Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Quantifying The Dna Binding Properties Of The Binuclear Ruthenium Complex Λλ-P, Nicholas Bryden

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Threading intercalators are small molecules that bind to DNA by threading their side chains through the DNA bases to intercalate their middle planar section between the DNA base pairs. The high binding affinity and slow dissociation rates of threading intercalators have put them in the class of prospective anti-cancer drugs. In this study we explore the binding of a specific threading intercalator, a binuclear ruthenium complex ΛΛ-P (ΛΛ-[μ-bidppz(phen)4Ru2]4+) using optical tweezers. A single DNA molecule is held at a constant force and the small molecules are introduced to the system in various concentrations until equilibrium is achieved. Measurements of DNA …

Phase I Dose-Escalation Trial Of Intravaginal Curcumin In Women For Cervical Dysplasia, Leda Gattoc, Paula M. Frew, Shontell N. Thomas, Kirk A. Easley, Laura Ward, H-H Sherry Chow, Chiemi A. Ura, Lisa Flowers

Environmental & Occupational Health Faculty Publications

Background: This is a Phase I trial demonstrating safety and tolerability of intravaginal curcumin for future use in women with cervical neoplasia. Objective: The objective of this study was to assess the safety, tolerability, and pharmacokinetics of intravaginal curcumin in healthy women. Study design: We conducted a 3+3 dose-escalation Phase I trial in a group of women aged 18–45 years. Thirteen subjects were given one of four doses of curcumin powder (500 mg, 1,000 mg, 1,500 mg, and 2,000 mg) packed in gelatin capsules, which was administered intravaginally daily for 14 days. The primary end point for this study was …

A Search For Spectral Hysteresis And Energy-Dependent Time Lags From X-Ray And Tev Gamma-Ray Observations Of Mrk 421, A. U. Abeysekara, S. Archambault, A. Archer, W. Benbow, R. Bird, M. Buchovecky, J. H. Buckley, B. Bugaev, J. V. Cardenzana, P. T. Reynolds, Et Al

Physical Sciences Publications

Abstract

Blazars are variable emitters across all wavelengths over a wide range of timescales, from months down to minutes. It is therefore essential to observe blazars simultaneously at different wavelengths, especially in the X-ray and gamma-ray bands, where the broadband spectral energy distributions usually peak. In this work, we report on three "target-of-opportunity" observations of Mrk 421, one of the brightest TeV blazars, triggered by a strong flaring event at TeV energies in 2014. These observations feature long, continuous, and simultaneous exposures with XMM-Newton (covering the X-ray and optical/ultraviolet bands) and VERITAS (covering the TeV gamma-ray band), along with contemporaneous …

Measurement Of The Mass Of The Top Quark In Decays With A J/Ψ Meson In Pp Collisions At 8 Tev, M M. Baarmand, Vallary Bhopatkar, Stefano Colafranceschi, Marcus Hohlmann, D Noonan, Tuhin S. Roy, Francisco X. Yumiceva, Cms Collaboration

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

A first measurement of the top quark mass in the decay channel t → (W → ℓν) (b → J/ψ + X → μ+μ− + X) is presented. The analysis uses events selected from the proton-proton collisions recorded by the CMS detector at the LHC at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV. The data correspond to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb−1, with 666 t t ¯ and single top quark candidate events containing a reconstructed J/ψ candidate decaying into an oppositely-charged muon pair. The mass of the (J/ψ + ℓ) system, where ℓ is an electron or a muon …

Passively Estimating Index Of Refraction For Specular Reflectors Using Polarimetric Hyperspectral Imaging, Jacob A. Martin

Theses and Dissertations

As off-nadir viewing platforms becoming increasingly prevalent in remote sensing, material classification and ID techniques robust to changing viewing geometries must be developed. Traditionally, either reflectivity or emissivity are used for classification, but these quantities vary with viewing angle. Instead, estimating index of refraction may be advantageous as it is invariant with respect to viewing geometry. This work focuses on estimating index of refraction from LWIR (875-1250 wavenumbers) polarimetric hyperspectral radiance measurements.

