Digital Commons Network^™

Convex Relaxations Of A Continuum Aggregation Model, And Their Efficient Numerical Solution, Mahdi Bandegi

Dissertations

In this dissertation, the global minimization of a large deviations rate function (the Helmholtz free energy functional) for the Boltzmann distribution is discussed. The Helmholtz functional arises in large systems of interacting particles — which are widely used as models in computational chemistry and molecular dynamics. Global minimizers of the rate function (Helmholtz functional) characterize the asymptotics of the partition function and thereby determine many important physical properties such as self-assembly, or phase transitions. Finding and verifying local minima to the Helmholtz free energy functional is relatively straightforward. However, finding and verifying global minima is much more difficult since the …

Quantitative Metrics For Mutation Testing, Amani M. Ayad

Dissertations

Program mutation is the process of generating versions of a base program by applying elementary syntactic modifications; this technique has been used in program testing in a variety of applications, most notably to assess the quality of a test data set. A good test set will discover the difference between the original program and mutant except if the mutant is semantically equivalent to the original program, despite being syntactically distinct.

Equivalent mutants are a major nuisance in the practice of mutation testing, because they introduce a significant amount of bias and uncertainty in the analysis of test results; indeed, mutants …

Dimension Reduction Techniques For High Dimensional And Ultra-High Dimensional Data, Subha Datta

Dissertations

This dissertation introduces two statistical techniques to tackle high-dimensional data, which is very commonplace nowadays. It consists of two topics which are inter-related by a common link, dimension reduction.

The first topic is a recently introduced classification technique, the weighted principal support vector machine (WPSVM), which is incorporated into a spatial point process framework. The WPSVM possesses an additional parameter, a weight parameter, besides the regularization parameter. Most statistical techniques, including WPSVM, have an inherent assumption of independence, which means the data points are not connected with each other in any manner. But spatial data violates this assumption. Correlation between …

Reduction In Salt Deposition On Carbon Nano-Tube Immobilized Membrane During Desalination Via Membrane Distillation, Madihah Saud Humoud

Dissertations

As water scarcity increases globally under the stresses of increasing demand, aquifer depletion, and climate change, the market for efficient desalination technologies has grown rapidly to fill the void. One such developing technology, membrane distillation (MD), has found much interest in the scientific community. MD has also been powered by solar energy and waste heat resources because it can be operated at relatively low temperatures. Recent studies indicate that MD could potentially achieve the efficiencies of state-of-the-art mature thermal desalination technologies, although additional engineering and scientific challenges must first be overcome.

MD can be used to treat high salinity water …

Early Detection Of Fake News On Social Media, Yang Liu

Dissertations

The ever-increasing popularity and convenience of social media enable the rapid widespread of fake news, which can cause a series of negative impacts both on individuals and society. Early detection of fake news is essential to minimize its social harm. Existing machine learning approaches are incapable of detecting a fake news story soon after it starts to spread, because they require certain amounts of data to reach decent effectiveness which take time to accumulate. To solve this problem, this research first analyzes and finds that, on social media, the user characteristics of fake news spreaders distribute significantly differently from those …

Investigation Of Small-Scale Energy Release And Transfer Processes In The Solar Atmosphere With High-Resolution Observations In Infrared, Xu Yang

Dissertations

Solar spectrum in the infrared (IR) contains abundant information of solar activities, however, it has not spectral lines in the solar IR spectrum provide different tools to probe the solar atmosphere in various heights. This radiation band in such relatively long wavelength includes various atom and molecule spectral lines that are generated by relatively small energy level transitions. The temperature-sensitive and highly dynamic spectral lines could reveal the energy transmission process more easily than those in the visible wavelength of solar emission. Moreover, the better magnetic sensitivities for the infrared lines resulting from their longer wavelength make them detect the …

Bio-Inspired Learning And Hardware Acceleration With Emerging Memories, Shruti R. Kulkarni

Dissertations

Machine Learning has permeated many aspects of engineering, ranging from the Internet of Things (IoT) applications to big data analytics. While computing resources available to implement these algorithms have become more powerful, both in terms of the complexity of problems that can be solved and the overall computing speed, the huge energy costs involved remains a significant challenge. The human brain, which has evolved over millions of years, is widely accepted as the most efficient control and cognitive processing platform. Neuro-biological studies have established that information processing in the human brain relies on impulse like signals emitted by neurons called …

