Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Bias Impedes Progress In Physical Biology, Consciousness Studies And Quantum Gravity, Maurice Goodman

Articles

If scientists hope to make progress in consciousness studies they needs to accept that biased judgments have a major influence on the sciences, how we divide them up, how they are funded and this, in turn, has a profound impact on progress. The imbalance in funding, resulting from bias, in favour of the life and health sciences needs to be addressed as does why perversely little of this funding is devoted to a physics explanation of self-organisation and life on the mesoscopic scale? While life (the cell) is an outstanding example of self-organisation on the mesoscopic scale we need to …

Fluctuating Temperature Modifies Heat-Mortality Association Around The Globe, Yao Wu, Bo Wen, Shanshan Li, Antonio Gasparrini, Shilu Tong, Ala Overcenco, Aleš Urban, Alexandra Schneider, Alireza Entezari, Ana Maria Vicedo-Cabrera, Antonella Zanobetti, Antonis Analitis, Ariana Zeka, Aurelio Tobias, Barrack Alahmad, Ben Armstrong, Bertil Forsberg, Carmen Íñiguez, Caroline Ameling, César De La Cruz Valencia, Chrisofer Åström, Danny Houthuijs, Do Van Dung, Dominic Royé, Ene Indermitte, Eric Lavigne, Fatemeh Mayvaneh, Fiorella Acquaotta, Francesca De’Donato, Francesco Sera, Gabriel Carrasco-Escobar, Haidong Kan, Hans Orru, Ho Kim, Iulian-Horia Holobaca, Jan Kyselý, Joana Madureira, Joel Schwartz, Klea Katsouyanni, Magali Hurtado-Diaz, Martina S. Ragettli, Masahiro Hashizume, Mathilde Pascal, Micheline De Sousa Zanotti Stagliorio Coélho, Noah Scovronick, Paola Michelozzi, Patrick J. Goodman, Paulo Hilario Nascimento Saldiva, Rosana Abrutzky, Samuel Osorio, Tran Ngoc Dang, Valentina Colistro, Veronika Huber, Whanhee Lee, Xerxes Seposo, Yasushi Honda, Michelle L. Bell, Yuming Guo

Articles

Studies have investigated the effects of heat and temperature variability (TV) on mortality. However, few assessed whether TV modifies the heat-mortality association. Data on daily temperature and mortality in the warm season were collected from 717 locations across 36 countries. TV was calculated as the standard deviation of the average of the same and previous days’ minimum and maximum temperatures. We used location-specific quasi-Poisson regression models with an interaction term between the cross-basis term for mean temperature and quartiles of TV to obtain heat-mortality associations under each quartile of TV, and then pooled estimates at the country, regional, and global …

Does Information And Communication Technology Impede Environmental Degradation? Fresh Insights From Non-Parametric Approaches, Tomiwa Sunday Adebayo, Ephraim Bonah Agyekum, Mehmet Altuntas, Sadriddin Khudoyqulov, Hossam Zawbaa, Salah Kamel

Articles

Although ICT has played a critical role in the socio-economic growth of human cultures, it has also brought with it significant environmental risks. Nevertheless, scholars remain divided on this topic; some believe that ICT has had a positive influence on the quality of the environment, while others believe that ICT has created major environmental issues. Hence, this research is another effort to assess the effects of ICT on CO2 emissions in the top 10 ICT nations (Denmark, Japan, Luxemburg, South Korea, Netherlands, Iceland, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United Kingdom) using a dataset from the period between 1986Q1 and 2019Q4. …

A Simple And Robust Alternative To Bland-Altman Method Of Assessing Clinical Agreement, Abhaya Indrayan Prof

COBRA Preprint Series

Clinical agreement between two quantitative measurements on a group of subjects is generally assessed with the help of the Bland-Altman (B-A) limits. These limits only describe the dispersion of disagreements in 95% cases and do not measure the degree of agreement. The interpretation regarding the presence or absence of agreement by this method is based on whether B-A limits are within the pre-specified externally determined clinical tolerance limits. Thus, clinical tolerance limits are necessary for this method. We argue in this communication that the direct use of clinical tolerance limits for assessing agreement without the B-A limits is more effective …