The Chemistry Of The Flint Water Crisis, Ernest M. Oleksy

The Downtown Review

Politics and science do not always go hand-in-hand. Nowhere was this more clear than in the Flint Water Crisis. Negligence towards growing levels of lead poisoning in drinking water led to incredibly deleterious effects on Flint's citizens. The chemistry of equilibrium and the shortcomings of local leaders led to Flint's water becoming a crisis.

Computing Planarity In Computable Planar Graphs, Patrick Mcmillan

Ursidae: The Undergraduate Research Journal at the University of Northern Colorado

We use methods from computability theory to answer questions about infinite planar graphs. A graph is computable if there is an algorithm, which decides whether given vertices are adjacent. Having a procedure for deciding the edge set might not help compute other properties or features of the graph, however. The goal of this paper is to investigate the extent to which features related to the planarity of a graph might or might not be computable. We propose three definitions for what it might mean for a computable graph to be computably planar and for each build a computable planar graph …

Mixed-Initiative Personal Assistants, Joshua W. Buck, Saverio Perugini

Saverio Perugini

Specification and implementation of flexible human-computer dialogs is challenging because of the complexity involved in rendering the dialog responsive to a vast number of varied paths through which users might desire to complete the dialog. To address this problem, we developed a toolkit for modeling and implementing task-based, mixed-initiative dialogs based on metaphors from lambda calculus. Our toolkit can automatically operationalize a dialog that involves multiple prompts and/or sub-dialogs, given a high-level dialog specification of it. Our current research entails incorporating the use of natural language to make the flexibility in communicating user utterances commensurate with that in dialog completion …

The Ribbed Drapery Of The Puerto Princesa Underground River (Palawan, Philippines): Morphology And Genesis, Paolo Forti, Giovanni Badino, Jose Maria Calaforra, Jo De Waele

International Journal of Speleology

During the 2011 speleological expedition to the Puerto Princesa Underground River (Palawan, Philippines) a drapery characterized by several close-to-horizontal ribs has been noticed. Even without sampling and analyzing its internal growth layers, a detailed morphological study allowed to present a possible genetic model. The presented model helps to explain its evolution, which is mainly controlled by variation in water flow as a consequence of the Palawan climate. When validated by further analyses, the same genetic mechanism could define also the evolution of the very common but still unexplained complex flowstones, which exhibit several close-to-horizontal steps, widenings and narrowings along their …

Rationality, Parapsychology, And Artificial Intelligence In Military And Intelligence Research By The United States Government In The Cold War, Guy M. Lomeo

Theses and Dissertations

A study analyzing the roles of rationality, parapsychology, and artificial intelligence in military and intelligence research by the United States Government in the Cold War. An examination of the methodology behind the decisions to pursue research in two fields that were initially considered irrational.

Myofilament Calcium Sensitivity: Consequences Of The Effective Concentration Of Troponin I, Jalal K. Siddiqui, Svetlana B. Tikunova, Shane D. Walton, Bin Liu, Meredith Meyer, Pieter P. De Tombe, Nathan Neilson, Peter M. Kekenes-Huskey, Hussam E. Salhi, Paul M.L. Janssen, Brandon J. Biesiadecki, Jonathan P. Davis

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Control of calcium binding to and dissociation from cardiac troponin C (TnC) is essential to healthy cardiac muscle contraction/relaxation. There are numerous aberrant post-translational modifications and mutations within a plethora of contractile, and even non-contractile, proteins that appear to imbalance this delicate relationship. The direction and extent of the resulting change in calcium sensitivity is thought to drive the heart toward one type of disease or another. There are a number of molecular mechanisms that may be responsible for the altered calcium binding properties of TnC, potentially the most significant being the ability of the regulatory domain of TnC to …

The Subject Librarian Newsletter, Nanoscience, Fall 2016, Sandy Avila

Libraries' Newsletters

No abstract provided.

