Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Disdrometer Network Observations Of Finescale Spatial–Temporal Clustering In Rain, A. R. Jameson, M. L. Larsen, A. Kostinski

Department of Physics Publications

The spatial clustering of drops is a defining characteristic of rain on all scales from centimeters to kilometers. It is the physical basis for much of the observed variability in rain. The authors report here on the temporal–spatial 1-min counts using a network of 21 optical disdrometers over a small area near Charleston, South Carolina. These observations reveal significant differences between spatial and temporal structures (i.e., clustering) for different sizes of drops, which suggest that temporal observations of clustering cannot be used to infer spatial clustering simply using by an advection velocity as has been done in past studies. It …

Zastosowanie Systemu Modeli Calmet/Calpuff O Wysokiej Rozdzielczości Do Oceny Wpływu Na Jakość Powietrza Spalarni Odpadów Komunalnych W Krakowie, Mateusz Rzeszutek, Robert Oleniacz

Robert Oleniacz

In this paper there was presented a comprehensive assessment of the impact on air for the Municipal Solid Waste Incineration (MSWI) plant in Krakow with the planned start of operation by the end of 2015. Construction of the plant started in autumn 2013 in the district of Nowa Huta in Krakow. Modeling of the spread of pollutants in ambient air was conducted using an advanced multi-layer cloud CALPUFF Gaussian model, whose algorithms include, among other things, diversity of terrain. Spatial data of land area in the admitted computational domain are obtained from digital terrain model Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM3) …

Transpose Symmetry Groups Of Noninvertible Polynomials, Nathan Cordner, Dr. Tyler Jarvis

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Introduction Mirror symmetry is an area of mathematical research that stems from theoretical physics, particularly from string theory. Solutions of problems in mirror symmetry yield not only interesting mathematical results, but also have important theoretical implications for high energy particle physics.

Front Matter

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Neurological Research To Supplement Hmd Technology Development For The Benefit Of Deaf And Hard-Of-Hearing Students, Tyler Foulger, Michael Jones

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Introduction: The purpose of this MRI study was an attempt to discover and understand how communication is processed via the neural pathways of children ages 8-10. Analysis of the data we obtained would possibly help us in better adapting our head-mounted display (HMD) technology for deaf and hard-of-hearing children in educational settings where communication is common. Since HMDs utilize a sign language interpreter within a screen on the glasses, this technology would eliminate the need for deaf/hard-of-hearing users to constantly alternate their attention back and forth between a live interpreter in the room and the presentation by the teacher. Having …

Optimizing Metallization Of Dna-Templated Nanostructures, Andrew Dearden, Adam Woolley

Journal of Undergraduate Research

With countless technologies that rely on microprocessors, there is a great need for increasingly smaller microelectronic components. Traditionally, manufacturers have employed a “top-down” approach to build microelectronics – that is, they have attempted to scale functional microcircuitry components down in size, hoping for similar performance in a smaller circuit. This top-down approach is expensive, often costing manufacturers hundreds of dollars per part. A much more cost-effective approach to microelectronics has emerged over the past decade in the field of molecular science: that is, to develop circuitry from the “bottom-up” using macromolecules such as deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA). Scientists have now devised …

Science In A Nutshell: Studying The Use Of Humor In Science Writing, Meredith Gold, Gus Hart

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Introduction The purpose of this study was to expand upon a previous and successful unofficial study that I did in high school, testing the effectiveness of humor in instructional science writing. Despite the fact that various extenuating circumstances (including multiple cases of prolonged illness) hindered measurable data collection, the first main question asked by the study was answered: It is even possible to write a physics textbook in the style of humor essays? To this, my project responds with a resounding yes. I wrote and began editing the full first draft of my first humorous physics textbook, coming in at …

Relating Quantum Dynamics And Entanglement, John Gardiner, Jean-Francois Van Huele

Journal of Undergraduate Research

Introduction Entanglement is a quantum phenomenon that is important to many applications including quantum computing and cryptography. The way that a quantum system changes in time is encoded in a mathematical object called the Hamiltonian of the system. The goal of this project was to better understand the relation between the quantum dynamics of a system, as described by the Hamiltonian, and the entanglements that arise in the system, with the bigger goal of better understanding how entanglement changes in time. To this end I studied computer simulations of simple quantum systems to observe how certain features of the Hamiltonian …

Masthead

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Back Matter

Journal of Digital Forensics, Security and Law

No abstract provided.

