Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Plant Information Compiled By The Utah Natural Heritage Program: A Progress Report, M. A. Franklin, State Of Utah Department Of Natural Resources

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

The Utah Natural Heritage Program (UTHP) was initiated in late summer 1988 and has functioned as an ongoing biological survey of the state with an emphasis on rare or declining species. It serves as a centralized data repository, acquiring range wide information regarding rare plant and animal species for use by land managers as well as for the evaluation of conservation needs. As well as being used by government agencies, data are used in responding to requests for information from non-government organizations and private interests. Data can be used in the assessment of species’ conservation status state-wide and, in coordination …

Linking Pastoralists And Exporters In A Livestock Marketing Chain: Recent Experiences From Ethiopia, D. Layne Coppock, Solomon Desta, Getachew Gebru, Seyoum Tezera

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

The Boran of southern Ethiopia have been traditionally viewed as unwilling or unable to engage in large scale, commercialized livestock trade. Here we report on the creation of a new livestock marketing chain from the Borana Plateau to export outlets largely serving the Gulf States. Since 2003 various meetings and exchange tours were organized by collaborating agencies and PARIMA to directly link pastoral producers with livestock exporters and policy makers. This occurred against a backdrop of growing export demand for small ruminants, rapid development of private export industry, formation of well-trained pastoral marketing groups (often dominated by women), and provision …

Degree Of Sedentarization Affects Risks And Conflicts For The Waso Boran In Northern Kenya, D. Layne Coppock, Abdullahi D. Jillo, Mark N. Mutinda, Abdilla A. Aboud

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

The Waso Borana have lived for over a century in northern Kenya. In the last few decades, however, their ability to maintain their traditions has been severely challenged. Here we report survey results from 540 households in Isiolo District, stratified among three groups differing in terms of lifestyle: sedentary, semi-sedentary, and mobile. In some cases these groups vary with respect to important perceived risks, causes of natural-resource related conflict, and possible solutions to conflict. For example, sedentary respondents often noted concerns over land tenure problems, human diseases, and political incitement. Mobile respondents, in contrast, often noted primary concerns over drought, …

Climatology Of F Region Zonalplasma Drifts Over Jicamarca, Bela G. Fejer, J. R. Souza, A. S. Santos, A. E. Costa Pereira

Bela G. Fejer

[1] We use extensive incoherent scatter radar observations made at the Jicamarca Radio Observatory between 1970 and 2003 to study and model empirically the equatorial zonal plasma drifts near the F region peak using Bernstein polynomials as base functions. Our quiet-time model results confirm that the daytime drifts are westward and are nearly season and solar cycle independent. The nighttime drifts are eastward, have larger magnitudes, and increase strongly with solar flux, particularly near equinox and December solstice. Enhanced geomagnetic activity drives small eastward perturbation drifts during the day and much larger westward disturbance drifts at night. The nighttime drift …

A Grapheme To Phoneme Converter For Standard Malay, Haizhou Li, Mahani Aljunied, Boon Seong Teoh

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This paper describes the process of creating a grapheme-to-phoneme (G2P) converter for Standard Malay (SM). A fundamental step to building TTS and ASR engines, is to build a good G2P system that can automatically generate accurate phonemic representations for words. Our goal is to generate phonemes that reflect real speech, thereby facilitating more accurate phoneme alignment with actual waveforms (obtained from voice-data collection), keeping human intervention to the minimum. Here we discuss the key areas in SM that require considerable phonemic alterations including letter elisions, consonant insertions, multiple ways of uttering a letter/diagraph – areas that any good G2P system …

Synthesis Of 123-Iodine Labeled Rofecoxib Analogues: Potential Nuclear Medicine Imaging Agents, Brandy U. Belue

Masters Theses

Single photon emission computed tomography (SPECT) is a medical imaging technique which provides three-dimensional images ofliving systems after introduction ofa radiolabeled pharmaceutical. Rofecoxib (4-[ 4-methylsulphonylphenyl]-3phenylfuran-2(SH)-one) is an inhibitor of the cycloxygenase-2 enzyme, an enzyme which has been found to promote cancer cell growth. The synthesis of a no-carrier-added iodine-123 labeled rofecoxib derivative is potentially of value for the detection of cancer utilizing SPECT.

