Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Investigating Smoke Aerosol Emission Coefficients Using Modis Active Fire And Aerosol Products – A Case Study In The Conus And Indonesia, Xiaoman Lu, Xiaoyang Zhang, Fangjun Li, Mark Cochrane

Global Land Surface Season Data Sets

This data set is in relation to the paper of the same title, which has been submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences.

Instructions for viewing the data in “Readme.txt”

Sdstate Sustainability Newsletter: Vol. 3 Issue 1, Jennifer Mclaughlin

SD State Sustainability Newsletter

Content:
SDSU Launches Sustainability Minor
Upcoming Events
While You Were Away
Recycling Update
Sustainability Tidbits

Large Scale Climate Oscillation Impacts On Temperature, Precipitation And Land Surface Phenology In Central Asia, Kirsten M. De Beurs, Geoffrey Henebry, Braden C. Owsley, Irina N. Sokolik

GSCE Faculty Publications

Central Asia has been rapidly changing in multiple ways over the past few decades. Increases in temperature and likely decreases in precipitation in Central Asia as the result of global climate change are making one of the most arid regions in the world even more susceptible to large-scale droughts. Global climate oscillations, such as the El Ni ̃no–Southern Oscillation, have previously been linked to observed weather patterns in Central Asia. However, until now it has been unclear how the different climate oscillations act simultaneously to affect the weather and subsequently the vegetated land surface in Central Asia.We fit well-established land …

Changing Snow Seasonality In The Highlands Of Kyrgyzstan, Monika Tomaszewska, Geoffrey Henebry

GSCE Faculty Publications

Few studies have examined changing snow seasonality in Central Asia. Here, we analyzed changes in the seasonality of snow cover across Kyrgyzstan (KGZ) over 14 years from 2002/03–2015/16 using the most recent version (v006) of MODIS Terra and Aqua 8 day snow cover composites (MOD10A2/MYD10A2). We focused on three metrics of snow seasonality—first date of snow, last date of snow, and duration of snow season—and used nonparametric trends tests to assess the significance and direction of trends. We evaluated trends at three administration scales and across elevation. We used two techniques to assure that our identification of significant trends was …

Changing Snow Seasonality In The Highlands Of Kyrgyzstan, Monika Tomaszewska, Geoffrey Henebry

NASA Land-Cover Land-Use Change Data Sets

Few studies have examined changing snow seasonality in Central Asia. Here, we analyzed changes in the seasonality of snow cover across Kyrgyzstan (KGZ) over 14 years from 2002/03–2015/16 using the most recent version (v006) of MODIS Terra and Aqua 8 day snow cover composites (MOD10A2/MYD10A2).We focused on three metrics of snow seasonality—first date of snow, last date of snow, and duration of snow season—and used nonparametric trends tests to assess the significance and direction of trends. We evaluated trends at three administration scales and across elevation. We used two techniques to assure that our identification of significant trends was not …

Sdstate Sustainability Newsletter: Vol. 2 Issue 4, Jennifer Mclaughlin

SD State Sustainability Newsletter

Content:
More than Just the Environment
Earth Day Quiz
The Big Event
Climate Change & You
Sustainability Tidbeits

The Journal Of Undergraduate Research: 2017

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

This is the complete issue of the South Dakota State University Journal of Undergraduate Research, Volume 15.

Do Precision Chemical Amendment Applications Impact Sodium Movement In Dryland Semiarid Saline Sodic Soils?, Tulsi P. Kharel, David E. Clay, Cheryl Reese, Thomas Desutter, Doug D. Malo, Sharon Clay

Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science Faculty Publications

Expanding sodicity and salinity problems have placed many northern Great Plains (NGP) soils at the sustainability tipping point. This study assessed the impact of chemical restoration on water and salt transport in undisturbed soil columns collected from three hillslope model landscape positions. The backslope (Redfield), footslope (White Lake), and toeslope (Pierpont) soils had moderate (3.27 ± 0.59), high (7.3 ± 3.34), and very high (13.29 ± 3.2) sodium adsorption ratio (SAR_e) values, respectively. The soils were treated with KBr and one of four soil amendments (none, H₂SO₄, CaSO₄, and CaCl₂). …

