Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Bayesian Inference On Longitudinal Semi-Continuous Substance Abuse/Dependence Symptoms Data, Dongyuan Xing

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Substance use data such as alcohol drinking often contain a high proportion of zeros. In studies examining the alcohol consumption in college students, for instance, many students may not drink in the studied period, resulting in a number of zeros. Zero-inflated continuous data, also called semi continuous data, typically consist of a mixture of a degenerate distribution at the origin (zero) and a right-skewed, continuous distribution for the positive values. Ignoring the extreme non-normality in semi-continuous data may lead to substantially biased estimates and inference. Longitudinal or repeated measures of semi-continuous data present special challenges in statistical inference because of …

Photoacoustic Calorimetry Studies Of The Earliest Events In Horse Heart Cytochrome-C Folding, Tarah A. Word

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The protein folding problem involves understanding how the tertiary structure of a protein is related to its primary structure. Hence, understanding the thermodynamics associated with the rate-limiting steps for the formation of the earliest events in folding is most crucial to understanding how proteins adopt native secondary and tertiary structures. In order to elucidate the mechanism and pattern of protein folding, an extensively studied protein, Cytochrome-c (Cc), was chosen as a folding system to obtain detailed time-resolved thermodynamic profiles for the earliest events in the protein folding process. Cytochrome-c is an ideal system for understanding the folding process for several …

Radial Versus Othogonal And Minimal Projections Onto Hyperplanes In L_4^3, Richard Alan Warner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, we study the relationship between radial projections, and orthogonal and minimal projections in l_4^3. Specifically, we calculate the norm of the maximum radial projection and we prove that the hyperplane constant, with respect to the radial projection, is not achieved by a minimal projection in this space. We will also show our numerical results, obtained using computer software, and use them to approximate the norms of the radial, orthogonal, and minimal projections in l_4^3. Specifically, we show, numerically, that the maximum minimal projection is attained for ker{1,1,1} as well as compute the norms for the maximum radial …

Dual 7-Degree-Of-Freedom Robotic Arm Remote Teleoperation Using Haptic Devices, Yu-Cheng Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A teleoperated system of dual redundant manipulator will be controlled in this thesis. The robot used with the dual redundant manipulator in this thesis is Baxter. Baxter’s redundant robot arms are 7-degree-of-freedom arms. The problem that will be solved in this thesis is optimization of the 7-degree-of-freedom robot arms. The control algorithm of the 7-degree-of-freedom robot arms will be discussed and built. A simulation program will be built to test the control algorithm. Based on the control algorithm, a teleoperation system will be created for Baxter. The controller used is Omni, which is a six-joint haptic device. Omni will also …

Nanomechanical And Nanotribological Characterization Of Sub-Micron Polymeric Spheres, Himanshu Kumar Verma

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Friction between nanoscale objects has been a subject of great interest and intense research effort for the last two decades. However, the vast majority of the work done in this area has focused upon the sliding friction between two rigid, atomically smooth surfaces. Thus the parameter most explored has been the corrugation in the atomic potentials and how this affects the force required to slide one object across another. In truth, many nanoscale objects whose translation force is of practical interest are more spherical in nature. We hypothesize that the factors that determine the translation force will be related, not …

Dead/Live Microbial Culture Technique, Michael Veri

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

New methodology has been utilized to provoke or increase targeted metabolic pathways in microbes. The low hanging fruit of natural products has been discovered over the last 50 years. To continue finding new metabolites to be used as possible drug candidates, methodology development such as those proposed herein are necessary. This methodology uses extracts from known pathogenic bacteria to elicit production of latent biosynthetic pathways from environmental bacterial isolates that may be active against the original pathogenic strains. A new compound, MAV-1 (1) of the diketopiperazine family (Figure 1) was isolated and identified utilizing these techniques. The structure of MAV-1 …

Insights Into The Challenges Of Modeling The Atmospheric Boundary Layer, Esa-Matti Tastula

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This work approaches the topic of modeling the atmospheric boundary layer in four research projects, which are summarized below.

i) The diurnal cycles of near-surface meteorological parameters over Antarctic sea ice in six widely used atmospheric reanalyses were validated against observations from Ice Station Weddell. The station drifted from February through May 1992 and provided the most extensive set of meteorological observations ever collected in the Antarctic sea ice zone. For the radiative and turbulent surface fluxes, both the amplitude and shape of the diurnal cycles varied considerably among different reanalyses. Near-surface temperature, specific humidity, and wind speed in the …

Authentication Via Multiple Associated Devices, Jean-Baptiste Subils

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a practical method of authentication utilizing multiple devices. The factors contributing to the practicality of the method are: the utilization of devices already commonly possessed by users and the amenability to being implemented on a wide variety of devices. The term “device” refers to anything able to perform cryptographic operations, store data, and communicate with another such device.

