Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Lancaster County, Virginia Shoreline Inventory Report Methods And Guidelines, Marcia Berman, Karinna Nunez, Sharon Killeen, Tamia Rudnicky, Julie Bradshaw, Kory Angstadt, David Stanhope, Christine Tombleson, Karen Duhring, Alexander D. Renaud, Robert Isdell, Pamela Braff, Benjamin P. Weissman, Carl Hershner

Reports

The data inventory developed for the Shoreline Inventory is based on a three tiered shoreline assessment approach. This assessment characterizes conditions that can be observed from a small boat navigating along the shoreline or by using observations made remotely at the desktop using high resolution imagery. The three tiered shoreline assessment approach divides the shorezone into three regions:

• the immediate riparian zone, evaluated for land use

• the bank, evaluated for height, cover and natural protection

• the shoreline, describing the presence of shoreline structures for shore protection and recreational purposes.

The 2015 Inventory for Lancaster County was generated using on-screen, digitizing …

City Of Portsmouth, Virginia Shoreline Inventory Report Methods And Guidelines, Marcia Berman, Karinna Nunez, Sharon Killeen, Tamia Rudnicky, Julie Bradshaw, Kory Angstadt, Karen Duhring, David Weiss, Carl Hershner

Reports

The data inventory developed for the Shoreline Inventory is based on a three tiered shoreline assessment approach. This assessment characterizes conditions that can be observed from a small boat navigating along the shoreline or by using observations made remotely at the desktop using high resolution imagery. The three tiered shoreline assessment approach divides the shorezone into three regions:

1) the immediate riparian zone, evaluated for land use; 2) the bank, evaluated for height, cover and natural protection; and 3) the shoreline, describing the presence of shoreline structures for shore protection and recreational purposes.

The 2015 Inventory for the City of …

Modelling Water Uptake Provides A New Perspective On Grass And Tree Coexistence, Michael G. Mazzacavallo, Andrew Kulmatiski

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Root biomass distributions have long been used to infer patterns of resource uptake. These patterns are used to understand plant growth, plant coexistence and water budgets. Root biomass, however, may be a poor indicator of resource uptake because large roots typically do not absorb water, fine roots do not absorb water from dry soils and roots of different species can be difficult to differentiate. In a sub-tropical savanna, Kruger Park, South Africa, we used a hydrologic tracer experiment to describe the abundance of active grass and tree roots across the soil profile. We then used this tracer data to parameterize …

A Physiologically-Based Pharmacokinetic Model For Vancomycin, Rebekah White

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Vancomycin is an antibiotic used for the treatment of systemic infections. It is given

intravenously usually every twelve or twenty-four hours. This particular drug has a

medium level of boundedness, with approximately fty percent of the drug being free

and thus physiologically eective. A physiologically-based pharmacokinetic (PBPK)

model was used to better understand the absorption, distribution, and elimination of

the drug. Using optimal parameters, the model could be used in the future to test

how various factors, such as BMI or excretion levels, might aect the concentration

of the antibiotic.

On Neighborhood Effects In Location-Based Social Networks, Thanh-Nam Doan, Freddy Chong-Tat Chua, Ee-Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we analyze factors that determine the check-in decisions of users on venues using a location-based social network dataset. Based on a Foursquare dataset constructed from Singapore-based users, we devise a stringent criteria to identify the actual home locations of a subset of users. Using these users' check-ins, we aim to ascertain the neighborhood effect on the venues visited, compared with the activity level of users. We further formulate the check-in count prediction and check-in prediction tasks. A comprehensive set of features have been defined and they encompass information from users, venues, their neighbors, and friendship networks. We …

Raman Spectroscopic Analysis Of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma And Oral Dysplasia In The High-Wavenumber Region, Hugh Byrne, Luis Felipe Carvalho, Fiona Lyng, Franck Bonnier

