Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Pd Nanoparticles Supported On The Etched Ni Foams As High-Performance Electrocatalysts For Direct Ethanol Fuel Cells, Chi Zhang, Cheng-Fei Li, Gao-Ren Li

Journal of Electrochemistry

The development of non-Pt anode electrocatalysts with high activity and long-term durability at low cost for fuel cells still remains enormous challenge. Here we report the Pd nanoparticles supported on Ni foams etched by the mixed acids (HNO₃+H₂SO₄+H₃PO₄+CH₃COOH) (Pd/ME-NF) that are designed and fabricated as high-performance electrocatalysts for ethanol oxidation in alkaline media. Because of the advantages of large open space, fast electrolyte penetration/diffusion and rapid electron transfer process, the Pd/ME-NF catalysts exhibited significantly improved electrocatalytic activity and durability compared with the commercial Pd/C catalysts.

Validating The Water Vapor Variance Similarity Relationship In The Interfacial Layer Using Observations And Large-Eddy Simulations, M. K. Osman, D. D. Turner, Thijs Heus, V. Wulfmeyer

Physics Faculty Publications

In previous work, the similarity relationship for the water vapor variance in the interfacial layer (IL) at the top of the convective boundary layer (CBL) was proposed to be proportional to the convective velocity scale and the gradients of the water vapor mixing ratio and the Brunt‐Vaisala frequency in the entrainment zone. In the presence of wind shear in the IL, the similarity relationship was hypothesized to also include a dependence on the gradient Richardson number. Simultaneous measurements of the surface buoyancy flux, wind‐shear profiles from a radar wind profiler, water vapor mixing ratio and temperature measurements and their gradients …

On Automation Of Code Transformations For Concept Inventory Misconceptions, Dmytro Vitel

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Identifying common misconceptions held by novice programmers is a primary goalof the Computing Education Research agenda. This thesis proposes to formalize such mis-conceptions through program transformations. We first describe the implementation of theEvoParsons system, that allows students to practice programming skills with the help ofso-called Parsons puzzles. This software serves as a tool for gathering data on how studentsinteract with such puzzles. Our first contribution is the system architecture reorganization:development of Web SPA UI, REST service back-end, hypothesis validation infrastructureand student-UI data collection. We then review and compare several code-transformationtools (ANTLR, Rascal MPL and StrategoXT) and show how they might …

Ai Leverage In Easing The 5g Complexity And Enhancing 5g Intelligent Connectivity, Xhafer Krasniqi

UBT International Conference

As 5G era is approaching fast and pre-commercial 5G tests and trials are happening everywhere around the world, one of the key challenges for carriers and 5G providers is to maintain and operate the network complexity required to meet diverse services and personalized user experience requirements. This maintenance and operation have to be smarter and more agile in 5G than it was in previous generations. AI and ML can be leveraged in this case to ease 5G complexity and at the same time enhance the intelligent connectivity between diverse devices and diverse tiny end points, e.g. IoT sensors.

Machine learning …

Password Typo Correction Using Discrete Logarithms, Nikola K. Blanchrad

UBT International Conference

As passwords remain the main online authentication method, focus has shifted from naive entropy to how usability improvements can increase security. Chatterjee et al. recently introduced the first two typotolerant password checkers, which improve usability at no security cost but are technically complex. We look at the more general problem of computing an edit distance between two strings without having direct access to those strings — by storing the equivalent of a hash. We propose a simpler algorithm for this problem that is asymptotically quasi-optimal in both bits stored and exchanged, at the cost of more computation on the server.

Vulnerability Of Passwords Consisting Of Numerical Repetitive Sequences In The Wpa2 Protocol, Genc Kelmendi, Edmond Hajrizi

UBT International Conference

Protocols that govern wireless security WPA2/WPA have been proven much more secure in comparison to their predecessor WEP. However, the human factor jeopardizes the solidity of cryptography by implementing passwords consisting of programmatically predictable numerical structures such as 1234512345, 11114444, 999888777 and so on. This practice endangers the security of the WPA protocol in particular, as the locally stored WPA handshake can be attacked for an unlimited number of times using brute-force attacks. The methods presented in this paper are effective in decrypting such passwords within seconds using ordinary processor power. The prevalence of this vulnerable practice in the Prishtina …

Establishing An Analytics Capability Within Hr, Rizwan Khan

River Cities Industrial and Organizational Psychology Conference

With advancements in technology, HR finally has the tools available to collect and process people data. But is that all that is needed to successfully implement and sustain an analytics capability within HR? The purpose of this presentation/tutorial is to demonstrate a realistic journey The AES Corporation has taken thus far in developing its People Analytics capability. A framework for the implementation of People Analytics will be presented which incorporates themes in I/O Psychology that have been incorporated into the framework such as goal setting theory, job analysis, and change management. How this framework is operationalized will also be demonstrated …

