Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Mother-Mathematician Meets The Covid-19 Era, Bonnie Jacob

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Just ask the family cat: we are not all in this together, and never were. In this piece, I describe my journey as a mother and mathematician in the United States during the COVID-19 pandemic. Even though I am one of the lucky ones, we could do so much better.

Teiresias, Proportions, And Sexual Pleasure, Spyros Missiakoulis

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this short article, I claim that Teiresias, the blind prophet of Apollo, in order to answer the question of whether “in sexual intercourse the woman had a larger share of pleasure than the man did”, measured the abstract concept of sexual pleasure and acted as a present-day scholar. With the help of numerical, not geometrical, proportions, he ended up with the conclusion “a man enjoyed one-tenth of the pleasure and a woman nine-tenths”.

Happiness In Mathematics Education: The Experiences Of Preservice Elementary Teachers, Jeffrey Pair, Kent Dinh

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this paper, we discuss preservice elementary teachers (PSTs) self-report of their happiness or unhappiness. Several times throughout a mathematics content capstone course, PSTs responded to prompts in which they described times from their past schooling experiences or during the course in which they experienced happiness or unhappiness in learning mathematics. Through thematic analysis, we examined their common experiences related to happiness and their mathematics learning. We found that PSTs’ happiness is related to expectations of themselves, their teachers, their peers, and mathematics itself. The study illuminates PST beliefs about mathematics teaching, collaborative group work, and the nature of mathematical …

Middle School Students Generating Mathematical Problems From A Real-Life Situation, David Coffland, Ying Xie

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this study, we examined the effect of different presentation formats of a realistic situation on students’ mathematical problem-posing behavior. We divided thirty-six middle school students into two groups, gave them a pretest, and then showed them a realistic, problem-posing situation in Artifact or Video format. We used Silver’s core dimensions of creativity, namely fluency, flexibility, and originality, to measure participants’ problem-posing activity. The results for the fluency measures showed that the Artifact group wrote more questions than the Video group but the same number of mathematics problems. The Video group posed problems in more mathematical domains than the Artifact …

Makers Do Math! Legitimizing Informal Mathematical Practices Within Making Contexts, Amber Simpson, Signe Kastberg

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this paper, we argue that making activities within non-formal learning environments (e.g., museums, libraries) provide opportunities to engage youth in what we define as mathematical practices for making, everyday mathematical practices within the context of making activities. The mathematical practices identified from two non-formal school-based contexts highlighted three mathematical practices for making: informal measurement, spatial reasoning, and curiosity. These practices are identified in prior scholarship as being beneficial and foundational for the understanding of mathematical concepts. As educators and researchers turn to non-formal and informal contexts, with an eye toward understanding ways youth engage in the activity of making, …

Plane Figurate Number Proofs Without Words Explained With Pattern Blocks, Gunhan Caglayan

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This article focuses on an artistic interpretation of pattern block designs with primary focus on the connection between pattern blocks and plane figurate numbers. Through this interpretation, it tells the story behind a handful of proofs without words (PWWs) that are inspired by such pattern block designs.

Intersection Cographs And Aesthetics, Robert Haas

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Cographs are complete graphs with colored lines (edges); in an intersection cograph, the points (vertices) and lines (edges) are labeled by sets, and the line between each pair of points is (or represents) their intersection. This article first presents the elementary theory of intersection cographs: 15 are possible on 4 points; constraints on the triangles and quadrilaterals; some forbidden configurations; and how, under suitable constraints, to generate the points from the lines alone. The mathematical theory is then applied to aesthetics, using set cographs to describe the experience of a person enjoying a picture (Mu Qi), poem (Dickinson), play (Shakespeare), …

Seeing Mathematics And Seeing Mathematicians, Mark Huber, Gizem Karaali

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Front Matter

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Machine Learning-Based Soft Computing Regression Analysis Approach For Crime Data Prediction, Rabia Musheer Aziz, Aftab Hussain, Prajwal Sharma, Pavan Kumar

