Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Multiple Positive Solutions For Nonlinear Fractional $Q$-Difference Equation With $P$-Laplacian Operator, Zhongyun Qin, Shurong Sun, Zhenlai Han

Turkish Journal of Mathematics

In this paper, we investigate a class of four-point boundary value problems of fractional $q$-difference equation with $p$-Laplacian operator which is the first time to be studied and is extended from a bending elastic beam equation. By Avery-Peterson theorem and the method of lower and upper solutions associated with monotone iterative technique, we obtain some sufficient conditions for the existence of multiple positive solutions. As applications, examples are presented to illustrate the main results.

A Citizen-Science Approach For Urban Flood Risk Analysis Using Data Science And Machine Learning, Candace Agonafir

Dissertations and Theses

Street flooding is problematic in urban areas, where impervious surfaces, such as concrete, brick, and asphalt prevail, impeding the infiltration of water into the ground. During rain events, water ponds and rise to levels that cause considerable economic damage and physical harm. The main goal of this dissertation is to develop novel approaches toward the comprehension of urban flood risk using data science techniques on crowd-sourced data. This is accomplished by developing a series of data-driven models to identify flood factors of significance and localized areas of flood vulnerability in New York City (NYC). First, the infrastructural (catch basin clogs, …

Artificial Intelligence System For Automatic Imaging, Quantification, And Identification Of Arthropods In Leaf Litter And Pitfall Samples, Pierce Helton, Khoa Luu, Ashley Dowling

Inquiry: The University of Arkansas Undergraduate Research Journal

It is well known that arthropods are the most diverse and abundant eukaryotic organisms on the planet. Museum and research collections have huge insect accumulations from expeditions conducted over history that contain specimens of both temporal and spatial value, including hundreds of thousands of species. This biodiversity data is inaccessible to the research community, resulting in a vast amount of “dark data”. The primary objective of this study is to develop an artificial intelligence-driven system for specimen identification that greatly minimizes the time and expertise required to identify specimens in atypical environments. Successful development will have profound impacts on both …

Finding The Best Predictors For Foot Traffic In Us Seafood Restaurants, Isabel Paige Beaulieu

Honors Theses and Capstones

COVID-19 caused state and nation-wide lockdowns, which altered human foot traffic, especially in restaurants. The seafood sector in particular suffered greatly as there was an increase in illegal fishing, it is made up of perishable goods, it is seasonal in some places, and imports and exports were slowed. Foot traffic data is useful for business owners to have to know how much to order, how many employees to schedule, etc. One issue is that the data is very expensive, hard to get, and not available until months after it is recorded. Our goal is to not only find covariates that …

Editorial, Michael E. Whitman, Herbert J. Mattord, Hossain Shahriar

Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research and Practice

Since 2016, it has been the mission of the Journal of Cybersecurity Education, Research, and Practice (JCERP) to be a premier outlet for high-quality information security and cybersecurity-related articles of interest to teaching faculty and students. This is the 13^th edition of the (JCERP) and, as ever, we are seeking authors who produce high-quality research and practice-oriented articles focused on the development and delivery of information security and cybersecurity curriculum, innovation in applied scholarship, and industry best practices in information security and cybersecurity in the enterprise for double-blind review and publication. The journal invites submissions on Information Security, Cybersecurity, …

Antimicrobial And Lipase Inhibition Of Essential Oil And Solvent Extracts Of Cota Tinctoria Var. Tinctoria And Characterization Of The Essential Oil, İshak Eri̇k, Gözde Bozdal, Sila Özlem Şener, Büşra Korkmaz, Şengül Alpay Karaoğlu, Sali̇h Terzi̇oğlu, Nuretti̇n Yayli

Turkish Journal of Chemistry

The essential oil (EO) of Cota tinctoria var. tinctoria was analyzed using GC-FID / MS. A total of 51 compounds were determined from this taxon, accounting for 99.79% in hydrodistillation. Monoterpenes were the primary chemical class for the volatile organic compounds in the EO (36.1%, 13 compounds). Borneol (18.1%), camphor (14.9%), and β-pinene (11.3%) were the major components in the EO of C. tinctoria var. tinctoria. The antimicrobial activities of EO and n-hexane, acetonitrile, methanol, and water solvent extracts of the taxon were screened in vitro against ten microorganisms. The EO yielded the best activity (15 mm, 372.5 MIC, 59600 …