How Do Kosovo Firms Utilize Business Intelligence? An Exploratory Study, Ardian Hyseni

UBT International Conference

The purpose of this paper is to examine how Kosovo firms utilize business intelligence to analyze their data and better understand the past, present and the future of their firm. Business intelligence offers firms the ability to analyze large amount of data quicker and more effective. Decision making has become easier with the use of BI tools, but making the right decision at right time has become vital for the firms performance. This research will contribute on business industry by providing evidence how Kosovo firms utilize the BI system, what BI tools and what business values and processes BI offers …

Analyzing The Linearity Of Some Operators, Faton Kabashi, Azir Jusufi, Hizer Leka

UBT International Conference

Linear operators occupy an important place in functional analysis and linear algebra, which are among the most important and substantive disciplines of mathematics, whose methods and results have created an indispensable apparatus for the development of numerical mathematics, theory of approximations, equations differential and especially mathematical physics and applied mathematics. Also, linear operators are a central object of study in vector space theory.

A linear operator is a function which satisfies the conditions of additivity and homogeneity. Not every function is linear operators. We will try to explore some functions which are also linear operators.

Improvement Of Gender Recognition Using The Cosfire Filter Framework (Simulations Platform Of Shape-Preserving Regression – Pchip), Virtyt Lesha, Arben Haveri, Jozef Bushati

UBT International Conference

Biometrics is evolving every day more and more in technical sense and consequently faces with further challenges that become sharper. One of these challenges of is gender recognition that finds very important and key applications. In this paper, we consider the gender recognition process implemented through the Cosfire filter applied through Viola-Jones algorithm and simulated through the Matlab platform. Objective of this paper is improving the execution of gender recognition. The database contains 237 images of 128 to 128 pixels, where 128 are males and 109 are females. For each of them, gender recognition is performed by applying current and …

An Overview Of Big Data Analytics In Banking: Approaches, Challenges And Issues, Fisnik Doko, Igor Miskovski

UBT International Conference

Banks are harnessing the power of Big Data. They use Big Data and Data Science to drive change towards data and analytics to gain an overall competitive advantage. The Big Data has potential to transform enterprise operations and processes especially in the banking sector, because they have huge amount of transaction data. The goal of this paper is to give an overview of different approaches and challenges that exists in Big Data in banking sector. The work presented here will fulfill the gap of research papers in the last five years, with focus on Big Data in central banks and …

Applying Soa Approach To Financial Institution: Case Study, Agon Memeti, Florinda Imeri

UBT International Conference

A financial institution is an institution that conducts financial transactions, such as depositing money, taking out loans and/or exchanging currencies. Systems used by them like any other system tend to skew old, but, the replacement and integration of these systems is a difficult due to the heterogeneous nature. Due to this it is imperative to consider alternative infrastructure such as SOA (service-oriented architecture), which is seen as the best technology for internal and external interfaces, resulting cost reductions associated with its deployment; combined with standardized protocols, and increased interoperability among IT infrastructures. Studies shows that this flexible architecture will encourage …

Semantic Web Technologies, Dukagjin Hyseni

UBT International Conference

This study attempts to highlight the great importance of developing Semantic Web as one of the best discovery of better data management and presentation within the WWW. Since the W3C's was discovered, initially providing classic web content as web 1.0 that had link / hyperlink of document`s location, then web 2.0 as web-applications have more advanced technologies to connect data, and finally semantic web as extension of web 3.0 also known as Linked Data. The results show that in addition to the rapid development of the Semantic Web, the demand to use its features by data publishers and data readers …

International Conference On Computer Science And Communication Engineering, University For Business And Technology - Ubt

UBT International Conference

UBT Annual International Conference is the 8th international interdisciplinary peer reviewed conference which publishes works of the scientists as well as practitioners in the area where UBT is active in Education, Research and Development. The UBT aims to implement an integrated strategy to establish itself as an internationally competitive, research-intensive university, committed to the transfer of knowledge and the provision of a world-class education to the most talented students from all background. The main perspective of the conference is to connect the scientists and practitioners from different disciplines in the same place and make them be aware of the recent …

Exploitation Of Wastelands For Fodder Production And Agroforestry, Gurbachan Singh

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Natural resources degradation for agricultural production and environmental protection has been a matter of concern for future food, nutrition, environment and livelihood security. As per current estimates, 120.7 million hectare (mha) is under degraded or wastelands. These lands provide ample opportunity for growing fodder trees and grasses to bridge the gap between demand and supply of green and dry fodder.Several species of fodder trees and grasses have been identified and their agro-techniques standardized for raising in different categories of wastelands such as affected by soil and wind erosion, salinity, acidity and mining etc. A brief account of such plants is …

