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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Mjo Influence In Continental United States Temperatures, Ernesto W. Findlay May 2014

Mjo Influence In Continental United States Temperatures, Ernesto W. Findlay

Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences

Heat and cold episodes in the continental United States (U.S.) affect millions of people each year. Severe episodes can cause crop damage, power failure, heat stress and hypothermia. The predictability of these extreme events decreases significantly after one week. It is, therefore, essential for scientists to discover new ways to forecast these events weeks in advance, which will provide society ample of prior warning to prepare. The Madden-Julian Oscillation (MJO) is one of the largest drivers of weather in the tropics (Madden and Julian 1971, 1994). Previous studies have found relationships between the MJO and midlatitude modes of climatic variability, …


“Southerly Mohawk Hudson Convergence”- An Exploratory Case Study Of Terrain-Induced Wind Convergence On The Formation Of Thunderstorms In New York’S Capital Region, Christine Elizabeth Bloecker May 2014

“Southerly Mohawk Hudson Convergence”- An Exploratory Case Study Of Terrain-Induced Wind Convergence On The Formation Of Thunderstorms In New York’S Capital Region, Christine Elizabeth Bloecker

Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences

Southerly Mohawk-Hudson Convergence (SMHC) is a mesoscale phenomenon over New York’s Capital Region whereby a southwesterly wind flow over Eastern New York is channeled by the mountainous terrain westerly through the Mohawk River Valley and southerly through the Hudson River Valley. When these winds converge over the Capital Region, thunderstorms may suddenly erupt, disrupting air and ground traffic in the area. On rare occasions, these storms may be severe. This is the first comprehensive study to be conducted on this phenomenon. Climatology was compiled and showed that SMHC occurs on average at least twice a year. A case study was …


The Effects Of Downsloping On Storm Precipitation Distributions In The Capital District Of New York State, Kyle James Pallozzi May 2014

The Effects Of Downsloping On Storm Precipitation Distributions In The Capital District Of New York State, Kyle James Pallozzi

Atmospheric & Environmental Sciences

Downsloping is a process which has an impact on many precipitation events in the Capital District of New York State. This study examines the effect of 850 hPa and 925 hPa mean vector wind direction, as well as the individual 850 hPa and 925 hPa wind directions observed through soundings, during precipitation events on precipitation distributions in the Capital District of New York State. Results from this study suggests that 850 hPa and 925 hPa mean vector wind as well as the 850 hPa and 925 hPa wind favor downsloping off of the Greens and Taconics, and therefore lower precipitation …


A National Study Comparing Charter And Traditional Public Schools Using Propensity Score Analysis, Jason M. Bryer Jan 2014

A National Study Comparing Charter And Traditional Public Schools Using Propensity Score Analysis, Jason M. Bryer

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Unlike their private school counterparts, charter schools receive public funding but are relieved of some of the bureaucratic and regulatory constraints of public schools in exchange for being held accountable for student performance. Studies provide mixed results with regard to charter school performance. Charter schools are, by definition, schools of choice, and this means that observational data methods are required for comparing such schools with others. In observational data contexts, simple comparisons of two groups such as traditional public and charter schools typically ignore the inherent and systematic differences between the two groups. However, given well-designed observational studies and appropriate …


The Predictive Value Of Reading Frequencies In Digital And Print Formats On Eighth Grade English Language Arts Outcomes, Victoria Carol Coyle Jan 2014

The Predictive Value Of Reading Frequencies In Digital And Print Formats On Eighth Grade English Language Arts Outcomes, Victoria Carol Coyle

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The increased availability of technology in Western culture has resulted in an increased use of technology among adolescents in both academic and personal settings. In the U.S., adolescents use technology to communicate, access information, create and distribute products on a daily basis. More importantly, this increase in technology has resulted in many more reasons and opportunities to read. It is unclear, however if increased reading in these new digital modes are related to increased scores on traditional academic assessments. This study used an archival data set to investigate relationships that existed among self-reported reading frequencies in different modes and contexts …