In the method presented herein, multiple devices need to be associated with a single user to provide this user an identity in the system. A public key infrastructure is used to provide this identity. Each of the devices associated …

Information Technology & Sustainability: An Empirical Study Of The Value Of The Building Automation System, Daphne Marie Simmonds

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This study examines the environmental and economic effects of green information technology (IT). Green IT describes two sets of IT innovations: one set includes innovations that are implemented to reduce the environmental impact of IT services in organizations; and the other IT to reduce the environmental impact of other organizational processes. The two sets respond to the call for more environmentally friendly or “greener” organizational processes.

I developed and tested a preliminary model. The model applied the resource based view (RBV) of the firm (Wernerfelt 1984) the stakeholder theory (Freeman 1984) and included four constructs: (1) BAS implementation; environmental …

The Effect Of Urbanization On The Embodied Energy Of Drinking Water In Tampa, Florida, Mark Vincent Eli Santana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Increasing urbanization has serious implications for resource and energy use. One of these resources is drinking water. The increased amount of impervious surfaces associated with urban development is responsible for increased runoff during rain events, which may have a negative impact on the quality of nearby bodies of water, including drinking water sources. The growing populations associated with urbanization require a higher water demand. In addition, urban drinking water systems use energy to collect, treat, and distribute a safe reliable effluent to users. Therefore, this study focuses on the degree to which urbanization influences the embodied energy of drinking water …

Investigаtiоn Оf 3d Structures Оf Γ-Aaрeрtide Bаsed Peрtidоmimetics, Qiao Qiao

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Oligomers which have a tendency to form well-defined secondary structures are called foldamers. They offer an attractive opportunity for the design of novel molecules that mimic the structures and functions of proteins and enzymes including biocatalysis and biomolecular recognition. Herein a new class of non-natural γ-AApeptides and their derivatives are synthesized and studied in our lab. Previous studies of γ-AApeptides have revealed that they are highly resistant to proteolysis, and have virtually limitless potential in functional group diversity. However, to improve the bio-activity and explore new bio-applications, the understanding of the folding conformation of γ-AApeptides are necessary. Thus, NMR spectroscopy …

Spatiotemporal Sensing And Informatics For Complex Systems Monitoring, Fault Identification And Root Cause Diagnostics, Gang Liu

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In order to cope with system complexity and dynamic environments, modern industries are investing in a variety of sensor networks and data acquisition systems to increase information visibility. Multi-sensor systems bring the proliferation of high-dimensional functional Big Data that capture rich information on the evolving dynamics of natural and engineered processes. With spatially and temporally dense data readily available, there is an urgent need to develop advanced methodologies and associated tools that will enable and assist (i) the handling of the big data communicated by the contemporary complex systems, (ii) the extraction and identification of pertinent knowledge about the environmental …

Environmental Sustainability Of Wastewater Treatment Plants Integrated With Resource Recovery: The Impact Of Context And Scale, Pablo K. Cornejo

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

There is an urgent need for wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) to adapt to a rise in water and energy demands, prolonged periods of drought, climate variability, and resource scarcity. As population increases, minimizing the carbon and energy footprints of wastewater treatment, while properly managing nutrients is crucial to improving the sustainability WWTPs. Integrated resource recovery can mitigate the environmental impact of wastewater treatment systems; however, the mitigation potential depends on various factors such as treatment technology, resource recovery strategy, and system size.

Amidst these challenges, this research seeks to investigate the environmental sustainability of wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) integrating resource …

Effects Of Disorder And Low Dimensionality On Frozen Dynamics In Ca3co2-Xmnxo6, Brian Wesley Casas

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Complex oxides represent an intersection of play grounds for the existence of exciting new fundamental physics and materials with potential technological implications. The realization of many exciting properties of these systems rely on the coupling of electronic, structural and magnetic degrees of freedom. Additionally, competing interactions within each type of coupling discussed previously lead to theoretically diverse ground states, which under the application of an external perturbation, can be tuned and probed.

Ca3Co¬2-xMnxO6 represent a quasi-one dimensional Ising spin chain system oriented in an antiferromagnetic triangular lattice. The exotic behavior of the undoped compound Ca3Co2O6 has inspired work on continuing …

On The Construction Of Restricted Minimum Aberration Designs, Chand Midha, Chung-Yi Suen, Ashish Das

Chand K Midha

Deriving a formula, we show that an optimal moment design has the property that each treatment combination appears as equally often as possible. Modifying the definition of minimum aberration to restricted minimum aberration, we show that the word length pattern of a design is proportional to that of its complement. Many restricted minimum aberration designs are constructed

Synthesis And Characterization Of Naphthocarbaporphyrins And Related Systems, Eric Grabowski

Theses and Dissertations

Carbaporphyrins are porphyrin analogs in which one of more of the pyrrole units have been replaced with a carbocyclic ring. In this project the cyclopentadiene ring replacing a pyrrole ring has been fused with a naphthalene ring. This is done in order to observe the effects of the naphthalene ring on the spectroscopic properties and reactivity.