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Seminole State College Cure Research Program: From The Classroom To Collaboration, Maya Patrice Byfield Phd

Florida Statewide Symposium: Best Practices in Undergraduate Research

It is believed that if students are taught inductively in their first 2 years, it could induce many of them to seek research experiences later in their academic careers. To do this, we initiated an effort to promote engagement in research topics and faculty development. First, collaboration between one faculty member at SSC and a Principal Investigator at the Sanford-Burnham Institute was developed. This collaboration resulted in the creation of several internships at the Institute for students in the newly developed STEM research class. Second, to increase student engagement, the biology department developed a research focused colloquium series. Each fall …

P-13 Astronomy From Ripples In Spacetime, Tiffany Summerscales

Celebration of Research and Creative Scholarship

The LIGO and Virgo detectors have made a total of 11 confirmed measurements of gravitational waves, the faint ripples in the fabric of spacetime predicted by Einstein’s theory of general relativity. Ten of these gravitational wave events were caused by the inspiral, collision, and merging of a pair of black holes and the remaining event by a pair of neutron stars. These measurements have helped us learn about the objects that produced the gravitational waves. Regular candidate detections are now shared in real time with both astronomers and the public.

The Wood Pellet Industry In The United States South: An Exploratory Study Of Resident Environmental, Social, And Economic Perceptions, Mason Thomas Leblanc

LSU Master's Theses

This thesis research provides insight into the wood pellet manufacturing industry from the perspectives of residents in the US South, focusing on environmental, social, and economic constructs. The region is the largest producer and exporter of wood pellets in the world. The focus of previous research on wood pellets has focused on environmental, energy, and economic attributes. This study is the first of its kind to expand the research to investigate in-depth socio-economic dynamics and fill a general gap in knowledge of the relationship between the wood pellet industry and public supply-side issues in the region. Two rounds of a …

The Firece Green Fire: Vol. 10 Issue 7, Wofford College Environmental Studies Program

The Fierce Green Fire

No abstract provided.

Uncovering And Characterizing Splice Variants Associated With Survival In Lung Cancer Patients, Sean West, Sushil Kumar, Surinder K. Batra, Hesham Ali, Dario Ghersi

Interdisciplinary Informatics Faculty Publications

Splice variants have been shown to play an important role in tumor initiation and progression and can serve as novel cancer biomarkers. However, the clinical importance of individual splice variants and the mechanisms by which they can perturb cellular functions are still poorly understood. To address these issues, we developed an efficient and robust computational method to: (1) identify splice variants that are associated with patient survival in a statistically significant manner; and (2) predict rewired protein-protein interactions that may result from altered patterns of expression of such variants. We applied our method to the lung adenocarcinoma dataset from TCGA …

Improving Foresight Predictions In The 2002-2018 Nfl Regular-Seasons: A Classic Tale Of Quantity Vs. Quality, Eduardo C. Balreira, Brian K. Miceli

Mathematics Faculty Research

Utilizing a modied Bradley-Terry model, we develop a method of making foresight predictions of 2002-2018 NFL games by incorporating a home-eld parameter into previously established ranking models. Knowing only the home team and score of each contest, and taking into account previous predictions, we optimize this parameter considering one of two things: the quantity of correct picks to date or the quality of predictions to date as measured by a quadratic scoring
function. Our main results establish that optimization of quality-rather than quantity-when making a prediction has higher overall accuracy.

Fractal Theory-Based Investigation Of The Optimal Interval Of Minimum Pore Radius Of Sandstone, Xu Lulu, Dong Shuning, Dai Zhenxue, Xu Bin, Yin Shangxian, Zhou Yan, Chen Junjun

Coal Geology & Exploration

Permeability is a main parameter for evaluation of water conductivity of porous media, and it is a macroscopic feature of micro-pore structure of water-conducting media. To obtain the geometry parameters of microscopic pores, we performed scanning electron microscopy(SEM) on sandstone samples. The image processing techniques were also applied in calculation of different statistical parameters(e.g., fractal dimensions) and geometrical parameters. Then, fractal theory was introduced to investigate the influence of micro pore structure on permeability. At the same time, the minimum pore radius r_min interval acting on the seepage was obtained by the measured permeability values. This interval can be …

Micro Ct-Based Meticulous Characterization Of Porosity Evolution Of Coal In The Process Of Biodegradation, Dong Zhiwei, Guo Hongyu, Xia Daping, Liu Xile, Bai Yang, Zhao Guojun

