Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Sometimes, When It Rains It Pours: How Does Flooding Alter Plant-Herbivore Relationships?, Lauren R. Urie, Erinn Dady, Esther N. Ngumbi

PRECS student projects

Flooding, an under-studied abiotic stressor, creates hostile soil conditions, including hypoxia, which hinder the growth and development of plants. Plants respond to abiotic and biotic stressors. A common response is the production of volatile organic compounds (VOCs), which modulate stress responses and mediate plant and insect interactions. Flooding causes significant losses in crops of agricultural and economic importance including tomato. Understanding how flooding impacts plant growth, plant chemistry, caterpillar performance and chemical mediated plant-herbivore interactions will create fundamental knowledge to an emerging challenge brought about by climate change and inform pest management decisions post flooding events. This study investigated how …

Mapping Traits In A Soybean Recombinant Inbred Line Population, Gabriela Ortiz, Chris Montes, Lisa Ainsworth

PRECS student projects

What is SoyFACE?

• Soybean Free Air Concentration Enrichment
• Field conditions mimic the future's atmosphere, temperature, and soil
• Connect physiological responses of crops under these conditions to their genes (aka mapping)

What is a recombinant inbred line population?

Method for mapping traits

• Two parents with variance in a certain trait (in this case, response to elevated carbon dioxide)
• The parents used: HS93-4118 and Loda
• Allows understanding of what regions (quantitative trait loci) respond to atmospheric change

Insights And Lessons Learned From The Design, Development And Deployment Of Pervasive Location-Based Mobile Systems “In The Wild”, Konstantinos Papangelis, Alan Chamberlain, Nicolas Lalone, Ting Cao

Presentations and other scholarship

This paper, based on a reflective approach, presents several insights and lessons learned from the design, development, and deployment of a location-based social network and a location-based game. These are analyzed and discussed against the life-cycle of our studies and range from engaging with the participants to dealing with technical issues while on the field. Overall, the insights and lessons learned illustrate that one should be prepared and flexible enough to accommodate any issues as they arise in a professional manner considering not only the results of the study but also the participants and the researchers involved.The aim of this …

Search For Bs0 →Η′Xs S ¯ At Belle Using A Semi-Inclusive Method Search For Bs0 →Η′Xs S ¯ ... Dubey Et Al., S. Dubey, T. E. Browder, H. Aihara, S. Al Said, D. M. Asner, T. Aushev, R. Ayad, V. Babu, S. Bahinipati, P. Behera, J. Bennett, M. Bessner, B. Bhuyan, S. Bilokin, J. Biswal, A. Bobrov, G. Bonvicini, A. Bozek, M. Bračko

Faculty and Student Publications

We report the first search for the penguin-dominated process Bs0→η′Xss¯ using a semi-inclusive method. A 121.4 fb-1 integrated luminosity ϒ(5S) data set collected by the Belle experiment, at the KEKB asymmetric-energy e+e- collider, is used. We observe no statistically significant signal and, including all uncertainties, we set a 90% confidence level upper limit on the partial branching fraction at 1.4×10-3 for M(Xss¯)≤2.4 GeV/c2.

The California Legacy Survey. I. A Catalog Of 178 Planets From Precision Radial Velocity Monitoring Of 719 Nearby Stars Over Three Decades, Lee J. Rosenthal, Benjamin J. Fulton, Lea A. Hirsch, Howard Isaacson, Andrew W. Howard, Cayla M. Dedrick, Ilya A. Sherstyuk, Sarah C. Blunt, Erik A. Petigura, Heather Knutson, Aida Behmard, Ashley Chontos, Justin R. Crepp, Ian J. M. Crossfield, Paul A. Dalba, Debra A. Fischer, Gregory W. Henry, Stephen R. Kane, Molly Kosiarek, Geoffrey W. Marcy, Ryan A. Rubenzahl, Lauren M. Weiss, Jason T. Wright

Information Systems and Engineering Management Research Publications

We present a high-precision radial velocity (RV) survey of 719 FGKM stars, which host 164 known exoplanets and 14 newly discovered or revised exoplanets and substellar companions. This catalog updated the orbital parameters of known exoplanets and long-period candidates, some of which have decades-longer observational baselines than they did upon initial detection. The newly discovered exoplanets range from warm sub-Neptunes and super-Earths to cold gas giants. We present the catalog sample selection criteria, as well as over 100,000 RV measurements, which come from the Keck-HIRES, APF-Levy, and Lick-Hamilton spectrographs. We introduce the new RV search pipeline RVSearch (https://california-planet-search.github.io/rvsearch/) that we …

