Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Application Of Biological Processes To Increase Energy Potential In Landfills, Ashlyn Eisenhart

Chemistry & Biochemistry Student Projects

There has been a dramatic increase in the amount of waste that we humans have created. This has been due to population growth, an increase in industrial manufacturing, along with urbanization and modernization.⁸ The number of tons of municipal solid waste entering landfills has increased from 82.5 million tons in 1960 to 146.1 million tons in 2018.¹⁷ However, thanks to recycling, composting, and energy recovery from combustion, the percentage of solid waste going to landfills has dramatically decreased, from around 93.6 to about 65.4 percent.¹⁷

Chemistry Of Toothpaste, Kayla Blanche Kirtley

Chemistry & Biochemistry Student Projects

The chemistry of toothpaste is explained, with a description of the chemical components and their mode of action in the role of toothpaste.

Unsupervised Automatic Speech Recognition: A Review, Hanan Aldarmaki, Asad Ullah, Sreepratha Ram, Nazar Zaki

Natural Language Processing Faculty Publications

Automatic Speech Recognition (ASR) systems can be trained to achieve remarkable performance given large amounts of manually transcribed speech, but large labeled data sets can be difficult or expensive to acquire for all languages of interest. In this paper, we review the research literature to identify models and ideas that could lead to fully unsupervised ASR, including unsupervised sub-word and word modeling, unsupervised segmentation of the speech signal, and unsupervised mapping from speech segments to text. The objective of the study is to identify the limitations of what can be learned from speech data alone and to understand the minimum …

Clostridioides Difficile Spore Production In Response To Antibiotic And Immune Stress, Adenrele Oludiran, Erin B. Purcell

College of Sciences Posters

Clostridioides (Clostridium) difficile, an anaerobic, spore-forming Gram-positive pathogenic bacterium, is a major cause of hospital-acquired infections and can persist as surface-attached biofilms for protection from antibiotic and immune stress. C. difficile can form biofilms as a single species or with other anaerobic intestinal bacteria. The environmental signals that cause individual cells to secrete toxins, form biofilms, or develop into spores that can spread the infection to new patients are unknown. In these studies, we investigate bacterial responses to different stress. Antimicrobial host-defense peptides (HDPs) produced by animal immune systems are promising candidates to develop novel therapies for bacterial infection …

Adsorption-Based Atmospheric Water Harvesting: A Review Of Adsorbents And Systems, Muhammad Bilal, Muhammad Sultan, Tatiana Morosuk, Walter Den, Uzair Sajjad, Mian Ma Aslam, Muhammad W. Shahzad, Muhammad Farooq

Water Resources Science and Technology Faculty Publications

Atmospheric water harvesting (AWH) has been an appealing prospect for decades to overcome water scarcity in remote areas. Adsorption-based AWH technologies have gained popularity due to their adaptability, and applicability using low-grade heat sources. This study presents up-to-date and future possibilities of adsorbents and systems for adsorption-based AWH. In this review, in-depth advancements in adsorbent materials are compartmentalized into adsorption equilibrium/isotherms, adsorption kinetics, and thermal conductivity. Various systems designs and modifications have been reviewed and classified accordingly. Liquid desiccants i.e., CaCl₂ and LiCl-based AWH systems produced in between 0.63 to 1.0 kg/m/d of water. Recently, metal-organic frameworks …

Institute For Global Health And Development : Issue 3 - April - June 2022, Institute For Global Health And Development

IGHD Newsletter

• Research Highlights
• Reflections from IGHD’s Associate Faculty
• Key Publications
• Webinars and Dialogues
• Celebration
• Collaborate With U

In Situ Recording Of Mars Soundscape, S. Maurice, B. Chide, N. Murdoch, R. D. Lorenz, D. Mimoun, R. C. Wiens, A. Stott, X. Jacob, T. Bertrand, F. Montmessin, N. L. Lanza, C. Alvarez-Llamas, Stanley M. Angel, M. Aung, J. Balaram, O. Beyssac, A. Cousin, G. Delory, O. Forni, T. Fouchet, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

Before the Perseverance rover landing, the acoustic environment of Mars was unknown. Models predicted that: (1) atmospheric turbulence changes at centimetre scales or smaller at the point where molecular viscosity converts kinetic energy into heat1, (2) the speed of sound varies at the surface with frequency^2,3 and (3) high-frequency waves are strongly attenuated with distance in CO₂ (refs.^2,3,4). However, theoretical models were uncertain because of a lack of experimental data at low pressure and the difficulty to characterize turbulence or attenuation in a closed environment. Here, using Perseverance …

Results On Select Combinatorial Problems With An Extremal Nature, Stephen Smith

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is split into three sections, each containing new results on a particular combinatorial problem. In the first section, we consider the set of 3-connected quadrangulations on n vertices and the set of 5-connected triangulations on n vertices. In each case, we find the minimum Wiener index of any graph in the given class, and identify graphs that obtain this minimum value. Moreover, we prove that these graphs are unique up to isomorphism.

