Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Data Citation Practices In The Crawdad Wireless Network Data Archive, Tristan Henderson, David Kotz

Dartmouth Scholarship

CRAWDAD (Community Resource for Archiving Wireless Data At Dartmouth) is a popular research data archive for wireless network data, archiving over 100 datasets used by over 6,500 users. In this paper we examine citation behaviour amongst 1,281 papers that use CRAWDAD datasets. We find that (in general) paper authors cite datasets in a manner that is sufficient for providing credit to dataset authors and also provides access to the datasets that were used. Only 11.5% of papers did not do so; common problems included (1) citing the canonical papers rather than the dataset, (2) describing the dataset using unclear identifiers, …

On Processing Reverse K-Skyband And Ranked Reverse Skyline Queries, Yunjun Gao, Qing Liu, Baihua Zheng, Mou Li, Gang Chen, Qing Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, for the first time, we identify and solve the problem of efficient reverse k-skyband (RkSB) query processing. Given a set P of multi-dimensional points and a query point q, an RkSB query returns all the points in P whose dynamic k-skyband contains q. We formalize RkSB retrieval, and then propose five algorithms for computing the RkSB of an arbitrary query point efficiently. Our methods utilize a conventional data-partitioning index (e.g., R-tree) on the dataset, and employ pre-computation, reuse and pruning techniques to boost the query efficiency. In addition, we extend our solutions to tackle an interesting variant …

Review Synthesis For Micro-Review Summarization, Thanh-Son Nguyen, Hady W. Lauw, Panayiotis Tsaparas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Micro-reviews is a new type of user-generated content arising from the prevalence of mobile devices and social media in the past few years. Micro-reviews are bite-size reviews (usually under 200 characters), commonly posted on social media or check-in services, using a mobile device. They capture the immediate reaction of users, and they are rich in information, concise, and to the point. However, the abundance of micro-reviews, and their telegraphic nature make it increasingly difficult to go through them and extract the useful information, especially on a mobile device. In this paper, we address the problem of summarizing the micro-reviews of …

Isolation Of Diverse Members Of The Aquificales From Geothermal Springs In Tengchong, China, Brian P. Hedlund, Anna-Louise Reysenbach, Liuquin Huang, John C. Ong, Zizhang Liu, Jeremy A. Dodsworth, Reham Ahmed, Amanda J. Williams, Brandon R. Briggs, Yitai Liu, Weiguo Hou, Hailiang Dong

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The order Aquificales (phylum Aquificae) consists of thermophilic and hyperthermophilic bacteria that are prominent in many geothermal systems, including those in Tengchong, Yunnan Province, China. However, Aquificales have not previously been isolated from Tengchong. We isolated five strains of Aquificales from diverse springs (temperature 45.2–83.3°C and pH 2.6–9.1) in the Rehai Geothermal Field from sites in which Aquificales were abundant. Phylogenetic analysis showed that four of the strains belong to the genera Hydrogenobacter, Hydrogenobaculum, andSulfurihydrogenibium, including strains distant enough to likely justify new species ofHydrogenobacter and Hydrogenobaculum. The additional strain may represent a …

Sn Ia Host Galaxy Properties And The Dust Extinction Distribution., Benne W. Holwerda, A. Reynolds, M. Smith, R. C. Kraan-Korteweg

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Type Ia supernovae (SNeIa) display a complex relation with their host galaxies. An important prior to the fit of the supernovae's light curve is the distribution of host galaxy extinction values that can be encountered. The Sloan Digital Sky Survey SuperNova survey project has published light-curve fits using both mlcs2k2 and salt2. We use the former fits extinction parameter (AV) to map this distribution of extinction values. We explore the dependence of this distribution on four observables; the inclination of the host galaxy disc, radial position of the supernova, redshift of the supernova and host, and the level …

Globular Cluster Populations : First Results From S4g Early-Type Galaxies., Dennis Zaritsky, Manuel Aravena, E. Athanassoula, Albert Bosma, Sebastien Comeron, Bruce G. Elmegreen, Santiago Erroz-Ferrer, Dimitri A. Gadotti, Joannah Hinz, Luis C. Ho, Benne W. Holwerda, Johan H. Knapen, Jarkko Laine, Eija Laurikainen, Juan Carlos Munoz-Mateos, Heikki Salo, Kartik Sheth

