Digital Commons Network^™

Parweb: A Front-End Interface For Cluster Computing., Jacob Potter

Honors Theses

The High Performance Computational Science Laboratory at Western Michigan University operates a cluster of systems for use by students, professors, and professional researchers. Currently users that want to access the cluster, known as “Thor”, require knowledge of the Unix/Linux command line. They also require knowledge of operating a piece of software known as TORQUE to correctly achieve results from the High Performance Computing Lab.

The Web User Interface Framework for High Performance Cluster Computing alleviates the need for intimate knowledge of a command line interface, and replaces the current interaction interface with a more user friendly and graphical oriented system. …

A Remote Sensing Based Early Warning System For Algal Blooms In Kuwait Bay And Coastal Waters, Cameron Manche

Masters Theses

The Kuwait Bay and its coastal waters are being threatened by a perpetual hazard, the proliferation of harmful algal blooms (HABS). The frequency of HAB occurrences is a growing problem that is only reported subsequent to the onset of a HAB event. Little effort has been invested in investigating the spatial and temporal distribution of these events in Kuwait Bay and even less is known about their controlling factors. All previous studies within the Kuwait Bay have focused either on measuring nutrient availability and the biodiversity of algal species.

The overall study objective is four-fold: (1) to monitor the spatial …

Probing The Unfolding And The Stability Of The Last Four Metal Binding Domains Of Wilson Disease Protein Using Circular Dichroism And Novel Spectroscopic Techniques, Ibtesam Yaseen Alja’Afreh

Dissertations

Wilson disease protein is a copper-transporting P_1B type ATPase. It has large N-terminal copper binding domain which is composed of six homologous sub-domains. Each of these six domains is ~72 residues and connected to one another by linking regions of various lengths. They all possess similar ferrodoxin fold, and metal-binding motif, MXCXXC.

The need of having six metal binding domains and the manner in which they are communicating with each other is not well understood. To better understand how the last four metal binding domains function, I pursued a detailed biophysical characterization of these domains. Using molecular biology I …

Lnference On Differences In K Means For Data With Excess Zeros And Detection Limits, Haolai Jiang

Dissertations

Many data have excess zeros or unobservable values falling below detection limit. For example, data on hospitalization costs incurred by members of a health insurance plan will have zeros for the percentage who did not get sick. Benzene exposure measurements on petroleum re nery workers have some exposures fall below the limit of detection. Traditional methods of inference like one-way ANOVA are not appropriate to analyze such data since the point mass at zero violates typical distribution assumptions.

For testing for equality of means of k distributions, we will propose a likelihood ratio test that accounts for excess zeros or …

Ultrafast Interfacial Electron Transfer Across Molecule-Tio2 Nanocomposites: Towards Solar Cells And Two Photon Absorption, Edwin Mghanga

Dissertations

Interfacial charge transfer (ICT) across the molecule-TiO2 nanoparticle interface has gained enormous research attention for applications in dye sensitized solar cells (DSSC), photo-catalysis, water splitting and nonlinear optics. DSSCs are promising clean alternative energy sources. However, current DSSCs suffer from lower efficiencies and higher cost. Better understanding of the ICT processes in DSSCs can help solve these problems. We have used two strategies to understand ICT in the context of DSSCs. Firstly, we used a computationally validated anchor group, acetylacetonate (acac) to bind molecules to the semiconductor surface and facilitate charge separation. Secondly, we used natural dye sensitizers, …

Modular Monochromatic Colorings, Spectra And Frames In Graphs, Chira Lumduanhom

Dissertations

Abstract attached as separate document.

Gpu-Accelerated Influenza Simulations For Operational Modeling, Peter Holvenstot

Masters Theses

Simulations of influenza spread are useful for decision-making during public-health emergencies. Policy-makers use models to predict disease spread and estimate the effects of various intervention strategies. Effective modeling of targeted intervention strategies requires accurate modeling of individual-level behavior and transmission. However, this greatly increases the computational costs of these agent-based models. In addition, if the models are used as an outbreak progresses, some operational decisions must occur rapidly in order to contain the spread of the disease.

Graphics Processing Units (GPUs) are a type of specialized processor used to drive graphical displays. Many recent devices also allow users to write …

Electron Transfer In Pnicogen Bond, Liangyu Guan

Masters Theses

Abstract is available for download as a separate file.

