Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Electrochemical Instrument For The Analysis Of Heavy Metals In Water Via Anodic Stripping Coulometry For Applications In Remote Sensing., Kelsey Lynn Kaht

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

From the high levels of arsenic in groundwater in Bangladesh to the lead contamination of drinking water in Flint, Michigan, there are incidents across the globe that highlight the need for a reliable instrument capable of monitoring heavy metals remotely and continuously in a variety of geographical locations. Typical instrumentation for water analysis, such as ICP and AAS, must be housed in a central lab and relies on an operator traveling to the collection site, obtaining a sample, and transporting it back to the lab. This analysis provides a snapshot of the water quality that is limited to the specific …

Statistical Methods For Estimating And Testing Treatment Effect For Multiple Treatment Groups In Observational Studies., Xiaofang Yan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

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Oxygen Deficient Perovskites: Effect Of Structure On Electrical Conductivity, Magnetism And Electrocatalytic Activity., Ram Krishna Hona

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The present thesis deals with the synthesis and study of the physico-chemical properties of perovskite based oxide materials. Several novel oxygen deficient perovskites (ODP) have been synthesized by conventional solid state synthesis method. The novel compounds are CaSrFe₂O_6-δ, CaSrFeCoO_6-δ, Ca₂Fe_1.5Ga_0.5O₅, CaSrFeGaO₅ and BaSrFe₂O₅. Their magnetic, charge transport and electrocatalytic properties have been studied. Structural effect on electrical conductivity, magnetic and electrocatalytic properties have been studied in some series of ODPs. CaSrFe₂O_6-δ, CaSrFeCoO_6-δ, Ca₂Fe …

Stability And Reactivity Analysis Of Single Metal And Bimetallic Nanostructures By Anodic Stripping Voltammetry., Dhruba Kumar Pattadar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation has two main themes. The first involves studies aimed at developing anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV) as an analytical tool to characterize metal nanoparticles (NPs), with a focus on the size and aggregate structure of single metal NPs and the composition and atomic arrangement of bimetallic NPs. The second main theme involves studies that use ASV and electrochemical surface area-to-volume (SA/V) measurements to study the unique reactivity and transformations of single metal and bimetallic NPs. The transformations involve size and composition changes in response to ozone and electrochemical potential. Reactions involve size dependent galvanic exchange and electrocatalytic activity. The …

Study Of Amorphous Boron Carbide And Hydrogenated Boron Carbide Materials Using Molecular Dynamics And Hybrid Reverse Monte Carlo, Rajan Khadka

MSU Graduate Theses

We present a computational study of amorphous boron carbide (a-B_xC) models using Molecular Dynamics (MD) studied with Stillinger-Weber (SW) and ReaxFF potential. The atomic structure factor (S(Q)), radial distribution function (RDF) and bond lengths comparison with other experimental and ab initio models shows that a random arrangement of icosahedra (B₁₂, B₁₁C) interconnected by chains (CCC, CBC) are present in a-B_xC. Afterward, Hybrid Reverse Monte Carlo (HRMC) technique is used to recreate a-B_xC structures. The existing SW potential parameters of Boron are optimized for the α-rhombohedral (Icosahedral B_{12 …}

Manus Descriptions Of An Undescribed Mastodon From The Latest Miocene-Earliest Pliocene Gray Fossil Site, With Comparisons To Other North American Proboscidean Taxa, Brenna Hart-Farrar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

A detailed morphological description of a proboscidean manus from the Gray Fossil Site (GFS), Gray, Tennessee is provided. Manus elements from an American mastodon (Mammut americanum), a Britt’s shovel-tusker (Amebelodon britti), an undescribed small gomphothere species, and a Columbian mammoth (Mammuthus columbi) are used for comparisons. Linear measurements indicate proportional differences between the GFS mastodon and other proboscidean taxa ranging from the Hemphillian to Rancholabrean land mammal ages. Possible pathologies are also described. The purpose of this study is to determine how the GFS mastodon differs in manus morphology and locomotion from different proboscidean …