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Using 3.6μm images of 97 early-type galaxies, we develop and verify methodology to measure globular cluster populations from the S4G survey images. We find that (1) the ratio, TN, of the number of clusters, NCL, to parent galaxy stellar mass, M∗, rises weakly with M∗ for early-type galaxies with M∗ > 1010 M when we calculate galaxy masses using a universal stellar initial mass function (IMF) but that the dependence of TN on M∗ is removed entirely once we correct for the recently uncovered systematic variation of IMF with M∗; and (2) for M∗ < 1010 M, there is no trend between NCL and M∗, the scatter in TN is significantly larger (approaching two orders of magnitude), and there is evidence to support a previous, independent suggestion of two families of galaxies. The behavior of NCL in the lower-mass systems is more difficult to measure because these systems are inherently cluster-poor, but our results may add to previous evidence that large variations in cluster formation and destruction efficiencies are to be found among low-mass galaxies. The average fraction of stellar mass in clusters is ∼0.0014 for M∗ > 1010 M and can be as large …

Does Material Choice Drive Sustainability Of 3d Printing?, Jeremy Faludi, Zhongyin Hu, Shahd Alrashed, Christopher Braunholz, Suneesh Kaul, Leulekal Kassaye

Dartmouth Scholarship

Environmental impacts of six 3D printers using various materials were compared to determine if material choice drove sustainability, or if other factors such as machine type, machine size, or machine utilization dominate. Cradle-to-grave life-cycle assessments were performed, comparing a commercial-scale FDM machine printing in ABS plastic, a desktop FDM machine printing in ABS, a desktop FDM machine printing in PET and PLA plastics, a polyjet machine printing in its proprietary polymer, an SLA machine printing in its polymer, and an inkjet machine hacked to print in salt and dextrose. All scenarios were scored using ReCiPe Endpoint H methodology to combine …

Theory Development And Pilot Testing Of A New Survey Instrument On Usability By Older Adults, Meriam Caboral-Stevens

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

An aging population and the use of technology are two pervasive phenomena that are burgeoning simultaneously. The confluence of these phenomena may present challenges for the older adults that could prevent a successful interface. Barriers and challenges can be addressed by examining the interface between older adults and technology. Usability is described as how well and how easily a user without formal training can interact effectively with the system. A review of the literature shows paucity in nursing theories on usability and the use of technology among older adults. This paper describes the development of a conceptual model - Use …

Risk Factors And Costs Influencing Hospitalizations Due To Heat-Related Illnesses: Patterns Of Hospitalization, Michael T. Schmeltz

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The objective of this dissertation was to identify individual and environmental risk factors, investigate outcomes and hospital resource use, including costs, and document the pattern of heat-related illness hospitalizations in the United States. The main data source for the study population was the 2001-2010 Nationwide Inpatient Sample (NIS). The study population for heat-related illnesses (HRIs) consists of patients in the NIS with at least one diagnosis of a heat-related illness (ICD-9 codes 992.0 - 992.9) from 2001 to 2010. Outcome analysis included a study population of patients who had primary or secondary diagnoses of diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, respiratory illnesses, nephritic …

It-Enabled Coordination In Electronic Markets: An Experimental Investigation Of The Effects Of Social Communication On Group Buyers, Alexander Pelaez

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Coordination, and the mechanisms by which coordination occurs, represents a significant area of study for economic research, and information technology. Technology enhances communication in both speed and quantity of information and when aligned with appropriate tasks can improve decision-making and task performance. Examining the effect of technology based coordination mechanisms on market platforms provides insight into outcomes as represented by buyer surplus and task completion as well as behaviors, such as network structure and emotional attitudes in economic experiments. Drawing on theory from economics and information systems, larger buyer groups should be able to obtain better prices and extract higher …

Synthesis And Characterization Of A Novel Polyacetal & Design And Preparation Of Superhydrophobic Photocatalytic Surfaces, Yuanyuan Zhao

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Polyacetal polymers are thermoplastic resins that play an important role in industry because of numerous industrial applications including automobile; household appliance; etc. The first part of this thesis (Chapter 2) is about the synthesis of a new acetal copolymer that exhibits superior thermal stability. The second part of this thesis (Chapter 3) is about the preparation and applications of TiO₂-based polymer nanocomposite films, where the reactive oxygen species (ROS) are generated on the solid surface. Catalytic nanocomposite films are an active area of research because of their potential uses for environmental remediation and chemical synthesis. Furthermore, to …