Amyloid Proteins And Fibrils Stability, Farbod Mahmoudinobar

Dissertations

Compared to globular proteins that have a stable native structure, intrinsically disordered peptides (IDP) sample an ensemble of structures without folding into a native conformation.One example of IDP is the amyloid-beta(Abeta) protein which is the main constituent of senile plaques in the brain of Alzheimer's patients.Understanding the process by which IDPs undergo structural changes to form oligomers that eventually aggregate into senile plaques/amyloid fibrils may significantly advance the development of novel therapeutic methods to treat neurodegenerative diseases, for which there is no cure to date. This dissertation has two main objectives. The first one is to investigate and identify structural …

Mitochondria Imaging And Targeted Cancer Treatment, Tinghan Zhao

Dissertations

Mitochondria are essential organelles as the site of respiration in eukaryotic cells and are involved in many crucial functions in cell life. Dysfunction of mitochondrial metabolism and irregular morphology have been frequently found in human cancers. The capability of imaging mitochondria as well as regulating their microenvironment is important both scientifically and clinically. Mitochondria penetrating peptides (MPPs), certain peptides that are composed of cationic and hydrophobic amino acids, are good candidates for mitochondria targeting. Herein, a novel MPP, D-argine-phenylalanine-D-argine-phenylalanine-D-argine-phenylalanine-NH₂ (rFrFrF), is conjugated with a rhodamine-based fluorescent chromophore (TAMRA). The TAMRA-rFrFrF probe exhibits advantageous properties for long-term mitochondria tracking of …

Topics On High Dimensional Selective Inference, Yan Zhang

Dissertations

In such applications as identifying differentially expressed genes in micro-array experiments or assessing safety and efficacy of drugs in clinical trials, researchers often report confidence intervals (CIs) and p-values only for the selected parameters, which is called selective inference. While constructing multiple CIs for the selected parameters, it is common practice to ignore issue of selection and multiplicity. Although protection against the effect of selection is sufficient in some cases, simultaneous coverage should be also needed in real applications. For example, in clinical trials, multiple endpoints are considered to assess effects of a drug and the ultimate decision often depends …

Cancer Risk Prediction With Whole Exome Sequencing And Machine Learning, Abdulrhman Fahad M Aljouie

Dissertations

Accurate cancer risk and survival time prediction are important problems in personalized medicine, where disease diagnosis and prognosis are tuned to individuals based on their genetic material. Cancer risk prediction provides an informed decision about making regular screening that helps to detect disease at the early stage and therefore increases the probability of successful treatments. Cancer risk prediction is a challenging problem. Lifestyle, environment, family history, and genetic predisposition are some factors that influence the disease onset. Cancer risk prediction based on predisposing genetic variants has been studied extensively. Most studies have examined the predictive ability of variants in known …

Dental Professionals Occupational Noise Exposure And Its Auditory And Non-Auditory Effects, Alexis Frees

Theses

The purpose of this study was to assess noise exposure and its auditory and non-auditory effects on workers in five clinical departments in the School of Dental Medicine at Rutgers Biomedical Health Sciences Campus in Newark, New Jersey. The study included environmental noise level measurement, dental instrument sound level measurement, personal noise dosimetry and a questionnaire survey to assess non-auditory effects. Octave band analysis of environmental noise levels showed that they are slightly above the standard noise criteria for clinics, and measurements from six dental instruments confirm that they contribute higher sound pressure levels at the frequencies of 1000, 2000, …

Investigation Of Membrane Protein Dynamics Using Correlative Single-Particle Tracking And Super-Resolution Microscopy Combined With Bayesian Inference Of Diusion In Arbitrary Landscapes, Hanieh Mazloom Farsibaf