In the second section, we work with structures emerging from the biological sciences called tanglegrams. In particular, our work pertains to an invariant of tanglegrams called …

Adsorption Of Microcystins To Sediment Affects Their Bioavailability And Remediation, Ashley Womer

Theses and Dissertations

The freshwater harmful algae Microcystis spp produces a family of toxins called microcystins1. These species of algae are known to release microcystins from their cells directly into the surrounding water2. This creates an array of human health risks depending on the fate and transport of the toxins in the water column3,4. Risk modelling and previous literature has shown that sediment is a sink for free microcystin, microcystin can be stably adsorbed to sediment for hundreds of years, and its adsorption to sediment is determined by the sediment adsorption partitioning coefficient (Kd)5,6,7. In this work it is hypothesized that the sediment …

Deep Learning Based Generative Materials Design, Yong Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

Discovery of novel functional materials is playing an increasingly important role in many key industries such as lithium batteries for electric vehicles and cell phones. However experimental tinkering of existing materials or Density Functional Theory (DFT) based screening of known crystal structures, two of the major current materials design approaches, are both severely constrained by the limited scale (around 250,000 in ICSD database) and diversity of existing materials and the lack of a sufficient number of materials with annotated properties. How to generate a large number of physically feasible, stable, and synthesizable crystal materials and build accurate property prediction models …

The Existence And Quantum Approximation Of Optimal Pure State Ensembles, Ryan Thomas Mcgaha

Theses and Dissertations

In this manuscript we study entanglement measures defined via the convex roof construction. In the first chapter we build the notion of an entanglement measure from the ground up and discuss various issues that arise when trying to measure the amount of entanglement present in an arbitrary density operator. Through this introduction we will motivate the use of the convex roof construction. In the second chapter we will show that the infimum in the convex roof construction is achieved for a specific set of entanglement measures and provide canonical examples of such measures. We also describe LOCC operations via a …

Whistler Waves: Modeling And Observations, Daniel Williams

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The thesis presents the results of all the research from the published and in publication process research in the Journal of Geophysical Research [1]. This research focuses on whistler wave ducting events in the equatorial magnetosphere. High-density ducts are the main focus of whistler study in both studies as they are commonly observed by the Van Allen Probe satellites. A three-step procedure based on the analysis of the whistler wave dispersion relation and numerical simulations of the electron magnetohydrodynamics model. We use this model to identify the parallel and perpendicular wave numbers of the “most trapped” wave in an attempt …

Motivic Classes Of Degeneracy Loci And Pointed Brill-Noether Varieties, D. Anderson, Linda Chen, N. Tarasca

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Works

Motivic Chern and Hirzebruch classes are polynomials with K-theory and homology classes as coefficients, which specialize to Chern–Schwartz–MacPherson classes, K-theory classes, and Cappell–Shaneson L-classes. We provide formulas to compute the motivic Chern and Hirzebruch classes of Grassmannian and vexillary degeneracy loci. We apply our results to obtain the Hirzebruch χ_y-genus of classical and one-pointed Brill–Noether varieties, and therefore their topological Euler characteristic, holomorphic Euler characteristic, and signature.

Amphichiral Knots With Large 4-Genus, Allison N. Miller

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Works

For each we give g > 0 infinitely many knots that are strongly negative amphichiral, hence rationally slice and representing 2-torsion in the smooth concordance group, yet which do not bound any locally flatly embedded surface in the 4-ball with genus less than or equal to g. Our examples also allow us to answer a question about the four-dimensional clasp number of knots.

Genes Involved In Cell Division In Acinetobacter Baumannii Are Coregulated By Umudab And Ddrr, Belinda Candra, Xiaohong Li, Eric Rouchka, Deborah Cook, Janelle Hare

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

In the presence of DNA damage, the multi-drug resistant bacteria Acinetobacter baumannii employs the proteins UmuDAb and DdrR to repress the expression of error-prone polymerases.

