Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Darwin Day In Deep Time: Promoting Evolutionary Science Through Paleontology, Sarah L. Sheffield, Jennifer E. Bauer

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Charles Darwin’s birthday, February 12th, is an international celebration coined Darwin Day. During the week of his birthday, universities, museums, and science-oriented organizations worldwide host events that celebrate Darwin’s scientific achievements in evolutionary biology. The University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UT) has one of the longest running celebrations in the nation, with 2016 marking the 19th year. For 2016, the theme for our weeklong series of events was paleontology, chosen to celebrate new research in the field and to highlight the specific misconceptions of evolution within the context of geologic time. We provide insight into the workings of one of our …

A Geophysical Model For The Origin Of Volcano Vent Clusters In A Colorado Plateau Volcanic Field, Fanghui Deng, Charles B. Connor, Rocco Malservisi, Laura J. Connor, Jeremy White, Aurélie Germa, Paul H. Wetmore

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Variation in spatial density of Quaternary volcanic vents, and the occurrence of vent clusters, correlates with boundaries in Proterozoic crust in the Springerville volcanic field (SVF), Arizona, USA. Inverse modeling using 538 gravity measurements shows that vent clusters correlate with gradients in the gravity field due to lateral variation in crustal density. These lateral discontinuities in the crustal density can be explained by boundaries in the North American crust formed during Proterozoic accretion. Spatial density of volcanic vents is low in regions of high‐density Proterozoic crust, high in areas of relatively low density Proterozoic crust, and is greatest adjacent to …

Climatic Control On Icelandic Volcanic Activity During The Mid-Holocene, Graeme T. Swindles, Elizabeth J. Watson, Ivan P. Savov, Ian T. Lawson, Anja Schmidt, Andrew Hooper, Claire L. Cooper, Charles B. Connor, Manuel Gloor, Jonathan L. Carrivick

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Human-induced climate change is causing rapid melting of ice in many volcanically active regions. Over glacial-interglacial time scales changes in surface loading exerted by large variations in glacier size affect the rates of volcanic activity. Numerical models suggest that smaller changes in ice volume over shorter time scales may also influence rates of mantle melt generation. However, this effect has not been verified in the geological record. Furthermore, the time lag between climatic forcing and a resultant change in the frequency of volcanic eruptions is unknown. We present empirical evidence that the frequency of volcanic eruptions in Iceland was affected …

Double Neutron Stars: Merger Rates Revisited, M. Chruslinska, Krzysztof Belczynski, Matthew Benacquista

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We revisit double neutron star (DNS) formation in the classical binary evolution scenario in light of the recent Laser Interferometer Gravitational-wave Observatory (LIGO)/Virgo DNS detection (GW170817). The observationally estimated Galactic DNS merger rate of RMW = 21+28 −14 Myr−1, based on three Galactic DNS systems, fully supports our standard input physics model with RMW = 24 Myr−1. This estimate for the Galaxy translates in a non-trivial way (due to cosmological evolution of progenitor stars in chemically evolving Universe) into a local (z ≈ 0) DNS merger rate density of Rlocal = 48 Gpc−3 yr−1, which is not consistent with the …

Receiver Function Analyses Of Uturuncu Volcano, Bolivia And Vicinity, Heather Mcfarlin, Douglas Christensen, Stephen R. Mcnutt, Kevin M. Ward, Jamie Ryan, George Zandt, Glenn Thompson

School of Geosciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Uturuncu volcano, located near the borders of Chile and Bolivia in the Central Andes, has been identified as one of two volcanoes in the region with large-scale and active, yet decelerating, inflation. A large low-velocity zone named the Altiplano-Puna magma body (APMB) has been shown to feed magma to Uturuncu and is thought to be a source of the deformation occurring here. The international, multidisciplinary PLUTONS project deployed 28 broadband seismic sensors in a 90 km by 90 km region around and on Uturuncu volcano between April 2010 and October 2012. Over 800 teleseismic receiver functions have been generated and …

Reinterpreting Tlön, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius: On The Antirealism Tendency In Modern Physics, Victor Christianto, Florentin Smarandache