The Pandemic’S Effects On The Use Of Personal Listening Devices And Prevalence Of Hearing Damage In College Students, Morgan Fink

Senior Honors Projects

Personal listening devices (PLDs), such as earbuds and headphones, are prevalent in today’s society, and overuse of these devices can cause hearing damage. Since the pandemic caused lockdowns and online classes, college students have presumably had more time to be indoors and to use PLDs, leading to a higher risk or developing hearing damage. Previous studies have explored the PLD use and the prevalence of hearing damage in college students, but this study investigates whether the coronavirus pandemic has affected college students’ PLD listening habits and whether these changes are related to the students’ disclosure of suspected symptoms of hearing …

A Participatory Group Process To Collect And Disseminate Covid-19 Needs Assessment Data, Areebah Ahmed

Undergraduate Research Posters

The Richmond, VA COVID-19 Needs Assessment Survey (RVA CoNA) was created in March 2020 to identify behaviors and needs related to COVID-19 in Richmond area adults ages 18 and over. Results are being used to inform support, strategic efforts, and educational outreach of local community organizations. The purpose of this study is to (1) summarize the process used to develop the RVA CoNA, (2) summarize preliminary survey results from a second phase of data collection as well as initial feedback from community partners, and (3) summarize initial conclusions and results dissemination strategies.Community partners and researchers at Virginia Commonwealth University jointly …

Quantum Kinetic Equation For Fermionic Fluids And Chiral Kinetic Theory, Ömer Faruk Dayi

Turkish Journal of Physics

We first review how one can establish the quantum kinetic equation for fluids of spin-1/2 particles. Then we present the construction of the semiclassical relativistic chiral kinetic equation of the fluid in the presence of the external electromagnetic fields. We derive the resulting nonrelativistic chiral kinetic theory. We calculated the particle number current density and showed that chiral effects are correctly generated. Moreover, it satisfies the anomalous continuity equation.

Mosquito Species Distribution Models: Limitations And Best Practices, Justin Barker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Understanding species distribution is fundamental to ecology and biogeography, with important implications for species management. This is especially true for species of public health concern—such as mosquitoes—which can impart both economic and health impacts. Species distribution models (SDMs) are powerful tools to accomplish this goal. However, obtaining reliable conclusions, those which are accurate and applicable for policy development, from SDMs is not straightforward owing to the many required considerations such as objective with respect to limitations of the available data. The goal of this thesis was to determine recommended methods to address known and unknown mosquito SDM limitations. First, I …

Analysis Of Count Data In One-Way Layout With Missing Response, Poonam Shrestha Malakar

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Discrete data in the form of counts arise in many health science disciplines such as biology and epidemiology. Poisson models are widely used in the regression analysis of count data. The Poisson distribution has a property that the mean and the variance are equal. However in practice many count data sets often display extra-variation or over-dispersion relative to a Poisson model. Thus the Poisson distribution is not an ideal choice for analysing count data in many applications. One very convenient and common model to accommodate this extra dispersion is the two parameter negative binomial distribution. Count data in the form …

Optimization Of An Ultrasonic Non-Destructive Evaluation Technique For Laser Brazing, Dimitri Shinas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Brazing joins two sheets along a seam using a filler metal. In the brazing process, the filler metal is heated, along with the parts to be joined, to a temperature above the melting temperature of the filler material. This allows the filler metal to wet the surfaces of the parts to be joined through capillary action, resulting in the formation of metallic bonds, ultimately forming the joint.