Telomerase Activity Enhancement In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Mackenzie Neal, Hailey Rietz, Melissa Mefford

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Telomeres are located at the ends of eukaryotic linear chromosomes and are composed of repeated nucleotide sequences. One of their main functions is to protect chromosomal ends from being damaged. Telomeres cannot be completely copied during DNA replication so they gradually shorten during each replication cycle in what is known as the “end replication problem”. To counteract this problem, the RNA dependent enzyme complex telomerase works to extend telomeres and help protect the ends of chromosomes. Telomeres and the telomerase enzyme are heavily involved in the aging process and cancer progression. Telomeres gradually shorten with age and eventually become so …

Development Of Anti-Cancer Small Molecules To Inhibit The Base Excision Repair (Ber) Pathway By Binding Apyrimidinic/Apurinic (Ap) Sites In Dna, Ellen S. Ledford, Robert M. Tackett, Elizabeth M. Thomas

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Two of the main treatments available to patients with cancer are radiation and chemotherapy which both rely on the ability to induce DNA damage. One reason cancer deaths perpetrate is due to cancer resistance towards current cancer therapies. The Base Excision Repair (BER) pathway is involved in therapeutic resistance by utilizing DNA glycosylases that recognize and remove the damaged DNA base to leave the aldehyde. Apyrimidinic/Apurinic (AP) enzyme 1, APE1, then recognizes the aldehyde to trigger DNA repair. Alkoxyamines function to competitively covalently bind the aldehyde generated from the AP site. Once the aldehyde is covalently bonded with the alkoxyamine, …

Seasonal Abundance And Sex Ratio Of Earwigflies (Merope Tuber) In Eastern Kentucky, Abigal Fagan, Sean O'Keefe

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

The earwigfly is a rarely seen insect in the family of scorpionflies. There are three species total, one in Brazil, one in Australia, and the third (Merope tuber), widespread throughout the eastern United states. In a 1984 study, Chris Maier collected 69 earwigflies between 1977 and 1982 from New England. Most of these were collected in July using sticky traps. He collected 43 females and 26 males (sex ratio 2.4:1). In a 2014 study, Skvarla, Hartshorn, and Dowling collected 77 earwigflies from Arkansas, mostly in August using malaise traps, pan traps, Lindgren funnels, and pitfall traps. They collected 58 females …

Pressure Injuries In A Clinical Setting: A Quality Improvement Project, Colby Pugh, Kayla Blain, Chloe Patrick, Clarissa Baker, Mackenzie Hopkins, Jarrett Elam, Suzi White

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

The purpose of this quality improvement project is to develop a teaching tool aimed at decreasing the incidence rate of pressure injuries in the clinical setting specifically those in intensive care settings. Pressure injuries are a common preventable hospitalacquired complication. The occurrence of pressure injuries is higher in an ICU setting than in a non-ICU setting with 30% and 27.6% respectively during a one-year time period. The development of a teaching tool to be distributed to nurses' stations, staff workrooms, and nurse managers seeks to improve ICU staff nurses' education on the topic of pressure injures at a large urban …

What Majors Are Chosen By Undergraduate Students Leaving Accounting? A Review Of The Literature, Sarah E. Lager, Kimberly Fatten

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Undergraduate accounting retention research has focused primarily on why students choose an accounting major, but less is known about what programs students go to when they exit an accounting major.

Data Quality Analysis Of 200 Gev Center Of Mass Energy P-Au Collisions From Star, Keaghan Knight, Kevin Adkins

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

In proton collisions, fragmentation functions describe the probability that a given parton in the initial state creates a particular hadron in the final state. Understanding fragmentation is essential for a theoretical description of measured asymmetries that provide a glimpse of the proton's spin structure. Proton-gold collisions from the STAR detector at Brookhaven National Laboratory will provide a complementary result, using reconstructed jets, to the global data which comes mostly from electron-positron annihilation experiments. A first step in extracting fragmentation functions is to perform a quality analysis (QA) of the data. This poster shows a look at the data and our …

Funding Achievement In Kentucky, Brett Blair, James Masterson

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

It is no surprise that the proper education of a population ranks high on the list of important accomplishments within a society. After all, a population’s education can affect its ability to perform at a high capacity. The education of Kentucky’s children is no different. Recent years have seen large disparities in the resources available to each school in Kentucky, which could have effects on the educational output of regions in the state. Though research has been conducted on concepts such as school funding, educational quality, and education reform, this research tends to be lacking in specificity and consistency. (DeYoung, …

Quantifying Ant Populations To Measure Biodiversity In Morehead, Ky, Alyssa Turner, Jude Hall, Tayla Lee, Charles Lydeard, Sean O'Keefe

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

To effectively conduct conservation efforts, we can use biodiversity to assess the condition of our environment. Biodiversity has been commonly defined as the variety and variability among living organisms within an area. When our ecosystems are at their best, they clean water, purify air, maintain soil, regulate climate, recycle nutrients, and provide food. Everything within an ecosystem is interdependent, so biodiversity is an important factor and indicator of environmental health. Indicators help us to measure and monitor pressures or threats in land and water use, habitat loss or invasive species, the state of species and ecosystems, the conservation response, and …

Economic Feasibility Of Rainwater Harvesting:A Case Study At Morehead State University, Riley Q. Williams, Vijay Subramaniam

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Rainwater harvesting (RWH) was primarily considered as a source for freshwater supply or a conservation practice for over coming water shortages in drought prone areas. By retaining storm-water run-off for on site use, harvesting systems reduce the runoff volumes and pollutant masses entering waterways. Consequently, using roof-top RWH as a best management practice has been encouraged by many state and local governments. Some of the most interesting aspects of RWH are the methods of capture, storage, and the use of this natural resource at the place it occurs.