Articles

Raman spectroscopy can provide a molecular-level signature of the biochemical composition and structure of cells with excellent spatial resolution and could be useful to monitor changes in composition for early stage and non-invasive cancer diagnosis, both ex-vivo and in vivo. In particular, the fingerprint spectral region (400–1,800 cm^-1) has been shown to be very promising for optical biopsy purposes. However, limitations to discrimination of dysplastic and inflammatory processes based on the fingerprint region still persist. In addition, the Raman spectral signal of dysplastic cells is one important source of misdiagnosis of normal versus pathological tissues. The high wavenumber …

Capillary-Channeled Polymer Fibers As Stationary Phases For Protein Chromatography, Marissa Pierson

All Theses

Capillary-channeled polymer (C-CP) fibers have been studied in this laboratory as stationary phases for protein separations in high-performance liquid chromatography (HPLC). C-CP fibers are uniquely shaped so as to include eight continuous capillary-channels which interdigitate once packed into a column. The packed column resembles a monolithic structure of unobstructed flow through capillary channels which reduces backpressure and increases linear velocity, reducing separation time. Fibers are effectively nonporous with respect to macromolecules, resulting in fast mass transfer and high sample recovery. C-CP fibers made from polypropylene (PP) yield a fairly homogenous hydrophobic surface suitable for reversed phase (RP) chromatography. In a …

Experimental Investigation Of Interaction Between Proteins And Carbon Nanomaterials, Bishwambhar Sengupta

All Theses

The global market for nanomaterials based products is forecasted to reach $1 trillion per annum per annum for 2015. Engineered nanomaterials (ENMs) exhibit unique physicochemical properties with potential to impact diverse aspects of society through applications in electronics, renewable energy, and medicine. While the research and proposed applications of ENMs continue to grow rapidly, the health and safety of ENMs still remains a major concern to the public as well as to policy makers and funding agencies. It is now widely accepted that focused efforts are needed for identifying the list of physicochemical descriptors of ENM before they can be …

A Methodology For Evaluating The Strength Of Cued-Recall Graphical Passwords, Mohammad N. Alshehri

Theses and Dissertations

With the revolution of computers, in particular smartphones, people use them to deal with sensitive information such as making online payments, online banking, managing medical records, and communicating with others via messages, emails, and social media. Consequently, computers and smartphones have become a storehouse of private information that must be protected from getting in the hands of unauthorized people. Verifying the identity of a computer’s users before granting access to them is one option of protection. Textual passwords and PINs are commonly used for authentication on standalone PCs, and smartphones. Users create problems, such as using easy to guess passwords …

Detecting Harmful Hand Behavior With Machine Learning From Wearable Motion Sensor Data, Lingfeng Zhang

Theses and Dissertations

In medical care and special needs areas, human activity recognition helps doctors track the patients while they are unsupervised. In this paper, we will present our classifier system for detecting harmful hand behavior. The data comes from a wearable sensor on the user’s wrist. It collects signals in the three axes x, y and z. For each axis, it contains multiple attributes. Because reducing irrelevant attributes can decrease the time complexity and increase the accuracy, we started processing the raw data by ignoring some attributes from the whole attributes set. Our design approach is to apply a classification algorithm which …

Using A Personalized Machine Learning Approach To Detect Stolen Phones, Huizhong Hu

Theses and Dissertations

With the increasing number of smartphone penetration, mining smartphone data that make smartphone smarter became a top research area, there are a lot of event data which we can use to predict behavior or detect anomalies. The privacy disclosure caused by stolen or lost phones becomes an increasingly difficult problem that cannot be ignored. So we design an anomaly detection system by mining patterns to detect stolen phones. We use a pattern mining algorithm to abstract patterns from user past behavior, then construct a personalized model and use a scoring function and threshold setting strategy to detect stolen events. Moreover, …

Comparing The Strength Of Diagonally Non-Recursive Functions In The Absence Of Σ02 Induction, Francois G. Dorais, Jeffry L. Hirst, Paul Shafer

Dartmouth Scholarship

We prove that the statement "there is a k such that for every f there is a k-bounded diagonally non-recursive function relative to f" does not imply weak K\"onig's lemma over RCA0+BΣ02. This answers a question posed by Simpson. A recursion-theoretic consequence is that the classic fact that every k-bounded diagonally non-recursive function computes a 2-bounded diagonally non-recursive function may fail in the absence of IΣ02.

