Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Identifying Trace Affine Linear Sets Using Homotopy Continuation, Julianne Mckay

All Theses

We investigate how the coefficients of a sparse polynomial system influence the sum, or the trace, of its solutions. We discuss an extension of the classical trace test in numerical algebraic geometry to sparse polynomial systems. Two known methods for identifying a trace affine linear subset of the support of a sparse polynomial system use sparse resultants and polyhedral geometry, respectively. We introduce a new approach which provides more precise classifications of trace affine linear sets than was previously known. For this new approach, we developed software in Macaulay2.

Lyubeznik Ideals Minimally Generated By Four Or Fewer Elements, Nathan S. Fontes

All Theses

Free resolutions for an ideal are constructions that tell us useful information about the structure of the ideal. Every ideal has one minimal free resolution which tells us significantly more about the structure of the ideal. In this thesis, we consider a specific type of resolution, the Lyubeznik resolution, for a monomial ideal I, which is constructed using a total order on the minimal generating set G(I). An ideal is called Lyubeznik if some total order on G(I) produces a minimal Lyubeznik resolution for I. We investigate the problem of characterizing whether an ideal I is Lyubeznik …

Distributed Learning With Automated Stepsizes, Benjamin Liggett

All Theses

Stepsizes for optimization problems play a crucial role in algorithm convergence, where the stepsize must undergo tedious manual tuning to obtain near-optimal convergence. Recently, an adaptive method for automating stepsizes was proposed for centralized optimization. However, this method is not directly applicable to decentralized optimization because it allows for heterogeneous agent stepsizes. Furthermore, directly using consensus between agent stepsizes to mitigate stepsize heterogeneity can decrease performance and even lead to divergence.

This thesis proposes an algorithm to remedy the tedious manual tuning of stepsizes in decentralized optimization. Our proposed algorithm automates the stepsize and uses dynamic consensus between agents’ stepsizes …

Search For A Dark Leptophilic Scalar Produced In Association With Taupair In Electron-Positron Annihilation At Center-Of-Mass Energies Near 10.58 Gev., Diptaparna Biswas

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Dark matter is believed to be a form of matter which seemingly accounts for approximately 85% of the matter in the universe and about 27% of its total mass–energy density. It doesn't participate in electromagnetic interaction, i.e. doesn't interact with light. Consequently, we cannot see it using optical or radio telescope and hence the name dark matter. However, it participates in gravitational interaction, and we hypothesize its existence based on a variety of astrophysical observations, including gravitational effects, that cannot be explained by the accepted theories of gravity unless we account for more matter than can be perceived through electromagnetic …

Effects Of Monovalent And Divalent Ions In Factor Xiii Activation And Crosslinking., Richard Laporca Lumata

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Factor XIII (FXIII) is an emerging target for treating blood clotting and cardiovascular related diseases. FXIII can be activated non-proteolytically by the presence of elevated Ca²⁺ levels (2-100 mM) or proteolytically by thrombin-cleavage of the Activation Peptide along with low mM Ca²⁺. The studies herein utilized fluorescence to examine how monovalent and divalent ions influence the transglutaminase activity and conformation of FXIII. Monodansylcadaverine assays revealed that increasing ionic radius (Cs⁺ > K⁺ > Na⁺ > Li⁺) and increasing ionic strength (XCl^- levels and SO₄^2- > Cl^-) elevated FXIII-A transglutaminase activity. Intrinsic …

Cross-Validation For Autoregressive Models., Christina Han

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

There are no set rules for choosing the lag order for autoregressive (AR) time series models. Currently, the most common methods employ AIC or BIC. However, AIC has been proven to be inconsistent and BIC is inefficient. Racine proposed an estimator based on Shao's work which he hypothesized would also be consistent, but left the proof as an open problem. We will show his claim does not follow immediately from Shao. However, Shao offered another consistent method for cross validation of linear models called APCV, and we will show that AR models satisfy Shao's conditions. Thus, APCV is a consistent …

Time-Dependent Photoionization Modeling Of Warm Absorbers In Active Galactic Nuclei, Dev Raj Sadaula

