Digital Commons Network^™

Lifetime Modeling Of Deficient Bridges In New York, Levi Phippen

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

Given the importance of bridges to a state's economy and strength, and the costs involved in building and maintaining bridges, maximizing their service life is essential. In order to safely extend a bridge's utility as long as possible, an understanding of its lifetime processes is needed. This paper attempts to model the lifetime of a bridge in New York once it has become deficient. Lifetime is defined to be the length of time between deficiency classification and failure. A bridge is considered deficient when certain structural components receive a poor rating in the National Bridge Inventory, which is compiled annually …

Beetles, Fungi And Trees: A Story For The Ages? Modeling And Projecting The Multipartite Symbiosis Between The Mountain Pine Beetle, Dendroctonus Ponderosae, And Its Fungal Symbionts, Grosmannia Clavigera And Ophiostoma Montium, Audrey L. Addison

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As data collection and modeling improve, ecologists increasingly discover that interspecies dynamics greatly affect the success of individual species. Models accounting for the dynamics of multiple species are becoming more important. In this work, we explore the relationship between mountain pine beetle (MPB, Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) and two mutualistic fungi, Grosmannia clavigera and Ophiostoma montium. These species are involved in a multipartite symbiosis, critical to the survival of MPB, in which each species benefits.

Extensive phenological modeling has been done to determine how temperature affects the timing of life events and cold-weather mortality of MPB. The fungi have also …

Ensemble Modeling With Data Assimilation Models: A New Strategy For Space Weather Specifications, Forecasts, And Science, Robert W. Schunk, Ludger Scherliess, V. Eccles, Larry Gardner, Jan Josef Sojka, L. Zhu, X. Pi, A. J. Mannucci, B. D. Wilson, A. Komjathy, C, Wang, G. Rosen

All Physics Faculty Publications

The Earth’s Ionosphere-Thermosphere-Electrodynamics (I-T-E) system varies markedly on a range of spatial and temporal scales and these variations have adverse effects on human operations and systems, including high-frequency communications, over-the-horizon radars, and survey and navigation systems that use Global Positioning System (GPS) satellites. Consequently, there is a need to elucidate the underlying physical pro- cesses that lead to space weather disturbances and to both mitigate and forecast near-Earth space weather.