Investigation Of The Fire Radiative Energy Biomass Combustion Coefficient - A Comparison Of Polar And Geostationary Satellite Retrievals Over The Conterminous United States, Fangjun Li, Xiaoyang Zhang

Global Land Surface Season Data Sets

The data is for the article "Investigation of the Fire Radiative Energy Biomass Combustion Coefficient - A Comparison of Polar and Geostationary Satellite Retrievals Over the Conterminous United States", which has been submitted to the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences.

The data file contains a total of 20 files in 10 folders that are associated to the figures and tables in the article. General instruction for viewing output data for the paper can be found in the "Readme" text file.

Quantifying Undisturbed (Native) Lands In Northwestern South Dakota: 2013, Pete Bauman, Benjamin Carlson, Tanner Butler, Brad Richardson

Quantifying Undisturbed (Native) Lands in Northwestern South Dakota: 2013

We employed simple GIS methods primarily utilizing the South Dakota Farm Service Agency’s Common Land Unit (CLU) data layers from 2013 and the 2012 United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) county mosaic aerial imagery to evaluate 7,347,812 acres of land in northwestern South Dakota. The analysis area includes: Harding, Perkins, and Butte counties along with portions of Lawrence and Meade counties outside of the Black Hills Core Highlands and Plateau Ecoregions.

We utilized the FSA CLU data layer queried to show current and former cropland to identify and remove any areas with cropping history regardless …

Identifying And Characterizing Salt-Tolerant Alfalfa (Medicago Sativa Subsp Falcata Germplasm, Katelin E. Frerichs, Lan Xu

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

Soil salinity limits plant growth and crop production. More than 20% of cultivated land worldwide is affected by salinity. The situation is becoming more severe due to shifts in precipitation and evaporation patterns and improper irrigation. There is an urgent need to develop salt-tolerant, economically valuable plants to minimize the loss of and to sustain agricultural production. Alfalfa is one of the most extensively cultivated forage crops. Some yellow-flowered alfalfa (Medicago sativa subsp. falcata) have exhibited morphological and physiological drought tolerance. Since soil salinity is associated with physiological drought, it is reasonable to expect that these drought tolerant falcata populations …

Mob Vs. Rotational Grazing: Impact On Forage Use And Artemisia Absinthium, Heidi Reed, Alexander Smart, David E. Clay, Michelle Ohrtman, Sharon A. Clay

Agronomy, Horticulture and Plant Science Faculty Publications

Short duration (≤24 h), high stocking density grazing systems (e.g., mob grazing) mimics historic prairie grazing patterns of American bison (Bison bison), and should minimize selective grazing. We compared mob [125 cow-calf pairs on either 0.65 ha for 12 h; or 1.3 ha for 24 h] vs. rotational [25 cow-calf pairs on 8.1 ha for 20 days starting in mid-May with or without 2,4-D application prior to grazing; and 15 days starting mid-April (no herbicide)] grazing systems based on forage utilization and impact to Artemisia absinthium (absinth wormwood) in a tall grass pasture of Eastern South Dakota. Grass …

Isolation Of Potential Photosynthetic N2-Fixing Microbes From Topsoil Of Native Grasslands In South Dakota, Nanfang Wang, Shengni Tian, Liping Gu, Lan Xu, Yeyan Qiu, Trevor Van Den Top, Jose L. Gonzalez-Hernandez, Michael B. Hildreth, Shaoshan Li, Runbao Zhou