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Borges has a rare ability to put wild ideas into detective stories with reporting style. At least that is the impression that we got on his short stories. In particular, one of his short story is worthnoting: Tlon, Uqbar, Orbis Tertius. The story told us about a mysterious country called Uqbar, in apparently an unofficial reprint of Encyclopedia Britannica. It also tells about Tlon, a mysterious planet, created purely by imaginative minds. While this story clearly criticizes Berkeley view and may be not related to our daily reality, a reinterpretation of this story leads us to a long standing discourse …

The Investigation Of Human Scent From Epileptic Patients For The Identification Of A Biomarker For Epileptic Seizures, Philip R.N. Davis

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Studies have shown that some canines have the ability to predict seizures in people with epilepsy, and that canines can be trained to recognize changes in humans before an epileptic seizure and make these predictions. It is not known with any certainty to what the canines are alerting. However, canines’ exceptional sense of smell and their ability to discriminate human scent is well established. Therefore, it is possible that the canines could be responding to an olfactory cue, such as the release of some volatile organic compounds (VOCs) prior to the onset of a seizure.

Individuals release a wide array …

Multi-Type Branching Processes Modeling Of Nosocomial Epidemics, Zeinab Mohamed, Tamer Oraby

School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

Nosocomial epidemics are infectious diseases which spread among different types of susceptible individuals in a health-care facility. To model this type of epidemics, we use a multi-type branching process with a multivariate negative binomial offspring distribution. In particular, we estimate the basic reproduction number R0 and study its relationship with the parameters of the offspring distribution. in case of a single-type epidemic, we investigate the effect of contact tracing on the estimates for R0.

Up To Code: Computer Science Majors Join The Team At Cgi In Waterville, Caitlin Rogers

Colby Magazine

"We're basically developers, so they give us full developer computers, they give us a workstation, they set us up and they say, 'This is what you need to do today, get it done.'" - Austin Nantkes '19

Breaking Free Of The Cultural Biases That Surround Women (+ Math), Gerry Boyle

Colby Magazine

"I think what we have to do here is not only teach women to be strong in a place where they're a minority," she said, "but also teach the men how to be allies to women as they leave Colby and go into the workforce." - Kayla Freeman '19

Big Data: Computational Biology Opens A New Window On The World's Challenges For Colby Scientists, Kate Carlisle

Colby Magazine

"What makes us 'us' and not a plant? Not a bacteria, or a virus," asks Andrea Tilden, the J. Warren Merrill Associate Professor of Biology and a genomics expert. "Any one genome has six thousand novels worth of information. Computational biology is the tool we use to read them."

Soil Properties In Varying Crop And Non-Crop Areas Of Calloway County, Kentucky, Zack Eells, Canaan Wring, Clay Smotherman, Connor Moore

Scholars Week

Soil Properties in Varying Crop and Non-Crop Areas of Calloway County, Kentucky

Zack Eells, Clay Smotherman, Canaan Wring, Connor Moore, Iin Handayani, and Brian Parr

Murray State University, Hutson School of Agriculture, Kentucky, USA

Abstract

Cropping practices leading to loss of soil organic matter thus can alter other soil properties. The purpose of this study was to determine the impact of crop and non-crop areas on soils. Disturbed and undisturbed soil samples were collected from different fields of corn, soybeans, tobacco, pasture, and wooded areas in the Southwest portion of Calloway County, Kentucky on September 8, 2017. The properties observed …

Using Multilevel Outcomes To Construct And Select Biomarker Combinations For Single-Level Prediction, Allison Meisner, Chirag R. Parikh, Kathleen F. Kerr

UW Biostatistics Working Paper Series

Biomarker studies may involve a multilevel outcome, such as no, mild, or severe disease. There is often interest in predicting one particular level of the outcome due to its clinical significance. The standard approach to constructing biomarker combinations in this context involves dichotomizing the outcome and using a binary logistic regression model. We assessed whether information can be usefully gained from instead using more sophisticated regression methods. Furthermore, it is often necessary to select among several candidate biomarker combinations. One strategy involves selecting a combination on the basis of its ability to predict the outcome level of interest. We propose …