Michigan's Clay Bluffs: The Description And Comparison Of An Erosion-Dependent Natural Community, Nathaniel G. Fuller

Masters Theses

The clay bluffs of Michigan are a natural community found along the shores of the Great Lakes. Groundwater is found to be critical to sustaining the alkaline wetlands on the face of the bluff as well as the source of most erosion events. The clay bluffs are unusual in their vegetation, disturbance regime and geographical context. This thesis focuses primarily on describing seeping clay bluffs and exploring the comparison to other natural communities. The purpose of this is twofold, to better understand the ways in which natural communities are described as distinct from one another, and to assess the distinctness …

Effects Of Road Salt On Asylum Lake Geochemistry, Davina A. Wyman

Masters Theses

Several studies indicate that seasonal applications of road deicers can lead to saline runoff entering surface water and groundwater, which can in turn change the chemistry, density, and physical mixing patterns of urban lakes. An investigation at Asylum Lake, an urban lake located near three major roadways, was conducted to determine the degree of road salt contamination in the lake, to determine if salt loading disrupts seasonal mixing patterns, and to determine the extent of redox stratification present due to eutrophic conditions. Samples were collected monthly from the deepest point in Asylum Lake over a 19-month period and analyzed for …

The Experiences Of Women In Post Graduate Physics And Astronomy Programs: The Roles Of Support, Career Goals, And Gendered Experiences, Ramón S. Barthelemy

Dissertations

In physics and astronomy the low representation of women is obvious at every stage of the educational pathway from undergraduate students to full professors. These low numbers perpetuate themselves by failing to create new mentors to foster the next generation of women. Women and men also have different experiences as they traverse into physics and astronomy careers. Women often experience chilly climates, discrimination, and challenges coordinating the demands of young families with their careers. In the literature exploring this topic, little focus is put on the experiences of women graduate students in physics and no focus is put on women …

Comparison Of Hazard, Odds And Risk Ratio In The Two-Sample Survival Problem, Benedict P. Dormitorio

Dissertations

Cox proportional hazards is the standard method for analyzing treatment efficacy when time-to-event data is available. In the absence of time-to-event, investigators may use logistic regression which only requires relative frequencies of events, or Poisson regression which requires only interval-summarized frequency tables of time-to-event. When event frequencies are used instead of time-to-events, does it always result in a loss in power?

We investigate the relative performance of the three methods. In particular, we compare the power of tests based on the respective effect-size estimates (1)hazard ratio (HR), (2)odds ratio (OR), and (3)risk ratio (RR). We use a variety of survival …

Predictive Modeling In The Search For Vertebrate Fossils: Geographic Object Based Image Analysis (Geobia) In The Eocene Of Wyoming, Bryan Bommersbach

Masters Theses

The development and testing of predictive models for identifying productive fossil localities represents a promising interdisciplinary endeavor among geographic information scientists, paleoanthropologists, and vertebrate paleontologists. This thesis analyzed high resolution (2m spatial resolution) commercial satellite imagery from the Worldview-2 satellite of five areas of the Great Divide Basin using a GEographic Object-Based Image Analysis (GEOBIA) technique, which segments the image into spectrally homogeneous, multi-pixel image objects. In addition to allowing statistical analysis of the spectral characteristics of the image objects, GEOBIA techniques also let analysts incorporate expert knowledge and contextual information to improve classification accuracy. The spectral characteristics of the …

An Integral Framework For Sustainable Building Design, Bushra Asfari

Masters Theses

Selection of materials for building design is a delicate process hinged of a number of factors which can be cost or environmental related, depending on the objectives of the design. This process becomes more difficult when designers are faced with several material options for each building component. This thesis presents the design and development of a framework that enables designers understand the trade-off between cost and environmental related factors when selecting materials for building design. The framework is based on the integration of Autodesk Revit, Microsoft access, and modeling modified Harmony search multi-objective optimization tool adapted to account for material …

Chemistry Graduate Teaching Assistants: A Comparison Of The Classroom Discourse Within Expository And Problem-Based Learning Laboratories, Kelley M. Current

Masters Theses

Graduate Teaching Assistants (GTAs) commonly function as instructors within undergraduate chemistry laboratories. This study sought to explore and describe GTA classroom discourse within two distinct instructional modes, using discourse analysis as the theoretical framework. Theclassroom discourse within a series of verification style labs was comparedto the classroom discourse produced within a set of Problem-Based Learning (PBL) labs. The results suggest three primary findings: (1) the apparent relationship between the instructional mode and form of GTA classroom discourse, (2) the patterns in classroom discourse observed within a given instructional mode repeat, irrespective of content, and (3) the classroom discourse observed within …

Stratigraphic Framework And Landsystem Correlation For Deposits Of The Saginaw Lobe, Michigan, Usa, Ivan R. Guzman