Iodine-123 labeled -(3-Iodophenyl)-4-(methanesulfonylphenyl)-SH furan-2-one, 1, and 3-(4-Iodophenyl)-4-(methanesulfonylphenyl)-5H-furan-2-one, 2, were prepared from the respective potassium organotrifluoroborate salts. The trifluoroborates were prepared from a simple six step pathway.

Removal Of Heavy Metals From Aqueous Solutions Using Local Adsorbents, Moza S. Al-Sharyani

Theses

The recent rapid increase in industrialization activities contributed to most of aquatic pollution problems. Among aquatic pollutants, heavy metals, such as zinc, lead, cadmium, and copper have gained relatively more significance in view of their persistence and toxicity. Due to their health and toxicological effects, environmental agencies and authorities have set strict regulations to maintain the limit of heavy metals in wastewater below the maximum acceptable concentration levels.

The technical feasibility of using raw date pits and different activated carbons prepared from date pits by air and acid activation as low cost local adsorbents for the removal of different heavy …

Stratigraphic And Structural Relationships Of The Ocoee Supergroup, Southern Appalachians: Implications For Neoproterzoic Rift Basin Architecture And Paleozoic Collisional Orogenesis, James Ryan Thigpen

Masters Theses

The late Proterozoic-Early Cambrian Ocoee Supergroup (OSG)is the dominant lithostratigraphic sequence of the western Blue Ridge (WBR) province in southeast Tennessee, southwest North Carolina, and northern Georgia. The OSG is divided into the basal Snowbird Group (SG) that nonconformably overlies Grenvillian basement, the thick Great Smoky Group (GSG) that is usually in fault contact with the Snowbird Group, and the Walden Creek Group (WCG) that directly underlies the Cambrian Chilhowee Group and conformably overlies both the Snowbird and Great Smoky Groups. Traditional interpretations suggest that the OSG was deposited during late Neoproterozoic-Early Cambrian rifting along the southeast Laurentian margin, initially …

Applications Of Genetic Algorithms To A Variety Of Problems In Physics And Astronomy, Kevin Richard Williams

Masters Theses

Genetic algorithms are search techniques that borrow ideas from the biological process of evolution. By means of natural selection, genetic algorithms can be employed as robust numerical optimizers on problems that would normally be extremely problematic due to ill-behaved search spaces. The genetic algorithm has an advantage in that it is a global optimization strategy, as opposed to more conventional methods, which will often terminate at local maxima.

The success and resourcefulness of genetic algorithms as problem-solving strategies are quickly gaining recognition among researchers of diverse areas of study. In this thesis I elaborate on applications of a genetic algorithm …

Development Of A Dilatant Damage Zone Along A Thrust Relay In A Low-Porosity Quartz Arenite, Jennie E. Cook

Masters Theses

A damage zone developed along a backthrust fault system in well-cemented quartz arenite of the Tuscarora Sandstone in the Alleghanian foreland thrust system consists of a network of NW-dipping thrusts that are linked by multiple higher-order faults and bound a zone of intense extensional fractures and breccias. The damage zone is unusual in that it preserves porous brittle fabrics despite formation at >5km depth. The damage zone developed at an extensional step-over between two independent, laterally propagating backthrusts. Continued displacement resulted in breaching of the relay and formation of faultbounded horses, and favored the formation of extensional fractures. The presence …

Obtaining High Precision Results From Low Precision Hardware, Adam Donald Graham

Masters Theses

This document describes an attempt at acheiving high precision matrix multiplication results from the Lenslet EnLight256 Optical Signal Processor (OSP), which on its own can only produce results which are hardware limited to 8-bit signed integers. Due to it’s low precision, it’s has only limited applicability to real world problems, and if higher precision results were possible from the machine it could be used for more applications. A C library is developed for this thesis to allow high-precision results from the EnLight256. The library is described and results are given. Finally an implementation of the Jacobi Method on the EnLight256 …

Final Environmental Assessment And Finding Of No Significant Impact For The Proposed Safety Of Dams Modifications And Bridge Reconstruction, Provo Area Office, Upper Colorado Region, Bureau Of Reclamation, U.S. Department Of Transportation, Utah Division, Federal Highway Administration, U.S. Department Of The Interior