First Direct Constraints On Fierz Interference In Free-Neutron Β Decay, K. P. Hickerson, X. Sun, Y. Bagdasarova, D. Bravo-Berguño, L. J. Broussard, M. A. -P. Brown, R. Carr, S. Currie, X. Ding, B. W. Filippone, A. García, P. Geltenbort, J. Hoagland, A. T. Holley, R. Hong, T. M. Ito, A. Knecht, C. -Y. Liu, J. L. Liu, M. Makela, R. R. Mammei, J. W. Martin, D. Melconian, M. P. Mendenhall, S. D. Moore, C. L. Morris, R. W. Pattie Jr., A. Pérez Galván, R. Picker, M. L. Pitt, Bradley R. Plaster

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Precision measurements of free-neutron β decay have been used to precisely constrain our understanding of the weak interaction. However, the neutron Fierz interference term b_n, which is particularly sensitive to beyond-standard-model tensor currents at the TeV scale, has thus far eluded measurement. Here we report the first direct constraints on this term, finding b_n = 0.067 ± 0.005_{stat^+0.090-0.061sys}, consistent with the standard model. The uncertainty is dominated by absolute energy reconstruction and the linearity of the β spectrometer energy response.

Cr/Hacking The (Gendered) System: Breaking Down Barriers To Women’S Empowerment In Stem: A Manifesto, Teresa Pierce

Journal of Interdisciplinary Feminist Thought

This manifesto re-envisions Alice Rossi’s (1964) “immodest proposal” to reignite the spark of suffrage and connect it to a revolution that breaks down the barriers to women’s empowerment in STEM-related careers. This is a decisive moment in time and transformation is within reach because there are two generations of women and minorities working in STEM-related fields, and the technology culture is changing the image of the hacker from the lone male to collaborating women. My goal is to motivate these cr/hackers to push beyond pipeline initiatives, and acknowledge that we are also a powerful institution. We will revolutionize STEM culture …

Menagerie Of Ads2 Boundary Conditions, Daniel Grumiller, Robert A. Mcnees Iv, Jakob Salzer, Carlos Valcárcel, Dmitri Vassilevich

Physics: Faculty Publications and Other Works

We consider different sets of AdS2 boundary conditions for the Jackiw-Teitelboim model in the linear dilaton sector where the dilaton is allowed to fluctuate to leading order at the boundary of the Poincaré disk. The most general set of boundary conditions is easily motivated in the gauge theoretic formulation as a Poisson sigma model and has an sl(2)" role="presentation" style="box-sizing: inherit; display: inline; line-height: normal; word-spacing: normal; overflow-wrap: normal; white-space: nowrap; float: none; direction: ltr; max-width: none; max-height: none; min-width: 0px; min-height: 0px; border: 0px; padding: 0px; margin: 0px; position: relative;">𝔰𝔩(2)sl(2) current algebra as asymptotic symmetries. Consistency of the …

Measurement Of The Vector And Tensor Asymmetries At Large Missing Momentum In Quasielastic (E→,E'P Electron Scattering From Deuterium, A. Degrush, A. Maschinot, T. Akdogan, R. Alarcon, W. Bertozzi, E. Booth, T. Botto, J. R. Calarco, B. Clasie, Christopher Crawford, K. Dow, M. Farkhondeh, Renee H. Fatemi, O. Filoti, W. Franklin, H. Gao, E. Geis, S. Gilad, D. K. Hasell, P. Karpius, M. Kohl, H. Kolster, T. Lee, J. Matthews, K. Mcilhany, N. Meitanis, R. Milner, J. Rapaport, R. Redwine, J. Seely

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We report the measurement of the beam-vector and tensor asymmetries A^V_ed and A^T_d in quasielastic (e^→,e′p) electrodisintegration of the deuteron at the MIT-Bates Linear Accelerator Center up to missing momentum of 500  MeV/c. Data were collected simultaneously over a momentum transfer range 0.1 < Q² < 0.5  (GeV/c)² with the Bates Large Acceptance Spectrometer Toroid using an internal deuterium gas target polarized sequentially in both vector and tensor states. The data are compared with calculations. The beam-vector asymmetry AVed is found to be directly sensitive to the D-wave …

Defaultification Refactoring: A Tool For Automatically Converting Java Methods To Default, Raffi T. Khatchadourian, Hidehiko Masuhara

