Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Course Proposal For A Mathematical Modeling Course In A High School Curriculum, Thomas P. Marlowe

Masters Essays

In the winter of 2015, I will be piloting a course on mathematical modeling at Hawken School, an independent high school in Gates Mills, OH. As I develop all elements of this course, such as lesson plans, assessments, and rubrics, I will be mindful of factors such as the newly adopted Common Core mathematics standards, the variety of student backgrounds in such a course, and how various mathematical societies and organizations such as SIAM, MAA, and COMAP can help in implementing it. However, there is one basic question driving my interest in and design of this course: “when am I …

Mittag-Leffler Therorem, Elizabeth O. Agyeman

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Who Came Up With This? Mathematics History In The Classroom, Katie S. Schneck

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Infinity In The High School Mathematics Classroom, Alyssa Hoslar

Masters Essays

No abstract provided.

Challenge Fund For Innovation In Journalism Education Final Report [Sea Level Rise, South Florida], Robert E. Gutsche Jr., Susan Jacobson, Kate Macmillin, Juliet Pinto

Sea Level Rise Collection

No abstract provided.

It Takes A Village To Build A Sea Level Rise App: Civic Hacking As An Approach To Informing Citizens About Sea Level Rise In Miami, Susan Jacobson, Juliet Pinto, Robert E. Gutsche Jr., Kate Macmillin, Jennifer Fu

Sea Level Rise Collection

No abstract provided.

Preliminary Isotope Assessment, La Grange Groundwater Area, Glenn A. Harrington

Natural resources commissioned reports

The Department of Agriculture and Food, Western Australia (DAFWA) is currently undertaking a Royalties for Regions funded project in the La Grange Groundwater Area south of Broome. The focus is on providing improved confidence about soil suitability and water availability for potential expansion of irrigated agriculture in the region. Groundwater in the Broome Sandstone Aquifer (BSA) is the target water resource, however before the La Grange project commenced little was known about the physical and chemical attributes of the aquifer. This report provides the results of estimated groundwater recharge and residence times using environmental tracer techniques.

Sampling of 12 existing …

Analyzing The Catalytic Role Of Active Site Residues In The Fe-Type Nitrile Hydratase From Comamonas Testosteroni Ni1, Salette Martinez, Rui Wu, Karoline Krzywda, Veronika Opalka, Hei Chan, Dali Liu, Richard C. Holz

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

A strictly conserved active site arginine residue (αR157) and two histidine residues (αH80 and αH81) located near the active site of the Fe-type nitrile hydratase from Comamonas testosteroni Ni1 (CtNHase), were mutated. These mutant enzymes were examined for their ability to bind iron and hydrate acrylonitrile. For the αR157A mutant, the residual activity (k_cat = 10 ± 2 s⁻¹) accounts for less than 1 % of the wild-type activity (k_cat = 1100 ± 30 s⁻¹) while the K_m value is nearly unchanged at 205 ± 10 mM. On the …

Marine Debris & Microplastics: Sources & Solutions For Coastal Virginia, Center For Coastal Resources Management, Virginia Institute Of Marine Science

Reports

Rivers & Coast is a periodic publication of the Center for Coastal Resources Management, Virginia Institute of Marine Science. The goal of Rivers & Coast is to keep readers well informed of current scientific understanding behind key environmental issues related to watershed rivers and coastal ecosystems of the Chesapeake Bay.

Improving Patient Flow With Data-Driven Patient Prioritization Method In The Emergency Department, Kar Way Tan, Sean Shao Wei Lam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We aim to improve the length-of-stay (LOS) of patients in the Emergency Department (ED) ambulatory care area. We propose the use of real-time computerized physician order entry data and ED patient flow management system to estimate the consultation time of patients re-entering the queue to consult a doctor again after receiving treatment or results of tests. The estimation allows decision-makers to apply dynamic prioritization strategies that help the ED to identify patients who can complete their ED treatment process quickly, freeing up resources in the ED and lowering overall LOS.

