Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Wildfire Activity, Climate Response, And Ice Core Signal Preservation In The North Pacific Region, Margaret Lonergan

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Wildfires have become more destructive over recent decades with climate change, so understanding how fire regimes will change with further climate change is critical for effective fire management practices. Paleofire records provide insight into how fire regimes have responded to temperature and precipitation variability in the past. Ice cores, such as the Denali ice core from central Alaska, capture regional-scale fire proxies including black carbon at an annual resolution for centuries to millennia. This makes them ideally suited to construct high temporal resolution, regional paleofire records extending back into the Common Era. However, it is critical to understand the instrumental …

An Interactive System For Generating Music From Moving Images, Hanlin Wang

Dartmouth College Master’s Theses

Moving images contain a wealth of information pertaining to motion. Motivated by the interconnectedness of music and movement, we present a framework for transforming the kinetic qualities of moving images into music. We developed an interactive software system that takes video as input and maps its motion attributes into the musical dimension based on perceptually grounded principles. The system combines existing sonification frameworks with theories and techniques of generative music. To evaluate the system, we conducted a two-part experiment. First, we asked participants to make judgements on video-audio correspondence from clips generated by the system. Second, we asked participants to …

Time Series Forecasting For Stock Market Prices, Albert Zhou

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

Impacts And Uncertainties Of Climate Change On The Chesapeake Bay, Kyle E. Hinson

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Climate change impacts in the Chesapeake Bay will limit the efficacy of nutrient reduction efforts and decrease dissolved oxygen, but uncertainties associated with the magnitude of these effects remain. An understanding of underlying mechanisms that have driven recent warming trends will narrow uncertainties for future pathways of temperature change. Additionally, future simulations of climate impacts in the estuary are dependent on multiple different sources of uncertainty, many of which have not yet been fully evaluated. This dissertation used a three- dimensional coupled hydrodynamic-biogeochemical model to investigate recent warming trends as well as underlying uncertainties likely to influence regional projections of …

On Regular D-Handicap Tournaments, Bryan Freyberg, Melissa S. Keranen

Michigan Tech Publications

k-regular d-handicap tournament is an incomplete tournament in which n teams, ranked according to the natural numbers, play exactly k < n − 1 different teams exactly once and the strength of schedule of the ith ranked team is d more than the (i − 1)st ranked team for some d ≥ 1. That is, strength of schedules increase arithmetically by d with strength of team. A d-handicap distance antimagic labeling of a graph (Formula Presented)forms an arithmetic sequence with difference d ≥ 1. A graph G which admits such a labeling is called a d-handicap graph. Constructing a k-regular d-handicap tournament on n teams is equivalent to finding a k-regular d-handicap graph of order n. For d = 1 and n even, the existence has recently been completely settled for all pairs (n, k), and some results are known for d = 2. For d > 2, the only known result is restricted to the case where n is divisible by 2d+2. In this paper, we construct infinite families of d-handicap graphs where the order is not restricted to a power of 2.

Escape Dynamics Of Confined Undulating Worms, Animesh Biswas, Arshad Kudrolli

Physics

We investigate the escape dynamics of oligochaeta Lumbriculus variegatus by confining them to a quasi-2D circular chamber with a narrow exit passage. The worms move by performing undulatory and peristaltic strokes and use their head to actively probe their surroundings. We show that the worms follow the chamber boundary with occasional reversals in direction and with velocities determined by the orientation angle of the body with respect to the boundary. The average time needed to reach the passage decreases with its width before approaching a constant, consistent with a boundary-following search strategy. We model the search dynamics as a persistent …

Dissolution-Driven Propulsion Of Floating Solids, Martin Chaigne, Michael Berhanu, Arshad Kudrolli

Physics

We show that unconstrained asymmetric dissolving solids floating in a fluid can move rectilinearly as a result of attached density currents which occur along their inclined surfaces. Solids in the form of boats composed of centimeter-scale sugar and salt slabs attached to a buoy are observed to move rapidly in water with speeds up to 5 mm/s determined by the inclination angle and orientation of the dissolving surfaces. While symmetric boats drift slowly, asymmetric boats are observed to accelerate rapidly along a line before reaching a terminal velocity when their drag matches the thrust generated by dissolution. By visualizing the …

