Digital Commons Network^™

Calculating The Cohomology Of A Lie Algebra Using Maple And The Serre Hochschild Spectral Sequence, Jacob Kullberg

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Lie algebra cohomology is an important tool in many branches of mathematics. It is used in the Topology of homogeneous spaces, Deformation theory, and Extension theory. There exists extensive theory for calculating the cohomology of semi simple Lie algebras, but more tools are needed for calculating the cohomology of general Lie algebras. To calculate the cohomology of general Lie algebras, I used the symbolic software program called Maple. I wrote software to calculate the cohomology in several different ways. I wrote several programs to calculate the cohomology directly. This proved to be computationally expensive as the number of differential forms …

Rfviz: An Interactive Visualization Package For Random Forests In R, Christopher Beckett

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Random forests are very popular tools for predictive analysis and data science. They work for both classification (where there is a categorical response variable) and regression (where the response is continuous). Random forests provide proximities, and both local and global measures of variable importance. However, these quantities require special tools to be effectively used to interpret the forest. Rfviz is a sophisticated interactive visualization package and toolkit in R, specially designed for interpreting the results of a random forest in a user-friendly way. Rfviz uses a recently developed R package (loon) from the Comprehensive R Archive Network (CRAN) to create …

Improving Accuracy Of The Edgebox Approach, Kamna Yadav

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Object region detection plays a vital role in many domains ranging from self-driving cars to lane detection, which heavily involves the task of object detection. Improving the performance of object region detection approaches is of great importance and therefore is an active ongoing research in Computer Vision. Traditional sliding window paradigm has been widely used to identify hundreds of thousands of windows (covering different scales, angles, and aspect ratios for objects) before the classification step. However, it is not only computationally expensive but also produces relatively low accuracy in terms of the classifier output by providing many negative samples. Object …

The Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper: Remote Sensing Of The Nighttime Oh Layer During The Deepwave Campaign, Pattilyn Mclaughlin

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The Advanced Mesospheric Temperature Mapper [AMTM] is a remote sensing instrument developed at Utah State University to map temperature structures in the hydroxyl airglow emission at ~87 km. These maps can then be used to quantify wave field characteristics and to observe general climatology trends. Two recent campaigns that it has been involved with are the DEEPWAVE campaign in Lauder, New Zealand and the Super Soaker campaign in Fairbanks, Alaska.

The Deep Propagating Gravity Wave Experiment, “DEEPWAVE” was an international measurement and modeling program intended to characterize the generation and propagation of a broad range of atmospheric gravity waves with …

New Ca-Id-Tims Detrital Zircon Constraints On Middle Neoproterozoic Sedimentary Successions, Southwestern United States, Abigail R. Bullard

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Three related sedimentary successions located in Arizona, Utah, and California were deposited in basins on proto-North America during the early rifting of Rodinia (~780 Mya). Previous detrital zircon U-Pb maximum ages for the units are inexact, making it difficult to piece together what happened at this point in Earth history.

We report better maximum age constraints on these units obtained by subjecting detrital zircons to high-precision CA-ID-TIMS analysis, which provide more exact ²⁰⁶Pb/²³⁸U ages. These new data significantly improve the precision for the base of the ChUMP units, with an average age of 775.63 ± 0.27 Ma …

Climate Change Perceptions And Adaptation Among Small-Scale Farmers In Uganda: A Community-Based Participatory Approach, Thomas Derr

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Climate change in the East African country of Uganda is causing severe variations in the once predictable seasonal weather patterns that farmers had come to depend on. This, in combination with social and economic challenges, has significantly increased the vulnerability of farmers who make up the majority of Uganda’s population. Previous knowledge and observations suggest that Ugandan farmers may be reluctant or slow to change their practices in response to the changing climate. Strategies are therefore needed to identify challenges and sustainable solutions. This research used qualitative data collection methods known as participatory rural appraisal (PRA) and participatory action research …

Historical Channel Change Caused By A Century Of Flow Alteration On Sixth Water Creek And Diamond Fork River, Ut, Jabari C. Jones

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Changes in the amount of water and sediment that enter a river can change its shape and size. The way that rivers change is affected by a variety of factors, including the size of the sediment in the river, and past changes to the river. The Diamond Fork River in central Utah has been altered by water delivered from the Colorado River system for over a century. Beginning in 1915, water used for irrigation was delivered through a tributary, Sixth Water Creek, with daily summer flows that were much larger than natural flows. This caused drastic change to the rivers, …