Measurement Of The Ttbar Interaction Cross Section In The Tau+Jets Decay Channel Via Multivariable Template Fitting Of 4.6 Fb-1 Of Data Collected At √S = 7 Tev By The Atlas Detector, William Edson Jan 2014

Measurement Of The Ttbar Interaction Cross Section In The Tau+Jets Decay Channel Via Multivariable Template Fitting Of 4.6 Fb-1 Of Data Collected At √S = 7 Tev By The Atlas Detector, William Edson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This analysis measured the entire ttbar cross section through the specific decay channel to a tau, tau neutrino and four quark jets utilizing the full 2011 ATLAS collected data sample of 4.6fb-1. Measurement was achieved by creating templates based on Monte Carlo samples for the various well-modeled background and signal in conjunction with a data-driven derived template for QCD multijet samples. Signal separation was achieved by utilizing Boosted Decision Tree multi-variables designed to identify true from fake taus. The final result was determined to be 165.8 ±9.9 (𝑠𝑡𝑎𝑡.)− 30.0+ 29.7(𝑠𝑦𝑠𝑡.)±3.0(𝑙𝑢𝑚𝑖.) pb which is in agreement with previous measurements of this …


Diffraction-Based Techniques For High Contrast X-Ray Imaging, Lubna Naseem Peerzada Jan 2014

Diffraction-Based Techniques For High Contrast X-Ray Imaging, Lubna Naseem Peerzada

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Two X-ray diffraction based techniques for high contrast were explored to improve contrast in radiology: diffraction enhanced imaging (DEI) and coherent scatter imaging.


Power Law Models Of Stock Indices, Mankit Tse Jan 2014

Power Law Models Of Stock Indices, Mankit Tse

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Viewing the stock market as a self-organized system, Sornette and Johansen introduced physics-based models to study the dynamics of stock market crashes from the perspective of complex systems. This involved modeling stock market Indices using a mathematical power law exhibiting log-periodicity as the system approaches a market crash, which acts like a critical point in a thermodynamic system. In this dissertation, I aim to investigate stock indices to determine whether or not they exhibit log-periodic oscillations, according to the models proposed by Sornette, as they approach a crash. In addition to analyzing stock market crashes in the frequency domain using …


A Brownian Dynamics Approach To Esr Line Shape Calculations, Matthew Wright Jan 2014

A Brownian Dynamics Approach To Esr Line Shape Calculations, Matthew Wright

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The work presented in this thesis uses a Monte Carlo technique to simulate spectra for 14N spin-labels and 15N spin labels. The algorithm presented here also has the capability to produce simulated spectra for any admixture of 14N and 15N. The algorithm makes use of `iterative loops' to model Brownian rotational diffusion and for the repeated evaluation of the spectral correlation function (relaxation function).


Education And Women Mathematicians In The Middle East, Syeda Tooba Zahra Jan 2014

Education And Women Mathematicians In The Middle East, Syeda Tooba Zahra

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Middle Eastern women have made important contributions in the field of Mathematics. The purpose of this thesis is to understand the educational background for women in the Middle East and look at the life and contribution of a sample of women mathematicians in representative Middle Eastern countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Iran, and Pakistan.


Northeast Cool-Season Cyclones Associated With Significant Upper-Level Easterly Wind Anomalies, Adrian Mitchell Jan 2014

Northeast Cool-Season Cyclones Associated With Significant Upper-Level Easterly Wind Anomalies, Adrian Mitchell

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

A subset of Northeast U.S. cool-season cyclones is associated with upper-level easterly flow and, occasionally, well-defined easterly jet streaks. These events occur approximately once per year and may be associated with retrograding surface cyclones and precipitation caused by northerly warm-air advection, leading to forecast challenges. The deepest extratropical cyclone that affected the Northeast U.S. during the 2009-2010 cool-season was associated with an upper-level easterly jet streak, and produced a record snowfall total of 85 cm in Burlington, Vermont. Orographic precipitation enhancement in this case resulted from an interaction of the low-level flow with the complex topography of northern Vermont. This …


Effective Entity Resolution Methodology For Improving Data Quality And Reliability Of Service-Oriented Applications, Ewa Musial Jan 2014

Effective Entity Resolution Methodology For Improving Data Quality And Reliability Of Service-Oriented Applications, Ewa Musial

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

This dissertation proposes new paradigms for improving the testing, reliability of service-oriented applications as well as the quality of data. Since it is difficult to track information flowing through the multiple tiers of an application, testing service-oriented systems can be very challenging. We present a methodology for testing service-oriented applications that takes into account all the components, including services, external services, and data components. The results of our experiments demonstrate that this approach greatly improves the effectiveness of testing service-oriented applications.