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Many experiments have shown that the diffusive motion of lipids and membrane proteins are slower on the cell surface than those in artificial lipid bilayers or blebs. One hypothesis that may partially explain this mystery is the effect of the cytoskeleton structures on the protein dynamics. To test this hypothesis, we designed a high-speed single particle tracking microscope and use a hybrid tracking and super-resolution approach on the same cell. We labeled the high-affinity FceRI receptor as a transmembrane protein and GPI-anchored proteins as an example of outer leaflet protein in Rat Basophilic Leukemia (RBL) cells and tracked these membrane …

Hypervalent Iodine Compounds With Carboxylate And Tetrazolate Ligands, Avichal Vaish

Chemistry Theses and Dissertations

In modern organic chemistry, hypervalent (HV) iodine(III) compounds are frequently used as oxidizing agents but application of λ³-iodanes in polymer and material chemistry is still underexplored. This dissertation describes the preparation of dynamic and self-healing materials by employing ligand exchange reactions involving HV iodine(III) compounds of the type ArIL₂ (Ar = Aryl, L = ligand, e.g., carboxylate or (pseudo)halide). These compounds can undergo ligand exchange reactions in presence of nucleophiles (Nu^-) to form ArINu₂. Diacetoxyiodo benzene was successfully employed as a crosslinker to prepare dynamic and self-healing gels derived from carboxylate-containing polymers. Furthermore, …

Evaluation Of The Mechanisms And Effectiveness Of Nano-Hydroxides, Wood And Dairy Manure-Derived Biochars To Remove Fluoride And Heavy Metals From Water, Anna Rose Wallace, Wenjie Sun Dr, Chunming Su Dr

Civil and Environmental Engineering Theses and Dissertations

The development of effective treatment processes for the removal contaminants, such as fluoride and heavy metals, from polluted water have been urgently needed due to serious environmental health and safety concerns. In this dissertation, a variety of materials including various (hydro)oxide nanomaterials, biochars and surface modified biochar were studied to evaluate their effectiveness and mechanism on removing fluoride or mixed heavy metals from water.

In the Chapter 2, this study investigated the adsorptive removal of fluoride from water using various (hydro)oxide nanomaterials, focusing on ferrihydrite, hydroxyapatite (HAP) and brucite, which have the potential to be used as sorbents for surface …

Stochastic Orthogonalization And Its Application To Machine Learning, Yu Hong

Electrical Engineering Theses and Dissertations

Orthogonal transformations have driven many great achievements in signal processing. They simplify computation and stabilize convergence during parameter training. Researchers have introduced orthogonality to machine learning recently and have obtained some encouraging results. In this thesis, three new orthogonal constraint algorithms based on a stochastic version of an SVD-based cost are proposed, which are suited to training large-scale matrices in convolutional neural networks. We have observed better performance in comparison with other orthogonal algorithms for convolutional neural networks.

Inference Of Heterogeneity In Meta-Analysis Of Rare Binary Events And Rss-Structured Cluster Randomized Studies, Chiyu Zhang

Statistical Science Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation contains two topics: (1) A Comparative Study of Statistical Methods for Quantifying and Testing Between-study Heterogeneity in Meta-analysis with Focus on Rare Binary Events; (2) Estimation of Variances in Cluster Randomized Designs Using Ranked Set Sampling.

Meta-analysis, the statistical procedure for combining results from multiple studies, has been widely used in medical research to evaluate intervention efficacy and safety. In many practical situations, the variation of treatment effects among the collected studies, often measured by the heterogeneity parameter, may exist and can greatly affect the inference about effect sizes. Comparative studies have been done for only one or …

Polyarylenes: Synthesis And Characterization Towards Advanced Applications, Stephen Budy

Chemistry Theses and Dissertations

A series of semi-fluorinated and non-fluorinated Diels−Alder step-growth polyarylene polymers and co-polymers were synthesized via typical oil bath heating (days/weeks) and more rapid microwave-assisted polymerization (hours). The polymers were characterized by multi-nuclear (¹H, ¹³C, and ¹⁹F) NMR and ATR−FTIR spectroscopy, thermal analysis (TGA, DSC, and DMA), GPC, XRD, water contact analysis (WCA), and refractive index (RI) measurements. The NMR spectra indicated a mixture of para and meta conformations through the polymer backbone increasing to more para with greater fluorine content. Thermal gravimetric analysis revealed the fluorine-containing polyarylenes possessed the highest char yields at almost 80% at …

Automating Software Changes Via Recommendation Systems, Xiaoyu Liu

Computer Science and Engineering Theses and Dissertations

As the complexity of software systems is growing tremendously, it came with increasingly sophisticated data provided during development. The systematic and large-scale accumulation of software engineering data opened up new opportunities that infer information appropriately can be helpful to software development in a given context. This type of intelligent software development tools came to be known as recommendation systems.

