Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Frameworks, Algorithms, And Systems For Efficient Discovery Of Data-Backed Facts, Gensheng Zhang

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

This thesis studies the problem of finding facts from semi-structured and structured data. The amount of data in our world is exploding, and the proliferation of data is making them increasingly inaccessible. It is now more challenging than ever how to efficiently identify useful information where a vast amount of data is available. This thesis first studies the problem of finding facts in semi-structured data, specifically, in knowledge graphs. We built Maverick, a general, extensible framework that discovers exceptional facts about entities in knowledge graphs. We model an exceptional fact about an entity of interest as a context-subspace pair, in …

An Analysis Of Prevalence Of Chytrid Fungus In An Amphibian Assemblage In Middle Tennessee, Cameron Brocco

Honors Theses

Chytridiomycosis is an infectious, fungal disease largely seen in amphibians, which is caused by the highly virulent, zoosporic, pathogenic, single-celled fungus Batrachochytrium dendrobatidis (Bd). It is known to cause epidermal hyperplasia, hyperkeratosis, skin ulcerations, and fatalities by asystolic cardiac arrest either from shifts in electrolytes or increased acidity in the blood plasma. Previous research has demonstrated that urban water bodies have a higher prevalence of chytrid fungus than rural water bodies. Researchers have also found that chytrid is more prevalent in open canopy habitats than closed canopy habitats. Furthermore, it is implicated in global population declines and local extinctions in …

A Biotic Survey Of Outcroppings And Pinctada Longisquamosa In Oyster Pond, San Salvador Island, Bahamas, One Year After Hurricane Joaquin, Ashton Selah Mitchell

Honors Theses

Oyster Pond is one of the marine inland ponds located on San Salvador Island, Bahamas. Oyster Pond has connections to the ocean through a series of conduits in the pond, which cause the salinity of the pond to be marine pond, except after a hurricane and during a drought. Oyster Pond has a variety of marine life such as algae, small fish, and invertebrates occurring in mangroves, flocculent, conduits, and biotic outcroppings. The focus of this research was to evaluate the impact of the 2015 Hurricane Joaquin (17 months later) on water chemistry and the marine life of the biotic …

Effectiveness Of Conservation Education At The Chattanooga Zoo, Luke Allen Black

Honors Theses

Conservation is the central focus of many modern zoos and aquariums. These zoos incorporate guest education to facilitate a connection between zoo guests and animal conservation. I conducted a study at the Chattanooga Zoo and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga which examined two modern zoo education approaches. The two approaches utilized in the study are currently used in keeper chats at the Chattanooga Zoo. The first approach is an emotional appeal (an appeal to the personalities of the chimps at the zoo) and the second approach is a utilization of a take-action initiative (recycling cell phones to reduce mining …

Statistical Linear Mixed Models For Evaluation Of Training Program In Hand Surgery Chief Residents, Zoe Michelle Ross

Honors Theses

Resident clinics (RCs) are intended to catalyze the achievement of educational milestones through progressively autonomous patient care. However, few studies quantify their effect on competency-based surgical education, and no previous publications focus on hand surgery RCs. This study aims to use statistical theories and knowledge of descriptive statistics and inference statistics, such as confidence intervals, two sample t-tests, correlation and association tests, as well as statistical model building such as analysis of variance with random effects and mixed linear models. We hypothesize that the higher a resident’s training years, the higher the autonomy score (quality of surgery) will be. We …

Developmental Steroids And Vitamins: Identified And Quantified In Predatory Lady Beetles, Andrea Hixson

Honors Theses

Autumn brings ladybeetles into homes to seek shelter during the winter, which is a nuisance. Their bites may induce an allergic reaction resulting in painful rashes. Predatory ladybeetles have been used as a biological control agents. Not only do they feed on ecological pests, they also feed on the saps of ripe fruits reducing the value of the damaged crop. Two species of ladybeetles (Coleoptera: Coccinellidae) will be examined to determine the quantities of steroids and vitamins used throughout their life stages. The species examined are native, Hippodamia convergens, of North America, and an invasive, Harmonia axyridis, of Asia. The …