Momentum And Spin In Entropic Quantum Dynamics, Shahid Nawaz Jan 2014

Momentum And Spin In Entropic Quantum Dynamics, Shahid Nawaz

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

We study quantum theory as an example of entropic inference. Our goal is to remove conceptual difficulties that arise in quantum mechanics. Since probability is a common feature of quantum theory and of any inference problem, we briefly introduce probability theory and the entropic methods to update probabilities when new information becomes available. Nelson's stochastic mechanics and Caticha's derivation of quantum theory are discussed in the subsequent chapters. Our first goal is to understand momentum and angular momentum within an entropic dynamics framework and to derive the corresponding uncertainty relations. In this framework momentum is an epistemic concept -- it …


Analysis Of Mass Fragmentation Patterns Using Dart-Ms And Gcms For Drugs Of Abuse, Teresa Anne O'Neill Jan 2014

Analysis Of Mass Fragmentation Patterns Using Dart-Ms And Gcms For Drugs Of Abuse, Teresa Anne O'Neill

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Drugs of abuse have been a major problem for law enforcement departments. The structures of the drugs, as well as the ever changing trends in abuse, make it difficult and time consuming to analyze using modern techniques such as GC-MS. DART-MS is a rapid technique that requires no pre-treatment or re-concentration to analyze a sample. Samples of amphetamines, cathinones and cannabinoids were analyzed using DART-MS and GC-MS in order to provide fragment patterns that would make it easier to identify an unknown drug. Using DART-MS, isomers can be differentiated as well as identified rapidly, which is an advantage over GC-MS. …


Energy Dependence Of Deuteron Induced Nuclear Reaction Cross Sections On Li, Be, B, C, N, O, And F, Mathew Parenti Jan 2014

Energy Dependence Of Deuteron Induced Nuclear Reaction Cross Sections On Li, Be, B, C, N, O, And F, Mathew Parenti

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Nuclear reactions induced by 1.2 MeV deuteron on 9Be and 19F are studied with the goal of developing a practical analysis method for these light elements. In addition, the energy dependence of deuteron induced nuclear reactions on 7Li, 9Be, 11B, 12C, 14N, 16O, and 19F was measured. The energy dependence of these nuclear reactions allows the nuclear reaction analysis for these light elements to be corrected for the energy loss of the incident deuteron ions in the analyzed film.


A Climatology Of Central American Gyres, Philippe Pierre Papin Jan 2014

A Climatology Of Central American Gyres, Philippe Pierre Papin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Central American gyres (CAGs) are large, low-level, cyclonic circulations that are observed over Central America during the tropical cyclone (TC) season. CAGs often occur in conjunction with TCs, and can result in torrential rainfall over portions of Central America, the Caribbean Islands, and eastern United States. The lack of prior research on CAGs, their apparent links to TC activity, and their association with high- impact weather motivates this study.


Bayesian Detection And Characterization Of Extra-Solar Planets Via Photometric Variations, Ben H. Placek Jan 2014

Bayesian Detection And Characterization Of Extra-Solar Planets Via Photometric Variations, Ben H. Placek

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Exoplanets are known to be responsible for a variety of photometric effects, which collectively can be used for both exoplanet detection and characterization. A portion of the observed flux variation originates directly from the exoplanet itself as both a reflected light component and thermal emission. Additional effects originate from the influence of the exoplanet on its host star. These include Doppler boosting, or beaming, caused by the radial velocity variations due to the stellar wobble, as well as variations in flux caused by the ellipsoidal shape of the star, which is induced by the planetary tidal forces. The newly developed …