Incorporating Word Order Explicitly In Glove Word Embedding, Brandon Cox

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Word embedding is the process of representing words from a corpus of text as real number vectors. These vectors are often derived from frequency statistics from the source corpus. In the GloVe model as proposed by Pennington et al., these vectors are generated using a word-word cooccurrence matrix. However, the GloVe model fails to explicitly take into account the order in which words appear within the contexts of other words. In this paper, multiple methods of incorporating word order in GloVe word embeddings are proposed. The most successful method involves directly concatenating several word vector matrices for each position in …

Quantifying The Effectiveness Of Cedar Revetment In Mitigating Bank Erosion In Riceford Creek, Minnesota, Talia A. Klein

MSU Graduate Theses

Southeastern Minnesota has incised streams that are susceptible to bank erosion. Previously, efforts have been made to identify sections of Riceford Creek that have high erosion susceptibility using the Bank Erosion Hazard Index (BEHI). Locally harvested cedars were then used as a revetment strategy to mitigate erosion of the stream banks prioritized by the BEHI analysis. This study aims to 1) determine if cedar revetment effectively mitigates bank erosion in Riceford Creek and 2) determine if the BEHI method is an effective way of quantifying erosion hazard in Riceford Creek. This study focuses on two sections in Riceford Creek where …

Toward Self-Reconfigurable Parametric Systems: Reinforcement Learning Approach, Ting-Yu Mu

Dissertations

For the ongoing advancement of the fields of Information Technology (IT) and Computer Science, machine learning-based approaches are utilized in different ways in order to solve the problems that belong to the Nondeterministic Polynomial time (NP)-hard complexity class or to approximate the problems if there is no known efficient way to find a solution. Problems that determine the proper set of reconfigurable parameters of parametric systems to obtain the near optimal performance are typically classified as NP-hard problems with no efficient mathematical models to obtain the best solutions. This body of work aims to advance the knowledge of machine learning …

Event Reconstruction In The Advanced Particle-Astrophysics Telescope, Emily Ramey

McKelvey School of Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The Advanced Particle-Astrophysics Telescope (APT) is a concept for a gamma-ray space telescope operating in the keV to MeV energy range. Due to the nature of the telescope and the physics of detection, reconstructing initial photon trajectories can be very computationally complex. This is a barrier to the real-time detection of astrophysical transient phenomena such as Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs), and a faster reconstruction algorithm is needed in order to effectively study them. In this project, we develop such an algorithm based on Boggs & Jean (2000) and discuss the effects of certain algorithmic parameters on computational performance. For testing, …

Electrochemical Determination Of Surface Area-To-Volume Ratio For Metal Nanoparticle Analysis., Jay Narayan Sharma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation describes an electrochemical approach for measuring the surface area-to-volume ratio (SA/V) of electrode-attached metal nanoparticles (NPs), which was used to analyze their size, aggregation state, and porosity. This dissertation further describes the effect of the metal NP electrode assembly method on the SA/V, which is related to metal NP catalytic activity and stability. Cyclic voltammetry (CV) in acid electrolyte followed by anodic stripping voltammetry (ASV) in KBr electrolyte allows the electrochemical measurement of the SA/V of electrode-attached Au nanospheres (NSs). In CV, the forward scan produces a thin surface Au₂O₃ layer on the Au NSs. …

Benchmarking Applicability Of Cryptographic Wireless Communication Over Arduino Platforms, Carolina Vázquez Torres

University Honors Program Senior Projects

The spaces around us are becoming equipped with devices and appliances that collect data from their surroundings and react accordingly to provide smarter networks where they are interconnected and able to communicate with one another. These smart networks of devices and appliances along with the applications that utilize them build smart spaces known as Internet of Things (IoT). With the on growing popularity of such smart devices (e.g., smart cars, watches, home-security systems) and IoT, the need for securing these environments increases. The smart devices around us can collect private and personal information, and the challenge lies in maintaining the …

Two Fields, One Pellet: Combining Demographics And Population Genetics Through Non-Invasive Sampling Of Snowshoe Hare Fecal Pellets In Michigan., Genelle Nicole Uhrig

Theses and Dissertations

As climate continues to change at a rapid rate, species are increasingly vulnerable to the resulting environmental changes. This is especially true for species whose fitness is closely linked to climate-associated environmental conditions. One of these vulnerable species is snowshoe hare, Lepus americanus, who depends on the timing and duration of snowfall to provide camouflage when they go through seasonal pelage changes from brown in the summer to white in the winter. Whereas snowshoe hare are stable across the core of their range, populations along the southern range edge are experiencing declines due to climate driven environmental changes that cause …