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

The crime rate in India is considerably increasing day by day. Consequently, the data associated with crime is also increasing, opening doors for data-driven approaches to these data to extract insightful knowledge, which can help police and other law enforcement organizations of the country in crime control and prevention. Crime prediction using machine learning algorithms on crime data can predict region-wise crime counts. In this paper, a machine learning-based soft computing regression analysis approach for Indian Crime Data Analysis (ICDA) is proposed. Different regression algorithms, namely, Simple Linear Regression (SLR), Multiple Linear Regression (MLR), Decision Tree Regression (DTR), Support Vector …

The Effect Of Marine Snow Particle Distribution On The Foraging Behavior Of Calanus Pacificus, Elena Beckhaus

Theses

Marine snow is a major component of the biological pump, through which carbon is exported to the deep ocean. The sinking of marine snow can be disrupted by organisms, including many species of zooplankton that ingest or break up aggregates. These processes can have important impacts on planktonic food web dynamics and carbon export. Marine snow can have vertically patchy distributions, occurring in thin layers, which may further affect interactions with zooplankton. In this lab-based study, we examined how the presence of a marine snow layer affects copepod behavior and ingestion.

We conducted a series of experiments in which copepods …

Dominance Of Diffusive Methane Emissions From Lowland Headwater Streams Promotes Oxidation And Isotopic Enrichment, Andrew L. Robison, Wilfred M. Wollheim, Clarice R. Perryman, Annie R. Cotter, Jessica E. Mackay, Ruth K. Varner, Paige Clarizia, Jessica G. Ernakovich

Faculty Publications

Inland waters are the largest natural source of methane (CH4) to the atmosphere, yet the contribution from small streams to this flux is not clearly defined. To fully understand CH4 emissions from streams and rivers, we must consider the relative importance of CH4 emission pathways, the prominence of microbially-mediated production and oxidation of CH4, and the isotopic signature of emitted CH4. Here, we construct a complete CH4 emission budgets for four lowland headwater streams by quantifying diffusive CH4 emissions and comparing them to previously published rates of ebullitive emissions. We also examine the isotopic composition of CH4 along with the …

Snow Cover Variability And Trend Over The Hindu Kush Himalayan Region Using Modis And Srtm Data, Nirasindhu Desinayak, Anup K. Prasad, Hesham El-Askary, Menas Kafatos, Ghassem R. Asrar

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

Snow cover changes have a direct bearing on the regional and global energy and water cycles and the change in the Earth's climate conditions. We studied the relatively long-term (2000–2017) altitudinal spatiotemporal changes in the coverage of snow and glaciers in one of the world's largest mountainous regions, the Hindu Kush Himalayan (HKH) region, including Tibet, using remote sensing data (5 km grid resolution) from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board the Terra satellite. This dataset provided a unique opportunity to study zonal and hypsographic changes in the intra-annual (accumulating season and melting season) and interannual variations in …

Atomistic Simulation Of Na+ And Cl- Ions Binding Mechanisms To Tobermorite 14Å As A Model For Alkali Activated Cements, Ahmed Abdelkawy

Theses and Dissertations

The production of ordinary Portland cement (OPC) is responsible for ~8% of all man-made CO2 emissions. Unfortunately, due to the continuous increase in the number of construction projects, and since virtually all projects depend on hardened cement from the hydration of OPC as the main binding material, the production of OPC is not expected to decrease. Alkali-activated cement produced from the alkaline activation of byproducts of industries, such as iron and coal industries, or processed clays represents a potential substitute for OPC. However, the interaction of the reaction products of AAC with corrosive ions from the environment, such as Cl-, …

Design And Fabrication Of Nanostructured Electrodes For Complementary Electrochemical And Photoelectrochemical Water Splitting, Kholoud El Sayed Abousalem