Combating Nursing Burnout: A Quality Improvement Project, Heather Randolph, Maddy Mcelfresh, Addie Short, Cailey Dahlquist, Jenna Bartley, Suzi White

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Nursing burnout costs the health care industry roughly 14 billion dollars a year. The COVID-19 pandemic has drastically increased burnout rates. Many nurses feel overworked and underappreciated; this has caused a negative impact as it is influencing the rates of burnout among hospital staffing globally. Over half a million registered nurses have already left their profession nationwide due to stress and workload (Bruyneel, Smith, Tack, & Pirson, 2021). Burnout has diminished staff, depleted resources, and decreased quality of care.

Predicting Cryptocurrency Price Change Direction From Supply-Side Factors Via Machine Learning Methods, David Mayo, Heba Elgazzar

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Cryptocurrency prices are highly variable. Predicting changes in cryptocurrency price is a hugely important topic to investors and researchers, with much existing research on demand-side factors. The goal of this research project is to design and implement machine learning models to predict future cryptocurrency price change direction based primarily on supply-side factors. Different unsupervised machine learning techniques are used to build the predictive models. These techniques include K Nearest Neighbors (KNN), Artificial Neural Networks (ANN), Support Vector Machines (SVM), Naïve Bayesian Classifier, and Random Forest Classifier. A dataset of 10 daily supply-side metrics for three prominent cryptocurrencies (Bitcoin, Ethereum, and …

Genes Repressed After Dna Damage In Acinetobacter Baumannii Are Co-Regulated By Umudab And Ddrr, Mollee Flannigan, Xiaohong Li, Eric Rouchka, Deborah Cook, Janeele Hare

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

UmuDAb and DdrR coregulate error-prone polymerases in the multi-drug resistant opportunistic pathogen, Acinetobacter baumannii, by repressing polymerase expression until after DNA damage. New evidence indicates that these proteins may also regulate other genes that are repressed following DNA damage. We performed an in silico analysis of RNA-Seq data from wild-type, ddrR, and umuDAb mutant strains to examine the expression levels of genes repressed after DNA damage. We used two different algorithms to analyze Cuffnorm- and HTSeq normalized gene counts. This analysis revealed nineteen (CuffDiff) or twenty-nine (DESeq2) genes repressed in wild-type cells that were derepressed after DNA damage in either …

Comfort Women: The Climax That Exposed Japanese Culture, Olivia Dale, James Masterson

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

When a nation attempts to erase the history of a marginalized group, the preservation of such narratives becomes critical. The genuine culture of a nation is exposed when that which officials attempted to hide is analyzed. The comfort women scheme conducted by the Imperial Japanese Government serves as an example of this phenomenon. The comfort women system was more than sex trafficking; it was the climax of a sexist society. Japan had a long history of organized prostitution before the Second World War, but during the conflict, the demeaning actions committed against women extended beyond the nation. The Japanese government …

Analytical Method Development For The Analysis Of E-Liquids, Calista Dean, Charlotte Gabbard, Emma Schmittzehe

2022 Celebration of Student Scholarship - Poster Presentations

Electronic cigarettes are one of the most commonly used methods of nicotine delivery, especially among the adolescent population. Due to the lack of regulation in manufacturer labeling of refillable nicotine solutions (e-liquids), the actual concentration of nicotine and other additives is variable as compared to the reported values. Misreporting of nicotine content is a contributor in the development of nicotine dependency and potentially tobacco product dependency. The objective of this research is to develop reliable analytical methods to study the variations in nicotine levels in e-liquids, and to identify and quantify other potentially harmful additives in e-liquids. In this research …

Can Women Science?: A Climate Survey To Address Gender Inequity In Wwu’S Geology And Physics/Astronomy Departments, Raina Shaw

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

This research study aims to assess and analyze gendered differences in student perceptions of the environment and climate in WWU’s Geology and Physics & Astronomy Departments. Underlying hypotheses involve the perceptions, comfort, and discrimination of women and gender minorities in male-dominated spaces. We also theorize that these gendered differences will increase with seniority and more so within physics than in geology. In addition to testing these hypotheses, we sought to collect relevant student feedback on factors that influence their perceptions of the climate & environment, to identify areas for future study and formal program assessment. From 56 respondents, this study …