Dissertations

Warm absorber spectra are bound-bound and bound-free absorption features, seen in the X-ray and UV spectra from many active galactic nuclei (AGN). The widths and centroid energies of these features indicate they occur in outflowing gas moving with hundreds to thousands of km/s. Depending upon the energy and momentum of the outflow, it can affect the gas within the host galaxy. Thus, warm absorbers’ mass and energy budgets are of great interest. Estimates for these properties depend on models that connect the absorption features' observed strengths with the density, composition, and ionization state of the absorbing gas. Such models assume …

Studying The Synthesis Of 196Hg At Astrophysically Relevant Energies Through The Measurement Of Capture Reaction Cross-Sections Of (P, Γ) (P, N) And (P, Α) Reactions, Khushi Bhatt

Dissertations

Understanding the origin of all the chemical elements is an important question for the nuclear-astrophysics community. There are many unanswered questions like: What astrophysical events are responsible for the synthesis of what particular chemical elements? How many different elements were made in total? What is the abundance of each synthesized element? etc. Currently, scientists are largely depending upon theory and simulations to define nuclear and astrophysical reaction. This makes it critical to have accurate experimental nuclear physics data to input in astrophysical theoretical models. However, out of more than 20000 reactions involved in these calculations, only a very few are …

Probing The Equation Of State Of Neutron Stars With Heavy Ion Collisions, Om Bhadra Khanal

Dissertations

The equation of state (EOS) is a fundamental property of nuclear matter, important for studying the structure of systems as diverse as the atomic nucleus and the neutron star. Nuclear reactions, especially heavy-ion collisions in the laboratories, can produce the nuclear matter similar to those contained in neutron stars. The density and the momentum dependence of the EOS of asymmetric nuclear matter, especially the symmetry energy term, is widely unconstrained. Finding appropriate constrains, especially at higher densities of the nuclear matter, requires the development of new devices, new experimental measurements as well as advances in theoretical understanding of nuclear collisions …

Community Structure Analysis Of Turtles With Application To The Early Pliocene Gray Fossil Site, Julian Conley

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Turtles are important components of ecosystems around the world, with diverse ecological niches and adaptations. However, there are few detailed studies of how turtle community structure reflects local environments. This project applied techniques of community structure analysis to sites across the United States to infer past ecosystem and environmental conditions of the early Pliocene Gray Fossil Site (GFS) in northeastern Tennessee based on the ancient turtle community. Results indicate extant turtle community structure closely reflects environmental conditions, and that ancient turtle communities can be used to infer climate and habitat conditions of past ecosystems. Application to the GFS turtle community …

A New Sir Model With Mobility., Ciana Applegate

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, a mobility-based SIR model is built to understand the spread of the pandemic. A traditional SIR model used in epidemiology describes the transition of particles among states, such as susceptible, infected, and recovered states. However, the traditional model has no movement of particles. There are many variations of SIR models when it comes to the factor of mobility, the majority of studies use mobility intensity or population density as a measure of mobility. In this paper, a new dynamical SIR model, including the spatial motion of three-type particles, is constructed and the long-time behavior of the first …

Enhancement Of Energy Efficiency For Thermal Energy And Biomass Driven Applications, Osama Mansour Selim Elsayed

Theses and Dissertations

The importance of gas turbine blades is to convert the thermal energy into shaft work output, which makes the turbine blades are one of the critical components of the gas turbines. Besides the mechanical stresses caused by the centrifugal force and the fluid forces, the thermal stresses arise because of the temperature gradient within the blade materials. This paper aims to have a uniform circumferential temperature field at the combustor exit, consequently reducing the thermal stresses caused by the non-uniform temperature distribution along the turbine blade. The validation of the simulation results with the experiments showed an acceptable agreement with …

A Faunal Composition Of The Late Cretaceous Blue Springs Site In Northeastern Mississippi And Evidence For Potential Paleoenvironmental Differences Between Beds, Ginger Trochesset

Honors Theses

The Maastrichtian-age Blue Springs locality of the Coon Creek Member of the Ripley Formation is known for abundant, well-preserved marine fossils, including many genera of microfossils, bivalves, gastropods, decapods, cephalopods, actinopterygians, and other vertebrate organisms. This research contributes to the understanding of the paleontology of the site, as well as the changing paleoenvironmental conditions of the beds throughout deposition.