Theses and Dissertations

Designing highly active, durable, and nonprecious electrodes for overall water splitting is of urgent scientific importance to realize sustainable hydrogen production. Accordingly, the need to search efficient energy production systems is of crucial necessity. In this thesis, two various systems for sustainable hydrogen production have been reported using electrochemical and photoelectrochemical pathways. In the first part of the thesis, electrochemical water splitting involving both hydrogen evolution reaction (HER) and oxygen evolution reaction (OER) has been established. To this end, an innovative approach is demonstrated to synthesize flower-like 3D homogenous trimetallic Mn, Ni, Co phosphide catalysts directly on nickel foam via …

Identifying Available Resources And Agricultural Practices Useful In Soil Fertility Management To Support Orange-Fleshed Sweet Potato Cultivation On Smallholder Farms In Mozambique, Rafaela Feola Conz, Engil Isadora Pujol Pereira, Abdul Naico, Maria Isabel Andrade, Johan Six

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

Orange-fleshed sweet potato is an important source of macro-and micronutrients for humans, particularly in resource-poor rural communities. However, sweet potato cultivation removes large amounts of nutrients from the soil. Hence, soil fertility replenishment is vital to secure long-term food production. The lack of access to fertilizers hinders the ability of farmers to supply and replenish soil nutrients, intensifying food insecurity. This study aimed at identifying locally available organic residues and agricultural practices with potential application in soil fertility management to prevent soil degradation in southern Mozambique. We conducted a survey to gather information on the farmers’ demographics and farming systems …

Transition Metal Phosphides For High Performance Electrochemical Energy Storage Devices, Amina Saleh

Theses and Dissertations

Electrochemical energy storage technologies are nowadays playing a leading role in the global effort to address the energy challenges. A lot of attention has been devoted to designing hybrid devices known as supercapatteries which combine the merits of supercapacitors (high power density) and rechargeable batteries (high energy density). Transition metal phosphides (TMP) are a rising star for supercapattery anode materials thanks to their high conductivity, metalloid characteristics, and kinetic favorability for fast electron transport. Herein, new TMP-based materials were synthesized for use as supercapattery positive electrodes, via a multifaceted approach to yield devices enjoying concurrently high power and energy densities. …

The Reduced Order Method For Solving The Linear Complementarity Problem With An M-Matrix, Xi-Ming Fang, Heng-Jun Zhao, Zhijun Qiao

School of Mathematical and Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this paper, by seeking the zero and the positive entry positions of the solution, we provide a direct method, called the reduced order method, for solving the linear complementarity problem with an M-matrix. By this method, the linear complementarity problem is transformed into a low order linear complementarity problem with some low order linear equations and the solution is constructed by the solution of the low order linear complementarity problem and the solutions of these low order linear equations in the transformations. In order to show the accuracy and the effectiveness of the method, the corresponding numerical experiments …

Real-World Applications For Virtual Fences – What Are Potential Benefits For Conservation?, F. Riesch, M. Komainda, J. Horn, J. Isselstein

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Livestock grazing can enhance biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. In many parts of Europe, however, grazing has lost its importance, especially in the dairy sector. Large proportions of permanent grassland have been converted to arable land or intensified by fertilization and frequent defoliation. The disappearance of large herbivores and extensively grazed pastures contributes to the loss of structural, functional and biological diversity and ecosystem services. Modern technologies, which circumvent the cost- and labour-intensive installation of physical fences, could facilitate a precise spatio-temporal management of livestock and promote grazing. We reviewed the literature on the state-of-the-art of virtual fencing, …

Sahiwal Breed In Pastoral Production Systems In Kenya: Future Roles And Existing Gaps In Knowledge And Supportive Technical Logistics; A Review, Samson I. Mwangi, E. D. Ilatsia

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Sahiwal genetic resources is an integral part of the ASALs economy of Kenya. Sahiwal is the largest single dual purpose cattle breed kept by the pastoral communities in the ASALs where livestock products are the main drivers of food and nutrition security, and a source of income to support other household obligations. It was introduced in Kenya to upgrade the low performing small east African Zebu because of its superior productive and reproductive performance. The promising results of this upgrading programme led to the breed gaining preference over the local Zebu among the Maasai pastoralists. Despite the impressive results from …