Geological And Hydrogeological Assessment Of The Brito Formation Municipio De Tola, Nicaragua, James K. Adamson, Thomas Lavanchy, Brandon Stone, James A. Clark, Stuart J. Dykstra

University Faculty Publications and Creative Works

There are sparse hydrogeological data and insufficient hydrogeological knowledge in many areas of the world reliant on groundwater. Nicaragua’s Pacific coast is one such region that is also experiencing water scarcity resulting from increasing demand on groundwater resources and climate change. The primary source of water in the region is the aquifer system associated with the Brito Formation, which is a marine sedimentary stratum of mostly sandstone that blankets 75 km of coastline in southwest Nicaragua. This study focused on the Tola municipality with the objective to advance a conceptual understanding of the hydrogeology and to support sustainable water development. …

Big Cities: Air Pollution And Human Health, Natalie Michaels, Naima Shifa Phd

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Our project explores the growing issue of air pollution on urban environments throughout the United States. Through the use of the County Health Rankings data set, we investigated the connection amongst air pollution, health outcomes, and other socioeconomic and environmental risk factors.

Droplet Impact, Part 2: Engineering A Droplet Generator, Nanami Mezaki, Ben Wilkerson, Jacob Hale Phd

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Prior droplet impact research at DePauw used a syringe to pump fluid through a tube to create a droplet. This method generated ~2.5mm diameter droplets with secondary satellite droplets that formed during pinch-off and influenced rupture upon collision with the main droplet. Furthermore, the large diameter caused the droplet to experience significant oscillation as it fell, making it difficult to control impact shape without changing impact velocity. Part of this summer’s research focused on adapting preexisting designs for droplet generators to build our own version that creates small, consistent droplets without interference from satellite droplets or jets (which form at …

Droplet Impact, Part 1: Controlling Skirting Velocity, Ben Wilkerson, Nanami Mezaki, Jacob Hale Phd

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Droplet skirting occurs when a fluid droplet rolls over a bath of the same fluid without merging. To achieve skirting, we introduced a ~0.6 mm-diameter droplet of 1 cSt silicone oil into a bath of the same fluid by bouncing it off an angled glass slide coated with 100,000 cSt silicone oil. Our work suggests that initial skirting velocity increases as a function of slide angle and, to a lesser degree, droplet generator height. Furthermore, we conclude that the droplet lifetimes (initiation of skirting until rupture) and corresponding �� values (rate of decay of motion) appear consistent with theoretical predictions …

Eye-Tracking Study: Systematic Effects Of Task Instructions On Selective Attention And Inductive Learning, Kumiko Nakajima, Olivia Dickinson, Michael E. Roberts Phd

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Participants studied paintings with respective task instructions and were subsequently tested on identification performance for trained paintings as well as new paintings by the same artists. Eye tracking analyses indicate that each task instruction led to distinctive fixation patterns for the paintings, which may influence inductive learning performance. Generally, participants given the alternative pattern of the instructions performed significantly better than those who received the successive pattern of instructions both in trained and new paintings.

3d-Printing Habitable Structures On Mars, Addison Johnson, John Pugsley, Andrew Scherer

Faculty-Mentored Undergraduate Scholarship

This project developed technology to 3D-print habitable structures on Mars from in-situ materials, as part of the push to create a self-sustaining colony on Mars. The team designed a next generation sulfur concrete printhead capable of extruding with greater efficiency and better quality than the previous design.

