Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Agricultural Irrigation Induced Evaporation In A Temperate Study Area: A Stable Isotope Approach, Lincoln Grevengoed

Masters Theses

In regions where groundwater is used for irrigation, significant water losses take place due to evaporation. Previous studies demonstrated the utility of stable oxygen and hydrogen isotopes in estimating evaporative water loss experienced during return flow back to an aquifer. Unlike arid regions where the other studies took place, this study examined the region around Kalamazoo, Michigan, the United States, which experiences a more temperate climate. Irrigation in the Kalamazoo area primarily uses center-pivot systems supplied by wells, unlike flood irrigation in previous study areas. Water samples were taken periodically from wells close to center-pivot irrigation systems. Water losses due …

Engaging Empirical Dynamic Modeling To Detect Intrusions In Cyber-Physical Systems, David R. Crow, Scott R. Graham, Brett J. Borghetti, Patrick J. Sweeney

Faculty Publications

Modern cyber-physical systems require effective intrusion detection systems to ensure adequate critical infrastructure protection. Developing an intrusion detection capability requires an understanding of the behavior of a cyber-physical system and causality of its components. Such an understanding enables the characterization of normal behavior and the identification and reporting of anomalous behavior. This chapter explores a relatively new time series analysis technique, empirical dynamic modeling, that can contribute to system understanding. Specifically, it examines if the technique can adequately describe causality in cyber-physical systems and provides insights into it serving as a foundation for intrusion detection.

Promoting The Sustainability Of The Gulf Of Maine Recreational Groundfish Fishery Through Discard Mortality Estimation, Mitigation, And Outreach, Connor W. Capizzano

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Recreational fishing (i.e., angling), a popular leisure activity that provides socio-economic benefits to human societies around the world, can represent a significant source of fishing mortality and impact fish populations and marine ecosystems. Although fish are often released by recreational anglers to reduce fishing mortality rates, the efficacy of discarding fish is often criticized given that fish can die from the factors experienced during the capture, handling, and release process (i.e., discard mortality). Despite this recognition, the rate at which fish suffer discard mortality in specific commercial and recreational fisheries is often unknown and difficult to obtain due to logistical …

Novel Tools And Techniques To Investigate And Reduce The Impacts Of Capture-And-Handling, Ryan J. Knotek

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Fish have been an important food resource for humans throughout history, but with growing populations increasing the demand for this resource, many fish stocks have become overfished. In response, management has traditionally addressed overfishing by establishing regulations that reduce the directed fishing mortality associated with harvesting. However, these practices often do not take into account the mortality associated with fish that are incidentally captured and discarded (as bycatch). This discard mortality (DM) can represent a potentially large source of removals for species that are particularly susceptible to the stressors of capture-and-handling and/or discarded at high rates. It is therefore vital …

Predicting Personality Type From Writing Style, Tanay Gottigundala

Master's Theses

The study of personality types gained traction in the early 20th century, when Carl Jung's theory of psychological types attempted to categorize individual differences into the first modern personality typology. Iterating on Jung's theories, the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) tried to categorize each individual into one of sixteen types, with the theory that an individual's personality type manifests in virtually all aspects of their life. This study explores the relationship between an individual's MBTI type and various aspects of their writing style. Using a MBTI-labeled dataset of user posts on a personality forum, three ensemble classifiers were created to predict …

Selective Electrocatalytic Reduction Of Co2 To Co With Iron Nheterocyclic Carbene Complexes And Near-Infrared Absorbance Of Ruthenium(Ii) Photosensitizers Containing A Merocyanine Π-Acceptor, Peter Andrew Catsoulis

Graduate Masters Theses

The catalytic proton-coupled reduction of carbon dioxide into C-1 or “common engine” liquid fuels is currently a highly desirable and green approach to removing anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere. The most common approach to this is through electrocatalytic homogeneous reductions utilizing inorganic complexes as catalysts. Current research has moved towards the use of first-row transition metals in catalysts due to their high natural abundances and cheap cost. Iron porphyrin complexes have been vastly studied due to their high product selectivity and turnover frequencies. However, these complexes exhibit short lived activity because of competing reactions in their catalytic cycles, rendering them …

