Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Special Topic 2: Insect Pheromones And Chemical Defense Secretions, Gordon Gribble

Chemistry 52, Gordon Gribble lectures on Special Topics

No abstract provided.

Introduction To Special Topics, Gordon Gribble

Chemistry 52, Gordon Gribble lectures on Special Topics

No abstract provided.

Special Topic 3, Part 2: Pesticides: Herbicides, Vietnam Defoliants, And Dioxin, Gordon Gribble

Chemistry 52, Gordon Gribble lectures on Special Topics

No abstract provided.

Investigation Of Hsp90 Structure-Activity Relationships In Epigallocatechin Gallate, Arpita Patel

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

(-)-Epigallocatechin gallate (EGCG) is a polyphenolic natural product that inhibits the key chaperone protein Hsp90 by binding to the carboxy terminal portion of the protein. The natural product has modest activity as an Hsp90 inhibitor and there is little information in the literature on structure activity relationships for EGCG analogs. Previous studies from this laboratory provided initial data on the effect of a limited range of changes associated with functional groups, substituents and stereochemistry. The focus of this research is to explore these initial results in more detail with a focus on the synthesis of EGCG analogs with more drug …

First Test Of Verlinde’S Theory Of Emergent Gravity Using Weak Gravitational Lensing Measurements., Margot M. Brouwer, Manus R. Visser, Andrej Dvornik, Henk Hoekstra, Konrad Kuijken, Edwin A. Valentijn, Maciej Bilicki, Chris Blake, Sarah Brough, Hugo Buddelmeijer, Thomas Erben, Catherine Heymans, Hendrik Hildebrandt, Benne W. Holwerda, Andrew M. Hopkins, Dominik Klaes, Jochen Liske, Jon Loveday, John Mcfarland, Reiko Nakajima, Cristobal Sifon, Edward N. Taylor

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Verlinde proposed that the observed excess gravity in galaxies and clusters is the consequence of emergent gravity (EG). In this theory, the standard gravitational laws are modified on galactic and larger scales due to the displacement of dark energy by baryonic matter. EG gives an estimate of the excess gravity (described as an apparent dark matter density) in terms of the baryonic mass distribution and the Hubble parameter. In this work, we present the first test of EG using weak gravitational lensing, within the regime of validity of the current model. Although there is no direct description of lensing and …

Feasibility Of Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (Libs) As An At-Line Validation Tool For Calcium Determination In Infant Formula, Xavier Cama-Moncunill, Maria Markiewicz-Keszycka, Yash Dixit, Raquel Cama-Moncunill, Maria Piedad Casado-Gavalda, Patrick J. Cullen, Carl Sullivan

Articles

In this study, a 150 mJ laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) system was assessed to determine calcium content in infant formula (IF) samples. LIBS is a promising emission spectroscopic technique for elemental analysis, which offers advantages over conventional methods such as real-time analyses, little to no sample preparation and ease of use. The aim of this work was to evaluate the feasibility of LIBS as an at-line tool for IF manufacturing. To this end, IF mixtures with varying content of calcium were prepared over a range (approx. 1.5–7 mg/g of calcium) selected to be in conformity with the guidelines provided by …

Recommending Sustainable Design Practices By Characterizing Activities And Mindsets, Jeremy Faludi

Dartmouth Scholarship

How do designers, engineers, and managers choose the best sustainable design method for their work? How can different design practices combine to complement each other? This study makes recommendations by deconstructing 14 design methods, guides, certifications, and other practices into their constituent activities and mindsets, then characterizing those activities and mindsets. For example, some of the seven activity categories are analysis, ideation, and goal-setting; some of the eight mindset categories are priorities, abstract versus concrete goals, and environmental versus social goals. Recommendations are given for matching sustainable design practices to different usage contexts by their constituent activities and mindsets. It …

Ferrate As A New Treatment Chemical For Removal Of Effluent Organic Matter (Efom) And Emerging Micro-Pollutants In Treated Municipal Wastewater For Water Reuse, Nanzhu Li

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Rapidly expanding population, escalating water consumption, and dwindling water resources make water shortage a crisis on a global level, particularly in arid and semi-arid areas or where water sources are highly contaminated. Water reuse, accomplished by a variety of water reclamation technologies, is a strategically sound approach to this crisis. In practice, secondary effluent that is the treated wastewater discharged from municipal wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) is a preferred reclaimed water source due to its high quality and stable quantity. However, various pollutants, effluent organic matters (EfOM) and emerging contaminants in particular, are still present in secondary effluent. They should …

Evaluation Of Goodness-Of-Fit Tests For The Cox Proportional Hazards Model With Time-Varying Covariates, Shanshan Hong