Would People Behave Differently If They Better Understood Social Security? Evidence From A Field Experiment, Jeffrey B. Liebman, Erzo F. P. Luttmer

Dartmouth Scholarship

This paper presents the results of a randomized field experiment that provided information about key Social Security features to older workers. The experiment was designed to examine whether it is possible to affect individual behavior using a relatively inexpensive informational intervention about the provisions of a public program and to explore the mechanisms underlying the behavior change. We find that our relatively mild intervention (sending an informational brochure and an invitation to a web-tutorial) increased labor force participation one year later by 4 percentage points relative to the control group mean of 74 percent. (JEL C93, D12, H55)

Wigner High-Electron-Correlation Regime Of Non-Uniform Density Systems: A Quantal-Density-Functional-Theory Study, Douglas Mortimer Achan

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The Wigner regime of a system of electrons in an external field is characterized by a low electron density and a high electron-interaction energy relative to the kinetic energy. The low correlation regime is in turn described by a high electron density and an electron-interaction energy smaller than the kinetic energy. The Wigner regime of a nonuniform electron density system is investigated via quantal density functional theory (QDFT). Within QDFT, the contributions of electron correlations due to the Pauli exclusion principle, Coulomb repulsion, and correlation-kinetic effects are separately delineated and explicitly defined. The nonuniform electron density system studied is that …

De Novo Design And Engineering Of Functional Metal And Porphyrin-Binding Protein Domains, Bernard Howard Everson

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

In this work, I describe an approach to the rational, iterative design and characterization of two functional cofactor-binding protein domains. First, a hybrid computational/experimental method was developed with the aim of algorithmically generating a suite of porphyrin-binding protein sequences with minimal mutual sequence information. This method was explored by generating libraries of sequences, which were then expressed and evaluated for function. One successful sequence is shown to bind a variety of porphyrin-like cofactors, and exhibits light- activated electron transfer in mixed hemin:chlorin e6 and hemin:Zn(II)-protoporphyrin IX complexes. These results imply that many sophisticated functions such as cofactor binding and electron …

The Theoretical And Psychological Foundations Of Care In Environmental Ethics, Rachel Fedock

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

I investigate the phenomenon of care, provide some of the theoretical and psychological framework for the ethics of care, and apply this framework to environmental issues. The neglected dimensions of care I explore are: the emotions of care, care as a virtue, and the caring person, respectively, while constructing possible conceptions of in what each dimension consists. I argue for the necessity of sympathy and concern within the ethics of care, while arguing against the necessity of empathy. Next, I explore the virtue of care as an ideal, where emotions, desires, reasoning, motive, duty and action all play an important …

Highly-Selective Chemiresistive Sensing And Analysis Of Vapors Using Functionalized Nanotubes, Deon Hines

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Specifically, the project involves the development of a diversified array of nanostructured gas-sensors comprised of selectively, novel surface-functionalized carbon nanotubes (for analyte selectivity by virtue of functionality). Harnessing carbon nanotubes with various electron withdrawing and donating groups help in determining their affinity toward certain prognostic gaseous markers thus increasing specificity of such created sensors. We have devised synthetic routes that have led to the facile production of covalently polyfunctionalized nanotubes in high yield. Seven carbon nanotube analogues were systematically considered and then chemically synthesized, from pristine single-walled nanotubes (SWNT's), for use as the main component of sensory units that was …

Biomolecule Mediating Synthesis Of Inorganic Nanoparticles And Their Applications, Zengyan Wei

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Project 1.

The conventional phage display technique focuses on screening peptide sequences that can bind on target substrates, however the selected peptides are not necessary to nucleate and mediate the growth of the target inorganic crystals, and in many cases they only show moderate affinity to the targets. Here we report a novel phage display approach that can directly screen peptides catalytically growing inorganic nanoparticles in aqueous solution at room temperature. In this study, the phage library is incubated with zinc precursor at room temperature. Among random peptide sequences displayed on phages, those phages that can grow zinc oxide (ZnO) …

Label-Free Detection Of Cancer Cells With Polysilicon Sensor Chips And Biomolecule-Assisted Synthesis Of Shape-Controlled Nanoparticles, Menglu Shi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Constant effort has been made for the detection of cancer cells. Recently, ovarian and kidney cancer cell lines have been shown to have higher cellular elasticity as compared to normal cells assessed by monitoring the degree of deformation under hyposmotic pressure. This method has been modified and applied to various cases. In cancer cells, the oncogenic mutant p53 (mtp53) protein is present at high levels and contributes to tumor growth and metastasis. Herein the influence of mtp53 on the mechanical property of breast cancer cells was assessed by monitoring the swelling ratio of cells with time using the impedance measurements. …