Publications and Research

Enabling interfaces to declare (instance) method implementations, Java 8 default methods can be used as a substitute for the ubiquitous skeletal implementation software design pattern. Performing this transformation on legacy software manually, though, may be non-trivial. The refactoring requires analyzing complex type hierarchies, resolving multiple implementation inheritance issues, reconciling differences between class and interface methods, and analyzing tie-breakers (dispatch precedence) with overriding class methods. All of this is necessary to preserve type-correctness and confirm semantics preservation. We demonstrate an automated refactoring tool called Migrate Skeletal Implementation to Interface for transforming legacy Java code to use the new default construct. The …

Comparison Of Various Means Of Evaluating Molecular Electrostatic Potentials For Noncovalent Interactions, Steve Scheiner

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

The various heterodimers formed by a series of Lewis acids with NH3 as Lewis base are identified. Lewis acids include those that can form chalcogen (HSF and HSBr), pnicogen (H2PF and H2PBr), and tetrel (H3SiF and H3SiBr) bonds, as well as H‐bonds and halogen bonds. The molecular electrostatic potential (MEP) of each Lewis acid is considered in a number of ways. Pictorial versions show broad regions of positive and negative MEP, on surfaces that vary with respect to either the value of the chosen isopotential, or their distance from the nuclei. Specific points are identified where the MEP reaches a …

Doubly-Excited State Effects On Two-Photon Double Ionization Of Helium By Time-Delayed, Oppositely Circularly-Polarized Attosecond Pulses, Jean Marcel Ngoko Djiokap, Anthony F. Starace

Anthony F. Starace Publications

We study two-photon double ionization (TPDI) of helium by a pair of time-delayed (non-overlapping), oppositely circularly-polarized attosecond pulses whose carrier frequencies are resonant with ¹P^o doubly-excited states. All of our TPDI results are obtained by numerical solution of the two-electron time-dependent Schrödinger equation for the six-dimensional case of circularly-polarized attosecond pulses, and they are analyzed using perturbation theory (PT). As compared with the corresponding nonresonant TPDI process, we find that the doubly-excited states change the character of vortex patterns in the two-electron momentum distributions for the case of back-to-back detection of the two ionized electrons in the polarization …

More Than Just Empty Space: Integrated Geoarchaeological Investigations Of The Crystal River Site (8ci1) Plaza, Alexander C. Delgado

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Crystal River (8CI1) is a Woodland period archaeological site on the west-central Gulf Coast of Florida, famous for its diverse suite of exotic artifacts typical of the Hopewell Interaction Sphere, as well as its monumental shell mounds which surround a central plaza. Historically, these plazas are utilized as spaces for cultural expression, daily interactions between members of the community, economic exchanges, and discourse of all types. They also serve as a symbolic space, embodying social and political relations that are critical to the formation and maintenance of cultural identity. These spaces are challenging to study using conventional archaeological techniques since …

Hyperaccreting Black Hole As Gamma-Ray Burst Central Engine. Ii. Temporal Evolution Of The Central Engine Parameters During The Prompt And Afterglow Phases, Wei-Hua Lei, Bing Zhang, Xue-Feng Wu, En-Wei Liang

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

A hyperaccreting stellar-mass black hole (BH) has been proposed as the candidate central engine of gamma-ray bursts (GRBs). The rich observations of GRBs by Fermi and Swiftmake it possible to constrain the central engine model by comparing the model predictions against data. This paper is dedicated to studying the temporal evolution of the central engine parameters for both the prompt emission and afterglow phases. We consider two jet-launching mechanisms, i.e., annihilations and the Blandford–Znajek (BZ) process, and obtain analytical solutions to these two models. We then investigate the BH central engine parameters, such as the jet power, the dimensionless entropy …

Self Service Business Intelligence: An Analysis Of Tourists Preferences In Kosovo, Ardian Hyseni

UBT International Conference

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the preferences of tourists in Kosovo through the data from TripAdvisor.com. Top things to do in Kosovo, will be analyzed through the comments of tourists in TripAdvisor.com. By analyzing the data with PowerBI, will be analyzed what are the most preferred things to do and what the tourists like the most in Kosovo. This paper will contribute on defining the preferences of tourists in Kosovo, it also can help tourism to invest and attract more tourists in specific areas or improve and invest in places less preferred by tourists.