New York City Micronet : Comprehensive Site Metadata And Classifications And Characteristics Of The Urban Heat Island, Ashley Williamson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The New York City Micronet (NYC Micronet), comprised of 17 stations, was installed in the Fall of 2020 for the purpose of long-term monitoring of climate change, and to provide support to utility operations for Consolidated Edison, Inc. (Con Edison). There are five additional standard NYS Mesonet stations located in NYC installed in late 2017. Co-located at the standard stations are three flux, and three profiler stations from sub-networks within the NYS Mesonet. With 22 different locations collecting 5-minute averaged data, this network becomes the highest spatial and temporal resolution urban meteorological network (UMN) of this quality in NYC. This …

Wa State Dnr Summer Wildfire Fighting, Tor Samuelsen

College of the Environment Internship Reports

I have done numerous reports on the environmental impacts of wildfires prior to this internship. On topics ranging from increased erosion rates after wildfires, higher amounts of dissolved organic carbon, increased suspended solids in bodies of water, various negative impacts on aquatic invertebrates; the loss of riparian vegetation that is accompanied by exposure to extreme heat, as well as decreased levels of dissolved oxygen amongst many other things. Before this internship my learning objectives for the summer were numerous, but the main focus was to see first hand the ways in which wildfires are mitigated; there is no foreseeable end …

Deception Pass State Park - Rosario Beach Naturalist, Ron Isarankura

College of the Environment Internship Reports

My learning objectives for this internship experience were to expand my knowledge of marine topics as well as be able to get hands-on experience in the field. Additionally, I wanted to expand my knowledge of the Rosario tide pool ecosystem as well as learn how it was working in a recreational area at a state park. I wanted to be able to interpret and answer questions regarding the natural marine ecosystem that Rosario Beach had to offer.

Ca Dot Biology Intern, Madison Zambo

College of the Environment Internship Reports

I participated in a summer internship with the State of California, Department of Transportation from June 2022 to August 2022. My student assistant position was under Jennifer Moonjian, Senior Environmental Scientist Supervisor, with the District 5, Biology department in San Luis Obispo, California. During this time, I conducted field work such as habitat surveys, bat emergence surveys, and pre-construction activity surveys. Additionally, my role consisted of training several departments within the Environmental division in ArcGIS Pro. To do so, I created PowerPoint trainings, how-to guides, and permit layout templates. Additionally, I often met one-on-one with biologists to address specific project …

Farrallon Consulting Internship, Faith Morse

College of the Environment Internship Reports

I was hired to work as Farallon’s 2022 summer environmental intern. Over the ten weeks, I gained valuable insight into the environmental consulting world and was able to apply my academic understanding of the science in the field. Most of my time at Farallon was spent working with field staff. – Geologists, Environmental Scientists, and Engineers. Before site visits, I was able to review project documents to understand the nature of the site and its known or potential contamination

Characterizing Gold Nano-Particles With An Icp-Ms Internship, Girnar Joshi

College of the Environment Internship Reports

No abstract provided.

South King County River And Floodplain Management, Emily Amos

College of the Environment Internship Reports

The project that I spent my time working on was the White River Pacific Right Bank Flood Protection Project. In January of 2009 the White River significantly flooded neighborhoods and a county park in the City of Pacific. The overall goal of this Capital Improvement Project is to reduce the potential for White River flooding and to improve environmental conditions for ESA-listed Chinook salmon, other wildlife and more. Design alternatives (that have yet to be decided on) include many components that will happen over multiple years including property acquisition, levee construction and floodplain restoration along the right bank (River and …

City Of Bellingham Parks Department Volunteer Program Intern, Carly Bell

College of the Environment Internship Reports

This internship started off as just a simple lead volunteer position, as it grew into much more than this, I learned a lot about myself and it helped me focus on what I want to do in the future. My team consisted of some of the most hard working and dedicated people I have ever had the pleasure to know, and they taught me so much in just a short period of time. I started this internship to scared to talk to a group of 3 people I didn’t know, and I am ending it being unafraid to speak to …

University Of North Texas-Using Trait Mining To Create Heuristic Food Webs, Madison Peters

College of the Environment Internship Reports

data mining to find information about each of the organisms that we will then turn into heuristic food web models. Once the models are created, we will be able to identify the key drivers and the functionality of the food web. After creating the models, we will be writing a published paper to present at a conference.