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

The Bureau of Reclamation, Provo Area Office (Reclamation) proposes to replace the concrete spillway structure at Scofield Dam, the principal feature of the Scofield Project. This construction project would be completed under the Safety of Dams (SOD) Act of 1978 (Public Law 95-578, as amended). The proposed SOD modifications would correct safety deficiencies of the dam without affecting the purpose, or benefits of the dam. Reclamation also proposes to replace the existing gate house at its current position on the crest of the dam. This building is in poor condition and would be replaced with either a new concrete structure …

Natural Flow And Salt Computation Methods, Calendar Years 1971-1995, James Prairie, Russell Callejo

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

This paper documents the steps taken to compute natural flow and salt in the Upper and Lower Colorado River Basins from 1971-1995. Natural flow and salt data are hydrologic input data required in the CRSS planning model. The methods used to compute natural flow and salt described in this paper have changed from previous methods as a result of recent research. This research found data and methodological inconsistency in past methods to compute natural flow and salt was compared to data and methods used in the CRSS planning model (Prairie and Fulp, 1999). To assure the computation of natural flow …

Webarc: Website Archival Using A Structured Approach, Ee Peng Lim, Maria Marissa

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Website archival refers to the task of monitoring and storing snapshots of website(s) for future retrieval and analysis. This task is particularly important for websites that have content changing over time with older information constantly overwritten by newer one. In this paper, we propose WEBARC as a set of software tools to allow users to construct a logical structure for a website to be archived. Classifiers are trained to. determine relevant web pages and their categories, and subsequently used in website downloading. The archival schedule can be specified and executed by a scheduler. A website viewer is also developed to …

Mathematical Functions: An Interactive Emodule, Sarah Jean Moody

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The National Library of Virtual Manipulatives (NLVM, http://nlvm.usu.edu/) is a widely used and highly praised teaching/learning resource for school mathematics. The NLVM is the result of a four-year USU project, funded primarily by the National Science Foundation, Award #9819107, to create a web-based, freely accessible, library of interactive virtual manipulatives to help students learn basic mathematics concepts. During a typical school day, the NLVM server receives more than 3 million hits.

A Microreactor System For Measuring Size Selectivity In Porous Wo3 Sensor Materials, Meng Lu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Our interest in studying reactions catalyzed by high surface area W0₃ powders is based on their potential application as the active material in sensors for low level (ppb) detection of flammable or toxic gases. A series of porous W0₃ powders with both meso- and micro-porosity have been synthesized by Waghe and Tripp. Preliminary results of the response of sensors fabricated from these materials indicated the possibility of size selectivity on the molecular scale. To provide support for the hypothesis of size selectivity and understand the reaction kinetics of alcohols over the new porous W0₃ powders for sensor …

Pedologic Investigations In The Red River Region Of Eastern Kentucky: Relationship Of Soil Properties To Lithology, Slope Aspect, And Soil Quality To Prehistoric Indigenous Food Plot Locations, Jason D. Windingstad

Masters Theses

ABSTRACT

Part I

The Red River Valley of Eastern Kentucky contains cultural remains that point to the independent development of agriculture during the Late Archaic cultural period. The objective of this study is to gather quantitative data through the chemical and physical analysis of soils collected within a valley transect to gain insights into landscape processes and soil quality that may have played a role in the development of plant domestication. National Cooperative Soil Survey standards were used for field descriptions and the chemical and physical analysis of all samples. Soil quality values such as ECEC (ammonium acetate pH 7), …

The Application Of Category Theory And Analysis Of Receiver Operating Characteristics To Information Fusion, Steven N. Thorsen

Theses and Dissertations

Multisensor data fusion is presented in a rigorous mathematical format, with definitions consistent with the desires of the data fusion community. A model of event-state fusion is developed and described. Definitions of fusion rules and fusors are introduced, along with the functor categories of which they are objects. Defining fusors and competing fusion rules involves the use of an objective function of the researcher's choice. One such objective function, a functional on families of classification systems, and in particular, receiver operating characteristics (ROCs), is introduced. Its use as an objective function is demonstrated in that the argument that minimizes it …

Some New Orthogonal Arrays Oa (4r;R (1) 2(P);2), Warren F. Kuhfeld, Chung Yi Suen

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

We developed an algorithm to search for new orthogonal arrays, OA(4rOA(4r, r12pr12p, 2), for odd r . With it, we found new orthogonal arrays with 4r=364r=36 through 124 runs. Many other new arrays can be obtained from these new arrays.