Sensitivity Of The Opal Instrument For Gravity Wave Detection, Kenneth I. Zia

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Knowing what goes on in the upper atmosphere (∼80-140 km) is very important to the space science community. There are several competing forces that influence the temperature and densities of neutral molecules in that region. OPAL (Optical Profiling of the Atmospheric Limb) is funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF) to measure the temperature there using light from oxygen molecules (∼760 nm). To accomplish this,OPAL is built into a CubeSat (a satellite the size of a loaf of bread) to be launched from the International Space Station (ISS) at an altitude of about 400 km. This vantage point is needed …

Sheaf Theory As A Foundation For Heterogeneous Data Fusion, Seyed M-H Mansourbeigi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A major impediment to scientific progress in many fields is the inability to make sense of the huge amounts of data that have been collected via experiment or computer simulation. This dissertation provides tools to visualize, represent, and analyze the collection of sensors and data all at once in a single combinatorial geometric object. Encoding and translating heterogeneous data into common language are modeled by supporting objects. In this methodology, the behavior of the system based on the detection of noise in the system, possible failure in data exchange and recognition of the redundant or complimentary sensors are studied via …

The Development Of Hydrodynamic And Kinetic Models For The Plasmasphere Refilling Problem Following A Geomagnetic Storm, Kausik Chatterjee

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The objective of this dissertation is the development of computer simulation-based models for the modeling of upper ionosphere, starting from the first principles. The models were validated by exact analytical benchmarks and are seen to be consistent with experimentally obtained results. This area of research has significant implications in the area of global communication. In addition, these models would lead to a better understanding of the physical processes taking place in the upper ionosphere.

The Influence Of Mechanical Stratigraphy On Thrust-Ramp Nucleation And Propagation Of Thrust Faults, Sarah S. Wigginton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Our current understanding of thrust fault kinematics predicts that thrust faults nucleate on low angle, weak surfaces before they propagate upward and forms a higher angle ramp. While this classic kinematic and geometric model serves well in some settings, it does not fully consider the observations of footwall deformation beneath some thrust faults. We examine an alternative end-member model of thrust fault formation called “ramp-first” fault formation. This model hypothesizes that in mechanically layered rocks, thrust ramps nucleate in the structurally strong units, and that faults can propagate both upward and downward into weaker units forming folds at both fault …

Mesospheric Gravity Wave Climatology And Variances Over The Andes Mountains, Jonathan Rich Pugmire

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Look up! Travelling over your head in the air are waves. They are present all the time in the atmosphere all over the Earth. Now imagine throwing a small rock in a pond and watching the ripples spread out around it. The same thing happens in the atmosphere except the rock is a thunderstorm, the wind blowing over a mountain, or another disturbance. As the wave (known as a gravity wave) travels upwards the thinning air allows the wave to grow larger and larger. Eventually the gravity wave gets too large – and like waves on the beach – it …

Energy And Risk: Discourse, Framing, And Content, Temis Gardner Taylor

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This research examined how people communicate and create knowledge about energy-related risks. Analysis of the discourse, frames, and content surrounding unconventional energy policy and development in the Western United States was conducted using three case studies. The results contribute to an understanding of energy-related risk perceptions in social and historical contexts.

Discourses contained in newspapers and public comments to the Bureau of Land Management presented arguments on the basis of risks to the environment; climate; human health and safety; jobs and economic prosperity; property rights; and local governments. Governments were seen as risks when they were perceived to allow misuse …

Statistical Methods To Account For Gene-Level Covariates In Normalization Of High-Dimensional Read-Count Data, Lauren Holt Lenz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The goal of genetic-based cancer research is often to identify which genes behave differently in cancerous and healthy tissue. This difference in behavior, referred to as differential expression, may lead researchers to more targeted preventative care and treatment. One way to measure the expression of genes is though a process called RNA-Seq, that takes physical tissue samples and maps gene products and fragments in the sample back to the gene that created it, resulting in a large read-count matrix with genes in the rows and a column for each sample. The read-counts for tumor and normal samples are then compared …

Carbon Monoxide On Demand: Light-Induced Co Release Of Flavonols, Stacey N. Anderson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Carbon monoxide (CO) is an extremely useful molecule with applications in industrial manufacturing, synthetic procedures as a C1 building block, and as a potential pharmaceutical to produce anti-inflammatory effects and vasodilation. However, the toxicity associated with CO has prevented its full utilization. In order to safely handle CO, compounds and molecules have been developed that act as storage materials for the gas. Ideal storage platforms only release CO upon stimulation via a trigger. Light activation is the most desirable trigger as it can be regulated in terms of the intensity and the wavelength of light used. The majority of light-induced …

Identifying Criticality In Market Sentiment: A Data Mining Approach, Vaibhav Sahu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The aim of this thesis is to study and identify time periods of high activity in commodity and stock market sentiment based on a data mining approach. The method is to develop tools to extract relevant information from web searches and Twitter feeds based on the tally of certain keywords and their combinations at regular intervals. Periods of high activity are identified by a measure of complexity developed for analysis of living systems. Experiments were conducted to see if the measure of activity could be applied as a predictor of changes in stock market and commodity prices.