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

Nitrogen fertilizer is one of the most limiting factors and costly inputs in agriculture production. Current fossil fuel-dependent ammonia production is both energy intensive and environmentally damaging. An economically practical and environmentally friendly solution for the production of ammonia is urgently needed. Solar-powered N2-fixing cyanobacteria provide a unique opportunity and promise for applications in agriculture compared to all other N2-fixing bacteria that cannot use solar energy. Isolation of nitrogen-fixing microbes from the topsoil of native grasslands may have the potential to use them in crop fields as living ammonia factories. This may be a mechanism to free farmers from heavy …

Impacts Of Strategic Grazing And Fire On Soil Seed Bank Heterogeneity In Mixed-Grass Prairie, Kassidy Weathers, Lan Xu, Patricia Johnson

Natural Resource Management Faculty Publications

Native plant communities in the Northern Great Plains evolved under periodic fire and substantial grazing pressure from native herbivores, two main drivers maintaining the heterogeneity of grassland ecosystems. However, contemporary management practices focus on maximizing livestock production through fire suppression and uniform grazing strategies, resulting in decreased vegetation heterogeneity, species richness, wildlife habitat, and biodiversity. Objectives of this study were to evaluate and compare the effectiveness of patch-burn grazing (PBG) and winter-patch grazing (WPG) managements on soil seed bank heterogeneity in terms of species 1) richness, 2) composition, 3) abundance, and 4) diversity. Two soil cores (10-cm dia × 10-cm …

Impacts Of Diverse Crop Rotations And Integrated Crop-Livestock System On Soil Quality In South Dakota, Atilla Polat

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Crop diversification can be beneficial in improving soil quality parameters. Diverse crop rotations and integrated crop-livestock systems (ICLS), are two examples of crop diversification used in this study to assess soil quality. The objectives of this study were to: (i) assess the impacts of diverse rotations on soil quality parameters, and (ii) assess the impacts of low and high stocking density on soil quality parameters. Both of the studies were conducted separately and are presented as two different chapters. To accomplish objective (i), a long-term experiment was selected which was established near Brookings, South Dakota, USA at USDA-ARS lab in …

A Comprehensive Analysis Of Aromatic-Proton Mediated Hydrogen Bonds, Mona S. Alshamrani

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Hydrogen bonds play critical role in folding, structure and recognition of biological macromolecules (e.g., proteins, RNA, DNA). In addition to classical hydrogen bonds (e.g., ─OH---O=, ─OH---O─, ─NH---O─ etc.), structural analysis of protein and nucleic acids, almost a decade ago, showed that hydrogen bonds (e.g., CH---O) with hydrogen atoms on aliphatic carbon atoms (hereafter, aliphatic-protons) also play very important role in the structure and function of biomolecules. Even though, protons of aromatic ring systems (hereafter, aromatic-protons) are more polar than the aliphatic-protons, systematic analysis of hydrogen bonds of aromatic-protons have not been carried out. Therefore, I carried out a systematic analysis …

Location Optimization Of A Coal Power Plant To Balance Coal Supply And Electric Transmission Costs Against Plant’S Emission Exposure, Najam Khan

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This research is focused on developing a location analysis methodology that can minimize the pollutant exposure to the public while ensuring that the combined costs of electric transmission losses and coal logistics are minimized. Coal power plants will provide a critical contribution towards meeting electricity demands for various nations in the foreseeable future. The site selection for a new coal power plant is extremely important from an investment point of view. The operational costs for running a coal power plant can be minimized by a combined emphasis on placing a coal power plant near coal mines as well as customers. …

Comparison Of Historical Precipitation For Aberdeen, Ipswich, And Eureka, South Dakota, Uday Singh Kshatriya

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The availability of water resources varies from time to time with the climate conditions. Keeping track of climate conditions would eventually benefit for the future predictions. The objective of this research was to compare and contrast the climate especially for Aberdeen, Ipswich and Eureka, South Dakota utilizing the historical monthly precipitation records and to develop the techniques that are reliable to estimate the missing data. For these necessary statistical analyses were performed using the monthly precipitation data from High Plains Regional Climate Center (HPRCC) for the annual and 8-Year periods for Aberdeen, Ipswich and Eureka, South Dakota. 63 water years …

The Journal Of Undergraduate Research: 2018

The Journal of Undergraduate Research

This is the complete issue of the South Dakota State University Journal of Undergraduate Research , Volume 16.