Brazing, like all joining methods, is also susceptible to process variations. These process variations can include wear of the laser, plate misalignment, and external temperature changes. If left unchecked, such variations can eventually …

Detection Of Endangered Fish In Dianchi Lake, Kunming, China, Using Edna And Traditional Fishing, Kai Zhang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dianchi Lake, Yunnan, China is a eutrophic plateau lake. Many native fish species in the lake are currently endangered or extinct due to a variety of stressors. Community surveys are important for ecological management and protection, though efforts are hampered by low abundance of some species. The goal of this thesis was to understand the community structure and distribution of fish in Dianchi Lake and to detect Sinocyclocheilus grahami, a critically endangered species endemic to the lake, using both traditional netting methods and environmental DNA. Using traditional netting and trapping, I found that the fish community of …

Protecting Public Trust Resources In America's Private Forests: Case Studies In The Diversity Of U.S. State-Level Forestry Policies, Brita Ann Goldstein

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Privately-owned forests in the U.S. provide ecological and socioeconomic benefits to Americans. At the same time, they challenge common law principles that govern the administration of public goods. There is long-standing tension between private property rights, which entitles forest landowners to make land management decisions about their properties, and the role of state governments in protecting public trust resources on behalf of the general public. Each state chooses to protect public trust resources on private lands in a different way, meaning the U.S. is a patchwork of diverse private forest policy approaches. Describing this range of approaches can help inform …

Assessing Soil Disturbance From Tethered Logging On Steep Slopes In Northern California, Karolyn Marie Fagundes

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The implementation of tethered harvesting allows for the expansion of mechanized logging onto steeper slopes. Recent updates to the California Forest Practice Rules have explicitly removed the slope limitation for logging equipment, provided it’s tethered. California is now witnessing the reintroduction of ground-based logging equipment on steep slopes. Previously, operating equipment on steep slopes was considered detrimental due to the potential for soil disturbance. However, tethered equipment interacts with the soil in a new way due to the use of a winch. Relatively few studies have attempted to quantify soil disturbance with this new practice. The goal of this study …

Frequent Mental Distress Among Adults In The United States And Its Association With Socio-Demographic Characteristics, Unhealthy Lifestyle, And Chronic Physical Health Status, Mamunur Rashid, M. Mazharul Islam, Aiping Li, Naima Shifa

Mathematics Faculty Publications

Frequent mental distress (FMD) is a measure of poor mental health days for at least 14 days out of 30 days. It is one of the important dimensions of the health-related quality of life. The underlying causes of FMD are diverse. However, the issue has not been explored extensively due to the lack of reliable data on mental health. The aim of this study was to examine the level and trends of FMD among the adults of the United States (US) and identify the socio-demographic, lifestyles, and chronic health outcomes related correlates of FMD. The data for the study was …

Summer Research Fellowship Project Descriptions 2022, Clark Science Center's Summer Research Fellows Program

SURF Abstracts (Women in Science)

A summary of research done by Smith College’s 2022 Summer Research Fellowship (SURF) Program participants. Ever since its 1967 start, SURF has been a cornerstone of Smith’s science education. Supervised by faculty mentor-advisors drawn from the Clark Science Center and connected to its eighteen science, mathematics, and engineering departments and programs and associated centers and units. At summer’s end, SURF participants were asked to summarize their research experiences for this publication.

Review Of The Effects Of Asphalt Fume Emission (Vocs And Pahs) In Vitro, In Vivo And Human Studies, Omran Taqi, Nastassja Lewinski, Elham Fini, Eran Rozewski, Judith Klein-Seetharaman

Undergraduate Research Posters

Review of the effects of Asphalt fume emission (VOCs and PAHs) in vitro, in vivo and human studies

Omran Taqi, Nastassja Lewinski¹

1) Department of Chemical and Life Science Engineering, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, VA

Background

Asphalt is abundantly available around human operations including road paving and roofing sites. However, their emissions and fumes (specifically volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs)) have been found to have adverse effects on health. Asphalt fumes are a class 2A carcinogen and exposure can increase the risk of lung cancer, asthma, headache, fatigue, and other cardiovascular diseases.

Methods

We used …

Instrumental Analysis, David T. Harvey

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Instrumental analysis is a field of analytical chemistry that investigates analytes using scientific instruments.