Nooksack Salmon Enhancement Association (Nsea) Flow Intern, Emma Burgess

College of the Environment Internship Reports

Going into the internship, the intern team spent a day creating individual goals for the term. I hoped to learn more about the natural systems that support salmon populations, and specifically how ecosystems are benefited by the presence of a vibrant salmon population. I wanted to learn about our local watershed, the projects NSEA was currently working on to improve its health, and how I could best contribute to their mission during my internship term. Additionally, I wanted to gain confidence speaking about all of this information so that I could teach others about the importance of these systems. More …

Wwu Soil Ecology Lab Intern - Mycorrhizal Relationships In Raspberry Roots And Soil Analysis Of Sehome Arboretum, Brigid Wills

College of the Environment Internship Reports

In Western Washington, the two main culprits of raspberry disease are Phtyophtora rubi, a fungal disease, and Pratylenchus penetrans, a root lesion nematode (Weiland et al, 2018). AMF has been hypothesized to be integral in allowing raspberry plants to develop resistance to diseases. Amber’s project builds off the past work of Erika Whitney in the Soil Lab, whose main finding was that AMF did create more tolerance (in the ‘Meeker’ raspberry cultivar) against P. rubi (Whitney, 2020, p. 49). The secondary conclusion was that AMF from cultivated fields was the most effective inoculum when compared to commercial and created AMF …

Wwu Institute For Watershed Studies Research Assistant And This Kind Planet Intern, Isabella Cobert

College of the Environment Internship Reports

In the field, I worked with a partner to monitor two streams: Austin Creek, on the south side of Lake Whatcom, and Smith Creek, on the north side of Lake Whatcom. I performed hydrological measurements with a Flowtracker in various conditions of weather and water velocity. My partner and I also downloaded stage data and verified this data by measuring the staff data accurately. Occasional maintenance was needed such as replacing batteries, bolting the staff back down, and manually resetting the stage to match the staff. The work done in the field was taken back to the lab to transfer …

Beeworks Farm Intern, Delta Kayler

College of the Environment Internship Reports

Working with honeybees was a thrilling and fascinating experience. I got to learn about the complex and somewhat fragile lives of honeybees. These small yet sophisticated creatures provide a service for our agriculture system that makes it impossible to sustain without them. Rob Rienstra was a great mentor and was very generous to share his knowledge of beekeeping with me. He has been beekeeping for over 12 years and is very passionate about raising strong and healthy honeybees. Over 10 weeks I learned a lot about the anatomy of a beehive, the different social castes of bees, and the biggest …

Brown University - Rayleigh Wave Tomography Of Alaska, Ulla Jones

College of the Environment Internship Reports

This internship took place at Brown University and was sponsored by the Incorporated Research Institutions for Seismology (IRIS) Undergraduate Internship program. In it, I had the opportunity to examine surface wave propagation beneath Alaska in order to make some statements about how features in the lithosphere and upper mantle affect surface geology in the state. The end goal of this project was to create a number of tomographic maps, and possibly image seismic attenuation/ dampening in certain areas as well. Seismic tomography is a passive source seismology method that uses wave arrival times to an array of evenly spaced seismic …

Chemical Proteomic Identification And Functional Studies Of Cardiac Protein Glutathionylation, Maheeshi Yapa Abeywardana