Cationic Amphiphilic Synthetic Macromolecules With Superior Antibacterial Activity, Ashish Punia

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The increasing prevalence of antibiotic resistant bacteria (superbugs) has created a pressing need for new systems of antimicrobial agents. In this dissertation, I report on my extensive research on the design, synthesis, and development of synthetic amphiphilic macromolecules with antimicrobial activity and very low hemolytic impact. Synthetic amphiphilic polymers attack bacteria directly to rupture the cell membrane through electrostatic and hydrophobic interactions. However, the toxicity of such synthetic amphiphilic polymers against mammalian cells have impeded their therapeutic applications. We investigated the systematic structure/activities relationships for antibacterial and hemolytic activities of amphiphilic polyacrylates and poly(vinyl esters). Acrylate homopolymers with various lengths …

Charles City County Shoreline Management Plan, C. Scott Hardaway Jr., Donna A. Milligan, Christine A. Wilcox, Marcia Berman, Tamia Rudnicky, Karinna Nunez, Sharon A. Killeen

Reports

The shores of Charles City range from exposed open river to very sheltered creeks, and the nature of shoreline change varies accordingly. This shoreline management plan is useful for evaluating and planning shoreline management strategies appropriate for all the creeks and rivers of Charles City. It ties the physical and hydrodynamic elements of tidal shorelines to the various shoreline protection strategies.

Much of the Charles City County’s shoreline is suitable for a “Living Shoreline” approach to shoreline management. The Commonwealth of Virginia has adopted policy stating that Living Shorelines are the preferred alternative for erosion control along tidal waters in …

Crystal Structure Of (Pyridine-[Kappa]N)Bis(Quinolin-2-Olato-[Kappa]2n,O)Copper(Ii) Monohydrate, Shawn Burdette, B. Hawks, J. Yan, P. Basa

Shawn C. Burdette

The title complex, [Cu(C9H6NO)2(C5H4N)]·H2O, adopts a slightly distorted square-pyramidal geometry in which the axial pyridine ligand exhibits a long Cu-N bond of 2.305 (3) Å. The pyridine ligand forms dihedral angles of 79.5 (5) and 88.0 (1)° with the planes of the two quinolin-2-olate ligands, while the dihedral angle between the quinoline groups of 9.0 (3)° indicates near planarity. The water mol­ecule connects adjacent copper complexes through O-H...O hydrogen bonds to phenolate O atoms, forming a network inter­connecting all the complexes in the crystal lattice.

Marginal Structural Models: An Application To Incarceration And Marriage During Young Adulthood, Valerio Bacak, Edward Kennedy

Edward H. Kennedy

Advanced methods for panel data analysis are commonly used in research on family life and relationships, but the fundamental issue of simultaneous time-dependent confounding and mediation has received little attention. In this article the authors introduce inverse-probability-weighted estimation of marginal structural models, an approach to causal analysis that (unlike conventional regression modeling) appropriately adjusts for confounding variables on the causal pathway linking the treatment with the outcome. They discuss the need for marginal structural models in social science research and describe their estimation in detail. Substantively, the authors contribute to the ongoing debate on the effects of incarceration on marriage …

Plasmonics On The Slope Of Enlightenment: The Role Of Transition Metal Nitrides, U. Guler, A. Kildishev, A. Boltasseva, V. Shalaev

U. Guler

The key problem currently faced by plasmonics is related to material limitations. After almost two decades of extreme excitement and research largely based on the use of noble metals, scientists have come to a consensus on the importance of exploring alternative plasmonic materials to address application-specific challenges to enable the development of new functional devices. Such a change in motivation will undoubtedly lead to significant advancements in plasmonics technology transfer and could have a revolutionary impact on nanophotonic technologies in general. Here, we report on one of the approaches that, together with other new material platforms, mark an insightful technology-driven …