Eelgrass (Zostera Marina) Populatin Delcine In Morro Bay, Ca: A Meta-Analysis Of Herbicide Application In San Luis Obispo County And Morro Bay Watershed, Tyler Sinnott

Master of Science in Environmental Sciences and Management Projects

The endemic eelgrass (Zostera marina) community of Morro Bay Estuary, located on the central coast of California, has experienced an estimated decline of 95% in occupied area (reduction of 344 acres to 20 acres) from 2008 to 2017 for reasons that are not yet definitively clear. One possible driver of degradation, that has yet to be investigated is the role of herbicides from agricultural fields in the watershed that feeds into the estuary. Thus, the primary research goal of this project was to better understand temporal and spatial trends of herbicide use within the context of San Luis Obispo (SLO) …

The History Of Nintendo: The Company, Consoles And Games, Laurie Takeda

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

From the start, Nintendo has evolved overall as a company; from a playing card manufacturer to developing a wide variety of video game consoles and video games that are played worldwide, they continue to research and expand upon what the company can offer.

Spectroscopic Diagnostics For Supersonic Air Microwave Discharges, James E. Caplinger

Theses and Dissertations

Optical Emission Spectroscopy (OES) is an increasingly relevant technique in plasma diagnostics due to its inherent non-invasive nature and simple application relative to other popular techniques. In this work, common OES techniques are combined with novel methods, developed here, in an effort to provide comprehensive OES techniques for stationary and supersonic air microwave discharges. To this end, a detailed collisional-radiative model for strong atomic oxygen lines has been developed and used to identify the importance of often overlooked mechanisms including cascade emission and metastable excitation. Using these results, a combined argon actinometry technique was developed which makes use of the …

Design, Synthesis And Application Of Janus Gold Nanoprisms For Directed Self-Assembly., Md. Emtias Chowdhury

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Colloidal Janus particles that possess more than one type of surface chemistry or functionalities have drawn significant interest due to their enormous potential in bottom-up synthetic strategies for complex superstructures. Moreover, the property of molecular recognition, tunability, and predictability of the DNA-mediated interactions enable a high degree of control over particle assembly to generate highly ordered nanostructures with emergent applications. In this dissertation, we present our works on the synthesis of Janus particles from anisotropic gold nanoprisms, and DNA- mediated assembly of nanoprisms and polymer beads in four major areas: 1) Facet selective asymmetric functionalization of gold nanoprisms for Janus …

Development And Applications Of Condensed Phase Cavity Ring-Down Spectroscopy For Studies Of Electrochemical And Interfacial., Shadi Ahmad Alnaanah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation reports the development of ultra-sensitive platforms based on the laser cavity ring-down spectroscopic (CRDS) technique to enable optical and spectroelectrochemical investigations in the condensed phase of matter at challenging scenarios. Firstly, an electrically-active solid/liquid interface for the evanescent-wave cavity ring-down spectroscopy (EW-CRDS) was developed to specroelectrochemically investigate redox events. By coating the interface of total internal reflection of the EW-CRDS platform with a high quality optically transparent and electrically conductive indium tin oxide thin film (ITO), we demonstrated that sufficiently long ring-down times can be achieved to allow for spectroelectrochemical investigations of redox species at solid/liquid interfaces at …

The Utilization Of Metal-Ligand Cooperativity For Electrocatalytic Reduction And Catalytic Hydration., Steven Cronin

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Small molecules are building blocks for developing larger materials. These small molecules could be extremely small, such as hydrogen, or larger such as a nitrile, but their impact on the global economy is massive. This dissertation describes a catalyst for three reactions involving small molecules; 1) the hydrogen evolution reaction, 2) the carbon dioxide reduction reaction, 3) nitrile hydration. The catalyst Zn(DMTH) (DMTH = diacetyl-2-(4-methyl-3-thiosemicarbazonate)-3-(2-pyridinehydrazonato)) use “metal-ligand cooperativity” between the Lewis acid Zn(II) metal ion and an uncoordinated Lewis base nitrogen in the ligand framework to activate substrates. The complex has been analyzed via NMR, UV/Vis, single crystal X-ray crystallography, …