A Methodology For Efficiently Sampling The Conformation Space Of Molecular Structures, Audrey Lee, Ileana Streinu, Oliver Brock

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

Motivated by recently developed computational techniques for studying protein flexibility, and their potential applications in docking, we propose an efficient method for sampling the conformational space of complex molecular structures. We focus on the loop closure problem, identified in the work of Thorpe and Lei (2004 Phil. Mag. 84 1323-31) as a primary bottleneck in the fast simulation of molecular motions. By modeling a molecular structure as a branching robot, we use an intuitive method in which the robot holds onto itself for maintaining loop constraints. New conformations are generated by applying random external forces, while internal, attractive forces pull …

The John Muir Newsletter, Winter 2005/2006, The John Muir Center For Environmental Studies

Muir Center Newsletters (1981-2015)

Radical Transcendentalism: Emerson, Muir and the Experience of Nature by James Brannon Palo Alto Center for Science and the Humanities, Palo Alto, CA ©2006 The uniquely American Transcendentalist School which formed in Harvard-influenced 1830's Cambridge brought a New Idea regarding man, spirit, and nature to a young country struggling to find its own voice. As its chief proponent, Ralph Waldo Emerson conveyed a philosophy that was considered radical in its time. The young John Muir, raised in an environment of harsh Puritan sensibilities and Christian dogma, took strongly to the Transcendental ideas as he was introduced to them at the …

Pervasive Cracking Of The Northern Chilean Coastal Cordillera: New Evidence For Forearc Extension, John P. Loveless, Gregory D. Hoke, Richard W. Allmendinger, Gabriel González, Bryan L. Isacks, Daniel A. Carrizo

Geosciences: Faculty Publications

Despite convergence across the strongly coupled seismogenic interface between the South American and Nazca plates, the dominant neotectonic signature in the forearc of northern Chile is arc-normal extension. We have used 1 m resolution IKONOS satellite imagery to map nearly 37,000 cracks over an area of 500 km2 near the Salar Grande (21°S). These features, which are best preserved in a ubiquitous gypcrete surface layer, have both nontectonic and tectonic origins. However, their strong preferred orientation perpendicular to the plate convergence vector suggests that the majority owe their formation to approximate east-west extension associated with plate boundary processes such as …

On The Existence And Stability Of Carbon -Based Silicon Fullerenes -A Density Functional Theoretic Study, Aravind Srinivasan

Physics Theses

The electronic and geometric properties of silicon-carbon fullerene-like nanostructures with two, four, six, twenty and twenty four carbon atoms on the surface of the Si60 cages by substitution, as well as inside the cage at various symmetry orientations have been studied within the generalized gradient approximation to density functional theory (GGA-DFT). The Perdew-Wang 91 (PW91) functional has been used to treat exchange and correlation energies. Full geometry and spin optimizations have been performed using Gaussian 03 suite of programs and the LANL2DZ basis set. Thus for the silicon atom, the Hay-Wadt pseudopotential with the associated basis set are used for …

Exafs Studies Of Bimetallic Ag-Pt And Ag-Pd Nanorods, Debdutta Lahiri, Soma Chattopadhyay, B. A. Bunker, Cm Doudna, Massimo F. Bertino, Frank D. Blum, Akira Tokuhiro, J. Terry

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Nanoparticles of Ag-Pt and Ag-Pd with high aspect ratios were synthesized using a radiolysis method. Gamma rays at dose rates below 0.5 kGy/h were used for irradiation. the nanoparticles were characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM), optical absorption spectroscopy and x-ray Absorption Fine Structure (XAFS) spectroscopy. Bright field micrographs show that Ag-Pt nanowires are composed of large particles with diameters ranging from 20-30 nm and joined by filaments of diameter between 2-5 nm. the Ag-Pd nanowires have diameters of 20-25 nm and lengths of 1.5 μm. for XAFS measurements, the Pt L3 edge (11.564 keV), Ag K-edge (25.514 keV) and …