State Preserving Extreme Learning Machine For Face Recognition, Md. Zahangir Alom, Paheding Sidike, Vijayan K. Asari, Tarek M. Taha

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Extreme Learning Machine (ELM) has been introduced as a new algorithm for training single hidden layer feed-forward neural networks (SLFNs) instead of the classical gradient-based algorithms. Based on the consistency property of data, which enforce similar samples to share similar properties, ELM is a biologically inspired learning algorithm with SLFNs that learns much faster with good generalization and performs well in classification applications. However, the random generation of the weight matrix in current ELM based techniques leads to the possibility of unstable outputs in the learning and testing phases. Therefore, we present a novel approach for computing the weight matrix …

Alternative Restoration Treatments To Maximize Growth And Survival Of Tamaulipan Thornscrub Species During Seeding Establishment, Jennifer Lynn Vela

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Anthropogenic activities that destroy, degrade, or fragment terrestrial ecosystems have long-lasting detrimental impacts on ecosystem function, services, and biodiversity. The Tamaulipan thornscrub ecoregion of south Texas and northeastern Mexico has sustained considerable loss, degradation, and fragmentation due land conversion for agriculture, urbanization, and introduction of invasive flora and fauna. In an attempt to restore habitat for endangered and migratory animals, United States Fish and Wildlife Service has undertaken a large-scale thornscrub revegetation effort in south Texas. The goal of this study was to develop effective restoration techniques to promote growth and survival of Tamaulipan thornscrub species during seedling establishment. Beginning …

A Study On Hispanic College Students' Mathematics Anxiety, Study Habits, And Academic Performances On Mathematics, Luis M. Fernandez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Mathematics anxiety has been described as a feeling of apprehension, fear, tension, and discomfort when confronted with mathematics. Mathematics anxiety has also been shown to interfere with mathematics performance; therefore, for our research we investigated what portions of individuals seem to suffer higher levels of mathematics anxiety and to what extent they are affected by it. We also investigated the study habits of the students and how these affect their mathematics anxiety levels and overall mathematics performance. Our data was obtained from Hispanic undergraduate students (n=405) who took Elementary Algebra (Math 1300), Intermediate Algebra (Math 1334), College Algebra (Math 1340) …

Evaluation Of Control Strategies For The Spread Of Citrus Greening, Vicente Valle Martinez

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Huanglongbing, also known as citrus greening, is a vector-based disease in citrus (with no cure known to date) that has drastically affected the citrus production in Florida in less than a decade and has been recently detected in Texas and California. In this paper, an epidemic model of the spatial spread of the disease is implemented among commercial and residential groves by taking into consideration the diffusion patterns of the psyllid vectors. A system of differential equations resembling one for malaria infection in humans is derived to evaluate different control methods such as quarantine, treatment, removal, foliar treatment, and pest …

How Do U.S. And Chinese Biology Students Compare In Explaining Energy Consumption Issues?, Hui Jin, Hayat Hokayem, Sasha Wang, Xin Wei

Mathematics Faculty Publications and Presentations

This qualitative study investigates how biology majors explain energy consumption issues. In particular, we focus on two energy consumption activities that account for about two-thirds of global carbon dioxide emissions in 2011: burning fossil fuels for transportation and using electricity. We conducted in-depth clinical interviews with twenty U.S. students and twenty Chinese students. We compared these two groups of students in terms of two aspects of explanation: 1) naming scientific terms in the explanation, and 2) explaining an energy consumption issue. Regarding naming, we examined the frequency of naming different terms of scientific concepts and principles in students’ explanations. Regarding …

Stably Stratified Canopy Flow In Complex Terrain, Xiyan Xu, Chuixiang Yi, Eric Kutter

Publications and Research

Stably stratified canopy flow in complex terrain has been considered a difficult condition for measuring net ecosystem–atmosphere exchanges of carbon, water vapor, and energy. A long-standing advection error in eddy-flux measurements is caused by stably stratified canopy flow. Such a condition with strong thermal gradient and less turbulent air is also difficult for modeling. To understand the challenging atmospheric condition for eddy-flux measurements, we use the renormalized group (RNG) k–ε turbulence model to investigate the main characteristics of stably stratified canopy flows in complex terrain. In this two-dimensional simulation, we imposed persistent constant heat flux at ground surface and linearly …

Enhanced Online Learning Via Structured Wiki, Chandra N. Sekharan, Roger Fassinou

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

No abstract provided.