Experts: Sea-Level Rise In Hampton Roads Is A 'Manageable Problem', Tamara Dietrich

News Items

No abstract provided.

The Instrumental Period, Robert Bindschadler, Eberhard Fahrbach, Jim Fastook, Jaume Forcarda, Josep-Maria Gili, Nancy Bertler, D M. Bergstrom, Mauro Gugliemin, Julian Gutt, Hartmut Hellmer, F Hennion, Roberto Bargagli, Carlo Barbante, Karen Heywood, Dominic Hodgson, David Holland, Sungmin Hong, Angus Atkinson, Rob Arthern, Byron Adams, A H.L Huiskes, Steve Chown, Enrique Isla, Stan Jacobs, Anna Jones, David Bromwich, Claude Boutron, Josifino Comiso, Pete Convey, Alison Cook, Guido Di Prisco, James Bockheim, Mark Stevens, Colin Summerhayes, Phil Trathan, John A. Turner, Kees Van Der Veen, David Vaughan, Mike Meredith, Paul Mayewski, Gareth Marshall, Cinzia Verde, Andrew Lenton, Howard Roscoe, Sharon A. Robinson, Steve Rintoul, Hans-Otto Portner, Sergio Rossi, Ted Scambos, Jon Shanklin, Lloyd Peck, Nicholas Metzl, Andrew Monaghan, David Webb, Christian Wiencke, Covadonga Orejas, Philip Woodworth, Tony Worby, Roger Worland, Kevin K. Newsham, Alberto Naveira-Garabato, Takashi Yamanouchi, Victor Smetacek, Kevin Speer

Byron Adams

The instrumental period began with the first voyages to the Southern Ocean during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth centuries when scientists such as Edmund Halley made observations of quantities such as geomagnetism. During the early voyages information was collected on the meteorological conditions across the Southern Ocean, ocean conditions, the sea ice extent and the terrestrial and marine biology. The continent itself was discovered in 1820, although the collection of data was sporadic through the remainder of the Nineteenth Century and it was not possible to venture into the inhospitable interior of Antarctica. At the start of the Twentieth Century stations …

An Unexpected Limit Of Expected Values, Branko Ćurgus, Robert I. Jewett

Branko Ćurgus

Let t⩾0. Select numbers randomly from the interval [0,1] until the sum is greater than t . Let α(t) be the expected number of selections. We prove that α(t)=et for 0⩽t⩽1. Moreover, . This limit is a special case of our asymptotic results for solutions of the delay differential equation f′(t)=f(t)-f(t-1) for t>1. We also consider four other solutions of this equation that are related to the above selection process.

U.S. Drought Monitor, September 15, 2015, Chris Fenimore

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for September 15, 2015 (9/15/15) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

Localization Length Scales Of Triplet Excitons In Singlet Fission Materials, Sam L. Bayliss, Karl J. Thorley, John E. Anthony, Hélène Bouchiat, Neil C. Greenham, Alexei D. Chepelianskii

Chemistry Faculty Publications

We measure the dielectric confinement length scales of triplet excitons in organic semiconductors by jointly measuring their microwave-domain electric and magnetic susceptibilities. We apply this technique to characterize triplet excitons in two singlet fission materials with distinct solid-state packing and correlate the extracted localization length scales with the role of the excitonic environment. By using the magnetic susceptibility simultaneously determined through our experiments, we compare the independently extracted dielectric and spin-spin localization length scales, highlighting the role of local anisotropy on the properties of excitonic triplet states.

Electrically Tunable Transport In The Antiferromagnetic Mott Insulator Sr2Iro4, C. Wang, H. Seinige, Gang Cao, J.-S. Zhou, J. B. Goodenough, M. Tsoi

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Electronic transport properties of the antiferromagnetic Mott insulator Sr₂IrO₄ have been investigated under extremely high electric biases. Using nanoscale contacts, we apply electric fields up to a few MV/m to a single crystal of Sr₂IrO₄ and observe a continuous reduction in the material's resistivity with increasing bias, characterized by a reduction in the transport activation energy by as much as 16%. Temperature-dependent resistivity measurements provide a means to unambiguously retrieve the bias dependence of the activation energy from the Arrhenius plots at different biases. We further demonstrate the feasibility of reversible resistive switching induced …

Development And Validation Of An Epitope Prediction Tool For Swine (Pigmatrix) Based On The Pocket Profile Method, Andres H. Gutiérrez, William D. Martin, Chris Bailey-Kellogg, Frances Terry, Leonard Moise, Anee S. De Groot