Wayne State University Dissertations

Elevated intracellular levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) are associated with induction of oxidative stress. Increased levels of ROS participate in development of cardiovascular diseases by modifying proteins reversibly or irreversibly. Especially, the cysteine residues can undergo oxidative post-translational modifications such as glutathionylation. Glutathionylation is an important regulatory reversible thiol oxidation. Identification and quantification of glutathionylated proteins is important for the understanding of the molecular mechanisms behind initiation and progression of many diseases. Our lab previously developed a click chemistry-based method to detect and identify glutathionylation in cells by synthesizing clickable-glutathione.We established a mass spectrometry-based strategy coupled with clickable glutathione …

Understanding The Effects Of Ligand Environment On Important Properties Of Redox-Active Europium Using Computational Chemistry And T1-Weighted Magnetic Resonance Imaging, Brooke Anne Corbin

Wayne State University Dissertations

This thesis is a collection of seven chapters that describes a combination of literature research and experimental analyses into the study of inorganic complexes, with an emphasis on the photophysics and coordination of redox-active europium. The first chapter summarizes the key features of each chapter. The second and third chapters are detailed overviews, including historical context, current studies, and future goals of imaging science, with an emphasis on inorganic complexes. The fourth chapter describes the design of a screening procedure to study new ligand environments for redox-active europium using magnetic resonance imaging and a proof-of-concept experiment. The fifth chapter is …

Extending Plasma Proteome Coverage To Enable Biomarker Discovery, Jordan Bruce Burton

Wayne State University Dissertations

Two features make plasma a valued source of health information: First, plasma contains secreted proteins from all tissues in the body and can, therefore, provide information about the health status of all tissues. Second, plasma is available in large quantity using a minimally invasive procedure that is well tolerated. The status of plasma as a valued source of health information is matched by the difficulty in extracting proteome information from the samples. Using state of the art instrumentation a standard analysis of plasma yields quantitative information on approximately 300 proteins. Extreme fractionation strategies coupled with increased mass spectrometry time extends …

Securing Big Data Scientific Workflows & Gpgpu Computation In The Commodity Cloud With Hardware-Assisted Trusted Execution Environments, Saeid Mofrad

Wayne State University Dissertations

Nowadays, big data analytics are essential tools for helping businesses, healthcare providers, and decision-makers in society, in making important and strategic choices that benefit their business, patients, and people. Processing big data requires massive amounts of computing and storage resources due to the nature of big data characteristics. Cloud providers with their low-cost, elastic, and enormous amounts of hardware and software resources are a suitable platform for deploying big data analytics systems. Also, the increasing demand for GPU accelerator instances from big data and machine learning applications encourages cloud providers to invest in GPU servers to enable the provisioning of …

Parallel Algorithms For Steiner Forest, Laleh Ghalami

Wayne State University Dissertations

The Steiner Forest Problem is one of the fundamental combinatorial optimization problemsin operations research and computer science. Its applications range from network design to computational biology. Given an undirected graph with non-negative weights for edges and a set of pairs of vertices called terminals, the Steiner Forest Problem is to find the minimum cost subgraph that connects each of the terminal pairs together. The Steiner Forest Problem is APX-hard and NP-hard to approximate within 96/95. Several heuristic and approximation algorithms, with different approximation guarantees, have been proposed for the Steiner Forest Problem. Despite the several research in designing sequential and …

Deep Learning As Native Scientific Workflows In The Modern Swfms - Dataview, Junwen Liu

Wayne State University Dissertations

Scientific workflow has become a common practice for scientists to effectively formalize and structure complex scientific processes, which in turn has accelerated scientific discoveries in numerous research fields. With the recent thriving of deep learning in broad scientific projects, there is a rising need for deep learning support in scientific workflow infrastructures SWFMSs. However, current GPU-enabled deep learning frameworks are developed separately, not suitable for direct exploitation in SWFMSs, which forces scientists to handle deep learning outside of SWFMSs and then integrate in workflows in an ad-hoc manner. What workflow users pressingly need today is a user-friendly and well-integrated SWFMS …

Jet Substructure Measurements In Proton-Proton And Proton-Gold Collisions, Isaac Arthur Mooney