Origin Of The Diffuse, Far Ultraviolet Emission In The Interarm Regions Of M101., Alison F. Crocker, Rupali Chandar, Daniela Calzetti, Benne W. Holwerda, Claus Leitherer, Cristina C. Popescu, R. J. Tuffs

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

We present images from the Solar Blind Channel on the Hubble Space Telescope that resolve hundreds of farultraviolet (FUV) emitting stars in two ∼1 kpc2 interarm regions of the grand-design spiral M101. The luminosity functions of these stars are compared with predicted distributions from simple star formation histories, and are best reproduced when the star formation rate has recently declined (past 10–50 Myr). This pattern is consistent with stars forming within spiral arms and then streaming into the interarm regions. We measure the diffuse FUV surface brightness after subtracting all of the detected stars, clusters, and background galaxies. A residual …

The Spitzer Survey Of Stellar Structure In Galaxies (S4g) : Precise Stellar Mass Distributions From Automated Dust Correction At 3.6 Μm., Miguel Querejeta, Sharon Meidt, Eva Schinnerer, Mauricio Cisternas, Juan Carlos Muñoz-Mateos, Kartik Sheth, Johan H. Knapen, Glenn Van De Ven, Mark A. Norris, Reynier Peletier, Eija Laurikainen, Heikki Salo, Benne W. Holwerda, E. Athanassoula, Albert Bosma, Brent Groves, Luis C. Ho, Dimitri A. Gadotti, Dennis Zaritsky, Michael Regan, Joannah Hinz, Armando Gil De Paz, Karin Menendez-Delmestre, Mark Seibert, Trisha Mizusawa, Taehyun Kim, Santiago Erroz-Ferrer, Jarkko Laine, Sebastien Comeron

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The mid-infrared is an optimal window to trace stellar mass in nearby galaxies and the 3.6 mm IRAC band has been exploited to this effect, but such mass estimates can be biased by dust emission. We present our pipeline to reveal the old stellar flux at 3.6 μm and obtain stellar mass maps for more than 1600 galaxies available from the Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies (S4 G). This survey consists of images in two infrared bands (3.6 and 4.5 mm ), and we use the Independent Component Analysis (ICA) method presented in Meidt et al. to separate …

The Spitzer Survey Of Stellar Structure In Galaxies (S4g) : Stellar Masses, Sizes, And Radial Profiles For 2352 Nearby Galaxies., Juan Carlos Muñoz-Mateos, Kartik Sheth, Michael Regan, Taehyun Kim, Jarkko Laine, Santiago Erroz-Ferrer, Armando Gil De Paz, Sebastien Comeron, Joannah Hinz, Eija Laurikainen, Heikki Salo, E. Athanassoula, Albert Bosma, Alexandre Y. Bouquin, Eva Schinnerer, Luis C. Ho, Johan H. Knapen, Sharon Meidt, Miguel Querejeta, Trisha Mizusawa, Mark Seibert, Seppo Laine, Helene M. Courtois

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The Spitzer Survey of Stellar Structure in Galaxies is a volume, magnitude, and size-limited survey of 2352 nearby galaxies with deep imaging at 3.6 and 4.5 μm. In this paper, we describe our surface photometry pipeline and showcase the associated data products that we have released to the community. We also identify the physical mechanisms leading to different levels of central stellar mass concentration for galaxies with the same total stellar mass. Finally, we derive the local stellar mass–size relation at 3.6 μm for galaxies of different morphologies. Our radial profiles reach stellar mass surface densities below ~1 pc M …

The Sizes Of Candidate Z~9-10 Galaxies : Confirmation Of The Bright Candels Sample And Relation With Luminosity And Mass., Benne W. Holwerda, R. J. Bouwens, P. A. Oesch, R. Smit, G. D. Illingworth, I. Labbe

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Recently, a small sample of six z ∼ 9–10 candidates was discovered in CANDELS that are ~-´ 10 20 more luminous than any of the previous z ∼ 9–10 galaxies identified over the HUDF/XDF and CLASH fields. We measure the sizes of these candidates to map out the size evolution of galaxies from the earliest observable times. Their sizes are also used to provide a valuable constraint on whether these unusual galaxy candidates are at high redshift. Using galfit to derive sizes from the CANDELS F160W images of these candidates, we find a mean size of 0. 13 0. 0 …

Physics 201: Modern Physics, Jamie Leach, Marc T. Sher

Arts & Sciences Open Educational Resources

Following the spirit of the new curriculum, it was decided to convert the Modern Physics course, Physics 201, into a course with a COLL200 attribute. The course covered the basics of relativity and quantum mechanics, and typically has 50-60 students. It was desired to include a substantial discussion of the historical and social significance of the material.