Only The Earth Remains: Exploring The Machine In Selected Lyric Poetry Of Robinson Jeffers, Mark Hutton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In The Machine in the Garden: Technology and the Pastoral Idea in America, Leo Marx “evaluates the uses of the pastoral ideal in the interpretation of American experience” (Marx 4). While Marx explores ways that pastoralism has been impacted by factors such as industrialism, it is the purpose of this project to explore Marx’s assertion regarding the presence of the figurative and literal machine within the poetry of Robinson Jeffers.

Jeffers’ poetry is generally located within the landscapes of California. His lyric poetry has a distinct connection to the land and is driven by inhumanism, which works to shift …

Study Of 2,5-Diaminoimidazolone, A Mutagenic Product Of Oxidation Of Guanine In Dna, Hannah Catherine J. Pollard

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

2,5-diaminoimidazolone (Iz) is an important product of a 4-electron oxidation of guanine. The present research focuses on the mechanisms of formation of Iz via pathways initiated by guanine oxidation by one-electron oxidants (OEOs) generated by X-ray radiolysis in aqueous solutions. The kinetics of formation and yields of Iz in reactions of native highly polymerized DNA with different OEOs have been compared using an HPLC-based quantitative analysis of low-molecular products generated from the reaction of DNA-bound Iz with primary amines. Mechanisms of Iz formation in DNA have been investigated including oxygen and superoxide dependence as well as the hypothesis that 8-oxo-G, …

Many-Body Quantum Dynamics In The Decay Of Bent Dark Solitons Of Bose-Einstein Condensates, Garyfallia C. Katsimiga, Simeon I. Mistakidis, G. M. Koutentakis, P. G. Kevrekidis, P. Schmelcher

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Beyond Mean-Field (MF) Dynamics Of A Bent Dark Soliton (BDS) Embedded In A Two-Dimensional Repulsively Interacting Bose-Einstein Condensate Is Explored. We Examine The Case Of A Single BDS Comparing The MF Dynamics To A Correlated Approach, The Multi-Configuration Time-Dependent Hartree Method For Bosons. Dynamical Snaking Of This Bent Structure Is Observed, Signaling The Onset Of Fragmentation Which Becomes Significant During The Vortex Nucleation. In Contrast To The MF Approximation 'filling' Of The Vortex Core Is Observed, Leading In Turn To The Formation Of Filled-Core Vortices, Instead Of The MF Vortex-Antivortex Pairs. The Resulting Smearing Effect In The Density Is …

Gw170608: Observation Of A 19 Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence, Benjamin P. Abbott, Marco Cavaglia, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

On 2017 June 8 at 02:01:16.49 UTC, a gravitational-wave (GW) signal from the merger of two stellar-mass blackholes was observed by the two Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory detectors with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 13. This system is the lightest black hole binary so far observed, with component masses of 12⁺⁷ _-2M⊙⁺²_-2M⊙ (90% credible intervals). These lie in the range of measured black hole masses in low-mass X-ray binaries, thus allowing us to compare black holes detected through GWs with electromagnetic observations. The source's luminosity distance is 340⁺¹⁴⁰ _-140 corresponding to redshift -0.07 …

The Stripe 82 Massive Galaxy Project. Iii. A Lack Of Growth Among Massive Galaxies, Kevin Bundy, Alexie Leauthaud, Shun Saito, Claudia Maraston, David A. Wake, Daniel Thomas

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The average stellar mass (M_*) of high-mass galaxies (log M_*/M_⊙ > 11.5) is expected to grow by ∼30% since z ~ 1, largely through ongoing mergers that are also invoked to explain the observed increase in galaxy sizes. Direct evidence for the corresponding growth in stellar mass has been elusive, however, in part because the volumes sampled by previous redshift surveys have been too small to yield reliable statistics. In this work, we make use of the Stripe 82 Massive Galaxy Catalog (S82-MGC) to build a mass-limited sample of 41,770 galaxies log M_*/M_{⊙ …}