Semi-Automatic Hand Pose Estimation Using A Single Depth Camera, Giffy Jerald Chris

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

This paper addresses the problem of 3D hand pose annotations using a single depth camera. Although hand pose estimation methods rely critically on accurate 3D training data, creating such reliable training data is challenging and labor intensive. We propose a semi-automatic method for efficiently and accurately labeling the 3D hand key-points in a hand depth video. The process starts by selecting a subset of frames that are representative of all the frames in the dataset and the annotator only provides an estimate of the 2D hand key-points in these selected frames. We use this information to infer the 3D location …

Incomplete Time Series Forecasting Using Generative Neural Networks, Harshit Tarun Shah

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Dealing with missing data is a long pervading problem and it becomes more challenging when forecasting time series data because of the complex relationships between data and time, which is why incomplete data can lead to unreliable results. While some general-purpose methods like mean, zero, or median imputation can be employed to alleviate the problem, they might disrupt the inherent structure and the underlying data distributions. Another problem associated with conventional time series forecasting methods whose goal is to predict mean values is that they might sometimes overlook the variance or fluctuations in the input data and eventually lead to …

Link Prediction Based Face Clustering Using Variational Attentional Graph Autoencoder, Harish Deepak Verlekar

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

In this work, we address the problem of clustering faces according to their individual identities present inherently in the dataset.The current clustering frameworks are either based on some heuristic method or require labelled data for training the models,also some of them make assumptions on data distribution or shape of the clusters.We have framed the problem of forming clusters to that of link prediction on graphs and learn how to do that in a completely unsupervised way by proposing to use Variational Graph Autoencoders and use Graph Attentional Network as the Encoder. We call this network as Variational Attentional Graph Autoencoder(VAGAE).Our …

Early Detection Of Glaucoma Using Modified Residual U-Net Convolutional Neural Network, Balasubramaniam Theetharappan

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Glaucoma is the second leading cause of blindness all over the world, with apparently 75 million cases reported worldwide in 2018. If it’s not diagnosed at an early stage, glaucoma may cause irreversible damage to the optic nerve which results in blindness. The Optic head examination is the widely used structured diagnosis approach in the current medical field for Glaucoma detection which involves measuring the Optic Cup-to-Disc ratio from the fundus image. Estimation of Optic Cup-to-Disc requires accurate segmentation of the Optic Cup and Optic Disc from the fundus which is a tedious and time-consuming task even for the experienced …

Generating Adversarial Examples For Recruitment Ranking Algorithms, Anahita Samadi

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

There is no doubt that recruitment process plays an important role for both employers and applicants. Based on huge number of job candidates and open vacancies, recruitment process is expensive, time consuming and stressful for both applicants and companies. In today’s world so many recruitment processes are based on machine learning techniques. Therefore, it is very important to ensure security of these algorithms. Adversarial examples are proposed to examine vulnerability of machine leaning algorithms. Many research studies have been done on evaluating the resistance of artificial intelligence-based systems, in computer vision and text classification, against adversarial examples. However, to the …

A Survey On Ddos Attacks In Edge Servers, Iftakhar Ahmad

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

In modern times, the need for latency sensitive applications is growing rapidly. Cloud computing infrastructure is unable to provide support to such delay sensitive applications. Therefore, a new paradigm called edge computing has emerged. In edge computing various paradigms like Fog, Cloudlet, Mobile Edge Computing, etc. provide real-time, location aware services to users. As a result number of requests are generated for processing in the edge servers. If these edge servers for some reason become unavailable for providing service, users will not be able to perform their delay sensitive or location aware operations. Like other servers in the network, edge …