A Game Modeling Of A Closed-Loop Supply Chain In A Water-Energy Nexus: Technology Advancement, Market Competition And Capacity Limit, Nabeel Hamoud

Theses and Dissertations

Water and energy are two scarce and concerning resources interconnected in the water-energy nexus. In the nexus, production of energy needs water, and production of water needs energy. For better management of these resources in the nexus, this research considers a supply chain that consists of water suppliers, power suppliers, and consumers of these commodities. In the chain, water suppliers purchase power from power suppliers, and power suppliers purchase water from water suppliers. Other consumers can also buy these resources at the water and power markets. Each firm tries to maximize its own profit. The suppliers of water and power …

Production Of Biscuits By Substitution With Different Ratios Of Yellow Pea Flour, Jikai Zhao, Xin Liu, Xiang Bai, Fengcheng Wang

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

To promote the commercialization of yellow pea flour (YPF) due to its nutritional benefits. Four biscuits with different YPF ratio (10%–50%) were conducted to explore the optimal addition percentage. The effects of YPF on the rheological and baking performance of biscuits were performed. The results showed that the substitution ratio of YPF and milling methods had a critical impact on the rheological properties of dough. The dough stability decreased gradually while a softening degree increased with YPF ratio increased. In a term of biscuits, the dimensions of length (L), width (W), thickness (T) and color (L*) of biscuits reduced as …

Evaluating The Effects Of Sodium, Potassium, Magnesium, And Calcium Concentrations On Dolomite Stoichiometry, Cation Ordering, And Reaction Rate, Hanna F. Cohen

Masters Theses

Numerous environmental factors affect dolomitization. Shallow peritidal and restricted marine environments, for example, are often associated with more abundant and more stoichiometric dolomite than deeper marine environments. Higher fluid Mg/Ca ratios resulting from gypsum precipitation are often invoked to explain this observation, even when evidence of evaporites is absent. In this study, high-temperature dolomitization experiments show that the concentrations of major cation concentrations (Na, K, Mg, and Ca) impact dolomite stoichiometry and reaction rate. Nearly 200 batch dolomitization experiments were run whereby 100 mg of natural aragonite ooids were dolomitized at 215°C in ionic solutions. Fluid [NaCl] and [KCl] correlate …

Temporal And Spatial Scales Of Correlation In Marine Phytoplankton Communities, A. M. Kuhn, S. Dutkiewicz, O. Jahn, Sophie Clayton, T. A. Rynearson, M. R. Mazloff, A. D. Barton

OES Faculty Publications

Ocean circulation shapes marine phytoplankton communities by setting environmental conditions and dispersing organisms. In addition, processes acting on the water column (e.g., heat fluxes and mixing) affect the community structure by modulating environmental variables that determine in situ growth and loss rates. Understanding the scales over which phytoplankton communities vary in time and space is key to elucidate the relative contributions of local processes and ocean circulation on phytoplankton distributions. Using a global ocean ecosystem model, we quantify temporal and spatial correlation scales for phytoplankton phenotypes with diverse functional traits and cell sizes. Through this analysis, we address these questions: …

Groundwater Investigations To Support Irrigated Agriculture At La Grange, Western Australia: 2013–18 Results, Robert J. Paul, Gregory Paul Raper, Richard J. George Dr, Nicholas J. Wright, Adam M. Lillicrap, Peter S. Gardiner

Resource management technical reports

The Broome Sandstone aquifer is the main aquifer and groundwater resource in the La Grange area, near Broome in the West Kimberley, Western Australia. Land use is dominated by cattle grazing on pastoral stations, dispersed mining and tourism. Irrigated agriculture has developed at a small scale, with about 470 hectares under cultivation in 2014. Groundwater abstraction is licensed under the La Grange groundwater allocation plan (Department of Water 2010) and managed by the Department of Water and Environmental Regulation. The La Grange groundwater allocation area is split into the La Grange North subarea and La Grange South subarea, with groundwater …

Groundwater Chemistry And Salinity Processes In The Myalup Region, Adam M. Lillicrap, Richard J. George Dr

Resource management technical reports

The Myalup region, which incorporates the Myalup Irrigated Agriculture Precinct (MIAP), is located about 100 kilometres south of Perth between the southern end of Lake Clifton and the northern tip of the Leschenault Inlet. It covers 17 800 hectares, with about 2100ha being irrigated. The precinct produces mainly carrots, onions, potatoes and leafy vegetables. In 2016–17, the total value of agricultural production for the MIAP, including on-farm processing and packaging, was more than $120 million.