Arrow Of Time For Continuous Quantum Measurement, Justin Dressel, Areeya Chantasri, Andrew N. Jordan, Alexander N. Korotkov

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We investigate the statistical arrow of time for a quantum system being monitored by a sequence of measurements. For a continuous qubit measurement example, we demonstrate that time-reversed evolution is always physically possible, provided that the measurement record is also negated. Despite this restoration of dynamical reversibility, a statistical arrow of time emerges, and may be quantified by the log-likelihood difference between forward and backward propagation hypotheses. We then show that such reversibility is a universal feature of nonprojective measurements, with forward or backward Janus measurement sequences that are time-reversed inverses of each other.

Saving Santa's Workshop, Chase Kaupin, Elise Grabowski

Environmental Studies Student Projects

Our book is a story about an elf encouraging children to go eco-friendly in order to help the environment. Santa delivers gifts such as a reusable water bottle to get children involved. By helping the environment, Santa's workshop is going to be saved from melting ice caps! The goal of this book was to get children involved to help the environment.

Esmerelda's 1600 Feathers, Corinne Casey, Ellen Wise, Kendall Ericksen

Environmental Studies Student Projects

ESA’s 1,600 Feathers is a children’s story that was created in response to a Congress letter from August 2017 addressed to several members of the Committee on Natural Resources and Agriculture. This letter requested for the 1973 Endangered Species Act to be “modernized” in order to reduce the economic burdens it imposed on farmers and ranchers. They argued the existing ESA was a “clear failure” having only accomplished recovery and delisting of 42 out of the 1,652 plant and animal species under its protection. The intentions of our story were to highlight the endangered and threatened species that have successfully …

Baby Bay And The Big, Loud Ocean, Kelcey Salois, Dominique Mellone

Environmental Studies Student Projects

This is a children's book that depicts some of the serious effects of noise pollution on marine organisms, especially larger mammals such as Baleen Whales. Through this little story about a baby whale and his mom, trying to find the rest of their pod amidst an ocean filled with noise pollution, we hope to spread awareness about this problem and provide hope to younger generations that if we work hard enough at protecting our oceans, we can provide a much nicer and safer life for the creatures that live within it.

Rogue Rotary - Modular Robotic Rotary Joint Design, Sean Wesley Murphy, Tyler David Riessen, Jacob Mark Triplett

Mechanical Engineering

This paper describes the design process from ideation to test validation for a singular robotic joint to be configured into a myriad of system level of robots.

Accuracy Analysis Comparison Of Supervised Classification Methods For Anomaly Detection On Levees Using Sar Imagery, Ramakalavathi Marapareddy, James V. Aanstoos, Nicolas H. Younan

Faculty Publications

This paper analyzes the use of a synthetic aperture radar (SAR) imagery to support levee condition assessment by detecting potential slide areas in an efficient and cost-effective manner. Levees are prone to a failure in the form of internal erosion within the earthen structure and landslides (also called slough or slump slides). If not repaired, slough slides may lead to levee failures. In this paper, we compare the accuracy of the supervised classification methods minimum distance (MD) using Euclidean and Mahalanobis distance, support vector machine (SVM), and maximum likelihood (ML), using SAR technology to detect slough slides on earthen levees. …

Thresholds Of Sea-Level Rise Rate And Sea-Level Rise Acceleration Rate In A Vulnerable Coastal Wetland, Wei Wu, Patrick D. Biber, Matthew Bethel

Faculty Publications

Feedbacks among inundation, sediment trapping, and vegetation productivity help maintain coastal wetlands facing sea-level rise (SLR). However, when the SLR rate exceeds a threshold, coastal wetlands can collapse. Understanding the threshold helps address key challenges in ecology—nonlinear response of ecosystems to environmental change, promotes communication between ecologists and resource managers, and facilitates decision-making in climate change policies. We studied the threshold of SLR rate and developed a new threshold of SLR acceleration rate on sustainability of coastal wetlands as SLR is likely to accelerate due to enhanced anthropogenic forces. Deriving these two thresholds depends on the temporal scale, the interaction …