Exploring Information For Quantum Machine Learning Models, Michael Telahun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Quantum computing performs calculations by using physical phenomena and quantum mechanics principles to solve problems. This form of computation theoretically has been shown to provide speed ups to some problems of modern-day processing. With much anticipation the utilization of quantum phenomena in the field of Machine Learning has become apparent. The work here develops models from two software frameworks: TensorFlow Quantum (TFQ) and PennyLane for machine learning purposes. Both developed models utilize an information encoding technique amplitude encoding for preparation of states in a quantum learning model. This thesis explores both the capacity for amplitude encoding to provide enriched state …

Modified-Half-Normal Distribution And Different Methods To Estimate Average Treatment Effect., Jingchao Sun

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation consists of three projects related to Modified-Half-Normal distribution and causal inference. In my first project, a new distribution called Modified-Half-Normal distribution was introduced. I explored a few of its distributional properties, the procedures for generating random samples based on Bayesian approaches, and the parameter estimation based on the method of moments. The second project deals with the problem of selection bias of average treatment effect (ATE) if we use the observational data. I combined the propensity score based inverse probability of treatment weighting (IPTW) method and the directed acyclic graph (DAG) to solve this problem. The third project …

Aspects Of Causal Inference., John A. Craycroft

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Observational studies differ from experimental studies in that assignment of subjects to treatments is not randomized but rather occurs due to natural mechanisms, which are usually hidden from researchers. Yet objectives of the two studies are frequently the same: identify the causal – rather than merely associational – relationship between some treatment or exposure and an outcome. The statistical issues that arise in properly analyzing observational data for this goal are numerous and fascinating, and these issues are encompassed in the domain of causal inference. The research presented in this dissertation explores several distinct aspects of causal inference. This dissertation …

Computational Behavioral Analytics: Estimating Psychological Traits In Foreign Languages., Kristopher Wayne Reese

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The rise of technology proliferating into the workplace has increased the threat of loss of intellectual property, classified, and proprietary information for companies, governments, and academics. This can cause economic damage to the creators of new IP, companies, and whole economies. This technology proliferation has also assisted terror groups and lone wolf actors in pushing their message to a larger audience or finding similar tribal groups that share common, sometimes flawed, beliefs across various social media platforms. These types of challenges have created numerous studies in psycholinguistics, as well as commercial tools, that look to assist in identifying potential threats …

Monitoring Salt Diapir Related Land Deformation And Distribution: A Geophysical And Remote Sensing Approach Jazan Province, Saudi Arabia, Hannah G. Pankratz

Dissertations

Salt diapirs are rarely preserved on the surface and seldom considered as environmental hazards. The Jazan city diapir (JZD) is located in southwest Saudi Arabia along the Red Sea coastal plain and outcrops in the middle of a rapidly growing port city. The intrusion of the diapir (~ 2 km²) into the overburden sediments continues to cause uneven surfaces, compromises building foundations and infrastructure, caused dissolution sinkholes, and limits the expansion of the city along the coastline. This research aims to better understand the distribution and deformation associated with salt diapirs in arid environments.

Using integrated Interferometric Synthetic …

Kinetic Monte Carlo Investigations Involving Atomic Layer Deposition Of Metal-Oxide Thinfilms, David Tyler Magness

MSU Graduate Theses

Atomic Layer Deposition is a method of manufacturing thin film materials. Metal-oxides such as zinc-oxide and aluminum-oxide are particularly interesting candidates for use in microelectronic devices such as tunnel junction barriers, transistors, Schottky diodes, and more. By adopting a 3D Kinetic Monte Carlo model capable of simulating ZnO deposition, the effect of parameters including deposition temperature, chamber pressure, and composition of the initial substrate at the beginning of deposition can be investigated. This code generates two random numbers: One is used to select a chemical reaction to occur from a list of all possible reactions and the second is used …