Recommendation Systems in Software Change (RSSCs) share commonalities with conventional recommendation systems: mainly in their usage model, the usual reliance on data mining, and in the predictive nature of their functionality. So a major challenge for designing RSSCs is to automatically …

Model Selection And Experimental Design Of Biological Networks With Algebraic Geometry, Anyu Zhang

Mathematics Theses and Dissertations

Model selection based on experimental data is an essential challenge in biological data science. In decades, the volume of biological data from varied sources, including laboratory experiments, field observations, and patient health records has seen an unprecedented increase. Mainly when collecting data is expensive or time-consuming, as it is often in the case with clinical trials and biomolecular experiments, the problem of selecting information-rich data becomes crucial for creating relevant models.

Motivated by certain geometric relationships between data, we partitioned input data sets, especially data sets that correspond to a unique basis, into equivalence classes with the same basis to …

Constraints On Parton Distribution Functions Imposed By Hadronic Experiments, Boting Wang

Physics Theses and Dissertations

The theoretical uncertainties of the Large Hadron Collider (LHC) observables are decreasing with the increasing statistics of the LHC experiments, and it is becoming more and more important to reduce the uncertainties in the knowledge of the nucleon structure. The latest LHC high-energy experiments, future experimental proposals, and computational tools are expected to enhance the knowledge of the nucleon structure. However, the global analysis that assesses their impact on Parton Distribution Functions (PDFs) knowledge is computationally expensive due to the corresponding large size of data. I developed a new approach that can make a quick preliminary evaluation to help the …

Cell-Trappable Chemiluminescent Probes For Monitoring Hydrogen Sulfide In Living Cells, Briley Bezner

Chemistry Theses and Dissertations

Hydrogen sulfide (H2S) is an important biological signaling molecule that has been recognized alongside nitric oxide and carbon monoxide as being a small gasotransmitter that is enzymatically produced and impacts multiple physiological functions. To detect hydrogen sulfide, there has been a focus on developing fluorescent probes to target particular analytes; however, fluorescent probes lack sensitivity and depth penetration due to background autofluorescence and light scattering. Chemiluminescence does not require light excitation, which greatly reduces the amount of autofluorescence and photoactivation.

In order to detect hydrogen sulfide in living systems with high sensitivity, a series of sterically stabilized 1,2-dioxetane chemiluminescent reduction-reaction …

Near-To-Far Field Signal Propagation For The Wave And Maxwell Equations, Alhassan Ahmed

Mathematics & Statistics ETDs

The Maxwell equations may be viewed as evolution equations which develop an initial state of the electromagnetic field forward in time. Such evolution can be simulated numerically, that is modeled on a computer, in which case the domain of simulation is typically finite in extent. Nonetheless, one is often interested in the electromagnetic waves which reach infinity (of course which is outside of the simulation domain). Thus we are interested in near-to-far field signal propagation, that is a mathematical process where a signal or solution recorded at a finite radius r = r1 can be converted to a signal at …

Detection Of Whale Acoustic Signals In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico Ladc-Gemm Database, Yingxue Gao

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Low-pass Fourier filter, wavelet filter, as well as matched filter detection methods were used to detect baleen whale signals in northern Gulf of Mexico data collected by the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center (LADC) consortium. Some potential low frequency signals appeared on the matched filter output figure. The shape of the signals is in line with one of the typical signal shapes of fin whales--vertical down-sweeps with 18s-time interval. Another shape of the signals is in line with one of the call type shapes of Bryde's whales--down-sweeps with 7s-time interval. A high-pass Fourier filter was also used to find toothed whale …