Theses and Dissertations

The proportional hazards (PH) model, proposed by Cox (1972), is one of the most popular survival models for analyzing time-to-event data. To use the PH model properly, one must examine whether the data satisfy the PH assumption. An alternative model should be suggested if the PH assumption is invalid. The main purpose of this thesis is to examine the performance of five existing methods for assessing the PH assumption. Through extensive simulations, the powers of five different existing methods are compared; these methods include the likelihood ratio test, the Schoenfeld residuals test, the scaled Schoenfeld residuals test, Lin et al. …

A Comparison Of Pesticide Monitoring Programs, State Vs. Federal, Justin Marshall

Theses and Dissertations

Exposure to pesticide residues continues to be a threat to both human and environmental health despite increased efforts in the agricultural industry to control end-product levels. Multiple government agencies routinely sample and screen common agricultural commodities (fruits and vegetables) for pesticide residues, albeit to do so they use different commodity sampling methods and satisfy different program objectives. Often, results of such screening programs are used in a supplementary fashion in human and environmental health studies, but rarely are the results studied against one another. Six years of archived data (narrowed down from 14) of two separate pesticide monitoring programs were …

Polarization Observables T And F In The Yp -> Pi P Reaction, Hao Jiang

Theses and Dissertations

The theory that describes the interaction of quarks is Quantum Chromodynamics (QCD), but how quarks are bound inside a nucleon is not yet well understood. Pion photoproduction experiments reveal important information about the nucleon excited states and the dynamics of the quarks within it and thus provide a useful tool to study QCD. Detailed information about this reaction can be obtained in experiments that utilize polarized photon beams and polarized targets.

Pion photoproduction in the yp -> pi p reaction has been measured in the FROST experiment at the Thomas Jefferson National Accelerator Facility. In this experiment circularly polarized photons …

Improved Simultaneous Estimation Of Location And System Reliability Via Shrinkage Ideas, Beidi Qiang

Theses and Dissertations

In decision theory, when several parameters need to be estimated simultaneously, many standard estimators can be improved, in terms of a combined loss function. The problem of finding such estimators has been well studied in the literature, but mostly under parametric settings, which is inappropriate for heavy-tailed distributions. In the first part of this dissertation, a robust simultaneous estimator of location is proposed using the shrinkage idea. A nonparametric Bayesian estimator is also discussed as an alternative. The proposed estimators do not assume a specific parametric distribution and they do not require the existence of finite moments. The performance of …

Deep Learning: An Exposition, Ryan Kingery

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper we describe and survey the field of deep learning, a type of machine learning that has seen tremendous growth and popularity over the past decade for its ability to substantially outperform other learning methods at important tasks. We focus on the problem of supervised learning with feedforward neural networks. After describing what these are we give an overview of the essential algorithms of deep learning, backpropagation and stochastic gradient descent. We then survey some of the issues that occur when applying deep learning in practice. Last, we conclude with an important application of deep learning to the …

Functional Data Smoothing Methods And Their Applications, Songqiao Huang

Theses and Dissertations

In many subjects such as psychology, geography, physiology or behavioral science, researchers collect and analyze non-traditional data, i.e., data that do not consist of a set of scalar or vector observations, but rather a set of sequential observations measured over a fine grid on a continuous domain, such as time, space, etc. Because the underlying functional structure of the individual datum is of interest, Ramsay and Dalzell (1991) named the collection of topics involving analyzing these functional observations functional data analysis (FDA). Topics in functional data analysis include data smoothing, data registration, regression analysis with functional responses, cluster analysis on …

Underwater Cave Mapping And Reconstruction Using Stereo Vision, Nicholas Weidner

Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a systematic approach for 3-D mapping and reconstruction of underwater caves. Exploration of underwater caves is very important for furthering our understanding of hydrogeology, managing efficiently water resources, and advancing our knowledge in marine archaeology. Underwater cave exploration by human divers however, is a tedious, labor intensive, extremely dangerous operation, and requires highly skilled people. As such, it is an excellent fit for robotic technology. The proposed solution employs a stereo camera and a video-light. The approach utilizes the intersection of the cone of video-light with the cave boundaries resulting in the construction of a wire frame …

Nonparametric Inference For Orderings And Associations Between Two Random Variables, Chuan-Fa Tang

Theses and Dissertations

Ordering and dependency are two aspects to describe the relationship between two random variables. In this thesis, we choose two hypothesis testing problems to tackle; i.e., a goodness-of-fit test for uniform stochastic ordering and one for positive quadrant dependence. For the test for uniform stochastic ordering, we propose new nonparametric tests based on ordinal dominance curves. We derive the limiting distributions of test statistics and provide the least favorable configuration to determine critical values. Numerical evidence is presented to support our theoretical results, and we apply our methods to a real data set. An extension for random right-censored data is …

Polynomials Of Small Mahler Measure With No Newman Multiples, Spencer Victoria Saunders

