Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Detecting Radium-226 In Submarine Groundwater Discharge, Rashaun Davis

Undergraduate Research Competition

Studies have been done to see if abundance of neutrinos have an effect on the decay rate of radioactive nuclei. Questions regarding the proximity of the sun and the concentration of the flux of neutrinos as a result, have emerged due to there being more counts in the winter when the sun is closer versus there being less counts in the summer when the sun is farther away. Other studies say that the cause of the difference in counts are more local, as in the environmental conditions like temperature and various background radiation that interferes with the counts of the …

E. Coli And Total Coliform, Emilio Wilson

Undergraduate Research Competition

Water is important because we use it for our everyday use, whether it's for drinking, bathing, or for our enjoyment. Pollution causes the environment to have a harmful effect, which is usually caused by microorganisms (bacteria) Some of those Bacteria include E. coli and Total Coliform. They're mainly found in the intestines of humans, in animals, in water, and also found in the soil. Most of these bacteria are harmless but it can provide you with symptoms of diarrhea, vomiting, and stomach cramps. When water comes in contact with feces, humans, or any living organism, the water is contaminated. There …

Monitoring Nitrogen Levels At 11th Ave. N Surfside Beach, Sc, Kyle Lavoie

Undergraduate Research Competition

This research was done to monitor Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate which are measured to assess if they were within safe levels according to the Environmental Protection Association(EPA). Ammonia, Nitrite, and Nitrate are important indicators to the amount of each that could end up in a public water supply. To much Nitrate can cause excess algae growth in lakes and is unhealthy in large amounts for humans, mainly children. Samples were tested using Ammonia test strips and Nitrite and Nitrate test strips. 242 samples were collected between May 27th, 2010 and January 26th, 2021 at 11th Ave. N Surfside Beach. The …

Monitoring Chlorophyll A And Pheophytin At Crabtree Swamp, James Blankenship

Undergraduate Research Competition

The two chemicals compound we will be looking at include Chlorophyll A and Pheophytin. These two chemicals are common in most waters around the world. While they are helpful for the ecosystem, like most everything, having too much can also be harmful. Having a high concentrate of Chlorophyll A can result in foul smell and green scum on the bottom and surface of water. Likewise, pheophytin can be harmful when it comes to dissolving oxygen in water. This can result in erosion around the water source and can lead to unwanted chemicals in water (4). The results discussed will show …

Water Monitoring At Ccu (Conductivity, Ph, Do), Gage Campbell

Undergraduate Research Competition

Monitoring water quality is important for human health. This study focuses on the 544 West site and the parameters conductivity, pH, and dissolved oxygen (DO). Data used is from Oct. 2011 through Nov. 2020 on the Coastal Carolina University campus and used an Orion™ A329 multimeter. 741 samples were collected for Conductivity, with an average of 407.8 uS/cm (145.8 uS/cm - 690.7 uS/cm). 738 samples were collected for pH, with an average of 7.15 (6.09 - 8.11). All data fell within the SC DHEC water quality standard of pH which is no lower than 5.0 or above 8.5. 735 samples …

The Development Of Fluorine-18 Imaging Agents Targeting The Ghsr, Marina D. Childs

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Molecular imaging is an interdisciplinary field of study that allows for real-time visualization of biological processes in both healthy and disease states. Fluorine-18 positron emission tomography (PET) imaging is a highly sensitive technique where molecular probes containing fluorine-18 serve to specifically locate and visualize the expression of relevant disease biomarkers. The growth hormone secretagogue receptor 1a (GHSR) is differentially expressed in cancer and cardiac pathology, making it a biomarker of interest for imaging such diseases. This thesis discusses the development and optimization of GHSR-targeting ¹⁸F-PET imaging probes as well as proposes a new imaging agent discovery technique.

Chapter 2 …

S4e9: How Can We Get The Most Out Of Technology?, Ron Lisnet, Richard Corey, Nicholas Giudice, Caitlin Howell

The Maine Question

Refrigerators tell us when we’re out of juice. Digital assistants schedule appointments and alert us to the weather forecast. Driverless cars slide into tight parallel parking spaces. Today, many of us increasingly rely on devices, apps and artificial intelligence in our daily lives.