Wave Motion Induced By Turbulent Shear Flows Over Growing Stokes Waves, Shahrdad Sajjadi, Serena Robertson, Rebecca Harvey, Mary Brown

Publications

The recent analytical of multi-layer analyses proposed by Sajjadi et al. (J Eng Math 84:73, 2014) (SHD14 therein) is solved numerically for atmospheric turbulent shear flows blowing over growing (or unsteady) Stokes (bimodal) water waves, of low-to-moderate steepness. For unsteady surface waves, the amplitude a(t)∝ekcita(t)∝ekcit, where kcikci is the wave growth factor, k is the wavenumber, and cici is the complex part of the wave phase speed, and thus, the waves begin to grow as more energy is transferred to them by the wind. This will then display the critical height to a point, where the thickness of the inner …

A New Operational Snow Retrieval Algorithm Applied To Historical Amsr-E Brightness Temperatures, Marco Tedesco, Jeyavinoth Jeyaratnam

Publications and Research

Snow is a key element of the water and energy cycles and the knowledge of spatio-temporal distribution of snow depth and snow water equivalent (SWE) is fundamental for hydrological and climatological applications. SWE and snow depth estimates can be obtained from spaceborne microwave brightness temperatures at global scale and high temporal resolution (daily). In this regard, the data recorded by the Advanced Microwave Scanning Radiometer—Earth Orbiting System (EOS) (AMSR-E) onboard the National Aeronautics and Space Administration’s (NASA) AQUA spacecraft have been used to generate operational estimates of SWE and snow depth, complementing estimates generated with other microwave sensors flying on …

Generation Of Flower High-Order Poincaré Sphere Laser Beams From A Spatial Light Modulator, T. H. Lu, T. D. Huang, J. G. Wang, L. W. Wang, Robert R. Alfano

Publications and Research

We propose and experimentally demonstrate a new complex laser beam with inhomogeneous polarization distributions mapping onto high-order Poincaré spheres (HOPSs). The complex laser mode is achieved by superposition of Laguerre-Gaussian modes and manifests exotic flower-like localization on intensity and phase profiles. A simple optical system is used to generate a polarization-variant distribution on the complex laser mode by superposition of orthogonal circular polarizations with opposite topological charges. Numerical analyses of the polarization distribution are consistent with the experimental results. The novel flower HOPS beams can act as a new light source for photonic applications.

Evaluating Machine Learning Classifiers For Defensive Cyber Operations, Michael D. Rich, Robert F. Mills, Thomas E. Dube, Steven K. Rogers

Military Cyber Affairs

Today’s defensive cyber sensors are dominated by signature-based analytical methods that require continuous maintenance and lack the ability to detect unknown threats. Anomaly detection offers the ability to detect unknown threats, but despite over 15 years of active research, the operationalization of anomaly detection and machine learning for Defensive Cyber Operations (DCO) is lagging. This article provides an introduction to machine learning concepts with a focus on the unique challenges to using machine learning for DCO. Traditional machine learning evaluation methods are challenged in favor of a value-focused evaluation method that incorporates evaluator-specific weights for classifier and sensitivity threshold selection …

Military Cyber Professionals Have An Important Part To Play In The Obama-Trump Transition, Michael V. Hayden

Military Cyber Affairs

Over the course of decades in service, I have experienced multiple presidential transitions. Each new Commander in Chief updates policies, personnel, and priorities…especially when the transition involves a new political party. In this respect, the current transition from the Obama to the Trump administration is no different. While this periodic exercise of our democracy may seem disruptive to some, it is a true opportunity for military cyber professionals to help shape our future national security posture.

Realising Step Functions As Harmonic Measure Distributions Of Planar Domains, Marie Snipes, Lesley A. Ward

Marie A. Snipes

No abstract provided.

Sdss-Iv Manga: The Impact Of Diffuse Ionized Gas On Emission-Line Ratios, Interpretation Of Diagnostic Diagrams And Gas Metallicity Measurements, Kai Zhang, Renbin Yan, Kevin Bundy, Matthew Bershady, L. Matthew Haffner, René Walterbos, Roberto Maiolino, Christy Tremonti, Daniel Thomas, Niv Drory, Amy Jones, Francesco Belfiore, Sebastian F. Sánchez, Aleksandar M. Diamond-Stanic, Dmitry Bizyaev, Christian Nitschelm, Brett Andrews, Jon Brinkmann, Joel R. Brownstein, Edmond Cheung, Cheng Li, David R. Law, Alexandre Roman Lopes, Daniel Oravetz, Kaike Pan, Thaisa Storchi Bergmann, Audrey Simmons