Theses and Dissertations

A Newman polynomial is a polynomial with coefficients in f0;1g and with constant term 1. It is known that the roots of a Newman polynomial must lie in the slit annulus fz 2C: f��1 1 such that if a polynomial f (z) 2 Z[z] has Mahler measure less than s and has no nonnegative real roots, then it must divide a Newman polynomial. In this thesis, we present a new upper bound on such a s if it exists. We also show that there are infinitely many monic polynomials that have distinct Mahler measures which all lie below f, have …

Subdivision Of Measures Of Squares, Dylan Bates

Theses and Dissertations

The primary goal of our work is to establish a method to relate simple measures to a given set of moments. We calculate the moments of squares via linear polynomial weight measures and straight line cuts and use this to calculate the centre of mass of the square. The one-to-one correspondence that is found is needed to represent surfaces with gaps, which can estimate arbitrary measures on squares. From this, a subdivision scheme is developed, which successively quadrisects squares and uses the relation to estimate the new measures in order to provide a good representation of the original surface. One …

A Mechanistic Study Of Micro Rna 21 Induced Hepatic Fibrosis And Use Of Sparstolonin B In Remediation Of Environmental Nafld, Diptadip Dattaroy

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the increased prevalence of obesity, non-alcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD) has become a major public health problem in the Western world and Asian countries. Approximately a third of the general population in the US has NAFLD. NAFLD includes a spectrum of histological characteristics ranging from simple steatosis to steatohepatitis, fibrosis and cirrhosis and can be characterized into to two major phenotypes: nonalcoholic fatty liver (NAFL) and nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH). Water disinfection byproducts like trihalomethanes can act as crucial risk factors for NAFLD progression. Here I have studied the molecular mechanisms of a water disinfection byproduct, Bromodichloromethane, in induction …

The Development Of Novel Hybridized Hyaluronic Acid Biomaterials For Applications In Tissue Engineering And Controlled Drug Delivery, Panita Maturavongsadit

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is focused on the development of novel hybridized biomaterials for applications in tissue engineering and controlled drug delivery. Two types of materials used in my research are biopolymers and nanomaterials. Hyaluronic acid (HA), a natural polymer commonly found in extracellular matrix (ECM), was the primary polymer used in my research due to biocompatibility, biodegradability and the ease of manipulation to offer a wide range of physical and mechanical properties. Meanwhile, the nanomaterials, including Tobacco mosaic virus (TMV), gold nanorods and graphene, provide attractive properties, such as a nanoscale topography, biochemistry, high surface area, and special chemical and electrical …

Tectonic Studies Of Southeastern North America: The Suwannee Basin, Brunswick Suture Zone, Osceola Arc, And Pangean Transcurrent Fault System, Susannah Katherine Boote

Theses and Dissertations

A series of exotic terranes with complex tectonostratigraphic relationships construct the North American margin and record information critical to understanding the evolution of the Appalachian orogen. The Coastal Plain cover remains a challenge in this region; however, synthesis of seismic reflection, seismic refraction, well, and aeromagnetic data allows for a substantially revised interpretation of the basement rocks and structures that comprise the pre-Mesozoic crust of southeastern North America. These data reveal: (1) a Neoproterozoic subduction zone and paired continental-margin arc are preserved in Gondwanan crust in southeastern North America, (2) the Gondwanan Suwannee Basin of Early to Mid-Paleozoic age is …

Comparison Of Atypical Bacteriophages That Infect Caulobacter Crescentus, Doreen Nguyen

Theses and Dissertations

Several Caulobacter bacterial genomes have been recently sequenced, and all of the genomes contained one or more clusters of genes with phage origins. This observation indicates that bacteriophages contribute to the Caulobacter gene pool, so in order to understand bacteria genomes we will need to understand phage genomes as well. As part of understanding the phage genomes, we want to isolate novel bacteriophages and study their genomics. This study resulted in the isolation of 12 new phages, including four that differ from the well-studied CbKlike phages. Two of these novel phages are Podoviruses with icosahedral heads and small tails, and …

Marginal Structural Cox Model For Survival Data With Treatment-Confounder Feedback, Yanan Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

In an observational longitudinal study, there can be time-varying exposure/treatment and time-varying confounders. When the confounders affect the exposure and prior exposure also has an impact on levels of confounders, there is treatment confounder feedback. To admit estimation of unbiased causal effects, these conditions need to be hold, exchangeability, positivity, consistency. The traditional method of conditioning on potential confounders does not meet these 3 conditions. Therefore, parameter estimates from traditional Cox model are biased casual effect estimates when the treatment confounder feedback exists. The marginal structural Cox model can be used to address this issue. By calculating and including inverse …

Improving Facial Action Unit Recognition Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Shizhong Han