Formative Research On An Instructional Design Theory For Virtual Patients In Clinical Education: A Pressure Ulcer Prevention Clinical Reasoning Case, Manon Maitland Schladen

CCE Theses and Dissertations

Despite advances in health care over the past decades, medical errors and omissions remain significant threats to patient safety and health. A large number of these mistakes are made by trainees, persons who are just beginning to build the case-based experiences that will transform them from novices to expert practitioners. Clinicians use both intuitive and deductive problem-solving skills in caring for patients and they acquire expertise in applying these skills through interaction with many and varied cases.

The contemporary heath care environment, with decreased lengths of stay for patients and reduced duty hours for trainees, makes getting optimal patient exposure …

A Half-Baked Law: How The Supreme Court's Decision In Koontz V. St. Johns River Water Management District Misses A Key Ingredient To Fifth Amendment Protection, Garrett W. Messerly

BYU Law Review

No abstract provided.

Identification Of A Laccase Glac15 From Ganoderma Lucidum 77002 And Its Application In Bioethanol Production, Zemin Fang, Xiaoman Liu, Liyuan Chen, Yu Shen, Xuecheng Zhang, Wei Fang, Xiaotang Wang, Xiaoming Bao, Yazhong Xiao

Department of Chemistry and Biochemistry

Background

Laccases have potential applications in detoxification of lignocellulosic biomass after thermochemical pretreatment and production of value-added products or biofuels from renewable biomass. However, their application in large-scale industrial and environmental processes has been severely thwarted by the high cost of commercial laccases. Therefore, it is necessary to identify new laccases with lower cost but higher activity to detoxify lignocellulosic hydrolysates and better efficiency to produce biofuels such as bioethanol. Laccases from Ganoderma lucidum represent proper candidates in processing of lignocellulosic biomass.

Results

G. lucidum 77002 produces three laccase isoenzymes with a total laccase activity of 141.1 U/mL within 6 …

Marine Sequestration Of Carbon In Bacterial Metabolites, Oliver J. Lechtenfeld, Norbert Hertkorn, Yuan Shen, Matthias Witt, Ronald Benner

Faculty Publications

Linking microbial metabolomics and carbon sequestration in the ocean via refractory organic molecules has been hampered by the chemical complexity of dissolved organic matter (DOM). Here, using bioassay experiments and ultra-high resolution metabolic profiling, we demonstrate that marine bacteria rapidly utilize simple organic molecules and produce exometabolites of remarkable molecular and structural diversity. Bacterial DOM is similar in chemical composition and structural complexity to naturally occurring DOM in sea water. An appreciable fraction of bacterial DOM has molecular and structural properties that are consistent with those of refractory molecules in the ocean, indicating a dominant role for bacteria in shaping …

Identifying Medication Targets For Psychostimulant Addiction: Unraveling The Dopamine D3 Receptor Hypothesis, Thomas M. Keck, William S. John, Paul W. Czoty, Michael A. Nader, Amy Hauck Newman

College of Science & Mathematics Departmental Research

The dopamine D3 receptor (D3R) is a target for developing medications to treat substance use disorders. D3R-selective compounds with high affinity and varying efficacies have been discovered, providing critical research tools for cell-based studies that have been translated to in vivo models of drug abuse. D3R antagonists and partial agonists have shown especially promising results in rodent models of relapse-like behavior, including stress-, drug-, and cue-induced reinstatement of drug seeking. However, to date, translation to human studies has been limited. Herein, we present an overview and illustrate some of the pitfalls and challenges of developing novel D3R-selective compounds toward clinical …

Ultracool White Dwarfs And The Age Of The Galactic Disc, A. Gianninas, B. Curd, John R. Thorstensen, Mukremin Kilic

Dartmouth Scholarship

We present parallax observations and a detailed model atmosphere analysis of 54 cool and ultracool (Teff < 4000 K) white dwarfs (WDs) in the solar neighbourhood. For the first time, a large number of cool and ultracool WDs have distance and tangential velocities measurements available. Our targets have distances ranging from 21 pc to >100 pc, and include five stars within 30 pc. Contrary to expectations, all but two of them have tangential velocities smaller than 150 km s−1 thus suggesting Galactic disc membership. The oldest WDs in this sample have WD cooling ages of 10 Gyr, providing a firm lower limit to the age of the thick disc population. Many of our targets have uncharacteristically large radii, indicating that they are low mass WDs. It appears that we have detected the brighter population of cool and ultracool …