Dartmouth Scholarship

Background: T cell epitope prediction tools and associated vaccine design algorithms have accelerated the development of vaccines for humans. Predictive tools for swine and other food animals are not as well developed, primarily because the data required to develop the tools are lacking. Here, we overcome a lack of T cell epitope data to construct swine epitope predictors by systematically leveraging available human information. Applying the “pocket profile method ”, we use sequence and structural similarities in the binding pockets of human and swine major histocompatibility complex proteins to infer Swine Leukocyte Antigen (SLA) peptide binding preferences. We developed epitope-prediction …

Testing Lorentz Symmetry With Planetary Orbital Dynamics, A. Hees, Q. G. Bailey, C. Le Poncin-Lafitte, A. Bourgoin, A. Rivoldini, B. Lamine, F. Meynadier, C. Guerlin, P. Wolf

Publications

Planetary ephemerides are a very powerful tool to constrain deviations from the theory of general relativity (GR) using orbital dynamics. The effective field theory framework called the Standard-Model Extension (SME) has been developed in order to systematically parametrize hypothetical violations of Lorentz symmetry (in the Standard Model and in the gravitational sector). In this communication, we use the latest determinations of the supplementary advances of the perihelia and of the nodes obtained by planetary ephemerides analysis to constrain SME coefficients from the pure gravity sector and also from gravity-matter couplings. Our results do not show any deviation from GR and …

A Comparison Of A Multistate Inpatient Ehr Database To The Hcup Nationwide Inpatient Sample., Jonathan P Deshazo, Mark A Hoffman

Manuscripts, Articles, Book Chapters and Other Papers

BACKGROUND: The growing availability of electronic health records (EHRs) in the US could provide researchers with a more detailed and clinically relevant alternative to using claims-based data.

METHODS: In this study we compared a very large EHR database (Health Facts©) to a well-established population estimate (Nationwide Inpatient Sample). Weighted comparisons were made using t-value and relative difference over diagnoses and procedures for the year 2010.

RESULTS: The two databases have a similar distribution pattern across all data elements, with 24 of 50 data elements being statistically similar between the two data sources. In general, differences that were found are consistent …

Physical, Thermal And Spectroscopical Characterization Of Biofield Treated Triphenylmethane: An Impact Of Biofield Treatment, Mahendra Kumar Trivedi, Alice Branton, Dahryn Trivedi, Gopal Nayak, Khemraj Bairwa, Snehasis Jana

Mahendra Kumar Trivedi

Characterization Of Physical, Thermal And Spectral Properties Of Biofield Treated O-Aminophenol, Snehasis Jana, Mahendra Kumar Trivedi, Rama Mohan Tallapragada, Alice Branton, Dahryn Trivedi, Gopal Nayak, Rakesh K. Mishra

Mahendra Kumar Trivedi

Biofield Energy Treatment: A Potential Strategy For Modulating Physical, Thermal And Spectral Properties Of 3-Chloro-4-Fluoroaniline, Mahendra Kumar Trivedi, Rama Mohan Tallapragada, Alice Branton, Dahryn Trivedi, Gopal Nayak, Rakesh K. Mishra, Snehasis Jana

Mahendra Kumar Trivedi

Localized Corrosion Risk Assessment Using Markov Analysis, K Mccallum, J Zhao, M Workman, M Iannuzzi, M Kappes, Joe Payer, Curtis Clemons, S Chawla, Kevin Kreider, Nao Mimoto, Gerald Young

Gerald W Young

The objective of this work was to develop the foundation for an interactive corrosion risk management tool for assessing the probability of failure of equipment/infrastructure as a function of threats (such as pitting corrosion and coating degradation) and mitigation schemes (such as inhibitors and coatings). The application of this work was to assist with corrosion management and maintenance planning of equipment/infrastructure given dynamic changes in environmental conditions. Markov models are developed to estimate pitting damage accumulation density distributions as a function of input parameters for pit nucleation and growth rates. The input parameters are selected based upon characterization with experimental …

One-Dimensional Approach To Modeling Damage Evolution In Galvanic Corrosion, Aaron Stenta, S. Basco, A. Smith, Curtis Clemons, Dimitry Golovaty, Kevin Kreider, Joseph Wilder, Gerald Young, Robert Lillard

Gerald W Young

A one-dimensional mathematical model is developed to describe time-dependent damage evolution in well-mixed (spatially uniform species concentrations) galvanic systems using an IR drop approach. An asymptotic procedure taking advantage of disparity in length scales (thin film approximation for the electrolyte thickness) is used to derive the model. Limitations that result from the reduction of dimension are described, along with an analysis demonstrating the ability of the 1D model to capture physical phenomena, such as area ratio effects. Computed potential, current density, and corrosion damage profiles are compared and verified with experimental data available in the literature and 2D galvanic corrosion …