Irrigation water is mainly from the surficial Myalup aquifer, with limited abstraction from the underlying Leederville aquifer. Average annual rainfall is about 800 millimetres, but …

Cloud Based Iot Architecture, Nathan Roehl

Theses and Dissertations

The Internet of Things (IoT) and cloud computing have grown in popularity over the past decade as the internet becomes faster and more ubiquitous. Cloud platforms are well suited to handle IoT systems as they are accessible and resilient, and they provide a scalable solution to store and analyze large amounts of IoT data. IoT applications are complex software systems and software developers need to have a thorough understanding of the capabilities, limitations, architecture, and design patterns of cloud platforms and cloud-based IoT tools to build an efficient, maintainable, and customizable IoT application. As the IoT landscape is constantly changing, …

The Curious Case Of Nad-Cleaving Nudix Hydrolases, Atreyei Ray

Theses and Dissertations

Nudix proteins are members of a large family of homologous enzymes that hydrolyze nucleoside diphosphates linked to other compounds (x). These enzymes have catalytic activity on a wide range of substrates such as dNTPs (both canonical and their oxidized forms), nucleotide sugars, alcohols, dinucleoside polyphosphates, dinucleotide cofactors, and nucleoside diphosphates linked to RNA. The bacterial genome encodes around 13, while the human genome encodes for 22 such nudix proteins.

The E. coli genome encodes for a mutT mutator gene, the progenitor of the family expressing the MutT pyrophosphohydrolase (NudA) protein (Treffers et al., 1954; Bhatnagar et al., 1988). The enzyme …

Electrical Conductivity Of The Aluminum Oxide Diffusion Barrier Following Catalytic Carbon Nanotube Growth, Berg Daniel Dodson

Theses and Dissertations

Carbon nanotube templated microfabrication (CNT-M) is a method that allows high-aspect ratio structures to be made for microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices. One concern when making monolithic electrical devices using CNT-M is that the aluminum oxide diffusion barrier will create too large of a resistance in the device. However, in developing CNT based MEMS devices, it has been observed that an electrical DC current is capable of transport from a conductive substrate, across the aluminum oxide, and through to the CNT structure grown on top of it. This thesis attempts to determine the mechanisms responsible for current being able to cross …

Wildfire In The West: An Initial Analysis Of Wildfire Impacts On Hydrology And Riverbed Grain Size In Relation To Salmonid Habitat, Natalie J. Gillard

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Historically wildfires have been beneficial to forests, however, human developments have encroached on forests when wildfire was artificially suppressed by federal and state agencies. The area burned by wildfire each year has increased twenty-fold in the past three decades. Large, high severity fires pose increased threats to human and aquatic communities within and downstream of the burned area due to post-wildfire effects on flooding and sedimentation. We need to understand the impacts of wildfires to be able to mitigate their damages and to recognize their potential benefits. This research addresses the questions: 1) Do wildfires impact rural and urban economies …

Spatio-Temporal Analysis Of Asthma Hospitalizations And Associated Factors In Eastern Texas, 2005-2012, Sadananda Silwal

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations

The prevalence of asthma is increasing for both adult and children in eastern Texas. This study examines the spatial and temporal differences in asthma hospital discharge rates and its association with socioeconomic risk indicators, air pollutants (ozone and NO2) and meteorological variables (temperature, wind speed, and wind direction to an extent). Socioeconomic risk indicators were subjected to principal component analysis to create socioeconomic deprivation index for each county. Annual and diurnal temporal distribution of ozone, NO2, temperature and wind speed were analyzed to understand their characteristics during a wet year (2007) and a dry year (2011). Hotspot analysis and Cluster …

Advances In Liquid Chromatography And Liquid Chromatography- Mass Spectrometry For The Chiral Analysis Of Amino Acids And Differentiation Of Isomeric Amino Acid Residues In Peptides/Proteins From Complex Matrices, Siqi Du