Fabrication, Characterization, And Application Of Carbon Nanoparticles For The Detection Of Heavy Metal Ions In Aqueous Media, Aaron Michael Simpson

MSU Graduate Theses

This research set out to develop a method for producing Carbon nanoparticles (CNPs) from glycerol and use them to detect Cu2+, Hg2+, and Pb2+ ions in aqueous solution. Three synthesis methods were developed using the following mixtures: (1) glycerol and silica, (2) glycerol, silica, and H3PO4, and (3) glycerol with H3PO4. The structure of the particles was characterized using a variety of spectroscopic techniques. Size distributions were obtained from scanning electron microscopy images. The particles were spherical with average diameters of 66, 58, and 89 nm respectively and believed to consist of a carbon core with carboxylic acid and alcohol …

Glass Shards At Pinnacle Point Rock Shelter 5-~6, South Africa: Are They From The Last Super-~Eruption Of Toba?, Amber Elizabeth Ciravolo

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Cryptotephra, in the form of individual glass shards, have been discovered in paleoarchaeological site PP5-6 North at Pinnacle Point, Western Cape, South Africa. This marks the first documentation of cryptotephra in a South African paleoarchaeological site. PP5-6 North is a rock shelter in the cliffs along the coast of the Western Cape and is one of a series of caves and rock shelters at Pinnacle Point that were inhabited by early modern humans. The presence of cryptotephra at PP5-6 is an important discovery in terms of tephra preservation in cave deposits as well as the possibility of tephra being present …

Apply Data Clustering To Gene Expression Data, Abdullah Jameel Abualhamayl Mr.

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

Data clustering plays an important role in effective analysis of gene expression. Although DNA microarray technology facilitates expression monitoring, several challenges arise when dealing with gene expression datasets. Some of these challenges are the enormous number of genes, the dimensionality of the data, and the change of data over time. The genetic groups which are biologically interlinked can be identified through clustering. This project aims to clarify the steps to apply clustering analysis of genes involved in a published dataset. The methodology for this project includes the selection of the dataset representation, the selection of gene datasets, Similarity Matrix Selection, …

Bombardment Simulations And Intercalation Studies Of Carbon Materials, Charles Lowe

All Dissertations

Molecular bombardment experiments have led to the possibility of altering materials with properties not normally associated with those materials. Molecular bombardment leads to defect formation in the material, potentially creating a pore, depending on the material and bombarding molecule. Carbon allotropes, specifically graphite and graphene, make excellent candidates for molecular bombardment experimentation. Depending on the bombarding molecule and the kinetic energy associated with that molecule, the defects induced will be sufficient to create a pore in the graphene. The AIREBO potential is used to simulate a graphene bilayer being bombarded with a single Ar atom, or a fullerene molecule, to …

Bayesian Minimum Description Length Techniques For Multiple Changepoint Detection, Hewa Anuradha Priyadarshani

All Dissertations

This dissertation develops a minimum description length (MDL) multiple changepoint detection procedure that allows for prior distributions. MDL methods, which are penalized likelihood techniques with penalties based on data description-length information principles, have been successfully applied to many recent multiple changepoint problems. This work shows ow to modify the MDL penalty to account for various prior knowledge. Our motivation lies in climatology. Here, a metadata record, which is a file listing times when a recording station physically moved, instrumentation was changed, etc., sometimes exists. While metadata records are notoriously incomplete, they permit the construct a prior distribution that helps detect …

Towards A Greater Understanding Of Hydrothermally Grown Garnets And Sesquioxide Crystals For Laser Applications, Cheryl Moore