C2 Microservices Api: Ch4rl3sch4l3m4gn3, Thai H. Nguyễn

School of Computer Science & Engineering Undergraduate Publications

In the 21^st century, cyber-based attackers such as advance persistent threats are leveraging bots in the form of botnets to conduct a plethora of cyber-attacks. While there are several social engineering techniques used to get targets to unknowingly download these bots, it is the command-and-control techniques advance persistent threats use to control their bots that is of critical interest to the author. In this research paper, the author aims to develop a command-and-control microservice application programming interface infrastructure to facilitate botnet command-and-control attack simulations. To achieve this the author will develop a simple bot skeletal framework, utilize the latest …

Don't Give Me That Story! -- A Human-Centered Framework For Usable Narrative Planning, Rachelyn Farrell

Theses and Dissertations--Computer Science

Interactive or branching stories are engaging and can be embedded into digital systems for a variety of purposes, but their size and complexity makes it difficult and time-consuming for humans to author them. Narrative planning algorithms can automatically generate large branching stories with guaranteed causal consistency, using a hand-authored library of story content pieces. The usability of such a system depends on both the quality of the narrative model upon which it is built and the ability of the user to create the story content library.

Current narrative planning algorithms use either a limited or no model of character belief, …

Meltpondnet: A Swin Transformer U-Net For Detection Of Melt Ponds On Arctic Sea Ice, Ivan Sudakow, Vijayan K. Asari, Ruixu Liu, Denis Demchev

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

High-resolution aerial photographs of Arctic region are a great source for different sea ice feature recognition, which are crucial to validate, tune, and improve climate models. Melt ponds on the surface of melting Arctic sea ice are of particular interest as they are sensitive and valuable indicators and are proxy to the processes in the Arctic climate system. Manual analysis of this remote sensing data is extremely difficult and time-consuming due to the complex shapes and unpredictable boundaries of the melt ponds, and that leads to the necessity for automatizing the processes. In this study, we propose a robust and …

A Progressive Learning Strategy For Large-Scale Glacier Mapping, Zhiyuan Xie, Umesh K. Haritashya, Vijayan K. Asari

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

In recent years, the worldwide temperature increase has resulted in rapid deglaciation and a higher risk of glacier-related natural hazards such as flooding and debris flow. Due to the severity of these hazards, continuous observation and detailed analysis of glacier fluctuations are crucial. Many such analyses require an accurately delineated glacier boundary. However, the complexity and heterogeneity of glaciers, particularly debris-covered glaciers (DCGs), poses a challenge for glacier mapping when using conventional remote sensing or machine-learning techniques. Some examples exist about small-scale automated glacier mapping, but large or regional-scale mapping is challenging. Previously, a deep-learning-based approach named GlacierNet2 had been …

Gene Vectors With Fluorescence Tracking Capabilities, Sophia Despina Angelopoulos

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

This project focuses on the optimization of benzothiazole-based chromophores to utilize them as fluorescent tags functionalized onto stimuli-responsive, or “smart,” polymers as non-viral gene delivery vectors for gene therapy applications. Blue-fluorescent emissive chromophores will allow tracking capabilities for the transfection pathway of the vector to be monitored as it delivers the DNA payload within intercellular space. The most appropriate chromophore must be covalently bound to a free amine within the vector, which is accomplished through NAS chemistry from fluorophenyl-benzothiazoles (F-BTZ-CBz) derivatives to amidated hyperbranched poly(ethyleneimine)(HPEI-IBAm0.61). HPEI is considered to be a synthetic polycation, which promotes tunable solubility through characteristics of …

Fabrication And Characterization Of Novel Agnps Functionalized With Chlorothymol (C@Agnps), Lirim Sopaj

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

In this study, novel silver nanoparticles (AgNPs) were successfully synthesized and functionalized with an antibacterial agent, namely chlorothymol (denoted C@AgNPs). The resulting colloid (C@AgNPs) was purified by two comparative methods: ultrafiltration and ultracentrifugation. Ultrafiltration proved to be more efficient in purifying and size selecting (10 kD filter) and concentrating the C@AgNPs than ultracentrifugation. The physicochemical properties of the filtered C@AgNPs were then characterized by UV-Vis absorption spectroscopy, inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectroscopy (ICP-OES), Raman spectroscopy, Cytoviva hyperspectral imaging, and Scanning electron microscopy. These measurements confirmed the functionalization of the core AgNPs with chlorothymol and suggest the proposed mechanism of …