“I Really Don’T Look For Certifications, It All Has To Do With Personal Relationships”: The Construction Of A Meat Philosophy And Innovation Adoption By Culinary Professionals In The Rocky Mountain Region, Kailie B. Leggett

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Demand for new methods of beef production is rising due to concern over potential impacts on human health, animal welfare, and the environment. Researchers at Utah State University have developed a method of beef production from cattle finished on tannin-containing legume forages in the Rocky Mountain Region in order to address those concerns. To ensure success of this product, the demand and marketability needed to be assessed. Food values addressed through new production standards and certifications are communicated through labeling by culinary professionals in the kitchen and behind service counters. This research study utilized qualitative methods to understand how culinary …

Comparing Performance Of Gene Set Test Methods Using Biologically Relevant Simulated Data, Richard M. Lambert

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Today we know that there are many genetically driven diseases and health conditions. These problems often manifest only when a set of genes are either active or inactive. Recent technology allows us to measure the activity level of genes in cells, which we call gene expression. It is of great interest to society to be able to statistically compare the gene expression of a large number of genes between two or more groups. For example, we may want to compare the gene expression of a group of cancer patients with a group of non-cancer patients to better understand the genetic …

Inorganic Electrocatalysts For Innovative Water Splitting And Organic Upgrading, Nan Jiang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The booming worldwide demand for energy and the increasing concerns about global warming due to fossil fuel consumption have urged the development of techniques for storing and converting renewable and clean energy resources. Electrocatlytic or photoelectrocatalytic water splitting to generate green energy carrier H₂ with sustainable energy input, like solar, has been regarded as an attractive strategy for carbon-neutral energy needs. However, the sluggish kinetics for both half reactions (HER and OER), high overpotentials and thermodynamic requirements, and H₂ and O₂ gas crossover have been regarded as the major challenges, which limit its widespread application.

On account …

Examining Teacher Perceptions When Utilizing Volunteers In School-Based Agricultural Education Programs, Ashley B. Cromer

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

There has been little research conducted related to how school-based agricultural (SBAE) teachers perceive the utilization of volunteers in the classroom. The United States is facing a shortage of SBAE teachers, and with turnover rates that are not sustainable, solutions for support and reduction of the SBAE teachers’ workload must be sought with diligence. There is potential for volunteers to reduce some of the responsibilities that the SBAE teacher is faced with. The purposes of this study are to determine the demographic characteristics of the volunteers being utilized and of the SBAE teachers, determine the perceived benefits, barriers and beliefs …

The Power Law Distribution Of Agricultural Land Size, Lauren Chamberlain

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This paper demonstrates that the distribution of county level agricultural land size in the United States is best described by a power-law distribution, a distribution that displays extremely heavy tails. This indicates that the majority of farmland exists in the upper tail. Our analysis indicates that the top 5% of agricultural counties account for about 25% of agricultural land between 1997-2012. The power-law distribution of farm size has important implications for the design of more efficient regional and national agricultural policies as counties close to the mean account for little of the cumulative distribution of total agricultural land. This has …

Surviving A Civil War: Expanding The Scope Of Survival Analysis In Political Science, Andrew B. Whetten

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Survival Analysis in the context of Political Science is frequently used to study the duration of agreements, political party influence, wars, senator term lengths, etc. This paper surveys a collection of methods implemented on a modified version of the Power-Sharing Event Dataset (which documents civil war peace agreement durations in the Post-Cold War era) in order to identify the research questions that are optimally addressed by each method. A primary comparison will be made between a Cox Proportional Hazards Model using some advanced capabilities in the glmnet package, a Survival Random Forest Model, and a Survival SVM. En route to …

Running The Cañons Of The Rio Grande: Part 2 Boquillas Canyon, Texas And Coahuila, Todd L. Blythe

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In 1899, Robert T. Hill led the first scientific exploration of the remote segment of the Rio Grande known as the Big Bend. Hill’s observations from this expedition were published in an article titled “Running the Cañons of the Rio Grande.” At the time of Hill’s expedition, the stream flow of the Rio Grande was largely depleted by water development in the upstream portions of the basin. The continued overallocation of the Rio Grande has led to the degradation of aquatic ecosystems in the Big Bend, one of North America’s largest transboundary protected areas, such that management of natural resources …