All Dissertations

ABSTRACT The hydrothermal method of crystal growth offers many benefits over traditional melt-based techniques such as lower temperature requirements relieving detrimental high temperature effects such as stress fracturing and a closed-environment, which limits impurities. The continued study of this type of growth including hydrothermal epitaxy is crucial in our world of constant miniaturization. Presented in this thesis is the hydrothermal growth of crystals of LuAG and Lu2O3 doped with a variety of dopants. Their room-temperature and cryogenic absorption spectra are also presented. Much like Nature uses heat, pressure, water and a nutrient-rich feedstock we have used this hydrothermal technique to …

Scalable Synthesis And Energy Applications Of Defect Engineered Nano Materials, Mehmet Karakaya

All Dissertations

Nanomaterials and nanotechnologies have attracted a great deal of attention in a few decades due to their novel physical properties such as, high aspect ratio, surface morphology, impurities, etc. which lead to unique chemical, optical and electronic properties. The awareness of importance of nanomaterials has motivated researchers to develop nanomaterial growth techniques to further control nanostructures properties such as, size, surface morphology, etc. that may alter their fundamental behavior. Carbon nanotubes (CNTs) are one of the most promising materials with their rigidity, strength, elasticity and electric conductivity for future applications. Despite their excellent properties explored by the abundant research works, …

Understanding How Synthetic Organic Chemistry Graduate Students Navigate Scifinder, Lindsey Whitfield Cain

All Dissertations

Students pursuing a Ph.D. degree are expected to contribute research to their field, for which the success depends, in part, on their ability to find, interpret, and use scholarly information from the primary literature. However, studies from the information sciences show that graduate students from a variety of fields, including the sciences, frequently struggle to comprehensively search their respective dissertation topics because of insufficient prior content knowledge and lack of guidance from their disciplinary community. This body of literature is consistent with the results of my previous research of chemistry graduate students’ laboratory decision-making processes. Specifically, that study showed their …

Objective Bayesian Analysis On The Quantile Regression, Shiyi Tu

All Dissertations

The dissertation consists of two distinct but related research projects. First of all, we study the Bayesian analysis on the two-piece location-scale models, which contain several well-known sub-distributions, such as the asymmetric Laplace distribution, the skewed normal distribution, and the skewed Student-t distribution. The use of two-piece location-scale models is an attractive method to model non-symmetric data. From a practical point of view, a prior with some objective information may be more reasonable due to the lack of prior information in many applied situations. It has been shown that several common used objective priors, such as the Jeffreys prior, result …

Maximal Class P-Groups With Large Character Degree Gaps, Michael Slattery

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

In Mann (More on normally monomial p-groups, 2015), he proves some bounds on the size of gaps between character degrees of maximal class p-groups. In this note we construct a family of examples that shows that one of these bounds is sharp.

Interval Methods For Data Fitting Under Uncertainty: A Probabilistic Treatment, Vladik Kreinovich, Sergey P. Shary

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

How to estimate parameters from observations subject to errors and uncertainty? Very often, the measurement errors are random quantities that can be adequately described by the probability theory. When we know that the measurement errors are normally distributed with zero mean, then the (asymptotically optimal) Maximum Likelihood Method leads to the popular least squares estimates. In many situations, however, we do not know the shape of the error distribution, we only know that the measurement errors are located on a certain interval. Then the maximum entropy approach leads to a uniform distribution on this interval, and the Maximum Likelihood Method …

Tracking Anisotropic Optical Tracers To Study Biophysical Processes And Cytotoxicity, Khanh Van Nguyen

All Dissertations

We use anisotropic optical tracers (also called magnetically modulated optical nanoprobes – MagMOONs or MOONs for non-magnetic nanoprobes in this dissertation) to study biophysical processes such as enzyme-catalyzed cleavage through tissue, intracellular transport of these tracers and cytotoxicity based on this transport. The anisotropic optical properties cause these tracers to blink when rotating. This blinking is distinguishable from the background and can be tracked on a single-particle level in the absence of tissue, or for an ensemble average of tracers blinking through tissue. An alginate gel containing these tracers in the form of a thin film can be used as …

Iterative Design And Testing Of A Mobile Application To Support Food Consumption Monitoring And Decision Making, Melva James