Multi-Agent Narrative Experience Management As Story Graph Pruning, Edward T. Garcia

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis I describe a method where an experience manager chooses actions for non-player characters (NPCs) in intelligent interactive narratives through story graph representation and pruning. The space of all stories can be represented as a story graph where nodes are states and edges are actions. By shaping the domain as a story graph, experience manager decisions can be made by pruning edges. Starting with a full graph, I apply a set of pruning strategies that will allow the narrative to be finishable, NPCs to act believably, and the player to be responsible for how the story unfolds. By …

Vertical Acoustic Propagation In The Non-Homogeneous Layered Atmosphere For A Time-Harmonic, Compact Source, Edward J. Yoerger Jr

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this work we study vertical, acoustic propagation in a non-homogeneous media for a spatially-compact, time-harmonic source. An analytical, 2-layer model is developed representing the acoustic pressure disturbance propagating in the atmosphere. The validity of the model spans the distance from the Earth's surface to 30,000 meters. This includes the troposphere (adiabatic), ozone layer (isothermal), and part of the stratosphere (isothermal). The results of the model derivation in the adiabatic region yield pressure solutions as Bessel functions of the First (J) and Second (Y) Kind of order $-\frac{7}{2}$ with an argument of $2 \Omega \tau$ (where $\Omega$ represents a dimensionless …

A Domain Specific Language For Digital Forensics And Incident Response Analysis, Christopher D. Stelly

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

One of the longstanding conceptual problems in digital forensics is the dichotomy between the need for verifiable and reproducible forensic investigations, and the lack of practical mechanisms to accomplish them. With nearly four decades of professional digital forensic practice, investigator notes are still the primary source of reproducibility information, and much of it is tied to the functions of specific, often proprietary, tools.

The lack of a formal means of specification for digital forensic operations results in three major problems. Specifically, there is a critical lack of:

a) standardized and automated means to scientifically verify accuracy of digital forensic tools; …

A Study Of Chloride Levels In Pine Creek, Allegheny County, Pa, Selina Prettner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Pine Creek is a 22.8-mile long tributary to the Allegheny River draining over 67 square miles of northern Allegheny County, PA. The main stem runs along Route 8 and receives extensive runoff from road salt from deicing. A site near Etna, PA sampled biweekly in 2013 consistently showed elevated conductivity that correlated with increased chloride levels. Winter road deicing runoff produced acute chloride concentrations up to 678 mg/L. Chloride fluctuated in the summer and autumn months but did not exceed the USEPA Secondary Drinking Water Standard (250 mg/L) or the aquatic life criterion for chronic concentrations (230 mg/L). Sampling throughout …

Greening Of Catalytic Processes Using First-Row Transition Metals For Atom Transfer Radical Addition And Transfer Hydrogenation, Gabrielle Pros

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work focused on “greening” catalytic processes, atom transfer radical addition (ATRA), which adds an alkyl halide across and alkene, and transfer hydrogenation/dehydrogenation, which reduces a carbonyl without needing direct H₂ gas. Part of “greening” of these processes is through using abundant first row metals, Cu and Ni for catalysis. One aim was to design new ligands which would be more active in these systems; the second was investigation of additives for catalyst regeneration to reduce the catalyst loading necessary for high yields.

The TPMA^* family was investigated in ATRA. Rate constants followed the expected trend, which increased …

C-Metalated Nitriles: Diastereoselective Alkylations And Arylations, Robert John Mycka

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Development of an sp³ hybridized halogen-magnesium exchange route to Grignard reagents, chelation-controlled asymmetric induction of γ- and δ-hydroxynitriles as well as a diastereoselective arylation procedure for C-zincated nitriles have been explored. Sequential addition of i-PrMgCl and n-BuLi to 3- and 4-carbon iodoalcohols triggers a facile halogen-metal exchange to generate cyclic magnesium alkoxides capable of intercepting electrophiles to produce a diverse range of substituted alcohols. This work advances progress toward the synthesis of highly desirable chiral Grignard reagents.

Double deprotonation of γ- and δ-acyclic hydroxynitriles with i-PrMgCl effects highly diastereoselective alkylations via a singly-chelated magnesiated nitriles. …