Chapter 2.2: 3-D Topo Surface Visualization Of Metal Ion Anti-Buffering: An Unexpected Behavior In Metal–Ligand Complexation Systems, Garon C. Smith, Md Mainul Hossain, Daniel D. Barry

Water Topos: A 3-D Trend Surface Approach to Viewing and Teaching Aqueous Equilibrium Chemistry

Diluting a system that contains metal complexes can sometimes cause surprises. This chapter describes “metal ion anti-buffering”, a situation in which free metal ion concentrations rapidly increase as system dilution drives dissociation. It only occurs under excess free ligand conditions when a solution is dominated by higher stoichiometry complexes. The Law of Mass Action is used to provide a mathematical justification for the phenomenon. A Cu²⁺-ethylenediamine mixture exhibits this phenomenon when excess free ethylenediamine (en) is present. For example, it occurs when diluting a solution containing a four-fold excess of en over Cu²⁺. As this mixture …

Consumer Perceptions Of Plastic-Free Food Packaging, Cara Conner

Human Nutrition and Hospitality Management Undergraduate Honors Theses

This study surveyed consumers in Fayetteville, Arkansas to assess their perceptions of plastic-free food packaging. Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, surveys were administered via email to Dale Bumpers College of Agricultural, Food and Life Sciences undergraduate students and faculty at the University of Arkansas. Eleven questions were asked in the survey. Numerical values were assigned to each answer option in order to interpret the results. The factors impacting consumer decisions to purchase foods packaged with or without plastic were ranked from greatest to least: sanitation/safety, availability where shopping, cost, shelf-life, and convenience. Food packaging materials were ranked from most to …

Π+Π- Electroproduction Off Protons In Deuterium: Measurements Of Quasi-Free Cross Sections And Kinematic Probing Of Final State Interactions, Iuliia Skorodumina

Theses and Dissertations

In this study, the process of π⁺π^- electroproduction off protons bound in deuterium nuclei is explored. The exploration is performed through the analysis of experimental data on electron scattering off the deuteron target, collected in Hall B at Jefferson Lab with the CLAS detector. As a main result, the set of integrated and single-differential cross sections of the reaction $\gamma_{v}p(n) \rightarrow p' (n')\pi^{+}\pi^{-}$ is obtained. The cross sections are extracted in the quasi-free regime, which implies that only events not affected by final state interactions are subject to selection. The measurements are performed in the kinematic region …

A Comparison Of Spatial Clustering Assessment Methods, Nadeesha Dilhani Vidanapathirana

Theses and Dissertations

Spatial clustering detection methods are widely used in many fields of research including sociology, epidemiology, ecology, and criminology. The objective of this study is to assess the performance of four spatial clustering detection methods: the average nearest neighbor ratio, Ripley’s K function, local Moran’s I and Getis-Ord Gi* statistics. We conduct a simulation study to evaluate the performance of each method for areal data under different types of spatial dependence and three different areal structures; a 20x20 regular grid, United States counties in six states and Canadian forward sortation areas (FSAs) in three provinces. The results shows that the empirical …

Plasmonic Metallic And Semiconductor Nanomaterials, Mengqi Sun

Theses and Dissertations

The earliest account of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR) has to date back to the ancient age of Rome in 400 A.D. The famous glass of Lycurgus cup told the story of unique light-and-matter interaction at the nanoscale that confines the electromagnetic field resonance at its surface and therefore allows LSPR feature to noticeably arise. The conventional metallic LSPR nanomaterials, like Au and Ag nanoparticles attract constant attentions due to their synthetic simplicity, chemical robustness, and visible spectral response. Its ability to generate sensitive dielectric sensing of the surroundings, strong electromagnetic field and active charge carriers upon optical excitation triggered …

Large-NC Constraints For One- And Two-Nucleon Currents In Effective Field Theory, Thomas Richardson

Theses and Dissertations

There is a long-standing goal of understanding nuclear physics in terms of quarks and gluons, the constituent particles of nucleons. However, the underlying theory is strongly coupled at the scales relevant for nuclear physics; therefore, this goal can only be achieved through nonperturbative calculations. Additionally, nuclear targets are employed in a variety of experiments ranging from electroweak processes to Beyond the Standard Model physics. Thus, it is important to have a strong theoretical foundation for nuclear physics in the presence of external fields in order to interpret experimental results. Effective field theory (EFT) for nuclear physics constitutes a systematic and …

Edge Detail Analysis Of Wear Particles, Mohammad Shakeel Laghari, Ahmed Hassan, Mubashir Noman