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

Diffuse ionized gas (DIG) is prevalent in star-forming galaxies. Using a sample of 365 nearly face-on star-forming galaxies observed by Mapping Nearby Galaxies at APO, we demonstrate how DIG in star-forming galaxies impacts the measurements of emission-line ratios, hence the interpretation of diagnostic diagrams and gas-phase metallicity measurements. At fixed metallicity, DIG-dominated low Σ_Hα regions display enhanced [S II]/Hα, [N II]/Hα, [O II]/Hβ and [O I]/Hα. The gradients in these line ratios are determined by metallicity gradients and Σ_Hα. In line ratio diagnostic diagrams, contamination by DIG moves H II …

Diet And Lifetyle Factors Associated With Mirna Expression In Colorectal Tissue, Martha L. Slattery, Jennifer S. Herrick, Lila E. Mullany, John R. Stevens, Roger K. Wolff

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

MicroRNAs (miRNAs) are small non-protein-coding RNA molecules that regulate gene expression. Diet and lifestyle factors have been hypothesized to be involved in the regulation of miRNA expression. In this study it was hypothesized that diet and lifestyle factors are associated with miRNA expression. Data from 1,447 cases of colorectal cancer to evaluate 34 diet and lifestyle variables using miRNA expression in normal colorectal mucosa as well as for differential expression between paired carcinoma and normal tissue were used. miRNA data were obtained using an Agilent platform. Multiple comparisons were adjusted for using the false discovery rate q-value. There were 250 …

Gender Bias In It Hiring Practices: An Ethical Analysis, Harmony L. Alford

Student Scholarship – Computer Science

With the current movement to increase the number of women in STEM-related careers, modified IT hiring practices may be considered debatably unethical. Studies cited in this work have asserted that female representation in STEM fields is integral not only to encouraging continued progression toward gender equality in the workplace but also to creating more inclusive products. In turn, some argue that when faced with reasonably comparable female and male candidates, a hiring manager should select the female candidate in order to increase the female representation in the company and provide a female perspective. However, it is simultaneously debatably unethical and …

The Moral Implications Of Software Piracy, Kyle Hamrick

Student Scholarship – Computer Science

Computer software is integrated into almost every aspect of our professional and personal lives. Much of this software requires payment for use and is legally protected by the copyright system. This paper examines and analyzes the arguments pertaining to the moral use of protected software (digital piracy). The three arguments presented are the “victimless crime” argument, the “noble justification” argument, and the “willing but unable argument.” These three arguments claim that piracy is morally justified in certain cases, and claim that software providers are not harmed in such situations. The three arguments are tested against counter-arguments, and it is discovered …

Fast Fourier Transforms Over Prime Fields Of Large Characteristic And Their Implementation On Graphics Processing Units, Davood Mohajerani

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Prime field arithmetic plays a central role in computer algebra and supports computation in Galois fields which are essential to coding theory and cryptography algorithms. The prime fields that are used in computer algebra systems, in particular in the implementation of modular methods, are often of small characteristic, that is, based on prime numbers that fit on a machine word. Increasing precision beyond the machine word size can be done via the Chinese Remaindering Theorem or Hensel Lemma. In this thesis, we consider prime fields of large characteristic, typically fitting on n machine words, where n is a power of …

Timing Of Five Palfa-Discovered Millisecond Pulsars, K. Stovall, B. Allen, S. Bogdanov, A. Brazier, F. Camilo, F. Cardoso, S. Chatterjee, J. M. Cordes, F. Crawford, J. S. Deneva, R. Ferdman, P. C.C. Freire, J. W.T. Hessels, F. Jenet, D. L. Kaplan, C. Karako-Argaman, V. M. Kaspi, B. Knispel, R. Kotulla, P. Lazarus, K. J. Lee, J. Van Leeuwen, R. Lynch, A. G. Lyne, E. Madsen, M. A. Mclaughlin, C. Patel, S. M. Ransom, P. Scholz, X. Siemens