On The Variability Of Drop Size Distributions Over Areas, A. R. Jameson, M. L. Larsen, A. B. Kostinski

Department of Physics Publications

Past studies of the variability of drop size distributions (DSDs) have used moments of the distribution such as the mass-weighted mean drop size as proxies for the entire size distribution. In this study, however, the authors separate the total number of drops N_t from the DSD leaving the probability size distributions (PSDs); that is, DSD = N_t × PSD. The variability of the PSDs are then considered using the frequencies of size [P(D)] values at each different drop diameter P(P_D | D) over an ensemble of observations collected using a …

Band Gap Engineering Via Doping: A Predictive Approach, Antonis N. Andriotis, Madhu Menon

Center for Computational Sciences Faculty Publications

We employ an extension of Harrison's theory at the tight binding level of approximation to develop a predictive approach for band gap engineering involving isovalent doping of wide band gap semiconductors. Our results indicate that reasonably accurate predictions can be achieved at qualitative as well as quantitative levels. The predictive results were checked against ab initio ones obtained at the level of DFT/SGGA + U approximation. The minor disagreements between predicted and ab initio results can be attributed to the electronic processes not incorporated in Harrison's theory. These include processes such as the conduction band anticrossing [Shan et al., …

Immunoassays Of Potential Cancer Biomarkers In Microfluidic Devices, Jayson Virola Pagaduan

Theses and Dissertations

Laboratory test results are important in making decisions regarding a patient's diagnosis and response to treatment. These tests often measure the biomarkers found in biological fluids such blood, urine, and saliva. Immunoassay is one type of laboratory test used to measure the level of biomarkers using specific antibodies. Microfluidics offer several advantages such as speed, small sample volume requirement, portability, integration, and automation. These advantages are motivating to develop microfluidic platforms of conventional laboratory tests. I have fabricated polymer microfluidic devices and developed immunoassays on-chip for potential cancer markers. Silicon template devices were fabricated using standard photolithographic techniques. The template …

Isolation Of Thymol From Carom Seeds, Ram Mohan, Leonard Onsen

Ram S. Mohan

A simple protocol for the isolation and characterization of thymol from Trachyspermum ammi, commonly known as Bishop’s weed or carom seed, is reported. Carom seeds are commonly used in Indian cooking as a digestive aid, to treat stomach pain, and for their carminative properties. The protocol, developed as an experiment for introductory organic chemistry laboratories, provides instruction in natural product isolation, chromatographic techniques, acid-base concepts and NMR spectroscopy.

An Enhanced Mapreduce Workload Allocation Tool For Spot Market Resources, John Stephen Hudzina

CCE Theses and Dissertations

When a cloud user allocates a cluster to execute a map-reduce workload, the user must determine the number and type of virtual machine instances to minimize the workload's financial cost. The cloud user may rent on-demand instances at a fixed price or spot instances at a variable price to execute the workload. Although the cloud user may bid on spot virtual machine instances at a reduced rate, the spot market auction may delay the workload's start or terminate the spot instances before the workload completes. The cloud user requires a forecast for the workload's financial cost and completion time to …

A Modified Version Of The Lewellen And Badrinath Measure Of Tobin's Q, Darrell Lee, James Tompkins

James Tompkins

Lewellen and Badrinath (1997) propose a superior method of measuring Tobin's Q. Unfortunately, their method is prone to a high percentage of missing observations and results in selecting samples of larger and more mature firms with lower Q statistics. A slight modification is proposed that preserves the appeal of their method, yet almost doubles the sample size, avoids sampling problems, and is statistically indistinguishable from their Q measure. In addition, a step in the Lewellen and Badrinath Q calculation is clarified, which was inadvertently omitted in their explanation, and, if left undone, can result in downward-biased measures of Q.

Temporal Variations Of Atmospheric Depositional Fluxes Of 7be And 210pb Over 8 Years (2006–2013) At Shanghai, China, And Synthesis Of Global Fallout Data, Juan Du, Jinzhou Du, Mark Baskaran, Qianqian Bi, Dekun Huang, Yifei Jiang

Environmental Science and Geology Faculty Research Publications

7Be and 210Pb, two atmospherically delivered radionuclides, have been broadly applied to study the processes including air mass transport, soil erosion, and particle cycling in aqueous systems. These studies require temporal variations of their depositional fluxes. In the present work, monthly atmospheric bulk depositional fluxes of 7Be and 210Pb were measured over 8 years (December 2005 to December 2013) at Shanghai, China. The bulk depositional fluxes of 7Be and 210Pb varied from 17.9 to 421 Bq m−2 month−1 and 6.8 to 82.1 Bq m−2 month−1, respectively. The volume‐weighted activities ranged from 0.20 to 8.06 Bq L−1 for 7Be and 0.05 …