Aspects Of White-Tailed Deer Ecology And Management: Effects Of Imidacloprid And An Evaluation Of Management At Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge, Elise Hughes Berheim

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

White-tail deer (Odocoileus virginianus) are an economically and recreationally important species throughout their range, and understanding their ecology to implement beneficial management techniques is invaluable. This thesis focused on two studies 1) the effect of Imidacloprid on adult female and fawn physiology and 2) an evaluation of techniques to monitor white-tailed deer at Great Swamp National Wildlife Refuge (GSNWR). Imidacloprid, a widely-used pesticide, has been linked to lethal and sub-lethal effects in insects and small vertebrates, however, no research has been conducted on white-tailed deer. Twenty captive pregnant adult female and subsequent fawns housed at the South Dakota …

Satellite Remote Sensing Of Woody And Herbaceous Leaf Area For Improved Understanding Of Forage Resources And Fire In Africa, Milkah Njoki Kahiu

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In sub-Saharan Africa (SSA) tree-grass systems commonly referred to as savannas dominating drylands, play a critical role in social, cultural, economic and environmental systems. These coupled natural-human systems support millions of people through pastoralism, are important global biodiversity hotspots and play a critical role in global biogeochemical cycles. Despite the importance of SSA savannas, they have been marginalized for years as most governments neglect dryland resources in favor of agricultural research and development assistance. Hence, lack of spatially and temporally accurate information on the status and trends in savanna resources has led to poor planning and management. This scenario calls …

Black-Tailed Prairie Dog (Cynomys Ludovicianus) State-And-Transition Model For Loamy Ecological Sites In Mlra 62 In Custer State Park, South Dakota, Mark R. Hendrix

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Black-tailed prairie dogs (Cynomys ludovicianus) are native burrowing rodents that occupy large areas in the shortgrass and mixed-grass prairies of the Northern Great Plains. They are an important component of these prairie systems due to their impacts on plant communities. Currently State-and-Transition models (STMs) for grassland Ecological Site Descriptions (ESDs) address grazing by livestock as a major factor affecting states and phases within states. Impacts from other grazers, such as prairie dogs, are either not addressed directly, or are included only in a transition to a generalized early seral state. There are, however, dramatic differences in plant communities …

Evaluation Of Methods Used To Improve Grasslands As Ring-Necked Pheasant (Phasianus Colchicus) Brood Habitat, Mandy Orth

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Management practices designed for upland game species often focus on nest survival and hen winter survival due to the importance of these life history stages on population vital rates. However, chick survival is an important component of gallinaceous bird population dynamics, but it is poorly understood and often tends to be overlooked. Ideal brood habitat not only provides open understory for easy movement and canopy cover for protection, but also provides an abundance of arthropod foods for chicks. It has been hypothesized that restricted movement of chicks through thick vegetation in unmanaged grasslands results in lower brood survival rates. Research …

Wi-Fi Finger-Printing Based Indoor Localization Using Nano-Scale Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, Appala Narasimha Raju Chekuri

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Explosive growth in the number of mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and smartwatches has escalated the demand for localization-based services, spurring development of numerous indoor localization techniques. Especially, widespread deployment of wireless LANs prompted ever increasing interests in WiFi-based indoor localization mechanisms. However, a critical shortcoming of such localization schemes is the intensive time and labor requirements for collecting and building the WiFi fingerprinting database, especially when the system needs to cover a large space. In this thesis, we propose to automate the WiFi fingerprint survey process using a group of nano-scale unmanned aerial vehicles (NAVs). The proposed system significantly …

Lignin Depolymerization: Mechanistic Analysis, Optimization And Application, Eric Michael Nagel