Rosalie Edge And The Modern Environmental Movement, Elizabeth Claire Coleman

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

This thesis examines and follows the actions of an understudied activist in the environmentalist movement: Rosalie Edge. This thesis relies and encourages a combination of conservation, environmentalism, and historical women’s history in America. Rosalie Edge’s work as an environmentalist created a new and effective way for environmentalists to advocate for the environment around them. She created a pamphlet medium that invited scientists and other conservationists to publish writings and opinions that went against what the Audubon Society, the Biological Survey, and legislators were doing and publishing. The research for this project combines analysis from other professionals in the field with …

Detailed Analysis Of The Tev Γ-Ray Sources 3hwc J1928+178, 3hwc J1930+188, And The New Source Hawc J1932+192, A. Albert, R. Alfaro, C. Alvarez, J. C. Arteaga-Velázquez, D. Avila Rojas, H. A.Ayala Solares, R. Babu, D. Huang, P. Hüntemeyer, R. Turner, X. Wang, Et Al.

Michigan Tech Publications

The latest High Altitude Water Cherenkov (HAWC) point-like source catalog up to 56 TeV reported the detection of two sources in the region of the Galactic plane at galactic longitude 52° < ℓ < 55°, 3HWC J1930+188 and 3HWC J1928+178. The first one is associated with a known TeV source, the supernova remnant SNR G054.1+00.3. It was discovered by one of the currently operating Imaging Atmospheric Cherenkov Telescope (IACT), the Very Energetic Radiation Imaging Telescope Array System (VERITAS), detected by the High Energy Stereoscopic System (H.E.S.S), and identified as a composite SNR. However, the source 3HWC J1928+178, discovered by HAWC and coincident with the pulsar PSR J1928+1746, was not detected by any IACT despite their long exposure on the region, until a recent new analysis of H.E.S.S. data was able to confirm it. Moreover, no X-ray counterpart has been detected from this pulsar. We present a multicomponent fit of this region using the latest HAWC data. This reveals an additional new source, HAWC J1932+192, which is potentially associated with the pulsar PSR J1932+1916, whose γ-ray emission could come from the acceleration of particles in its pulsar wind nebula. In the case of 3HWC J1928+178, several possible explanations are explored, in an attempt to unveil the origins of the very-high-energy γ-ray emission.

Interspecific Oral Rabies Vaccine Bait Competition In The Southeast United States, Wesley C. Dixon, Jacob E. Hill, Richard Chipman, Amy J. Davis, Amy Gilbert, James C. Beasley, Olin E. Rhodes Jr., Guha Dharmarajan

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

The United States Department of Agriculture’s National Rabies Management Program (NRMP) has coordinated the use of oral rabies vaccination (ORV) to control the spread of raccoon rabies virus variant west of the Appalachian Mountains since 1997. Working with state and local partners, the NRMP deploys ORV baits containing a rabies vaccine, primarily targeting raccoon populations (Procyon lotor). Bait competition between raccoons and non-target species may limit the effectiveness of ORV programs, but the extent of bait competition remains poorly quantified, particularly in the southeastern United States. We placed placebo ORV baits in bottomland hardwood (n = 637 baits) and upland …

Tourism‑Supported Working Lands Sustain A Growing Jaguar Population In The Colombian Llanos, Matthew Hyde, Esteban Payán, Jorge Barragan, Diana Stasiukynas, Sanmantha Rincón, William L. Kendall, Jerónimo Rodríguez, Kevin R. Crooks, Stewart W. Breck, Valerie Boron

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Understanding large carnivore demography on human-dominated lands is a priority to inform conservation strategies, yet few studies examine long-term trends. Jaguars (Panthera onca) are one such species whose population trends and survival rates remain unknown across working lands. We integrated nine years of camera trap data and tourist photos to estimate jaguar density, survival, abundance, and probability of tourist sightings on a working ranch and tourism destination in Colombia. We found that abundance increased from five individuals in 2014 to 28 in 2022, and density increased from 1.88 ± 0.87 per 100 km² in 2014 to 3.80 …

Comparison Of Groundwater Chemistry And Associated Biodiversity Of Sulfidic Karst Habitats In Southcentral Kentucky, Kendall Wheeler

Mahurin Honors College Capstone Experience/Thesis Projects

In most ecosystems, primary production is conducted by plants or photosynthetic microbes; however, extremophilic sulfur-oxidizing bacteria can use hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S) as an electron donor to produce metabolic energy in a type of metabolism called chemoautotrophy. These ecosystems are a prominent feature of some karst landscapes, and two have been observed in the Mammoth Cave system, Sulphur River in Parker Cave and Marianne’s Pass in Mammoth Cave National Park respectively.