Survival Analysis: A Modified Kaplan-Meir Estimator, Justin A. Bancroft

MSU Graduate Theses

The popular Kaplan-Meir estimator has traditionally been used to great effect as a survival function estimator. However, the Kaplan-Meir estimator is dependent upon a maximum likelihood parameter estimator which may not be the best estimator in all cases. We modify the Kaplan-Meir estimator, based on a Bayes parameter estimation, in hopes of providing a more accurate survival estimator for small sample sizes. Core elements of survival analysis are presented, acting as a foundation from which to construct and compare our modified Kaplan-Meir estimator. It is hypothesized that our modified Kaplan-Meir estimator is generally more accurate than the standard Kaplan-Meir estimator …

How Livestock Production In Eastern Nebraska May Affect Nitrate Concentrations In Platte River, Yuzhe Luo

Department of Environmental Studies: Undergraduate Student Theses

The Platte River is one of the largest rivers in Nebraska and serves as a valuable water source to cities along its watershed. Water is essential for both human life and social and economic development. The human body cannot survive without water for more than 3 days, and many industries require water to function. At a regional scale, the total amount of water is relatively constant, which means if some water sources were contaminated there will be less water available to use.

Combined Assimilation Of Satellite Precipitation And Soil Moisture: A Case Study Using Trmm And Smos Data, Liao-Fan Lin, Ardeshir M. Ebtehaj, Alejandro N. Flores, Satish Bastola, Rafael L. Bras

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents a framework that enables simultaneous assimilation of satellite precipitation and soil moisture observations into the coupled Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) and Noah land surface model through variational approaches. The authors tested the framework by assimilating precipitation data from the Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) and soil moisture data from the Soil Moisture Ocean Salinity (SMOS) satellite. The results show that assimilation of both TRMM and SMOS data can effectively improve the forecast skills of precipitation, top 10-cm soil moisture, and 2-m temperature and specific humidity. Within a 2-day time window, impacts of precipitation data assimilation on …

Stabilization Of Hypoxia Inducible Factor By Cobalt Chloride Can Alter Renal Epithelial Transport, Subhra Nag, Andrew Resnick

Physics Faculty Publications

© 2017 The Authors. Given the importance of the transcriptional regulator hypoxia-inducible factor-1 (HIF-1) for adaptive hypoxia responses, we examined the effect of stabilized HIF-1α on renal epithelial permeability and directed sodium transport. This study was motivated by histological analysis of cystic kidneys showing increased expression levels of HIF-1α and HIF-2α. We hypothesize that compression induced localized ischemia-hypoxia of normal epithelia near a cyst leads to local stabilization of HIF-1α, leading to altered transepithelial transport that encourages cyst expansion. We found that stabilized HIF-1α alters both transcellular and paracellular transport through renal epithelial monolayers in a manner consistent with secretory …

Development Of Pre-Clinical Assays Based On Tandem Mass Spectrometry To Investigate Gabaa Receptor Modulators, Margaret Laurel Guthrie

Theses and Dissertations

ABSTRACT

DEVELOPMENT OF PRE-CLINICAL ASSAYS BASED ON TANDEM MASS SPECTROMETRY TO INVESTIGATE GABAA RECEPTOR MODULATORS

by

Margaret L. Guthrie

The University of Wisconsin – Milwaukee, 2017

Under the Supervision of Professor Alexander (Leggy) Arnold

Drugs are compounds that interact with a biological system to produce a specific biological response. The goal of drug discovery is to design and synthesize a pharmaceutical agent that will produce a desired biological effect. However, the in-vivo effects of a drug molecule cannot be predicted without a variety of test results prior to human clinical trials. In order to designate any drug compound as a …

Improving Version-Aware Word Documents, Alexandre Gustavo Valenca De Azevedo Filho

Theses and Dissertations

Coakley~\textit{et al.} described how they developed Version Aware Word Documents, which is an enhanced document representation that includes a detailed version history that is self-contained and portable. However, they were not able to adopt the unique-ID-based techniques that have been shown to support efficient merging and differencing algorithms.