How can technology be designed to do the most good? How can scientists make it easy to use and put people, rather than the technology, in charge? This is the work of the University of Maine VEMI Lab. VEMI stands for Virtual Environment and Multimodal Interaction. This week, directors Rick Corey, Nick Giudice and Caitlin Howell talk …

Progress Towards Synthesis And Characterization Of Bay-Annulated Indigo Chromophores, Katherine Weiss, Denise Femia

HON499 projects

Through acetylation, N,N’-diacetylindigo was synthesized from indigo. N,N’-diacetylindigo and 2-thiopheneacetyl chloride were combined in an attempt to synthesize 7-thiophenyl bayannulated indigo (BAI). After 1H NMR characterization, it was found that the product was not 7-thiophenyl BAI. A previously synthesized sample of 7-phenyl BAI was purified. UV-VIS absorbance, fluorescence, IR, and 1H NMR were used to characterize the compounds.

Gauge Invariant Target Space Entanglement In D-Brane Holography, Sumit R. Das, Anurag Kaushal, Sinong Liu, Gautam Mandal, Sandip P. Trivedi

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

It has been suggested in arXiv:2004.00613 that in Dp-brane holography, entanglement in the target space of the D-brane Yang-Mills theory provides a precise notion of bulk entanglement in the gravity dual. We expand on this discussion by providing a gauge invariant characterization of operator sub-algebras corresponding to such entanglement. This is achieved by finding a projection operator which imposes a constraint characterizing the target space region of interest. By considering probe branes in the Coloumb branch we provide motivation for why the operator sub-algebras we consider are appropriate for describing a class of measurements carried out with low-energy probes in …

Rapid Population Decline Of The Pillar Coral Dendrogyra Cylindrus Along The Florida Reef Tract, Karen L. Neely, Cynthia L. Lewis, Kathleen S. Lunz, Lystina Kabay

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Coral reefs worldwide are in a state of decline, but the population status and impacts of stressors for rare species are generally not well documented using broad-scale monitoring protocols. We fate-tracked all known colonies of the pillar coral, Dendrogyra cylindrus, on the Florida Reef Tract (FRT) from 2013 to 2020 to assess population condition and trend, and to document the relative impacts of chronic and acute stressors. Large average colony size, an absence of juveniles, and large geographic distances between genotypes suggest that the Florida D. cylindrus population has been reproductively extinct for decades. During the study period, low-intensity …

Forest Stories, Victoria Bearden, Nate Berger, Kristen Cooney, Peter Scuderi

Environment and Sustainability Presentations

In the fall semester, the Forests and People class examined diverse human-forest interactions and how people find value within these ecosystems. To apply the lessons learned in class, student teams conducted four separate in-depth interviews with individuals who reside or work in forested areas to examine how these individuals define their relationship to local forests. The interview format encouraged open, personalized engagement between students and speakers, focusing on identifying ecological values and their importance in shaping forest management. This presentation focuses on an ARCgis storymap production composed of two selected interviews with individuals in western Oregon. One interview evaluated the …

Test Of Lepton-Flavor Universality In B→K∗ℓ+ℓ− Decays At Belle, S. Wehle, I. Adachi, K. Adamczyk, H. Aihara, D. M. Asner, H. Atmacan, V. Aulchenko, T. Aushev, R. Ayad, V. Babu, P. Behera, M. Berger, V. Bhardwaj, J. Biswal, A. Bozek, M. Bračko, T. E. Browder, M. Campajola, L. Cao, M. -C. Chang, Milind Purohit, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

We present a measurement of R_k+ , the branching fraction ratio B(B → K⁺μ⁺μ⁻)=B(B → K*e⁺e⁻),, for both charged and neutral B mesons. The ratio for the charged case R _K^* + is the first measurement ever performed. In addition, we report absolute branching fractions for the individual modes in bins of the squared dilepton invariant mass q². The analysis is based on a data sample of 711 fb⁻¹, containing 772 × 10⁶ BB̅ events, recorded at the ϒ(4S) resonance …

Sf6+: Stabilizing Transient Ions In Helium Nanodroplets, Simon Albertini, Stefan Bergmeister, Felix Laimer, Paul Martini, Elisabeth Gruber, Fabio Zappa, Milan Ončák, Paul Scheier, Olof E. Echt

Faculty Publications

There are myriads of ions that are deemed too short-lived to be experimentally accessible. One of them is SF₆⁺. It has never been observed, although not for lack of trying. We demonstrate that long-lived SF₆⁺ can be formed by doping charged helium nanodroplets (HNDs) with sulfur hexafluoride; excess helium is then gently stripped from the doped HNDs by collisions with helium gas. The ion is identified by high-resolution mass spectrometry (resolution m/Dm = 15000), the close agreement between the expected and observed yield of ions that contain minor sulfur isotopes, and collision-induced dissociation …