This project analyzed bulk material collected in 2021 from three fossiliferous beds at Blue Springs: the Lower Corbula Bed (Bed C), the Pebble Bed (Bed G), and the Exogyra-Pycnodonte Bed (Bed J). Unconsolidated material from Beds C and J was processed …

Faunal Comparison And Analysis Of The Blufftown Formation-Cusseta Sand Contact At Hannahatchee Creek, Georgia, Seth Fradella

Honors Theses

The origin of fossil material in the highly fossiliferous bed above the Upper Cretaceous (Campanian) Blufftown Formation-Cusseta Sand contact at Hannahatchee Creek, Georgia, has long been a subject of scientific curiosity; however, no research has yet been conducted to specifically investigate discrepancies between the fossil assemblages of the upper Blufftown Formation and the basal Cusseta Sand, which overlies it unconformably. In the most recent published hypothesis, Case and Schwimmer (1988) propose that the basal Cusseta Sand contains a mixture of original fauna as well as material reworked and redeposited from the underlying Blufftown Formation, resulting in a lag deposit above …

The Characterization Of Dynamic Soil Properties And Their Relation To Soil Organic Carbon In East Tennessee Soils, Shannon Marissa Newell

Masters Theses

Quantifying how dynamic soil properties (DSPs) are affected by different management regimes is essential for understanding how these vital resources can be better managed. The Dewey soil series is a critical soil series in East Tennessee. For this study, the University of Tennessee, Knoxville (UTK) worked alongside the National Cooperative Soil Survey (NCSS) in an effort to better understand the dynamics of the Dewey soil series through a wide range of DSP data. To accomplish this, Dewey soil was collected from five sites which are considered representative of five management regimes: well-managed cropland (WMC), poorly-managed cropland (PMC), well-managed pasture (WMP), …

Multi-Method Investigation Of Factors Influencing Amyloid Onset And Impairment In Three Cohorts, Tobey J. Betthauser, Murat Bilgel, Rebecca L. Koscik, Bruno Jedynak, Yang An, Kristina A. Kellett, Abhay Moghekar, Erin M. Jonaitis, Charles K. Stone, Multiple Additional Authors

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Alzheimer’s disease biomarkers are becoming increasingly important for characterizing the longitudinal course of disease, predicting the timing of clinical and cognitive symptoms, and for recruitment and treatment monitoring in clinical trials. In this work, we develop and evaluate three methods for modelling the longitudinal course of amyloid accumulation in three cohorts using amyloid PET imaging. We then use these novel approaches to investigate factors that influence the timing of amyloid onset and the timing from amyloid onset to impairment onset in the Alzheimer’s disease continuum.

Data were acquired from the Alzheimer’s Disease Neuroimaging Initiative (ADNI), the Baltimore Longitudinal Study of …

Equilibria: Sustainability And Eco-Awareness In Music Production, Ashley A. Kahl-Placek

University Honors Theses

Cross-disciplinary exploration between science and the arts is one tool to help solve some of the biggest issues facing humans. Climate change and loss of biodiversity can be represented via sound art and contemporary music composition. Wholistic eco-awareness and sustainability are possible when projects are based in unique species-inspired soundscapes, the cultivation of targeted, action-inspiring lyricism, and a sustainable navigation of the marketing and distribution pathways of the music industry. From the fall of 2021 to summer of 2022, field recordings of unique ecosystems were collected and combined with songwriting rooted in a love and hope for the future of …

A Typology For Characterizing Human Action In Multisector Dynamics Models, Kendra Kaiser

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The role of individual and collective human action is increasingly recognized as a prominent and arguably paramount determinant in shaping the behavior, trajectory, and vulnerability of multisector systems. This human influence operates at multiple scales: from short-term (hourly to daily) to long-term (annually to centennial) timescales, and from the local to the global, pushing systems toward either desirable or undesirable outcomes. However, the effort to represent human systems in multisector models has been fragmented across philosophical, methodological, and disciplinary lines. To cohere insights across diverse modeling approaches, we present a new typology for classifying how human actors are represented in …

Standardized Neon Organismal Data For Biodiversity Research, Daijiang Li, Sydne Record, Eric R. Sokol, Matthew E. Bitters, Melissa Y. Chen, Ruvi Jaimes, Matthew R. Helmus, Lara Jansen, Marta A. Jarzyna, Multiple Additional Authors