Sulfidic water is ubiquitous in southcentral Kentucky and is strongly associated with hydrocarbon deposits. This oil boom of the 1880s in this region predates most environmental regulation and records …

A Picture Worth A Thousand Words: Factors Influencing Disability Accommodations, Alicia E. Martin

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Because not all disabilities look the same it is difficult to label a person with disabilities just by looking at them. Given that our knowledge, attitudes, and perceptions impact how we interpret our world and our willingness to act, people, including professors, may be biased toward providing accommodations for those with easily recognizable disabilities and biased against those with non-recognizable disabilities, and this may impact the disabled person’s ability to learn. This thesis aims to address whether professors’ disability-related attitudes, perceptions of accommodation reasonableness, and willingness to provide accommodations differ when the disability is recognizable (student is pictured in a …

Monitoring Bull Kelp (Nereocystis Leutkeana) Remotely At High Resolutions, Hannah E. Joss

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Bull kelp (Nereocystis leutkeana) is a foundational seaweed in nearshore, marine systems, traditionally supporting economically important fisheries, extracting nutrients in its vicinity, and sequestering carbon and transporting it great distances to subsidize shallow and deep-sea environments. Bull kelp is also a culturally important species for some indigenous peoples along the northeastern Pacific coastline and provides a harvestable product with growing demand. Global trends in kelp distribution show patterns of decline, and the immense loss of northern California bull kelp forests in response to climatic changes have highlighted the need for alternative sources of kelp, both for the product …

Seasonal Growth, Movement, And Survival Of Juvenile Coho Salmon (Oncorhynchus Kisutch) Utilizing Restored Rearing Habitat, Monica S. Tonty

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

The Scott River supports the most robust population of threatened Coho Salmon Oncorhynchus kisutch remaining in the Klamath River basin. Even in the Scott River, low quality and restricted extent of juvenile rearing habitat limits the Coho Salmon population to a small fraction of historic abundance. To support persistence and recovery of Scott River Coho Salmon, the Scott River Watershed Council (SRWC) has constructed a portfolio of restoration projects to improve juvenile rearing habitat, including beaver dam analogs (BDAs). The Scott River BDAs were the first implemented anywhere in California. This study compares juvenile Coho Salmon responses associated with production …

Modeling Current And Future Saltmarsh Distribution In Arcata Marsh, Madeline Kay Mcnerthney

Cal Poly Humboldt theses and projects

Saltmarsh habitat is vulnerable to Sea Level Rise (SLR) and requires long-term management plans for communities to continue to benefit from their ecosystem services. This study analyzed the variation of above-ground vegetation biomass throughout I Street Marsh, using multiple variables, including classified vegetative community types, elevation and remote sensing indexes comprised of both visual (Red, Green, Blue) and non-visual (Red Edge, Near Infrared) bands. Plant community types were classified using a cluster analysis, and distinguished three communities, based on dominant species: Salicornia, Spartina, and a mixed type (diverse floristic makeup, with no dominant species). Above-ground biomass was significantly higher in …

Great South Bay, Long Island, New York Summer Water Quality Monitoring Program, Cercom, Molloy University, John Tanacredi Ph.D., Kyle F. Maurelli

CERCOM Reports

The Center for Environmental Research and Coastal Oceans Monitoring (CERCOM) visits 11 locations in the Great South Bay from Memorial Day – Labor Day to monitor dissolved oxygen (DO), pH, salinity, clarity and temperature. Students are trained to assist in CERCOM’s water quality data collection by research assistant Mr. Kyle Maurelli. This monitoring program has been conducted for the past 17 years. These parameters are critical in determining long term water quality conditions in Long Island estuaries