Computer Vision Faculty Publications

Tribology is the study of wear particles that are generated in all machines with interacting mechanical parts. Particles are separated from the surfaces due to friction and relative motion. These microscopic particles vary in certain characteristics of size, quantity, composition, and morphology. Wear particles or wear debris are categorized by six morphological attributes of shape, edge details, texture, color, size, and thickness ratio. Particles can be identified with the help of some or all of these attributes however, only edge details analysis is considered in this paper. The objective is to classify these particles in a coherent way based on …

More Than Meets The Eye; Accessibility Of Scientific Information Through Art, Rachael Barrows

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Science is inaccessible to learn in a myriad of ways. Financially it can be difficult to get information. It can also be hard to look up information on your own without knowing what to look for. Teaching science also involves a lot of reading that can be difficult for some disabilities. Through art, however, science can become more accessible, both to share and to learn. Visual learning benefits understanding and retention of information as well as creates clearer holistic concepts. Through paintings, this project shares some scientific information, exploring a way to share and teach science that is more accessible.

The Conservation Status Of The World’S Freshwater Molluscs, M. Böhm, N. I. Dewhurst-Richman, M. Seddon, C. Albrecht, D. Allen, A. E. Bogan, K. Cummings, G. Darrigran, W. Darwall, Kathryn E. Perez

Biology Faculty Publications and Presentations

With the biodiversity crisis continuing unchecked, we need to establish levels and drivers of extinction risk, and reassessments over time, to effectively allocate conservation resources and track progress towards global conservation targets. Given that threat appears particularly high in freshwaters, we assessed the extinction risk of 1428 randomly selected freshwater molluscs using the IUCN Red List Categories and Criteria, as part of the Sampled Red List Index project. We show that close to one-third of species in our sample are estimated to be threatened with extinction, with highest levels of threat in the Nearctic, Palearctic and Australasia and among gastropods. …

Membrane Inlet Mass Spectrometry Method (Reox/Mims) To Measure 15n-Nitrate In Isotope-Enrichment Experiments, Xianbiao Lin, Kaijun Lu, Amber K. Hardison, Et Al

VIMS Articles

Using ¹⁵N stable isotope as a tracer to quantify N transformation rates in isotope-enrichment experiments improves understanding of the N cycle in various ecosystems. However, measuring ¹⁵N-nitrate (¹⁵NO₃⁻) in small volumes of water for these experiments is a major challenge due to the inconvenience of preparing samples by traditional techniques. We developed a “REOX/MIMS” method by applying membrane inlet mass spectrometry (MIMS) to determining ¹⁵NO₃⁻ concentrations in a small volumes of water from isotope-enrichment experiments after converting the dissolved inorganic N to N₂. The nitrates (NO₃^{− …}

Quaternary Geology Of Portions Of The Mcgregor Peak, Murr Peak, Marion, And Hubbart Reservoir, 7.5’ Quadrangles, Flathead County, Montana, Carlos Montejo

Graduate Theses & Non-Theses

Quaternary deposits in the northern Little Bitterroot River watershed record the advance and retreat of the Cordilleran Ice Sheet, transgression of Glacial Lake Missoula, and at least one partial or complete drainage of Glacial Lake Missoula during the last Pleistocene glaciation. New geologic mapping at a scale of 1:24,000 in portions of the McGregor Peak, Marion, Murr Peak, and Hubbart Reservoir quadrangles with a focus on Quaternary deposits has refined boundaries for where the Cordilleran Ice Sheet and Glacial Lake Missoula coincided. Stratigraphic analysis of three measured sections within Glacial Lake Missoula sediments along with three optically stimulated luminescence ages …

Summary Data For Cross-Shore Transects (Winter 2016-Summer 2020) - Humboldt Coastal Resiliency Project And Climate Ready Project, Andrea J. Pickart, Candace Reynolds, Ian Walker

Local Reports and Publications

Sea level rise and/or extreme events are capable of causing excessive erosion on the beaches and foredunes that line the outer edges of the barriers enclosing Humboldt Bay and the Eel River delta within the Eureka littoral cell. Erosion of these protective barriers threatens the natural and cultural resources and infrastructure behind them in two significant estuaries. A major goal of the Climate Ready Project and the Humboldt Coastal Resilience Project was to quantify present day beach-dune morphodynamics, which could then be used to model the impacts of sea level rise and extreme events. For this purpose, a total of …