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations

Amino acids are essential building blocks in all living organisms. Initially it was believed that only L-amino acids were relevant in higher organisms, and D-amino acids were laboratory artifacts. Today, various D-amino acids have been detected in different organisms, including humans, and some even play essential roles in biological processes. In addition, abnormal D-amino acid levels have been reported in patients with different diseases. The variations in D-amino acid levels might be of some diagnostic value. However, our knowledge of D-amino acids remains limited and most of the D-amino acids are not well investigated due to the lack of a …

Increased Fluvial Runoff Terminated Inorganic Aragonite Precipitation On The Northwest Shelf Of Australia During The Early Holocene, Maximilian Hallenberger, Lars Reuning, Stephen J. Gallagher, Stefan Back, Takeshige Ishiwa, Beth A. Christensen, Kara Bogus

School of Earth & Environment Departmental Research

Inorganic precipitation of aragonite is a common process within tropical carbonate environments. Across the Northwest Shelf of Australia (NWS) such precipitates were abundant in the late Pleistocene, whereas present-day sedimentation is dominated by calcitic bioclasts. This study presents sedimentological and geochemical analyses of core data retrieved from the upper 13 meters of IODP Site U1461 that provide a high-resolution sedimentary record of the last ~15 thousand years. Sediments that formed from 15 to 10.1 ka BP are aragonitic and characterised by small needles (<5 >µm) and ooids. XRF elemental proxy data indicate that these sediments developed under arid conditions in …

Enabling High Quality Oxygen Measurements During Robotic Based Studies Of Ocean Ecological And Biogeochemical Processes, Brianna A. Alanis

Theses and Dissertations

Dissolved oxygen is an essential parameter necessary for understanding marine ecological and biogeochemical processes. New robotic vehicles and autonomous platforms are being applied to an even wider range of ecological and biogeochemical studies. Thus, arises the opportunity for matching the best possible oxygen sensing techniques and methods to these new platforms. In so doing, we can enable both more targeted and higher resolution oxygen measurements than previously possible and potentially use oxygen measurements for a wider range of applications, including in situ incubation experiments and primary productivity measurements. This thesis tested three different oxygen sensors in a trade study for …

Photocatalytic Degradation Of Simazine Under Visible Light Using Zinc Oxide/Molybdenum Disulfide Heterostructures, Alexandria Castillo

Theses and Dissertations

The photocatalytic degradation of simazine under visible light by using ZnO/MoS2 heterostructures was investigated. Reaction parameters studied to optimize simazine degradation included pH, loading mass of the photocatalyst, and percentage of MoS2 in the heterostructure. pH 2 was the optimal environment for the degradation reaction of all catalysts. A loading mass of 20 mg for each of the ZnO/MoS2 photocatalysts was determined to be the most effective for in the degradation process. The degradation reactions were observed to follow 2nd order kinetics for all photocatalysts at all temperatures. Band gap studies confirmed a lower energy than that of pure ZnO …

Learning To Detect Pedestrians By Watching Videos, Andrew Y. Chen

Theses and Dissertations

The field of deep learning has experienced a resurgence in the recent years, particularly resulting with the advent of AlexNet. Supervised learning is currently the most common and practical machine learning method. The struggle with employing supervised learning to approach problems is that it requires training data. Sufficient training data is correlated with performance for deep learning models. The issue is that preparing the training data can be a tedious and labor intensive task, especially on a large scale. The purpose of this paper is to determine how efficient a machine can learn when trained on automatically annotated data. The …

Viability Of Wetland Crops For Use In Treatment Wetlands: Nitrogen Removal From Water And Production Of Food, Andrew Denson Corder

Theses and Dissertations

Treatment wetlands are used to treat wastewater from a variety of sources, but their functionality depends on the macrophytes present therein. To better understand the viability of wetland macrophytes both as sources of food and as agents of nitrogen removal from wastewater, this study quantified plant growth, food production, and nitrogen removal capacity of three common wetland crops as well as three locally dominant graminoid species in a variety of relevant ecological contexts. All six plant species and a control were grown over a ten-week period in three related experiments: (1) under three moisture regimes, (2) with or without competition …