Great South Bay, Long Island, New York Summer Phytoplankton Identification & Monitoring Program, Cercom, Molloy University, John Tanacredi Ph.D., Kyle F. Maurelli

CERCOM Reports

Phytoplankton Collection Methodologies: 80 micron Plankton Tow Net with sample bottle attachment

Phytoplankton Protocol: 1.Gather Samples 2.Make one slide per sample 3.View slides using microscope connected with computer 4. Record findings using “ Row # “ and “ Column letter “ 5. Record using “ Tallies “ per species found within sample 6. Capture anything interesting “ Take Picture “ 7.Duplicate pictures taken 8.Make sure measurement of species found is taken 9. Email Jennifer Maucher at Jennifer.maucher@noaa.gov , include pictures, questions and names of the species you “guess” you found.

Daily Meteorological Report, Cercom, Molloy University, John Tanacredi Ph.D., Kyle F. Maurelli

CERCOM Reports

Meteorological data is collected daily at CERCOM and is submitted to the National Weather Service (NWS), in Upton NY at the Brookhaven National Laboratories. Air Temperature, wind speed and direction, pH of precipitation, rain gauge, barometer pressure, cloud cover and estimated altitude by type, are data sets compiled and submitted to the NWS daily. CERCOM’s Co-Op site is the only continuous operating facility on Great South Bay.

Confounding Effects Of Snow Cover On Remotely Sensed Vegetation Indices Of Evergreen And Deciduous Trees: An Experimental Study, R. Wang, K. R. Springer, John A. Gamon

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Destruction Of Pfoa On Ion-Exchange Resin With Advanced Reduction Processes To Regenerate Resins For Addressing Pfoa Pollution In Drinking Water, Junkui Cui

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) have been globally incorporated into various industrial and consumer products since the 1940s. However, concerns about PFAS have gradually grown because of their prevalence, mobility, persistence, bioaccumulation, and adverse impacts on human and environmental health. Unfortunately, traditional water treatment processes inefficiently remove PFAS. Therefore, there is an urgent research need to develop innovative, technically viable, and low cost-treatment processes for the removal of PFAS in water.

Among the established PFAS treatment technologies, ion-exchange (IX) has been extensively applied to drinking water treatment practices due to its adsorption capability and technology maturity. However, IX is highly …

Part 3: James Clerk Maxwell's Zoetrope, Daniel Silver

A Five-Minute History of Knot Theory

James Clerk Maxwell attempted to understand how three rings of ether would pass through each other. On October 6, 1868, he wrote to Kelvin: "[Helmholtz's] 3 rings do as 2 rings in his own paper that is those in front expand and go slower those behind contract and when small go faster and thread through the others. I drew 3 to make the motion more slow and visible, not that I have solved the case of 3 rings more than to get a rough notion about this case and to make the sum of the three areas [constant] I have …

A Functioning Code May Not Be A Secure Code : A Preliminary Study On The Students' Complacency With Secure Coding, Jeremiah Niiquaye Kotey

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Eleanor Roosevelt once said: "Learn from the mistakes of others. You can’t live long enough to make them all yourself". Mistakes are almost inevitable while coding or designing a system. Therefore, patches are created to fix the issues in the code either by a manual review, or through a static analysis tool. Oftentimes, mistakes in programming emanate from lack of skills thus, competence with a particular programming language but negligence also plays a role in other instances. A functioning code that solves a particular problem does not guarantee that the code is secure, hence the code should be structured to …

Privacy-Enhanced And Outsourced Power Usage Control In Smart Grids, Hemadri Patel

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Due to the numerous advantages of smart grids like reliability, availability, and efficiency, it has been emerging as an extraordinary contribution to the economic and environmental health. This project mainly focuses on the power outage issue in a smart grid environment. Power outages occur when electricity demand exceeds the supply, more specifically, consider a utility company which sets a threshold on the total power usage of households from a neighborhood. Whenever the total power usage from a neighborhood exceeds the threshold, some of the households needs to reduce their energy consumption; to avoid the power outage. This problem is referred …

Literature Search For Extraction And Characterization Of Fragrant Compounds From Ten Flowering Plants, Ember Smith