Potential Of Croton Megalocarpus Nut As An Alternative Protein Supplement For Feeding Of Ruminants In The Tropics, E. K. Njoroge, C. C. Wambui, C. B. Wasike

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Croton megalocarous is a tree native to the arid and semi-arid rangelands of East Africa that produces nuts reported to contain high crude protein (CP). However, they are often neglected as a potential feed due to lack of information on how best to utilize them. This study was conducted to evaluate the chemical composition and in sacco dry matter (DM) degradability of four forms of croton namely whole nut (WN), peeled nut (PN), De-husked nut (DhN) and Defatted seed (DfS). DM of all forms was above 89%, ash content was highest in WN (5.9%) and least in PN (2.2%). Crude …

Polyphenol Concentration Of Native Plant Species, And Its Effect On Blood Antioxidant Capacity In Grazing Cattle In A Species-Rich Vegetation In Japan, S. Ogura, A. Tamura, H. Kakihara, T. Shishido, K. Shimoda

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

It is known that polyphenols in plants have a high antioxidant capacity. However, there is scarce information on its concentration in native plants and the effect of antioxidant capacity to grazing animals. In this study, polyphenol concentration of available plants was investigated in a species-rich grazing area in north-eastern district of Japan. In addition, polyphenol concentration in blood serum of grazing cattle was also measured. Eight beef cows grazed in a grazing area (hill pasture 3.1 ha; forest 16.9 ha) from late spring to mid-autumn (142 days), and four cows among the eight grazed at an orchardgrass pasture in mid-summer …

Metabolic Features Of Brain Function With Relevance To Clinical Features Of Alzheimer And Parkinson Diseases, David Allan Butterfield, Maria Favia, Iolanda Spera, Annalisa Campanella, Martina Lanza, Alessandra Castegna

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Brain metabolism is comprised in Alzheimer’s disease (AD) and Parkinson’s disease (PD). Since the brain primarily relies on metabolism of glucose, ketone bodies, and amino acids, aspects of these metabolic processes in these disorders—and particularly how these altered metabolic processes are related to oxidative and/or nitrosative stress and the resulting damaged targets—are reviewed in this paper. Greater understanding of the decreased functions in brain metabolism in AD and PD is posited to lead to potentially important therapeutic strategies to address both of these disorders, which cause relatively long-lasting decreased quality of life in patients.

Performance Of Lora-Wan Sensors For Precision Livestock Tracking And Biosensing Applications, S. Nyamuryekung’E, Andrés F. Cibils, R. E. Estell, M. Funk, M. M. Mcintosh, A. Cox, S. A. Utsumi, H. Cao, L. Boucheron, Q. Gong, H. Chen, S. Spiegal, G. Duff, V. Gouvea, C. B. Brandani

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

This study investigated the integration of Long Range Wide Area Network (LoRa WAN) communication technology and sensors for use as Internet of Things (IoT) platform for Precision Livestock-Farming (PLF) applications. The research was conducted at New Mexico State University’s Clayton Livestock Research Centre. The functionality of LoRA WAN communication technology and performance of LoRa WAN motion and GPS sensors were tested using static sensors that were placed either, a) outdoors and at incremental distances from the LoRa WAN gateway antenna (Field, n=6), or b) housed indoors and close to the same LoRa WAN gateway antenna (Indoor, n=5). Accelerometer data, reported …

Pasture Management Relevant Behaviour Of Yaks (Bosgrunniens), O. Kaufmann, A. Tolebekova

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

After a decline in yak populations in Central Asia, efforts have been made for several years to rebuild them. In that context, the ecological demands of the alpine landscape must be taken into account. The aim of the studies was to analyse the behaviour of yak cows in short time intervals and to deduce which sub-areas the yaks prefer more or less strongly, which altitudes in the mountains the animals visit in the course of a year, which distances they cover in summer and winter and which factors influence their grazing behaviour. The investigations were carried out on yaks in …