Coal Geology & Exploration

To explore the bio-permeability enhancing effect via methanogen treatment on different rank coals after anaerobic fermentation, micro-CT was used to analyze the change characteristics of pore structure of coal before and after biodegradation. At the same time, the adsorption characteristics of methanogens on the coal surface after anaerobic biodegradation were observed by scanning electron microscopy to analyze the reasons for the effect difference of biological transformation of different rank coals. The results show that the porosity and total throat length of the coal samples biodegraded increase and the connectivity of the pores is enhanced, it is indicated that coal samples …

Test Of The Influence Of Dynamic Water Grouting Diffusion Radius Of Fractures In Rock, Gu Shuancheng, Sun Guanlin, Su Peili, Li Jinhua

Coal Geology & Exploration

Water-cement ratio and grouting pressure are the key factors in the design of hydrodynamic grouting. In this paper, based on the self-designed simulated fissure hydrodynamic grouting indoor test platform, the dynamic water grouting test was carried out, the diffusion mode of the slurry in fractures was discussed. The relationship among the diffusion radius of pure cement slurry, the grouting pressure and water-cement ratio was analyzed. The experimental results were verified by computational fluid dynamics software. The results show that the diffusion mode of the slurry is partition diffusion. When the grouting pressure is constant, the diffusion radius is inversely proportional …

Minimal D = 4 �� = 2 Supergravity From D = 11: An M-Theory Free Lunch, Gabriel Larios, Oscar J. Varela

All Physics Faculty Publications

We present a new consistent truncation of D = 11 supergravity to D = 4 �� = 2 minimal gauged supergravity, on the seven-dimensional internal Riemannian space corresponding to the most general class of D = 11 solutions with an AdS₄ factor and �� = 2 supersymmetry. A truncation ansatz is proposed and its consistency checked at the level of the D = 11 Bianchi identity, bosonic equations of motion, and supersymmetry variations of the gravitino. The general class includes an �� = 2 AdS₄ solution dual to the conformal, low energy physics phase corresponding to a mass …

Design And Application Of Multi-Section Bundled Bag Wire-Line Coring Drilling Tools, Han Yi, Zhang Shaohe, Bai Rui, Sun Pinghe, Shu Biao, Cao Han, Zhang Xinxin

Coal Geology & Exploration

Because the existing conventional wire-line coring drilling tool lacks the water-proof and core-protecting device, the broken core is easily eroded when the core is drilled in a complicated layer such as loose, weak, broken layers and the core is easy to fall off during the lifting process, so that the coring rate and core quality are not up to the design requirements, and even core can not be taken to. In response to the above problems, a bag-type wire-line coring drilling tool was designed. The drill adds a multi-section bundled bag assembly structure to the conventional wire-line coring drilling tool …

Experimental Study Of Three-Component Down-Hole Tem For Detecting Water-Filled Goaf, Yao Weihua, Wang Peng, Li Mingxing, Su Chao, Cheng Siyuan

Coal Geology & Exploration

The borehole geophysical prospecting method is a research hotspot in recent years. Considering that the down-hole transient electromagnetic method used in metal mines has the characteristics of long radial detection distance and less susceptible to surface electromagnetic interference, it is applied to the exploration of water-filled goaf in coal mines. Three-dimensional finite-difference time-domain(FDTD) algorithm is used to simulate the total field response and abnormal response of the goaf model with different orientations of boreholes. The total field three-component could reflect the water-filled goaf obviously, and the abnormal field three-component shape combination can distinguish the azimuth of the abnormal body. Based …

Evaluation Method Of Compressibility Of Shale Gas Reservoir In Consideration Of The Influence Of Fracture Toughness, Zhang Chenqing, Xu Jiang, Peng Shoujian, Yan Fazhi, Wu Bin, Yue Yuqing

Coal Geology & Exploration

Compressibility is an important basis for measuring the response of shale gas reservoirs to hydraulic fracturing. Currently, the brittleness index commonly used for shale compressibility has been evaluated. However, in practice, there are problems in which the brittleness index is similar and the actual fracturing effect is far different. In order to make up for the lack of brittleness index for the evaluation of compressibility of shale gas reservoirs, this study incorporated critical mechanical energy release rate in consideration of the influence of fracture toughness, and defined the average critical mechanical energy release rate of the integrated modes I and …

Two-Dimensional Spin-Valley Locking Spin Valve, L. L. Tao, Evgeny Y. Tsymbal

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

Valleytronics is an emerging field of research which employs energy valleys in the band structure of two-dimensional (2D) electronic materials to encode information. A special interest has been triggered by the associated spin-valley coupling which reveals rich fundamental physics and enables new functionalities. Here, we propose exploiting the spin-valley locking in 2D materials with a large spin-orbit coupling and electric-field reversible valley spin polarization, such as germanene, stanene, a 1T' transition metal dichalcogenide (TMDC) monolayer, and a 2H-TMDC bilayer, to realize a valley spin valve (VSV). The valley spin polarization in these materials can be switched by …