Quantum Mechanical Studies Of N-H···N Hydrogen Bonding In Acetamide Derivatives And Amino Acids, Sandra J. Lundell

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Proteins are made of vast chains of amino acids that twist and fold into intricate designs. These structures are held in place by networks of noncovalent interactions. One of these, the hydrogen bond, forms bridges between adjacent pieces of the protein chain and is one of the most important contributors to the shape and stability of proteins. Hydrogen bonds come in all shapes and sizes and a full understanding of these not only aids in our understanding of proteins in general but can bridge the gap to finding cures to many protein-related diseases, such as sickle-cell anemia. The primary aim …

An Examination Of What Motivates Utah Residents To Adopt The Practice Of Rainwater Harvesting, D. Wayne Honaker

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Although most of the earth is covered in water, a very limited amount of that water is fresh water, which is essential to our survival. Therefore, it is imperative that we do all that is possible to conserve and protect our extremely limited water resources, especially in arid regions such as the American West. While there are many ways and means to protecting and preserving our water resources, this thesis focuses on the strategy of rainwater harvesting (RWH) as it is done throughout the state of Utah. RWH is defined as taking the precipitation that falls on our built structures …

Multi-Resolution Analysis Using Wavelet Basis Conditioned On Homogenization, Abibat Adebisi Lasisi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation considers an approximation strategy using a wavelet reconstruction scheme for solving elliptic problems. The foci of the work are on (1) the approximate solution of differential equations using multiresolution analysis based on wavelet transforms and (2) the homogenization process for solving one and two-dimensional problems, to understand the solutions of second order elliptic problems. We employed homogenization to compute the average formula for permeability in a porous medium. The structure of the associated multiresolution analysis allows for the reconstruction of the approximate solution of the primary variable in the elliptic equation. Using a one-dimensional wavelet reconstruction algorithm proposed …

A Comparison Of R, Sas, And Python Implementations Of Random Forests, Breckell Soifua

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

The Random Forest method is a useful machine learning tool developed by Leo Breiman. There are many existing implementations across different programming languages; the most popular of which exist in R, SAS, and Python. In this paper, we conduct a comprehensive comparison of these implementations with regards to the accuracy, variable importance measurements, and timing. This comparison was done on a variety of real and simulated data with different classification difficulty levels, number of predictors, and sample sizes. The comparison shows unexpectedly different results between the three implementations.

Commuter Rail And The Landscape: Alternative Futures For Planning In Southeastern Box Elder County, C. Michael Gottfredson

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This thesis analyzes the impact the FrontRunner commuter-rail service would have on Southeastern Box Elder County, Utah, using both anticipated future and alternative future scenarios created in a geographic information system (GIS). These alternative future scenarios include having the FrontRunner developed at anticipated stops and a transit-oriented development (TOD) scenario. Using techniques and methods developed by scholars in the bioregional planning field, these alternative future scenarios were compared against impact-data models addressing residential land-use suitability and landscape risk.

Outcomes: from this analysis, the TOD alternative future scenario had the least impact on landscape risk impact-data model. The TOD model …

A Framework For Assessing Natural Lands And Finding Common Ground In The Bear River Range, Scott Mccomb

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Forests, wetlands, grasslands, lakes and deserts make up the natural lands that humans and nature rely on. In the Bear River Range, these lands are becoming smaller and more disconnected due to residential and commercial development, agriculture, energy production and transportation corridors. In addition, natural lands are owned and managed by a variety of groups representing different values, priorities and traditions. For large-scale conservation to be successful, it needs to incorporate multiple priorities. The purpose of this study was to provide a process for identifying the remaining network of natural lands within the Bear River Range that indicate high ecological …

The Perception Of Utah Division Of Wildlife Resource’S Law Enforcement By Local, County And Municipal Law Enforcement Agencies, Wyatt Bubak

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Like most states throughout the nation, Utah’s population has continually grown since settlement. In 2014 Utah’s population was estimated at 2.95 million and between 2015-2016 Utah had the highest percentage growth rate of any state in the nation. This profound amount of growth can be attributed to many factors that are unique to Utah; two of which are the aesthetic and recreational opportunities available to Utah residents.

Due to population growth and urban sprawl, areas commonly patrolled by Utah Division of Wildlife Resources (UDWR) conservation officers are now located closer to urban populations. Previously rural or backcountry areas are seeing …