Optimized Design Flexibility And Efficiency, Kewen Huang

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Digital terrain creation in Unity, especially for games, typically requires extensive manual effort, which is time-consuming and inefficient. Although procedural generation offers a systematic alternative, it often lacks the precision needed for specific design requirements, such as exact path or water body placements. This study introduces a novel modular tool that integrates manual input capabilities with automated procedural generation, aiming to combine the efficiency of procedural techniques with the precision of manual methods. The tool is designed for use within Unity, allowing for detailed customization and adjustments. Comprehensive user testing was conducted with 21 participants. The effectiveness of the tool …