New Forms Of Pastoral Mobility Among Sheep Herders In The Algerian Steppe; The Case Of Pastoralists Of Djelfa, Dihia Gaci, Jean-Pierre Boutonnet

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

The recent socio-economic, political and climatic changes experienced by the Algerian steppe for the last decades have led to profound changes in pastoral mobility practices. This study describes the new mobility practices as currently adopted by the breeders of the Djelfa region. The realization of 59 semi-directive surveys was conducted between 2014 and 2016 among breeders in different reception areas. Practices related to the distance travelled during an annual cycle, the transhumance calendar and itinerary and the passage or not in the homeland are diverse. These practices of mobility can vary from one year to another or during the life …

Herbage And Livestock Responses For N-Fertilized And Grass-Legume Grazing Systems, D. M. Jaramillo, José C. B. Dubeux Jr., L. M. D. Queiroz, L. Garcia, E. R. S. Santos

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

Forage legumes provide an alternative N source in grazing systems. The objective was to evaluate plant and animal responses in N-fertilized or grass-legume-based systems under continuous stocking during winter and summer, from 2016-2019. The three treatments consisted of year-round forage systems including winter and summer forage components. The first system (Grass+N) included N-fertilized (112 kg N ha^-1 yr^-1) ‘Argentine’ bahiagrass (Paspalum notatum) pastures during the summer, overseeded with a mixture (56 kg ha^-1 of each) of ‘FL 401’ cereal rye (Secale cereale) and ‘RAM’ oat (Avena sativa) during winter with …

Adarl: What, Where, And How To Adapt In Transfer Reinforcement Learning, Biwei Huang, Fan Feng, Chaochao Lu, Sara Magliacane, Kun Zhang

Machine Learning Faculty Publications

One practical challenge in reinforcement learning (RL) is how to make quick adaptations when faced with new environments. In this paper, we propose a principled framework for adaptive RL, called AdaRL, that adapts reliably and efficiently to changes across domains with a few samples from the target domain, even in partially observable environments. Specifically, we leverage a parsimonious graphical representation that characterizes structural relationships over variables in the RL system. Such graphical representations provide a compact way to encode what and where the changes across domains are, and furthermore inform us with a minimal set of changes that one has …

Learning Temporally Causal Latent Processes From General Temporal Data, Weiran Yao, Yuewen Sun, Alex Ho, Changyin Sun, Kun Zhang

Machine Learning Faculty Publications

Our goal is to recover time-delayed latent causal variables and identify their relations from measured temporal data. Estimating causally-related latent variables from observations is particularly challenging as the latent variables are not uniquely recoverable in the most general case. In this work, we consider both a nonparametric, nonstationary setting and a parametric setting for the latent processes and propose two provable conditions under which temporally causal latent processes can be identified from their nonlinear mixtures. We propose LEAP, a theoretically-grounded framework that extends Variational AutoEncoders (VAEs) by enforcing our conditions through proper constraints in causal process prior. Experimental results on …

Conditional Contrastive Learning With Kernel, Yao Hung Hubert Tsai, Tianqin Li, Martin Q. Ma, Han Zhao, Kun Zhang, Louis Philippe Morency, Ruslan Salakhutdinov

Machine Learning Faculty Publications

Conditional contrastive learning frameworks consider the conditional sampling procedure that constructs positive or negative data pairs conditioned on specific variables. Fair contrastive learning constructs negative pairs, for example, from the same gender (conditioning on sensitive information), which in turn reduces undesirable information from the learned representations; weakly supervised contrastive learning constructs positive pairs with similar annotative attributes (conditioning on auxiliary information), which in turn are incorporated into the representations. Although conditional contrastive learning enables many applications, the conditional sampling procedure can be challenging if we cannot obtain sufficient data pairs for some values of the conditioning variable. This paper presents …