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

We report the discovery and timing results for five millisecond pulsars (MSPs) from the Arecibo PALFA survey: PSRs J1906+0055, J1914+0659, J1933+1726, J1938+2516, and J1957+2516. Timing observations of the five pulsars were conducted with the Arecibo and Lovell telescopes for time spans ranging from 1.5 to 3.3 years. All of the MSPs except one (PSR J1914+0659) are in binary systems with low eccentricities. PSR J1957+2516 is likely a redback pulsar, with a ∼0.1 M⊙ companion and possible eclipses that last ∼10% of the orbit. The position of PSR J1957+2516 is also coincident with a near-infrared source. All five MSPs are distant …

Real-Time Online Chinese Character Recognition, Wenlong Zhang

Master's Projects

In this project, I built a web application for handwritten Chinese characters recognition in real time. This system determines a Chinese character while a user is drawing/writing it. The techniques and steps I use to build the recognition system include data preparation, preprocessing, features extraction, and classification. To increase the accuracy, two different types of neural networks ared used in the system: a multi-layer neural network and a convolutional neural network.

Cryptanalysis Of Homophonic Substitution Cipher Using Hidden Markov Models, Guannan Zhong

Master's Projects

We investigate the effectiveness of a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) with random restarts as a mean of breaking a homophonic substitution cipher. Based on extensive experiments, we find that such an HMM-based attack outperforms a previously de- veloped nested hill climb approach, particularly when the ciphertext message is short. We then consider a combination cipher, consisting of a homophonic substitution and a column transposition. We develop and analyze an attack on such a cipher. This attack employs an HMM (with random restarts), together with a hill climb to recover the column permutation. We show that this attack can succeed on …

A Mineralized Alga And Acritarch Dominated Microbiota From The Tully Formation (Givetian) Of Pennsylvania, Usa, John A. Chamberlain Jr., Rebecca B. Chamberlain, James O. Brown

Publications and Research

Sphaeromorphic algal cysts, most probably of the prasinophyte Tasmanites, and acanthomorphic acritarch vesicles, most probably Solisphaeridium, occur in a single 20 cm thick bed of micritic limestone in the lower part of the Middle Devonian (Givetian) Tully Formation near Lock Haven, Pennsylvania. Specimens are composed of authigenic calcite and pyrite crystals about 5–10 µm in length. Some specimens are completely calcitic; some contain both pyrite and calcite; and many are composed totally of pyrite. The microfossils are about 80 to 150 µm in diameter. Many show signs of originally containing a flexible wall composed of at least two layers. Some …

Solar, Why Not?, Emily Hergenrader

Op-Eds from ENSC230 Energy and the Environment: Economics and Policies

Imagine yourself standing outside for an hour wearing a black shirt on a 90-degree day. Now touch your shirt. Notice how warm it is? This warming is due to the sun’s energy. According to Daniel Nocera, a member of the Division of Chemistry at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, that same heat from one hour of sun exposure is more energy than all of the energy consumed by humans in an entire year.

Energy is one of the hottest topics debated in our world today. Human existence on Earth depends on energy usage and the availability of its consumption. Due …

Independent Energy, Ian Hall

Op-Eds from ENSC230 Energy and the Environment: Economics and Policies

In the world of energy, an elite selection of the world’s most influential leaders dictates the development of the world. The correlation between petroleum production and global influence is hard to ignore. The world needs energy to move and those with the energy control the movement. Saudi Arabia, Russia, and the US combine to contribute over a third of world oil production. OPEC countries however, dominate the vast energy markets around the world. Well inundated with regional conflict and hostile relations, OPEC countries remain volatile and on top of global energy production.

The energy industry has become extremely productive, fueling …

A Dynamic Power Grid For A Dynamic Age Introducing Les To A Pricing Mechanism That Assesses Demand, And Changes Every Hour, Marvin Christopher Cunningham

Op-Eds from ENSC230 Energy and the Environment: Economics and Policies

Lets say you knew someone who would buy a whole pizza when they were a little bit hungry, left their sink running when they weren’t using it, maxed out their A/C in their house when they were on vacation, and always kept their stove on just in case they wanted to cook something.

You would probably see this as horribly wasteful, and a terrible drain of money. But every time we pay our power bill, our prices assume we share these wasteful habits. The rate that we pay per kilowatt hour assumes customers are eating the whole pizza, even though …