Security Assessment Of Web Applications, Renelada Kushe

UBT International Conference

A web application is an application that is accessed by users over a network such as the internet or intranet. The term also refers an application that is coded in a browser-supported programming language and reliant on a common web browser to render the application executable. Web applications are vulnerable to varies exploits from those which manipulate the application via its graphical web interface (HTTP exploits), to tampering the Uniform Resource Identifier (URI) or tampering HTTPS elements not contained in the URI. Getting started from the accessibility and the variety of exploits, the security assessment is a necessity for providing …

Towards Secure Data Flow Oriented Multi-Vendor Ict Governance Model, Lars Magnusson, Patrik Elm, Anita Mirijamdotter

UBT International Conference

Today, still, ICT Governance is being regarded as a departmental concern, not an overall organizational concern. History has shown us that implementation strategies, which are based on departments, results in fractional implementations leading to ad hoc solutions with no central control and stagnation for the in-house ICT strategy. Further, this recently has created an opinion trend; many are talking about the ICT department as being redundant, a dying out breed, which should be replaced by on-demand specialized external services. Clearly, the evermore changing surroundings do force organizations to accelerate the pace of new adaptations within their ICT plans, more vivacious …

E-Commerce Implementation In Kosovo, Besnik Skenderi, Diamanta Skenderi

UBT International Conference

In this paper, author had analyzed journal articles that were published by Alemayehu & Heeks, (2007) and Hwang, Jung, & Selvendy (2006). Both articles are about e-commerce and in first article (Alemayehu & Heeks, 2007) authors had analyzed impact of cultural differences, telecomunication infrastructure and local market. In addition, authors of this research paper were focused on consumers that are purchasing through e-commerce companies.

Second analyzed article (Hwang, Jung, & Selvendy, 2006) is about exploring e-commerce benefits in developing countries and developing countries are home to more than 80% of the world’s population, and are the site for growing use …

An Approach To Information Security For Smes Based On The Resource-Based View Theory, Blerton Abazi

UBT International Conference

The main focus of this proposal is to analyze implementation challenges, benefits and requirements in implementation of Information Systems and managing information security in small and medium size companies in Western Balkans countries. In relation to the study, the proposal will focus in the following questions to investigate: What are the benefits that companies mostly find after the implementation of Information Systems has been implemented, efficiency, how to they manage security of the information’s, competitive advantage, return of investments etc. The study should give a clear approach to Information Systems implementation, information security, maintenance, measurable benefits, challenges companies have gone …

Web Scrapping And Self Service Business Intelligence: Analysis Of Preferences Of Tourists In Albania, Ardian Hyseni

UBT International Conference

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the preferences of tourists in Albania through the data web scrapped from TripAdvisor.com. Top things to do in Albania, will be analyzed through the comments of tourists in TripAdvisor.com. By using tools for web scrapping and analyzing of data with nVivo and PowerBI, will be analyzed what are the most preferred things to do and what the tourists like doing the most in Albania. This paper will contribute on defining the preferences of tourists in Albania, also can help tourism to invest and attract more tourists in specific areas or improve and …

Implications Of Eu-Gdpr In Low-Grade Social, Activist And Ngo Settings, Lars Magnusson, Sarfraz Iqbal

UBT International Conference

Social support services are becoming popular among the citizens of every country and every age. Though, social support services easily accessible on mobile phones are used in different contexts, ranging from extending your presence and connectivity to friends, family and colleagues to using social media services for being a social activist seeking to help individuals confined in miserable situations such as homeless community, drug addicts or even revolutionists fighting against dictatorships etc. However, a very recent development in the European Parliament’s law (2016/679) on the processing and free movement of personal data in terms of EU-GDPR (General data protection rules) …

Learning Management Systems In Higher Education, Romina Agaçi

UBT International Conference

Learning Management Systems (LMSs) are improving learning processes and are widely used in higher education institutions. There are available various types of LMSs used by pedagogues to manage eLearning and to deliver course materials to students. Nowadays, LMSs have become essential tools that affect the quality of learning and teaching in higher education. In this article, we introduce LMSs and we choose Moodle as a tool to presentaninformation system that is used in our university. Moodle is an online learning environment that supports classroom teaching. We will focus on the advantages of LMSs and why we choose Moodle as the …