Exploration Of The Food Forest Outreach Team, Victoria Bearden

Environment and Sustainability Presentations

At Whittaker Environmental Research Station, the first iteration of the Ursinus Food Forest was planted in 2019. The Ursinus Food Forest includes over 15 species of edible species and embraces lessons in urban agriculture, urban forestry, and agroforestry. The site has now been planted for over a year, and is monitored by Dr. Patrick Hurley, student researchers, and Ursinus facilities. There are two separate student research teams involved with the food forest, one focusing on stewardship of the site and the other focusing on outreach for the site. The goal of the outreach team is to build a community around …

Mobile Protons Limit The Stability Of Salt Bridges In The Gas Phase: Implications For The Structures Of Electrosprayed Protein Ions., Lars Konermann, Elnaz Aliyari, Justin H Lee

Chemistry Publications

Electrosprayed protein ions can retain native-like conformations. The intramolecular contacts that stabilize these compact gas-phase structures remain poorly understood. Recent work has uncovered abundant salt bridges in electrosprayed proteins. Salt bridges are zwitterionic BH⁺/A^- contacts. The low dielectric constant in the vacuum strengthens electrostatic interactions, suggesting that salt bridges could be a key contributor to the retention of compact protein structures. A problem with this assertion is that H⁺ are mobile, such that H⁺ transfer can convert salt bridges into neutral B⁰/HA⁰ contacts. This possible salt bridge annihilation puts into question the …

Surface Functionalization Of Elastomers For Tunable Crystal Growth And Smart Adhesives, John Kapitan

Department of Chemistry: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Silicone rubbers have seen extensive work on modulation of their surface environments for use in microfluidics, cell adhesion, and sensing. Most surface procedures utilize a common initial step of oxidation of the surface to increase the number of active surface functional groups. Following oxidation more permanent functionalities can be imparted on the surface using silanization, grafting polymer brushes, or creating ionic bonds to the surface. Of these three, silanization proves to be the most pervasive due to the range of procedures available and how easy the procedures prove to be. However, the mechanism by which silanization is performed heavily involves …

Some Criteria Used In Determining Paleoshorelines, Examples From Turkey And Rhodes Island, Okan Tüysüz

Bulletin of the Mineral Research and Exploration

Shorelines are important boundaries separating the erosional and the depositional areas. Determining the location of the shorelines in geological time sand how it changes by the time is one of the major problems of geology. The most accurate estimate of the location of the shoreline, which is a dynamic structure, in the period when it was exist is very important in palaeogeographic studies. The determination of coastal changes by the time provides valuable information on active tectonic sand climate, and the relationships between these two. The most basic approach to determine the paleoshoreline is to estimate the geological events on …

Parallel Computation Of Feynman Path Integrals And Many-Body Polarization With Application To Metal-Organic Materials, Brant H. Tudor

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The Space Research Group is a computational outfit, and so the work presented herein will reflect that. Much of our simulation code is developed in-house and so what follows is a small exploration of that development—although the physics underpinning our software development is never ignored for long. Following the programming centric work, the code and the physics are put to the test. The final chapter describes a scientific endeavor in which a new, robust force field has been validated. Indeed, the new potential has taken a first step in proving itself by making accurate predictions in what have historically found …

From Molecules To Mountains: A Multi-Proxy Investigation Into Ancient Climate And Topography Of The Pacific Northwest, Usa, Alex Mclean

Dissertations and Theses

The modern Cascades are a north-south striking mountain range that intercepts Pacific Ocean-derived moisture resulting in orographic precipitation on the western flank and a relatively arid rain shadow in the lee. Because of the strong coupling between topography and climate and consistent moisture source (Pacific Ocean) throughout the year, the region is ideally situated for paleoclimate studies that utilize the isotopic composition (δ¹⁸O and δD) of meteoric water to determine when uplifts occurred. Here, I synthesize the spatial and temporal evolution of stable isotopes in paleowater proxies across the Pacific Northwest during the Cenozoic. New volcanic glass (δD) …