Thermal Boundary Conditions On Western Greenland: Observational Constraints And Impacts On The Modeled Thermomechanical State, Toby W. Meierbachtol, Joel T. Harper, Jesse V. Johnson, Neil F. Humphrey, Douglas John Brinkerhoff

Geosciences Faculty Publications

The surface and basal boundary conditions exert an important control on the thermodynamic state of the Greenland Ice Sheet, but their representation in numerical ice sheet models is poorly constrained due to the lack of observations. Here we investigate a land-terminating sector of western Greenland and (1) quantify differences between new observations and commonly used boundary condition data sets and (2) demonstrate the impact of improved boundary conditions on simulated thermodynamics in a higher-order numerical flow model. We constrain near-surface temperature with measurements from two 20mboreholes in the ablation zone and 10m firn temperature from the percolation zone. We constrain …

45rd Annual Wku Student Research Conference, Student Research Council

Student Research Conference Select Presentations

See document below for project abstracts

Essays On Air Pollution, Global Warming And Agriculture Productivity., Ridhima Gupta Dr.

Doctoral Theses

This dissertation consists of three chapters, each of which deals with a particular aspect of environmental policy. The first chapter focuses on the determinants of open-field burning of rice-residue with the aim of analysing possibilities for its regulation. Open field burning is the second-largest contributor to black carbon in South Asia, the second most important greenhouse agent after carbon dioxide. Thus, dealing with the problem of burning of rice residue will tackle a significant proportion of the black carbon emissions released into the atmosphere. The third chapter proposes a new approach for estimating the contribution of agricultural fires to atmospheric …

Geomorphology: Changing The Scholarly Sources Landscape With Geology Students, Heidi Blackburn, Ashlee L. Dere

Criss Library Faculty Proceedings & Presentations

Find out how we changed the landscape for geology students from a popular sources wasteland to a lush garden of scholarly sources through a library instruction intervention. Data from before and after the library instruction will be shared, showing student growth from Wikipedia in first drafts to meeting ACRL Information Literacy Standards for Science through the use of scholarly sources in the final paper. The library instruction activity, learning outcomes, and assessment components are included.

Tools For Evaluating And Monitoring Effectiveness Of Urban Landscape Water Conservation Interventions And Programs, Diana T. Glenn, Joanna Endter-Wada, Roger Kjelgren, Christopher M. U. Neale

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Our research objective was to investigate ways to evaluate landscape water use to help cities more effectively direct water conservation programs to locations with capacity to conserve. Research was conducted in connection with a landscape irrigation evaluation delivered through a city-sponsored Water Check Program. Research efforts led to development of several assessment and monitoring tools including: Landscape Irrigation Ratio (LIR), Participant Outcome Evaluation Tool, and Program Evaluation Tool. We utilized these tools to identify locations with capacity to conserve water applied to landscapes, compare water use before and after the water check, and evaluate Water Check Program effectiveness. We found …

Byu Computational Number Theory Research Group David Cardon, Darrin Doud, Paul Jenkins, And Pace Nielsen, Pace Nielsen

Journal of Undergraduate Research

In the years 2013-2014 we held a weekly seminar in which every supported student gave presentations at least once (but usually twice or more) per semester. This gave the students opportunities to learn and develop presentations skills, which will help them later in their careers. It also gave them opportunities to work together in a tight-knit group setting. This learning was augmented by regular, one-on-one weekly meetings with their advisors. Many of the students wrote professional research papers published in peer-reviewed journals, presented their research at conferences, and many won prestigious university and even national awards.

Constructing Secure Mapreduce Framework In Cloud-Based Environment, Yongzhi Wang

FIU Electronic Theses and Dissertations

MapReduce, a parallel computing paradigm, has been gaining popularity in recent years as cloud vendors offer MapReduce computation services on their public clouds. However, companies are still reluctant to move their computations to the public cloud due to the following reason: In the current business model, the entire MapReduce cluster is deployed on the public cloud. If the public cloud is not properly protected, the integrity and the confidentiality of MapReduce applications can be compromised by attacks inside or outside of the public cloud. From the result integrity’s perspective, if any computation nodes on the public cloud are compromised,thosenodes can …