Theses and Dissertations

Recognizing facial action units (AUs) from spontaneous facial expression is a challenging problem, because of subtle facial appearance changes, free head movements, occlusions, and limited AU-coded training data. Most recently, convolutional neural networks (CNNs) have shown promise on facial AU recognition. However, CNNs are often overfitted and do not generalize well to unseen subject due to limited AU-coded training images. In order to improve the performance of facial AU recognition, we developed two novel CNN frameworks, by substituting the traditional decision layer and convolutional layer with the incremental boosting layer and adaptive convolutional layer respectively, to recognize the AUs from …

Materials Discovery Of Reduced Early Transition Metal Compounds: Crystal Growth And Characterization, Dileka Abeysinghe

Theses and Dissertations

Materials discovery via crystal growth is an active area of research that has led to the preparation of many novel materials along with the determination of their crystal structures. One sub-category in this diverse field of materials is the preparation of early transition metal reduced oxides. These reduced oxides often exhibit unusual electronic and magnetic properties. Due to the synthetic challenges associated with early transition metal reduction, new and facile methods to prepare reduced oxides is of great interest. These limitations can be overcome by using a carefully selected redox neutral flux, a vacuum sealed fused silica tube, and metal …

A Machine Learning Approach For Enhancing Security And Quality Of Service Of Optical Burst Switching Networks, Adel Dabash A. Rajab

Theses and Dissertations

The Optical Bust Switching (OBS) network has become one of the most promising switching technologies for building the next-generation of internet backbone infrastructure. However, OBS networks still face a number of security and Quality of Service (QoS) challenges, particularly from Burst Header Packet (BHP) flooding attacks. In OBS, a core switch handles requests, reserving one of the unoccupied channels for incoming data bursts (DB) through BHP. An attacker can exploit this fact and send malicious BHP without the corresponding DB. If unresolved, threats such as BHP flooding attacks can result in low bandwidth utilization, limited network performance, high burst loss …

Ensuring The Observability Of Structural Test Obligations, Ying Meng

Theses and Dissertations

Test adequacy criteria are widely used to guide test creation. However, many of these criteria are sensitive to statement structure or the choice of test oracle. This is because such criteria ensure that execution reaches the element of interest, but impose no constraints on the execution path after this point. We are not guaranteed to observe a failure just because a fault is triggered. To address this issue, we have proposed the concept of observability—an extension to coverage criteria based on Boolean expressions that combines the obligations of a host criterion with an additional path condition that increases the likelihood …

Disinfection By-Products: Formation In Pool Water And The Role Of Iodinated Medical Imaging Compounds As A Potential Precursor In The Formation Of Iodo-Dbps, Christina Marie Joseph

Theses and Dissertations

Disinfection by-products (DBPs) are the unintended consequence of using chemical disinfectants to kill pathogens in water. 1-11 They are formed from the reaction between disinfectants and natural organic matter (NOM), anthropogenic contaminants, and bromide/iodide present in the raw source water. DBPs are cause for concern because studies have found them to be toxic.11-16 This research focuses on identifying and studying the formation of DBPs. Specifically, the presence of DBPs in chlorinated pool water and tap water from Barcelona, Spain was studied to better understand which DBPs are formed in the pool as compared to those that enter the pool from …

Coordination Chemistry Of Carboranes And Furan Ligands On Transition Metal Cluster Complexes, Emmanuel Joseph Kiprotich

Theses and Dissertations

Chapter 1 presents the most relevant literature in the field of carborane chemistry. The focus is on icosahedral carboranes and the different methods of boron or carbon atoms substitution and functionalization. The direct addition of transition metal to boron atoms is covered in detail as well as strategies for cage opening of icosahedral carboranes.

Chapter 2 reports the preparation of some of the first polynuclear metal carbonyl cluster complexes where the closo-carborane cage: o-C₂B₁₀H₁₂ serves as a ligand on the face of one (Os₃(CO)₉(µ₃-4,5,9-C₂B₁₀H_{10 …}

Elucidation Of Protein Interactions And The Re-Tuning Of Porphyrin Electronics For Hydroxylases, Steven Charles Ratigan

Theses and Dissertations

Non-Ribosomal Peptide Synthetases (NRPSs) and their exogenous tailoring partners have been heavily studied but not in the context of non-cognate systems. Orf78, a dinuclear iron β-hydroxylase from the lysobacter pathway and homologous to CmlA from the chloramphenicol pathway, is used to test affinities for one native and two non-native T-domains. Results indicate that there is enough difference between Type I and Type II NRPS systems to disfavor common recognition motifs. Additionally, the β-hydroxylase P450sky, from the skyllamycin biosynthetic pathway, is used in conjunction with the NRPS ATdomain NikP1AT from the nikkomycin biosynthetic pathway, in lieu of the homolog P450nikQ. The …