Short And Long Term Effects Of Lime And Gypsum Applications On Acid Soils In A Water-Limited Environment: 3. Soil Solution Chemistry, Geoff Anderson, Shahab Pathan, David Hall, Rajesh Sharma, James Easton

Grain and Other Field Crops Research Articles

Aluminum (Al) toxicity imposes a significant limitation to crop production in South Western Australia. This paper examines the impact of surface-applied lime and gypsum on soil solution chemistry in the short term (1 year) and the long-term (10 years) in water limited environments. In the experiments, we measured soil solution chemistry using a paste extract on soil profile samples collected to a depth of 50 cm. We then used the chemical equilibrium model MINTEQ to predict the presence and relative concentrations of Al species that are toxic to root growth (Al associated with Al3+ and AlOH2 or Toxic-Al) and less …

Flow Dynamics In A Vadose Shaft – A Case Study From The Hochschwab Karst Massif (Northern Calcareous Alps, Austria), Eva Kaminsky, Lukas Plan, Thomas Wagner, Barbara Funk, Pauline Oberender

International Journal of Speleology

Karst aquifers are highly vulnerable to contamination due to quick water flow through conduits. Their high heterogeneity and the poorly known infiltration effect of the vadose zone make quantification of recharge processes difficult. This study characterizes the water flow and storage in the upper vadose zone with almost four years monitoring of a permanent stream in a vadose shaft (Furtowischacht). Its small catchment of 4,500 m² is located in a former glaciated high Alpine environment (Hochschwab, Austria). High discharge fluctuations between 0.002 and 19 l/s, relatively high hydrograph recession coefficients, and transit velocities between 0.0015 and 2.4 m/s estimated with …

An Investigation On Some Ecological Characteristics Of Ziziphus Spina Chirsti (L.) In Southern Iran, A. R. Mahmoodi, Mansour Mesdaghi, Masoume Amirkhani, E. Kargari

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

No abstract provided.

Stolon Characteristic Of Hemarthria Compressa In The Southwest Of China, Jinping Liu, Xinquan Zhang

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

No abstract provided.

The Introduct And Comparision Experiment Of Clover, Chenqiong Li, Tianqiong Luo

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

No abstract provided.

Wild Populations Of Red Clover And Their Agro‐Morphological Characteristics In Latvia Climate Conditions, B. Jansone, A. Jansons, L. Tiltina

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

No abstract provided.

Development And Genetic Analysis Of A Mapping Population On Medicago Truncatula, Zhenwu Wei, Zhanhua Yang, Lifang Zhang

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

No abstract provided.

A Genetic Diversity Analysis Of Wild Caragana Korshinskii Based On Allozyme And Aflp, Zan Wang, Xuemin Wang, Hongwen Gao

IGC Proceedings (1993-2023)

No abstract provided.

Protein Interaction Sites Prediction Using Deep Learning, Sourajit Basak

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The accurate prediction of protein-protein interaction (PPI) binding sites is a fundamental problem in bioinformatics, since most of the time proteins perform their functions by interacting with some other proteins. Experimental methods are slow, expensive and not very accurate, hence the need for efficient computational methods.

In this thesis, we perform a study aiming to improve the performance of the currently best program for binding site prediction, DELPHI. We have employed some of the currently best techniques from machine learning, including attention and various embedding techniques, such as BERT and ELMo. This is the first time such tools are being …

Population And Evolution Dynamics In Predator-Prey Systems With Anti-Predation Responses, Yang Wang

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

This thesis studies the impact of anti-predation strategy on the population dynamics of predator-prey interactions. This work includes three research projects.

In the first project, we study a system of delay differential equations by considering both benefit and cost of anti-predation response, as well as a time delay in the transfer of biomass from the prey to the predator after predation. We reveal some insights on how the anti-predation response level and the biomass transfer delay jointly affect the population dynamics; we also show how the nonlinearity in the predation term mediated by the fear effect affects the long term …

Absorbance At The Crabtree, Jaquon Williams

Undergraduate Research Competition

Water scarcity is a growing concern across the world in this document we investigate Crabtree swamp, that’s in Conway, SC. Water absorption is the amount of water taken up by flour to achieve the desired consistency and create a quality end-product. Yet, in this case, we're talking about the Crabtree swamp land area. The goal of this research project is to compare and contrast water absorbance in the area.

The purpose of this study is to naturalize the aquatic ecosystem processes in Crabtree Swamp and improve the survivability of resources of regional significance that have been identified. Resources such as …