Variational Learning From Implicit Bandit Feedback, Quoc Tuan Truong, Hady W. Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Recommendations are prevalent in Web applications (e.g., search ranking, item recommendation, advertisement placement). Learning from bandit feedback is challenging due to the sparsity of feedback limited to system-provided actions. In this work, we focus on batch learning from logs of recommender systems involving both bandit and organic feedbacks. We develop a probabilistic framework with a likelihood function for estimating not only explicit positive observations but also implicit negative observations inferred from the data. Moreover, we introduce a latent variable model for organic-bandit feedbacks to robustly capture user preference distributions. Next, we analyze the behavior of the new likelihood under two …

Observation Of Gravitational Waves From Two Neutron Star-Black Hole Coalescences, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, Marco Cavaglia, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We report the observation of gravitational waves from two compact binary coalescences in LIGO's and Virgo's third observing run with properties consistent with neutron star-black hole (NSBH) binaries. The two events are named GW200105_162426 and GW200115_042309, abbreviated as GW200105 and GW200115; the first was observed by LIGO Livingston and Virgo and the second by all three LIGO-Virgo detectors. The source of GW200105 has component masses 8.9^+1.2_-1.5 and 1.9^+.03_-.02 M_⊙, whereas the source of GW200115 has component masses and 5.7^+1.8_-2.1 and 1.5^+0.7_-0.3 M_⊙ (all measurements quoted at the 90% credible …

Antimatter Free-Fall Experiments And Charge Asymmetry, Ulrich D. Jentschura

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We propose a method by which one could use modified antimatter gravity experiments in order to perform a high-precision test of antimatter charge neutrality. The proposal is based on the application of a strong, external, vertically oriented electric field during an antimatter free-fall gravity experiment in the gravitational field of the Earth. The proposed experimental setup has the potential to drastically improve the limits on the charge-asymmetry parameter ɛq of antimatter. On the theoretical side, we analyze possibilities to describe a putative charge-asymmetry of matter and antimatter, proportional to the parameters ɛq and ɛq, by Lagrangian methods. We found that …

Vibronic Coherence And Quantum Beats Of O₂⁺ Based On Laser Pump-Probe Dissociation Dynamics, Shan Xue, Shengjun Yue, Hongchuan Du, Bitao Hu, Anh-Thu Le

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We report theoretical investigations of vibronic quantum beats (QBs) which can be observed in the molecular dissociation under the intense infrared (IR) laser pump-IR laser probe scheme. We show how the vibronic coherences can be probed by analyzing the interchannel QB signals obtained from the numerical solution of the time-dependent Schrödinger equation (TDSE) and the quantum Liouville equation in combination with the strong-field approximation for the treatment of coherences between multiple states of the target ion. The validities of our methods are first tested on a one-dimensional model of H₂⁺, for which exact solutions of the TDSE …

College Of Natural Sciences Newsletter, July 2021, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

Volume 2, Issue 7.

Page 1 Dean's Message
Page 2 Celebrating Three Years
Page 3 Summer School Travel
Page 4 Media Coverage of CNS
Page 5 Chemistry Teachers Visit
Page 5 Remembering Dr. Warren Hein
Page 6 Research Spotlights: Undergraduate Summer Experiences
Page 7 Open PRAIRIE Data; Grants Awarded in CNS

Behavior And Genomics Of Nicotine-Seeking Larval Zebrafish, Kuzivakwashe Chinyanya, Andrew Button, Henning Schneider Phd

Annual Student Research Poster Session

Nicotine-use behavior is one of the main causes of preventable diseases such as cancer, cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. Helping people quit nicotine products is a main goal of our projects. Developing a zebrafish model for nicotine use behavior could provide a tool for studying the underlying genetic, environmental and neuronal elements of nicotine use behavior. The high reproductive rate and short generation time of zebrafish as well as available genetic tools represent major advantages for studying potential links between behavior and genes in zebrafish. In our experiments, we use a behavioral assay for studying nicotine-choice behavior …

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter, July 2021, University Of Northern Iowa. Iowa Waste Reduction Center.

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter

Inside this Issue:

--- What is PFAS and How Does it Affect the Environment?
--- IWRC's STAR4D Program Awarded New Contract
--- Food, Recycling and PFAS Program Awarded Funding
--- Industry News