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Understanding patterns and drivers of species distribution and abundance, and thus biodiversity, is a core goal of ecology. Despite advances in recent decades, research into these patterns and processes is currently limited by a lack of standardized, high-quality, empirical data that span large spatial scales and long time periods. The NEON fills this gap by providing freely available observational data that are generated during robust and consistent organismal sampling of several sentinel taxonomic groups within 81 sites distributed across the United States and will be collected for at least 30 years. The breadth and scope of these data provide a …

Sar Study Of Niclosamide Derivatives In The Human Glioblastoma U-87 Mg Cells, Shizue Mito, Benxu Cheng, Benjamin A. Garcia, Daniela Gonzalez, Xin Yee Ooi, Tess C. Ruiz, Francisco Xavier Elisarraras, Andrew Tsin, Sue Anne Chew, Marco A. Arriaga

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Glioblastoma is a lethal malignant brain tumor, and the development of efficient chemotherapeutic agents remains an urgent need. Niclosamide, an anthelmintic drug, which has been used to treat tapeworm infections more than 50 years, has recently attracted renewed attention due to its evident anticancer activities. It has been shown that niclosamide induces cytotoxicity in human glioblastoma U-87 MG cells corresponding with increased protein ubiquitination, ER stress, and autophagy. Furthermore, niclosamide showed down regulation of multiple pro-survival signaling pathways including Wnt/β-catenin, PI3K/AKT, MAPK/ERK, and STAT3, which further caused reduction of U87-MG cell viability. However, the molecular mechanisms of niclosimide and its …

Using Coherence And Interference To Study The Few Body Dynamics In Simple Atomic Collisions Systems, Sujan Bastola

Doctoral Dissertations

"Atomic Collision experiments are best suited to sensitively test the few-body dynamics of simple systems. The few-body dynamics, in turn, can be sensitively affected by interference effects. However, an important requirement to observe interference effects in atomic scattering experiments is that the incoming projectile beam must be coherent. The coherence properties of the incoming projectile can be controlled by the geometry of the collimating slit placed before the target. We performed a kinematically complete experiment where a 75 keV proton beam is crossed with a molecular hydrogen beam to study the dissociative capture process. The motivation for this project was …

Investigations Of The Potential For Irrigated Agriculture On The Bonaparte Plains: Hydrogeology, Aquifer Properties And Groundwater Chemistry, Don Bennett, Paul Raper, Robert Paul, Tim Pope, Richard J. George Dr

Resource management technical reports

‘Cockatoo Sands’ is a common name for the Cockatoo Sands family of soils (comprising red to yellowish-red sands, sandy earths, and loamy earths) that have formed from quartz sandstone colluviums in relatively isolated patches throughout the East Kimberley region of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. Cockatoo Sands are recognised as potentially suitable for irrigated agriculture because they are generally well drained and not subject to waterlogging or inundation. These characteristics allow them to be cultivated and prepared for planting various crops during the wet and dry seasons of northern Australia.

Expanding agricultural production onto the Cockatoo Sands around Kununurra …

Protein-Protein Interaction Prediction From Language Of Biological Coding, Nayan Howladar

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Protein-protein interactions in a cell are essential to the characterization and performance of various fundamental biological processes. Due to the tedious, resource-expensive, and time-consuming experimental processes, computational techniques to solve protein pair interaction difficulties have emerged as an active research area in bioinformatics. This research seeks to develop an innovative machine learning-based technique that predicts the interaction of a protein pair based on carefully selected input features and exploits information-rich evolutionary information. We developed a protein-protein interaction predictor, PPILS, that leverages the evolutionary knowledge from the protein language model. We examined several distinct neural network architectures: CNN+LSTM, Transformer, Encoder-Decoder, and …

Parallel Algorithms For Scalable Graph Mining: Applications On Big Data And Machine Learning, Naw Safrin Sattar

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Parallel computing plays a crucial role in processing large-scale graph data. Complex network analysis is an exciting area of research for many applications in different scientific domains e.g., sociology, biology, online media, recommendation systems and many more. Graph mining is an area of interest with diverse problems from different domains of our daily life. Due to the advancement of data and computing technologies, graph data is growing at an enormous rate, for example, the number of links in social networks is growing every millisecond. Machine/Deep learning plays a significant role for technological accomplishments to work with big data in modern …