This thesis describes how it is possible to adapt existing features of MS Word's OOXML representation to provide a system of unique element IDs suitable for those algorithms. This requires taking over Word's Revision Save ID (RSID) system and also defining procedures for specifying ID values for elements that do not support …

On Some Statistics For Testing The Skewness In A Population: An Empirical Study, Yawen Guo, B. M. Golam Kibria

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

The purpose of this paper is to propose some test statistics for testing the skewness parameter of a distribution, not limited to a normal distribution. Since a theoretical comparison is not possible, a simulation study has been conducted to compare the performance of the test statistics. We have compared both parametric methods (classical method with normality assumption) and non-parametric methods (bootstrap in Bias Corrected Standard Method, Efron’s Percentile Method, Hall’s Percentile Method and Bias Corrected Percentile Method). Our simulation results indicate that the power of the tests differ significantly across sample sizes, the choice of alternative hypotheses and methods one …

On The Qualitative Behaviors Of A Functional Differential Equation Of Second Order, Cemil Tunç

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

The aim of this paper is first to investigate the stability of the zero solution to a new Liénard type equation with multiple variable delays by two different methods. The methods to be used in the proofs involve the Lyapunov-Krasovskiĭ functional approach and the fixed point technique under an exponentially weighted metric, respectively. We make a comparison between the applications of these methods with the established conditions on the same stability problems. Then, we obtain three new results for uniformly stability and boundedness/ uniformly boundedness of the solutions to the considered equation by the Lyapunov-Krasovskiĭ functional approach. An example is …

Evaluation Of Some Reliability Characteristics Of A Single Unit System Requiring Two Types Of Supporting Device For Operations, Ibrahim Yusuf, Nura J. Fagge

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

This study presents the reliability assessment of a single unit connected to two types of external supporting devices for its operation. Each type of external supporting device has two copies I and II on standby. First order differential difference equations method is used to obtain the explicit expression for the steady state availability, busy period due to failure of type I and II supporting devices of repairmen, steady-state availability and profit function. Based on assumed numerical values given to system parameters, graphical illustrations are given to highlight important results. Comparisons are performed to highlight the impact of unit failure and …

Rate Of Convergence For Generalized Szász–Mirakyan Operators In Exponential Weighted Space, Sevilay K. Serenbay, Özge Dalmano˘Glu

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In the present paper, generalized Szász–Mirakyan operators in exponential weighted space of functions of one variable are introduced. Using a method given by Rempulska and Walczak, some theorems on the degree of approximation are investigated. Furthermore, a numerical example with an illustrative graphic is given to show comparison for the error estimates of the operators.

Ostrowski Type Fractional Integral Operators For Generalized (𝒓;𝒔,𝒎,𝝋)−Preinvex Functions, A. Kashuri, R. Liko

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In the present paper, the notion of generalized (𝑟;𝑠,𝑚,𝜑)−preinvex function is applied to establish some new generalizations of Ostrowski type inequalities via fractional integral operators. These results not only extend the results appeared in the literature but also provide new estimates on these type.

Analytical Solution For Determination The Control Parameter In The Inverse Parabolic Equation Using Ham, M. M. Khader

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In this article, the homotopy analysis method (HAM) for obtaining the analytical solution of the inverse parabolic problem and computing the unknown time-dependent parameter is introduced. The series solution is developed and the recurrence relations are given explicitly. Special attention is given to satisfy the convergence of the proposed method. A comparison of HAM with the variational iteration method is made. In the HAM, we use the auxiliary parameter ~ to control with a simple way in the convergence region of the solution series. Applying this method with several