Vector Intensity And Holography-Based Acoustic Source Characterization Of A Military Jet Aircraft, Trevor Alden Stout

Theses and Dissertations

The scientific community has employed multiple methods to analyze and describe the jet noise emanating from the turbulent exhaust flow from modern military aircraft engines, with the goal that better characterization of the sound radiation will improve noise reduction efforts. This thesis utilizes three different approaches to characterize the noise source region from a static F-22A Raptor. First, the energy flow field along planes near the aircraft and along an arc is measured using a multidimensional vector intensity probe. The resulting vector intensity maps give a clear indication of the directionality of the noise as a function of frequency at …

The Synthesis And Characterization Of Ferritin Bio Minerals For Photovoltaic, Nanobattery, And Bio-Nano Propellant Applications, Trevor Jamison Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Material science is an interdisciplinary area of research, which in part, designs and characterizes new materials. Research is concerned with synthesis, structure, properties, and performance of materials. Discoveries in materials science have significant impact on future technologies, especially in nano-scale applications where the physical properties of nanomaterials are significantly different than their bulk counterparts. The work presented here discusses the use of ferritin, a hollow sphere-like biomolecule, which forms metal oxo-hydride nanoparticles inside its protein shell for uses as a bio-inorganic material.Ferritin is capable of forming and sequestering 8 nm metal-oxide nanoparticles within its 2 nm thick protein shell. A …

Progress Towards The Total Synthesis Of Yaku'amide A, Zhiwei Ma

Theses and Dissertations

The synthetic progress towards yaku'amide A is described. The study leads to development of new synthetic methodologies. Base-free regioselective aminohydroxylation is convenient to deliver β-tert-hydroxyamino acids. A sequence consisting of alkylative esterification, Martin sulfurane mediated anti dehydration, a tandem azide reduction-O→N acyl transfer allows the rapid access of E- and Z-dehydroisoleucine-containing peptides from β-tert-hydroxyisoleucine derivatives. Those methods are effective in constructing complicated peptides and advanced subunits of yaku'amide A.

Analytical Approaches In Investigating The Kinetics Of Water-Molecule Complexes In Tropospheric Reactions, William J. Keeton

Theses and Dissertations

Ozone is a heavily monitored pollutant. Ozone is not directly emitted into the atmosphere, but rather the product of chemical reactions. Ground level ozone occurs when nitrogen oxides (NOx) and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) react with each other in the presence of sunlight. The primary precursors of ozone are anthropogenically emitted, and as a result, tropospheric ozone has cost millions of dollars in damages and has hurt the health of countless people. This dissertation is a collection of work that aims to provide insight into atmospheric reactions that result in tropospheric ozone and the instrumentation to study such reactions. While …

Comparing Theory And Experiment For Analyte Transport In The First Vacuum Stage Of The Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer, Matthew R. Zachreson

Theses and Dissertations

The inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometer (ICP-MS) has been used in laboratories for many years. The majority of the improvements to the instrument have been done empirically through trial and error. A few fluid models have been made, which have given a general description of the flow through the mass spectrometer interface. However, due to long mean free path effects and other factors, it is very difficult to simulate the flow details well enough to predict how changing the interface design will change the formation of the ion beam. Towards this end, Spencer et al. developed FENIX, a direct simulation …

A Mixed Methods Assessment Of The Development, Use, And Educational Effectiveness Of University Campus Sustainability Tours, Ellen R. Barringer

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Campus sustainability tours are available at dozens of colleges and universities across the United States. These tours are considered a vital tool in interpreting the environmental and sustainable aspects of a campus to educate the campus community. Minimal quantitative data have been collected regarding their development, use, and effectiveness. In order to develop a dataset regarding the use of campus sustainability tours, surveys and interviews were sent to universities with such tours to discuss use and methods of development. A campus-wide electronic survey was sent to the Western Kentucky University (WKU) main campus community to determine their experiences with the …

A Ph Switchable Responsive Surface For The Trapping And Release Of A Hydrophobic Substance, Ali Esmail Karim

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Solid phase extraction is one of the most widely used techniques to trap and release compounds in a solution. A hydrophobic substance will stick efficiently to a hydrophobic surface (the “like dissolves like” principle). With an introduced response (i.e. pH change), a responsive surface can change from hydrophobic to hydrophilic, weakening the hydrophobic substance’s attraction and thus facilitate in an easy removal. A surface has been prepared having a terminal anthranilic acid (AA) moiety on silica gel particles, microscope slides, and TLC plates in three steps. First, a vinyl group was attached to the surface. Then, this vinyl group was …

Horticultural Escape And Naturalization Of Magnolia Tripetala In Western Massachusetts: Biogeographic Context And Possible Relationship To Recent Climate Change, Jesse Bellemare, Claudia Deeg

Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.