Wayne State University Dissertations

Observing a modification of high-energy probes in the hot nuclear environment created by ultrarelativistic heavy-ion collisions is critical for understanding the microscopic structure of the QCD medium. However, before a modification can be observed, the probes must be calibrated. For this reason, measurements of jet observables in vacuum (pp collisions) and in the presence of cold nuclear matter (pAu collisions) are presented, which will allow for future comparison of jet substructure measurements in AuAu to these baseline measurements. \parData from the STAR detector on the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at Brookhaven National Laboratory are used for both analyses. The pp …

Synthesis And Investigation Of Properties In Ternary Transition Metal Phosphide Nanomaterials For Electrochemical Water Splitting, Tharanga Nisansala Batugedara

Wayne State University Dissertations

Nanoscale transition metal phosphides are emerging as efficient catalysts for hydrogen production via electrochemical water splitting. Although monometallic phases have been extensively studied, enhanced catalytic activities and stabilities can be gained by the synergism of two metals in bimetallic ternary transition metal phosphides. In this dissertation, we report (1) the effect of the counter electrode and electrolyte on stabilities of Co2−xRhxP nanoparticles for water reduction (hydrogen evolution reaction, HER), (2) novel synthetic protocol development and electrocatalytic water splitting activity and stability study on Ni2-xRhxP nanoparticles, and (3) a preliminary investigation employing cation exchange methods to synthesize Cu-M-P (M= Fe, Co, …

Non-Perturbative Processes In Standard Model \& New Physics: From Standard Calculations To Machine Learning, Cody Michael Grant

Wayne State University Dissertations

I calculated non-perturbative processes to study the Standard Model and probe areas of new physics. I found that invisible decays of heavy mesons are not dominated by the leading order contribution in the Standard Model. I argue that this affects neutrino mass constraints and avenues for discovering new physics, such as dark photons. In addition to this, I used a novel approach to approximate a semileptonic form factor with an artificial neural network (ANN). Comparing the results from the ANN to common phenomenological parameterizations, and using it to set a lower bound constraint on the CKM matrix element, $V_{cd}$. Finally, …

Adversarial Machine Learning For Advanced Medical Imaging Systems, Xin Li

Wayne State University Dissertations

Although deep neural networks (DNNs) have achieved significant advancement in various challenging tasks of computer vision, they are also known to be vulnerable to so-called adversarial attacks. With only imperceptibly small perturbations added to a clean image, adversarial samples can drastically change models’ prediction, resulting in a significant drop in DNN’s performance. This phenomenon poses a serious threat to security-critical applications of DNNs, such as medical imaging, autonomous driving, and surveillance systems. In this dissertation, we present adversarial machine learning approaches for natural image classification and advanced medical imaging systems.

We start by describing our advanced medical imaging systems to …

Optical Signal Processing With Discrete-Space Metamaterials, Mohammad Moein Moeini

Wayne State University Dissertations

As digital circuits are approaching the limits of Moore’s law, a great deal of efforthas been directed to alternative computing approaches. Among them, the old concept of optical signal processing (OSP) has attracted attention, revisited in the light of metamaterials and nano-photonics. This approach has been successful in realizing basic mathematical operations, such as derivatives and integrals, but it is difficult to be applied to more complex ones. Inspired by digital filters, we propose a radically new OSP approach, able to realize arbitrary mathematical operations over a nano-photonic platform. We demonstrate this concept for the case of spatial differentiation, image …

Jointly-Learnt Networks For Future Action Anticipation Via Self-Knowledge Distillation And Cycle Consistency, Md Moniruzzaman, Zhaozheng Yin, Zhihai He, Ming-Chuan Leu, Ruwen Qin

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Future action anticipation aims to infer future actions from the observation of a small set of past video frames. In this paper, we propose a novel Jointly learnt Action Anticipation Network (J-AAN) via Self-Knowledge Distillation (Self-KD) and cycle consistency for future action anticipation. In contrast to the current state-of-the-art methods which anticipate the future actions either directly or recursively, our proposed J-AAN anticipates the future actions jointly in both direct and recursive ways. However, when dealing with future action anticipation, one important challenge to address is the future's uncertainty since multiple action sequences may come from or be followed by …