Mueller Matrix Spectroscopic Ellipsometry Of Multiferroics, Roman Basistyy

Dissertations

Multiferroics, materials which possess several ferroic orders, are the focus of research in recent years. Among these materials are oxide crystals, such as, for example, RMnO₃, RMn₂O₅, R₃Fe₅O₁₂, where R stands for rare earth ions. The most fascinating physics occurs when magnon-lattice coupling reveals itself in the far-IR spectra of multiferroics. The expected optical behavior puts multiferroics into a more general category of bi-anisotropic materials, the properties of which could be only described using anisotropic dielectric ε(ω), magnetic μ(ω), and …

Design And Analysis Of Algorithms For Similarity Search Based On Intrinsic Dimension, Xiguo Ma

Dissertations

One of the most fundamental operations employed in data mining tasks such as classification, cluster analysis, and anomaly detection, is that of similarity search. It has been used in numerous fields of application such as multimedia, information retrieval, recommender systems and pattern recognition. Specifically, a similarity query aims to retrieve from the database the most similar objects to a query object, where the underlying similarity measure is usually expressed as a distance function.

The cost of processing similarity queries has been typically assessed in terms of the representational dimension of the data involved, that is, the number of features used …

Local Selection Of Features And Its Applications To Image Search And Annotation, Jichao Sun

Dissertations

In multimedia applications, direct representations of data objects typically involve hundreds or thousands of features. Given a query object, the similarity between the query object and a database object can be computed as the distance between their feature vectors. The neighborhood of the query object consists of those database objects that are close to the query object. The semantic quality of the neighborhood, which can be measured as the proportion of neighboring objects that share the same class label as the query object, is crucial for many applications, such as content-based image retrieval and automated image annotation. However, due to …

Synthetic Approaches To The Understanding Of Dna Nucleobase Methylation, Jagruti Rana

Dissertations

DNA methylation is a major source of genetic variation and cancer. Methylation occurs when nucleophilic DNA bases react with methylating agent methyl methanesulfonate (MMS), dimethyl sulfate (DMS), N-methyl-N-nitrosourea (MNU), N-methyl-N-nitro-N-nitrosoguanidine (MNNG), etc. N7-methyl-2'-deoxyguanosine (N7-methyl-dG, or ^7MedG) adduct is the most abundant DNA methylation products for most methylating agents. DNA polymerase actions on ^7MedG are difficult to study due to its instability against ring- opening hydrolysis and deglycosyl ati on. Oligonucleotides containing a single chemical adduct of ^7MedG cannot be chemically synthesized. In addition, ^7MedG is unstable in vivo …

Location Reliability And Gamification Mechanisms For Mobile Crowd Sensing, Manoop Talasila

Dissertations

People-centric sensing with smart phones can be used for large scale sensing of the physical world by leveraging the sensors on the phones. This new type of sensing can be a scalable and cost-effective alternative to deploying static wireless sensor networks for dense sensing coverage across large areas. However, mobile people-centric sensing has two main issues: 1) Data reliability in sensed data and 2) Incentives for participants. To study these issues, this dissertation designs and develops McSense, a mobile crowd sensing system which provides monetary and social incentives to users.

This dissertation proposes and evaluates two protocols for location reliability …

Electronic, Thermoelectric And Optical Properties Of Vanadium Oxides: Vo2, V2o3 And V2o5, Chiranjivi Lamsal

Dissertations

Correlated electrons in vanadium oxides are responsible for their extreme sensitivity to external stimuli such as pressure, temperature or doping. As a result, several vanadium oxides undergo insulator-to-metal phase transition (IMT) accompanied by structural change. Unlike vanadium pentoxide (V₃O₃), vanadium dioxide (VO₃) and vanadium sesquioxide (V₃O₃) show I MT in their bulk phases. In this study, we have performed one electron Kohn-Sham electronic band-structure calculations of VO₃, V₃O₃ and V₂O₅ in both metallic and insulating phases, implementing a full ab-initio simulation package …

A Comprehensive Study Of Evolution Of Photospheric Magnetic Field And Flows Associated With Solar Eruptions, Shuo Wang

Dissertations

The rapid, irreversible change of the photospheric magnetic field has been recognized as an important element of the solar flare process. Recent theoretical work has shown that such a change would imply Lorentz force perturbations acting on both the outer solar atmosphere and the solar surface. This research uses vector magnetograms obtained with the Helioseismic and Magnetic Imager on board the Solar Dynamics Observatory to study a number of flares, which range from GOES-class C4 to X5 and occur in four active regions. In all the events, a permanent and rapid change of photospheric magnetic field closely associated with the …