The Legacy Of Contamination By Lead Smelters In Missouri, Robert S. Armstrong

MSU Graduate Theses

Missouri has a rich history of lead mining. In the smelting process lead particles are emitted, which may be toxic to plants and animals. This study focuses on two primary lead smelters, Herculaneum and Glover, in Missouri. Smelting operations have ceased at these two sites, and unlike Herculaneum, Glover has no reported lead concentrations. Findings from air and sediments of these two sites were compared to background conditions and to each other. Thirty-three samples were collected from Herculaneum and Glover (thirty samples and three replicates) and eleven samples (ten samples and one replicate) for background. For Herculaneum sediment, lead levels …

Raman Spectroscopic Investigation Of The Speciation Of Uranyl (Vi) And Thorium (Iv) Ions In Chloride-Bearing Aqueous Solutions Under Hydrothermal Conditions, Nadib Akram

MSU Graduate Theses

Raman spectra were acquired for a uranyl chloride aqueous solution at temperatures ranging from 25°C to 500°C at the chloride concentration of 6M and uranium (vi) concentration of 0.05M. The measurements were taken by sealing the sample in a hydrothermal diamond anvil cell (HDAC) which enabled spectra acquisition at non-ambient conditions. The pressure inside the cell was measured by estimating the liquid-vapor homogenization temperature (T_H) and using the isochoric equation of state diagram of water. The acquired spectra were then fitted to determine the speciation distribution of the various uranyl chloride species for the mentioned concentration. The developed …

Statistical Approaches Of Gene Set Analysis With Quantitative Trait Loci For High-Throughput Genomic Studies., Samarendra Das

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Recently, gene set analysis has become the first choice for gaining insights into the underlying complex biology of diseases through high-throughput genomic studies, such as Microarrays, bulk RNA-Sequencing, single cell RNA-Sequencing, etc. It also reduces the complexity of statistical analysis and enhances the explanatory power of the obtained results. Further, the statistical structure and steps common to these approaches have not yet been comprehensively discussed, which limits their utility. Hence, a comprehensive overview of the available gene set analysis approaches used for different high-throughput genomic studies is provided. The analysis of gene sets is usually carried out based on …

The Design And Validation Of A Discrete-Event Simulator For Carbohydrate Metabolism In Humans, Husam Ghazaleh

Theses and Dissertations

CarbMetSim is a discrete event simulator that tracks the changes of blood glucose level of a human subject after a timed series of diet and exercises activities. CarbMetSim implements wider aspects of carbohydrate metabolism in individuals to capture the average effect of various diet/exercise routines on the blood glucose level of diabetic patients. The simulator is implemented in an object-oriented paradigm, where key organs are represented as classes in the CarbMetSim. Key organs (stomach, intestine, portal vein, liver, kidney, muscles, adipose tissue, brain and heart) are implemented to the extent necessary to simulate their impact on the production and consumption …

Numerical And Experimental Investigation Of Aeration Self Mixing By Using Pulsating And Continuous Air Flow, Ahmed Ali Alkhafaji

Theses and Dissertations

Wastewater treatment is considered one of the most common forms of pollution control in the united states. Considered as an integral part of the wastewater treatment, the aeration process is the most energy-consuming process among all the processes that take place in any wastewater treatment plant. According to the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), a wastewater treatment plant is expected to remove at least 85% of the suspended solids and dissolved organic compounds from the wastewater before discharging it to a river or a lake. The normal operation of the aeration process is by compressing air continuously to basin …

Neurophysiological Correlates Of Dual Tasking In People With Parkinson's Disease And Freezing Of Gait, Conor Fearon, John Butler, Saskia Waechter, Isabelle Killane, Simon Kelly, Richard B Reilly, Timothy Lynch

Articles

Freezing of gait in people with Parkinson's disease (PwP) is associated with executive dysfunction and motor preparation deficits. We have recently shown that electrophysiological markers of motor preparation, rather than decision-making, differentiate PwP with freezing of gait (FOG +) and without (FOG -) while sitting. To examine the effect of locomotion on these results, we measured behavioural and electrophysiological responses in PwP with and without FOG during a target response time task while sitting (single-task) and stepping-in-place (dual-task). Behavioural and electroencephalographic data were acquired from 18 PwP (eight FOG +) and seven young controls performing the task while sitting and …