Synthesis, Derivatives, And Applications Of Structured Nanomaterials, Md Shahidul Islam Khan

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Nanomaterials offer abundant applications not accessible in regular bulk structures. A nanotubular structure (nanoscroll or nanotube) is a 1D architecture with distinct properties varying from that of the parent material. The new structure for example provides more surface area and presents more active sites on the structure exterior, interior, or edges. In this research, different nanotubular materials were targeted including nanopeapods (NPPs), nanoscrolls (NScs), and their various derivatives.

Halloysite nanotubes (HNT) were used as pod materials to grow noble metal NPs in their lumen. The synthesis was done rapidly, within 2 minutes at 55 ^⸰C. This allows the growth …

Ocean Wave Prediction And Characterization For Intelligent Maritime Transportation, Pujan Pokhrel

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The national Earth System Prediction (ESPC) initiative aims to develop the predictions
for the next generation predictions of atmosphere, ocean, and sea-ice interactions in the scale of days to decades. This dissertation seeks to demonstrate the methods we can use to improve the ESPC models, especially the ocean prediction model. In the application side of the weather forecasts, this dissertation explores imitation learning with constraints to solve combinatorial optimization problems, focusing on the weather routing of surface vessels. Prediction of ocean waves is essential for various purposes, including vessel routing, ocean energy harvesting, agriculture, etc. Since the machine learning approaches …

Veratrum Parviflorum: An Underexplored Source For Bioactive Steroidal Alkaloids, Jared T. Seale, Owen M. Mcdougal

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Plants of the Veratrum genus have been used throughout history for their emetic properties, rheumatism, and for the treatment of high blood pressure. However, inadvertent consumption of these plants, which resemble wild ramps, induces life-threatening side effects attributable to an abundance of steroidal alkaloids. Several of the steroidal alkaloids from Veratrum spp. have been investigated for their ability to antagonize the Hedgehog (Hh) signaling pathway, a key pathway for embryonic development and cell proliferation. Uncontrolled activation of this pathway is linked to the development of various cancers; most notably, basal cell carcinoma and acute myeloid leukemia. Additional investigation of Veratrum …

Defining The Current Distribution Of The Imperiled Black-Spotted Newt Across South Texas, Usa, Padraic S. Robinson, Drew R. Davis, Sean M. Collins, Richard Kline

School of Earth, Environmental, and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Black-spotted Newt (Notophthalmus meridionalis) is a chronically understudied salamander species, with many aspects of its natural history, ecology, and distribution poorly known. Previous studies using traditional methodologies have had limited success documenting N. meridionalis on the landscape, detecting individuals at 6% (7 of 114) and 1% (2 of 221) of sites surveyed. A novel environmental DNA (eDNA) assay was designed and implemented with the goals of assessing the current distribution of N. meridionalis across south Texas, USA, and better understanding the conditions for positive eDNA detections. We conducted eDNA sampling and traditional surveys at 80 sites throughout …

The Role Of Fracture Branching In The Evolution Of Fracture Networks: An Outcrop Study Of The Jurassic Navajo Sandstone, Southern Utah, Benjamin E. Surpless, Caroline Mckeighan

Geosciences Faculty Research

Fractures strongly influence the permeability of geologic formations, and because most fractures in the subsurface are below the resolution of geophysical methods, predicting the spatial evolution of fracture networks is important for groundwater resources, oil and gas production, and geothermal energy. Previous researchers have established that variations in lithologic mechanical properties influence the propagation of joints and fractures in layered rocks under stable stress conditions, but few studies have addressed how instabilities in local stress fields, in conjunction with variations in rock mechanical properties, lead to fracture branching.

We investigate NE-striking fractures in the footwall of the west-dipping Sevier fault …

On Continuity Of Multiplication In The Fundamental Group, Eric Steadman

Theses and Dissertations

For a topological space X, the fundamental group can be topologized as a quotient of the path space with the compact-open topology. For one-dimensional or planar Peano continua, the fundamental group with this topology is a topological group if and only if it is semilocally simply connected. In particular, we demonstrate that the group operation is not continuous in this setting.