Evaluating Similarity Of Cross-Architecture Basic Blocks, Elijah L. Meyer

Browse all Theses and Dissertations

Vulnerabilities in source code can be compiled for multiple processor architectures and make their way into several different devices. Security researchers frequently have no way to obtain this source code to analyze for vulnerabilities. Therefore, the ability to effectively analyze binary code is essential. Similarity detection is one facet of binary code analysis. Because source code can be compiled for different architectures, the need can arise for detecting code similarity across architectures. This need is especially apparent when analyzing firmware from embedded computing environments such as Internet of Things devices, where the processor architecture is dependent on the product and …

Modeling Iot Solutions: A Lack Of Iot Device Security, And User Education, Benjamin Newlin

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

The Internet of Things, more commonly known as IoT devices, is an ever growing topic, both in the marketplace and in cyber security. While new devices are released into the public every year, a lack of standardized security concepts is also growing ever so clear. By having a model or standard for IoT devices and manufacturers to follow, the customer-base of these devices will have an easier time identifying trustworthy devices as well as how to secure their own devices.

Species Effect On The Ecohydrology Of A Floodplain Forest In The Upper Mississippi, Claire Mchenry

Geology Honors Projects

The primary objective of this study is to understand how soil moisture is depleted underneath native and non-native Minnesotan tree species following a rain event. It is hypothesized that soil moisture will deplete more significantly and faster underneath drought intolerant, shallow rooted species native to Minnesota. This study also focuses on utilizing remote sensing techniques to calculate the soil moisture availability across a floodplain forest using Landsat 8 images to compare satellite-derived and field-recorded soil moisture values to assess the potential of these images to remotely estimate soil moisture in floodplains.

Assessing The Impact Of Introductory Physics For The Life Sciences On Students’ Ability To Build Complex Models, Benjamin D. Geller , '01, Maya Tipton , '24, Brandon Daniel-Morales , '24, Nikhil Tignor , '24, Calvin White , '24, Catherine Hirshfeld Crouch

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

A central goal of introductory physics for the life sciences (IPLS) is to prepare students to use physics to model and analyze biological situations, a skill of increasing importance for their future studies and careers. Here we report our findings on life science students’ ability to carry out a sophisticated biological modeling task at the end of first-semester introductory physics. Some students were enrolled in a standard course (N = 34), and some in an IPLS course (N = 61); both courses were taught with active learning, used calculus, and included the same core physics concepts. Compared to …

Toi-2257 B: A Highly Eccentric Long-Period Sub-Neptune Transiting A Nearby M Dwarf, N. Schanche, F. J. Pozuelos, M. N. Günther, R. D. Wells, A. J. Burgasser, P. Chinchilla, L. Delrez, E. Ducrot, L. J. Garcia, Y. Gómez Maqueo Chew, E. Jofré, B. V. Rackham, D. Sebastian, K. G. Stassun, D. Stern, M. Timmermans, K. Barkaoui, A. Belinski, Z. Benkhaldoun, W. Benz, A. Bieryla, F. Bouchy, A. Burdanov, D. Charbonneau, J. L. Christiansen, K. A. Collins, B.-O. Demory, M. Dévora-Pajares, J. De Wit, D. Dragomir, G. Dransfield, E. Furlan, M. Ghachoui, M. Gillon, C. Gnilka, M. A. Gómez-Muñoz, N. Guerrero, M. Harris, K. Heng, C. E. Henze, K. Hesse, S. B. Howell, E. Jehin, J. Jenkins, Eric L.N. Jensen, M. Kunimoto, D. W. Latham, K. Lester, K. K. Mcleod, I. Mireles, C. A. Murray, P. Niraula, P. P. Pedersen, D. Queloz, E. V. Quintana, G. Ricker, A. Rudat, L. Sabin, B. Safonov, U. Schroffenegger, N. Scott, S. Seager, I. Strakhov, A. H. M. J. Triaud, R. Vanderspek, M. Vezie, J. Winn

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

Context. Thanks to the relative ease of finding and characterizing small planets around M-dwarf stars, these objects have become cornerstones in the field of exoplanet studies. The current paucity of planets in long-period orbits around M dwarfs makes such objects particularly compelling as they provide clues about the formation and evolution of these systems. Aims. In this study we present the discovery of TOI-2257 b (TIC 198485881), a long-period (35 d) sub-Neptune orbiting an M3 star at 57.8 pc. Its transit depth is about 0.4%, large enough to be detected with medium-size, ground-based telescopes. The long transit duration …