Masters Theses

Since the time of the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM) the south-central portion of the Lower Michigan Peninsula has been subject to several glacial advances and retreats by the Saginaw lobe. As part of the U.S Geological Survey Great Lakes Geological Mapping Coalition projects, several rotosonic borings were drilled between 2006 and 2013 in Barry, Kalamazoo and Calhoun Counties. Gamma ray logs and textural analyses were completed for each core. Five of these borings were selected according to their diamicton (till) content and correlated using water well logs and surficial geology maps. Glacial deposits such as diamicton serve as evidence of …

Opportunistic Service Differentiation And Cloud Resource Management In Support Of Enhanced Vehicular Applications, Mohammad Ali Salahuddin

Dissertations

An integral part of Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) are Vehicular Ad hoc Networks (VANETs), which consist of vehicles with on-board units (OBUs) and fixed road-side units (RSUs). Wireless Access in Vehicular Environment (WAVE) offers QoS via service differentiation by using application defined priorities. However, WAVE has unbounded delay and is oblivious to network load and severity of vehicles with respect to their environment. Our context severity metric innovatively enhances WAVE to be sensitive to vehicle and environment interactions. Our novel Opportunistic Service Differentiation (OSD) technique, dynamically readjusts the WAVE packet priorities to improve utilization of lower latency queues, prioritizing packets …

On Eulerian Irregularity And Decompositions In Graphs, Eric Andrews

Dissertations

Abstract attached as separate file.

Lie Loops Associated With Gl(ℋ), ℋ A Separable Infinite Dimensional Hilbert Space, Alper Bulut

Dissertations

Abstract attached as separate file.

Mathematical Methods Of Analysis For Control And Dynamic Optimization Problems On Manifolds, Robert J. Kipka

Dissertations

Mathematical Methods Of Analysis For Control And Dynamic Optimization Problems On Manifolds Driven by applications in fields such as robotics and satellite attitude control, as well as by a need for the theoretical development of appropriate tools for the analysis of geometric systems, problems of control of dynamical systems on manifolds have been studied intensively during the past three decades. In this dissertation we suggest new mathematical techniques for the study of control and dynamic optimization problems on manifolds. This work has several components including: an extension of the classical Chronological Calculus to control and dynamical systems which are merely …

Studies Of The Quantum Phase Transition In Chromium Using Inelastic X-Ray Scattering And Ab Initio Methods, Chengyang Li

Dissertations

In this project, inelastic x-ray scattering (IXS) was used to measure the phonon dispersion in chromium at high pressure and low temperature, and an ab initio method was used to simulate the phonon dispersion with different lattice constants and magnetic orders. The IXS measurements were carried out in Sector 30 at the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory. Data were taken at room temperature with pressures of 1.29 GPa, 8.15 GPa, 10.6 GPa, and at 5 K with a pressure of 18.36 GPa. The data shows similar phonon behavior in the antiferromagnetism (AFM) and the spin density wave (SDW) …

Biophysical Characterization Of The First Four Metal-Binding Domains Of Human Wilson Disease Protein, Alia V.H. Hinz

Dissertations

Wilson disease protein (WLNP) is a P_1b-type ATPase crucial for maintaining copper homeostasis in humans. Mutations in this protein result in the autosomal recessive disorder Wilson disease, a condition characterized by copper accumulation in the liver and brain. WLNP provides copper for incorporation into cuproproteins and exports excess copper into the bile for excretion. There are six metal-binding domains (MBDs) in WLNP, found within the first 650 amino acids of this 1,465 amino acid protein. Though each MBD has a different amino acid sequence, all MBDs possess a similar ferredoxin fold with a conserved hydrophobic core and a …

Connecting The Disciplinary Dots: Faculty Attitudes Toward The Professionalization Of Web Development, Kathleen Mary Kalata

Dissertations

Professionalization offers rewards such as prestige, financial benefits and autonomy. Fields such as nursing and social work have undergone the professionalization process. This exploratory study examined faculty attitudes regarding the professionalization of web development as defined by the Hall model of professionalism. The purpose of the study was to understand how faculty view web development as a profession. Based on the Hall’s Professionalism Scale (1968) and modified survey by Snizek (1972), the Web Development Professionalism Inventory (WDPI) was used to explore faculty attitudes toward professionalization.