Mutual Ionization In 200-Kev H⁻+ He Collisions, T. Ferger, Daniel Fischer, Michael Schulz, R. Moshammer, A. B. Voitkiv, B. Najjari, J. Ullrich

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We studied mutual ionization in 200-keV H-⁺He collisions in a kinematically complete experiment by measuring the fully momentum-analyzed recoil ions and both active electrons in coincidence. Comparison of the data to our calculations, based on various theoretical models, show that mutual ionization proceeds predominantly through the interaction between both electrons. The post-collision interaction between the outgoing ejected electrons as well as higher order processes involving the interaction between the core of both collision partners are also important.

Expert Testimony In Capital Sentencing: Juror Responses, John H. Montgomery, J. Richard Ciccone, Stephen P. Garvey, Theodore Eisenberg

Cornell Law Faculty Publications

The U.S. Supreme Court, in Furman v. Georgia (1972), held that the death penalty is constitutional only when applied on an individualized basis. The resultant changes in the laws in death penalty states fostered the involvement of psychiatric and psychologic expert witnesses at the sentencing phase of the trial, to testify on two major issues: (1) the mitigating factor of a defendant’s abnormal mental state and (2) the aggravating factor of a defendant’s potential for future violence. This study was an exploration of the responses of capital jurors to psychiatric/psychologic expert testimony during capital sentencing. The Capital Jury Project is …

Crawdad: A Community Resource For Archiving Wireless Data At Dartmouth, David Kotz, Tristan Henderson

Dartmouth Scholarship

Wireless network researchers are seriously starved for data about how real users, applications, and devices use real networks under real network conditions. CRAWDAD (Community Resource for Archiving Wireless Data at Dartmouth) is a new National Science Foundation-funded project to build a wireless-network data archive for the research community. It will host wireless data and provide tools and documents to make collecting and using the data easy. This resource should help researchers identify and evaluate real and interesting problems in mobile and pervasive computing. To learn more about CRAWDAD and discuss its direction, about 30 interested people gathered at a workshop …

Oligomeric And Polymeric Bibenzimidazole Based Metal Complexes And Crosslinked Polyethylenimine Based Flame Retardants, Jun Yin

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations

In Part I, a simple and mild condensation route for the synthesis of novel bibenzimidazole oligomers and polymers is described using methyl 2,2,2-trichloroacetimidate as a key starting material. The dimer, trimer, tetramer, and polymers of bibenzimidazole were synthesized as a new series of potential conjugated chelating ligands for the metallopolymer studies. The polymers show the maximum absorption at around 400 nm. The optical band gap of the polymer is estimated to be 2.68 eV. In Part II, a series of multinuclear Ru complexes containing di-, tetra-, and octa-RuII centers based on the oligomeric bibenzimidazoles were synthesized and characterized. The species …

Robust And Efficient Localization Techniques For Cellular And Wireless Sensor Networks, Haseebulla M. Khan

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Localization in wireless networks refers to a collection of tasks that, collectively, determines the location of a mobile user, striving to hide the effects of mobility from the user and/or application. Localization has become an important issue and has drawn considerable attention, as many applications including E-911, cargo tracking, locating patients, location-sensitive billing, etc., require knowledge of the location of user/objects. It was realized, quite a while back, that extending emergency 911-like services (E-911) to continually growing mobile population is one of the extremely important localization applications. The bulk of the proposed solutions to emergency location management in wireless environments …

Distributed Computing And Computer Security Education, Stefan Robila

Department of Computer Science Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

This paper presents our experience in using cluster computing when teaching Computer and Data Security. The background knowledge together with the topics that fit the best applications of distributed computing and the hardware and software needs are discussed. Several project activities are presented with some analyzed in detail. The first requires the students to develop a computer cluster out of a regular public lab and use it for building security attacks such as password and encryption key cracking. The second deals with prime number generation using a client /server architecture (implemented in Java) and an Oracle database complemented by the …