All Capstone Projects

This capstone literature project conducted a literature search on the extraction of essential oils from the leaves of ten different flowering plants using steam distillation and/or solvent extraction methods. Additionally, the project focused on characterizing and identifying the fragrant compounds present in the essential oils of these ten plants. By conducting a comprehensive literature search, this project provides a summary of the methods employed for extraction and the composition of fragrant compounds in each essential oil. A diverse range of fragrant compounds were found in various plants and flowers, including major and minor compounds such as alcohols, aldehydes, ketones, terpenes, …

R-Symmetries And Curvature Constraints In A-Twisted Heterotic Landau–Ginzburg Models, Richard S. Garavuso

Publications and Research

In this paper, we discuss various aspects of a class of A-twisted heterotic Landau–Ginzburg models on a Kähler variety X. We provide a classification of the R-symmetries in these models which allow the A-twist to be implemented, focusing on the case in which the gauge bundle is either a deformation of the tangent bundle of X or a deformation of a sub-bundle of the tangent bundle of X. Some anomaly-free examples are provided. The curvature constraint imposed by supersymmetry in these models when the superpotential is not holomorphic is reviewed. Constraints of this nature have been used to establish properties …

Impact Melt Rocks From The Late Paleocene Hiawatha Impact Structure, Northwest Greenland, William R. Hyde, Adam A. Garde, Nynke Keulen, Sebastian N. Malkki, Steven J. Jaret, Tod Waight, Pierre Beck, Iain Mcdonald, Nicolaj K. Larsen

Publications and Research

Impact melt rocks formed during hypervelocity impact events are ideal for studying impact structures. Here, we describe impact melt rock samples collected proximal to the 31 km wide 58 Ma Hiawatha impact structure, northwest Greenland, which is completely covered by the Greenland Ice Sheet. The melt rocks contain diagnostic shock indicators (e.g., planar deformation features [PDF] in quartz and shocked zircon) and form three groups based on melt textures and chemistry: (i) hypocrystalline, (ii) glassy, and (iii) carbonate-based melt rocks. The exposed foreland directly in front of the structure consists of metasedimentary successions and igneous plutons; however, the carbonate-based impactites …

Strategies Information Technology Leaders Used In Implementing Remote Work During The Covid-19, Jouliana Kamal Barghouth

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

With the imposed lockdown in many countries due to the spread of COVID-19, many leaders were forced to adopt online technologies in transitioning employees to remote work. Leaders not adopting online technologies or remote work during a pandemic are highly susceptible to business closure. Grounded in the technology acceptance model, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore strategies information technology (IT) leaders in Kuwait used to successfully transition employees to remote work during the pandemic. The participants were six IT leaders from a single multinational IT organization who contributed to strategy development during the pandemic to …

Diversification Strategies Business Managers Use To Improve Profitability, Kayode Itiola

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

A lack of diversification strategies can negatively impact business profitability. Business managers of small and medium-sized enterprises who implement appropriate diversification strategies can improve business profitability, ensuring the firm’s sustainability. Grounded in the modern portfolio theory, the purpose of this qualitative single case study was to explore diversification strategies business managers use to improve profitability. The participants were five business managers who successfully used diversification strategies to enhance business profitability. Sources for data collection were semi-structured interviews, company archival documents, and field notes. Data were analyzed using thematic analysis. Four themes emerged: concentric diversification strategy, horizontal diversification strategy, customer needs …

Laboratory Practices And Antimicrobial Resistance In A Florida Hospital, Crispina Marie Sy-Trias

Walden Dissertations and Doctoral Studies

Antibiotic resistance is a health threat affecting millions of Americans. Microorganisms develop resistance to antibiotics, rendering them useless for treating infections. The purpose of this quantitative study was to assess the associations between sample processing time and antibiotic resistance and is based on the health belief model. A retrospective specimen tracking activity of data from November 2019 to November 2020 was obtained by random sampling of 246 bacterial cultures. One hundred ninety-six (80%) samples were processed on time, and 50 (20%) were delayed; 167 (68%) samples were determined to have the presence of antimicrobial resistance (AMR), and 79 (32%) with …