This study surveyed faculty about their views on the structural and attitudinal components of web …

No Fracking Way! A Study On The Spatial Patterns Of And Changes In Perception And Distance From A Michigan Horizontal Hydraulic Fracturing Site, Shannon Mcewen

Masters Theses

The research investigates whether Michigan residents' perception of risk from an oil and natural gas (ONG) well site that employs the use of horizontal hydraulic fracturing (fracking) changes with distance. The research goal is to determine if residents that live farther from a fracking site perceive it to be more dangerous than those who live closer. Secondary research goals include determining if increasing distance from a fracking site cause residents to overestimate their proximity to a fracking site and if gender and education levels have an effect on residents' perception levels. Data were collected from residents in three counties in …

Multi-Threaded Automatic Integration Using Openmp And Cuda, Rida Assaf

Masters Theses

Problems in many areas give rise to computationally expensive integrals that beg the need of efficient techniques to solve them, e.g., in computational finance for the modeling of cash flows; for the computation of Feynman loop integrals in high energy physics; and in stochastic geometry with applications to computer graphics.

We demonstrate feasible numerical approaches in the framework of the PARINT multivariate integration package. The parallel environment is provided by the cluster of the High Performance Computational Science (HPCS) laboratory, with 22 (16- or 32-core) nodes, NVIDIA GPUs, and Intel Xeon Phi coprocessors.

Monte Carlo integration is implemented in CUDA …

Electron Capture By Multiply Charged Ions From Molecular Targets, Justin Harris

Masters Theses

State-selective differential cross sections for single-electron capture processes in collisions of Ne^q+ (q=2, 3, 5) ions with H₂O and CO₂ have been studied experimentally at laboratory collisions energies between 45 and 250 eV, and at scattering angles between 0^o and 7:20^o by means of translational energy-gain spectroscopy technique. The translational energy spectra show that only a few final states are populated depending on the projectile's charge state, laboratory scattering angle, and the collision energy. In addition, these measurements show that the dominant reaction channels are due to non-dissociative electron capture into excited states of …

A Climatological Study Of Drought In Southern Michigan, Rudy Bartels

Masters Theses

Drought has become a reoccurring phenomenon throughout many regions around the world. Significant drought conditions have beenobserved overthe pastfive decades in relation to economic, social, and agricultural impacts. In this study, Southern Michigan is investigated over the past 52 years from 1960-2012. The Standardized Precipitation Index (SPI) will be calculated over a 6-month timescale from monthly precipitations. Three variables including 500-mb heights, surface pressure maps, and sea surface temperatures, will be correlated with the SPI using sliding correlations and Pearson's R correlation to determine any relations between these variables and precipitation variations. We will further investigate the five driest, wettest, …

Forbidden Fe Ii Emission Line Fluxes From The Weigelt Knots Of Eta Carinae, S. Towers

Masters Theses

Eta Carinae is an unparalleled object crossing many divisions of astrophysics. It has multiple, complicated and dynamic processes leading to absorption and emission spectra across all wavelengths from radio to hard x-ray. The spectra differ spatially across Eta Carinae's extended envelope and are changing rapidly over time.

The Weigelt Knots of Eta Carinae's ejecta emit spectra of numerous forbidden iron species lines, rare on Earth, but prevalent in the unique conditions surrounding this star. The Weigelt Knots' unique conditions occur almost nowhere else, making Eta Carinae, useful not only for understanding massive stars similar to it, but for understanding the …

Synthesis, Characterization And Potential Applications Of Palladium And Ruthenium Nanostructures, Clara Patrice Adams

Dissertations

Controlling the size and shape of metal nanostructures is important for tuning the intrinsic chemical and physical properties of materials, and consequently their potential technological applications. Modulating the morphology of metal nanostructures is essential to understanding the structure-function relationship (for example, optical, magnetic, catalytic, and electronic properties) under various environmental conditions. Our work describes the development of new procedures for the synthesis of well-defined isotropic and anisotropic nanoparticles consisting of palladium (Pd) and ruthenium (Ru). Characterization of the nanostructures was carried out using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), high resolution-TEM (HRTEM), powder x-ray diffraction (XRD), selected area electron diffraction (SAED) and …

Size-Dependent Interactions Of Metal Nanoparticles With Fluorophores And Semiconductors, Liyana A. Wajira Ariyadasa

Dissertations

In recent years, nanoscale metallic particles have gained considerable interest due to their potential applications in advanced technology. Despite such interest, synthetic procedures that produce gram-scale, well-defined metallic nanoparticles with controlled size and shape, especially with diameters less than 5 nm remains a challenge. Our work has focused on developing synthetic procedures that produce well-defined platinum and palladium metal nanoparticles in the 1-5 nm size range. Thioether ligands were used as stabilizers and resulted in metal nanoparticles with controlled size. The nanoparticles were characterized using transmission electron microscopy (TEM), x-ray diffraction (XRD), selected area electron diffraction (SAED), x-ray photoelectron spectroscopy …