All Dissertations

Food overconsumption is a major contributor to weight gain leading to obesity. Constant exposure to larger amounts of food and beverage has caused many individuals to experience “portion distortion,” the perception that bigger portion sizes are appropriate for consumption at a single sitting. Independently and accurately changing this perception can be very difficult even if one has a desire to do so. In response to these observations, we developed and tested Picture-Perfect Portions, a mobile application designed to combat overconsumption, at the individual level, by leveraging the power of simple visualizations to help adults understand and adjust their food consumption …

Multi-Factor Models To Resolve Growth Responses In Vitro And During Subsequent Greenhouse Growth For Turmeric (Curcuma Longa L.), Rabia El-Hawaz

All Dissertations

Plant media has been developed over the last six decades, yet, there has not been medium optimized for microplant greenhouse growth, which may be important for producing chemical compounds and preparing transplants for success in the field. A series of multi-factor optimization experiments were conducted on turmeric (Curcuma longa L., genotype L 35-1) to identify the effects of mineral nutrition and plant density in vitro on laboratory and greenhouse production. The first experiment optimized PO43-, Ca2+, Mg2+, and KNO3 for five-months growth in bioreactors with periodic supplementation of sucrose solution +/- nutrients. Phosphorus (6.25 mM) increased sucrose supplement and rhizome …

Development Of A Miniaturized Ambient Glow Discharge Ionization Source And Its Application In Elemental And Molecular Analysis, Xinyan Zhang

All Dissertations

Since the liquid sampling-atmospheric pressure glow discharge (LS-APGD) was first developed as an excitation source for atomic emission spectroscopy, it has been improved upon and demonstrated as an ionization source for elemental mass spectrometry, molecular mass spectrometry, and ambient desorption mass spectrometry. Multiple functions coming from one package allowed the LS-APGD to hold a unique position among all atmospheric pressure glow discharges. It also has the capabilities to work with different sample forms including liquids, bulk solids, and solution residues. The high salt/matrix tolerance reduces sample prep work and thus provides convenience for its potential use as a field-Based ionization …

Downstream Bandwidth Management For Emerging Docsis-Based Networks, Gongbing Hong

All Dissertations

In this dissertation, we consider the downstream bandwidth management in the context of emerging DOCSIS-based cable networks. The latest DOCSIS 3.1 standard for cable access networks represents a significant change to cable networks. For downstream, the current 6 MHz channel size is replaced by a much larger 192 MHz channel which potentially can provide data rates up to 10 Gbps. Further, the current standard requires equipment to support a relatively new form of active queue management (AQM) referred to as delay-based AQM. Given that more than 50 million households (and climbing) use cable for Internet access, a clear understanding of …

Production And Characterization Of Cut Resistant Acrylic/Copolyaramid Fibers Via Bicomponent Wet Spinning, Stephen Hipp

All Dissertations

A composite fiber system consisting of a sheath core bicomponent polymer fiber loaded with hard ceramic particles was developed and characterized for use in cut protective clothing. The core component was comprised of a copolyaramid in order to provide high base cut resistance. An acrylic-copolyaramid polymer blend was used for the sheath component to improve processability and provide potential benefits such as dyeability. Lastly, aluminum oxide particles were incorporated into the fiber core to deflect and deform the cutting edge, further improving cut resistance. A series of designed experiments was used to explore the effects of the wet spinning and …

High Temperature Synthesis And Characterization Of Reduced Polyoxometalate Salt-Inclusion Solids, Dino Sulejmanovic

All Dissertations

Herein, several new salt-inclusion solids (SISs) featuring electronically reduced Keggin polyoxometalate (POM) clusters were isolated for the first time using molten-salt high temperature (> 500 oC) synthetic method. These POM-based SISs are novel all-inorganic materials featuring an integrated lattice of ionic halide salt and covalent metal oxide clusters. Due to the weak interactions at the interface between these two chemically dissimilar lattices, these POM SISs are soluble in aqueous and polar solvents. While POM compounds are well-studied and are routinely synthesized in solution, the synthetic method presented in this dissertation yielded several POM solids with interesting structures and infrequently observed, …