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Lignin is the most abundant aromatic biopolymer and is a potential source for phenolic chemical feedstocks. Lignin is composed of phenolic units connected by more than eight different linkages, the most common being β-O-4 which constitutes 50-60%. The hydrothermal decomposition of a guaiacol based β-O-4 lignin dimer was studied under neutral and basic conditions to elucidate the mechanism of β-O-4 bond cleavage and the formation of downstream products. Phenol-carbonyl condensation and vinyl-ether formation were shown to be the primary causes for low monomer yields under the tested conditions. Three Ni catalyst systems, Ni/C + H₂, Ni/C-Zn, and Ni/Zn, …

Application Of Drainage Water Management And Saturated Buffers For Conservation Drainage In South Dakota, Abhinav Sharma

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Edge of field practices such as drainage water management (DWM) and saturated buffers can reduce nutrient transport from croplands to surface waterbodies. DWM uses stackable weir boards in a control structure to manipulate the water table depth throughout the cropping season and reduce the amount of nutrient rich water draining out from the field. Saturated buffers, on the other hand, use a control structure to divert water draining out from the cropland to a vegetative strip via a subsurface tile installed parallel to a waterway. For the saturated buffer systems, a combination of natural denitrification, nitrogen mineralization, and plant uptake …

A Development Of Travel Time Equation For Overland Flow As Affected By Vegetation, Naga Vara Prasad Ganti

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

In overland flow water research, travel time is a significant parameter used in estimating peak discharge in channels or rivers. Overland flow is assumed to be in turbulent condition to estimate travel time using Manning’s Velocity Equation (MVE). When the flow is in a laminar condition, Grismer’s Laminar Mean Velocity Equation (GLMVE) is applied but fails to consider the roughness parameter. A review of the literature shows numerous equations for overland travel time, but there is no known equation that determines the mean velocity of overland flow under laminar condition with a roughness coefficient or other coefficient related to the …

Evaluating E. Coli Particle Attachment And The Impact On Transport During High Flows, Louis Amegbletor

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Fecal indicator bacteria, including E. coli, are the leading cause of water quality impairments within assessed waters in the United States. The source of E. coli includes WWTP, leaking sewers, animal manure, wildlife, livestock, and stream bed sediment. Storm events contribute to bacteria loading within waters through wash-in of land sources of bacteria and resuspension of bacteria within sediments. Bacteria introduced into the water column are either attached to particles or are unattached (or free-living). The goal of this study was to examine the attachment of E. coli to different particle sizes, including their impact on contributing to water …

Biomass Burning In The Conterminous United States: A Comparison And Fusion Of Active Fire Observations From Polar-Orbiting And Geostationary Satellites For Emissions Estimation, Fangjun Li

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Biomass burning is an important source of atmospheric greenhouse gases and aerosol emissions that significantly influence climate and air quality. Estimation of biomassburning emissions (BBE) has been limited to the conventional method in which parameters (i.e., burned area and fuel load) can be challenging to quantify accurately. Recent studies have demonstrated that the rate of biomass combustion is a linear function of fire radiative power (FRP), the instantaneous radiative energy released from actively burning fires, which provides a novel pathway to estimate BBE. To obtain accurate and timely BBE estimates for near real-time applications (i.e., air quality forecast), the satellite …

Statistical Algorithms And Bioinformatics Tools Development For Computational Analysis Of High-Throughput Transcriptomic Data, Adam Mcdermaid

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Next-Generation Sequencing technologies allow for a substantial increase in the amount of data available for various biological studies. In order to effectively and efficiently analyze this data, computational approaches combining mathematics, statistics, computer science, and biology are implemented. Even with the substantial efforts devoted to development of these approaches, numerous issues and pitfalls remain. One of these issues is mapping uncertainty, in which read alignment results are biased due to the inherent difficulties associated with accurately aligning RNA-Sequencing reads. GeneQC is an alignment quality control tool that provides insight into the severity of mapping uncertainty in each annotated gene from …