On Rudin's Pathological Submodules Over Bidisk, Yueshi Qin Jan 2014

On Rudin's Pathological Submodules Over Bidisk, Yueshi Qin

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Operator theory has been greatly enriched after the introduction of


Computational Modeling-Driven Study Of Signaling Pathway Affecting Cleft Formation During Submandibular Salivary Gland Development, Shayoni Ray Jan 2014

Computational Modeling-Driven Study Of Signaling Pathway Affecting Cleft Formation During Submandibular Salivary Gland Development, Shayoni Ray

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Branching morphogenesis is a conserved mechanism of mammalian organ development (salivary glands, lungs, mammary glands, pancreas, kidney, etc.), and has been a classic topic of study for generations of developmental biologists. During the process of tissue formation, several cellular and molecular and protein signaling events occur at successive stages enabling proper formation of tissue shape and structure. In order to provide a comprehensive understanding of the process of branching morphogenesis, we need a systems level approach to integrate multifactorial information. My overall global hypothesis is that multiple mathematical modeling approaches can be utilized to extract crucial cellular and tissue level …


Monitoring Ligand-Induced Nucleic Acid Conformational Changes Using Ion Mobility Spectrometry-Mass Spectrometry, Bill Kenneth Redick Jan 2014

Monitoring Ligand-Induced Nucleic Acid Conformational Changes Using Ion Mobility Spectrometry-Mass Spectrometry, Bill Kenneth Redick

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Three-dimensional structures of biopolymers frequently dictate the biological role those molecules play. As such, investigation into structure of nucleic acids can provide important information pertaining to how those nucleic acids work. Many nucleic acid species, especially single-stranded RNA, fold into unique structures that allow them to function properly. Metals, and other cationic species, are often bound to the nucleic acid to make folding into the proper structure more favorable by neutralizing the negative charge on the nucleic acid imparted by the phosphate group. This investigation explores tertiary structure of nucleic acids that have been folded in the presence of ligands …


Raman Spectroscopy Of Blood Serum And Cerebrospinal Fluid And Multivariate Data Analysis For Alzheimer's Disease Diagnostics, Elena Ryzhikova Jan 2014

Raman Spectroscopy Of Blood Serum And Cerebrospinal Fluid And Multivariate Data Analysis For Alzheimer's Disease Diagnostics, Elena Ryzhikova

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The efficient and accurate diagnosis at the early stages of dementia is a key moment for effective treatment and productive research to find a new ways to combat the disease. It is especially true for Alzheimer's disease (AD) for which there is no effective cure, but several treatments are known to allow slowing down the degenerative processes. Alzheimer's disease (AD) displays only non-specific clinical symptoms of mental decline for decades after the initiation and is very challenging to differentiate even at the later stages when it becomes very aggressive. Despite the great need, current diagnostic tests are unable to diagnose …


Modeling The Early, Aging-Related Changes In Human Recombinant Gammas-Crystallin In Vitro, Christiana Oluwaseun Salami Jan 2014

Modeling The Early, Aging-Related Changes In Human Recombinant Gammas-Crystallin In Vitro, Christiana Oluwaseun Salami

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Cataract is the leading cause of blindness in the world. Cataractous lenses scatter a significant part of the light entering the eye. Cataract can be of several types: Age-related cataract, secondary cataract, traumatic cataract, congenital cataract, and radiation cataract. Age-related cataract is the most common type of cataract. Several factors contribute to age-onset cataract; among them are the Post-Translational Modifications (PTMs) to the major lens proteins or crystallins, which constitute about 80-90% of the protein content of the lens. Predominant PTMs of the crystallins are oxidation, deamidation, phosphorylation, glycation, and disulfide crosslinking, which tend to increase as the lens ages.


Graph Mining And Module Detection In Protein-Protein Interaction Networks, Ru Shen Jan 2014

Graph Mining And Module Detection In Protein-Protein Interaction Networks, Ru Shen

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Graphs are intuitive representations of relational data. Graphs have been widely used to represent biological molecular networks that operate in the living systems. In the study of systems biology, using graph mining techniques and graph-theory-based algorithms to


Fundamental Studies Of Supported Graphene Interfaces : Defect Density Of States In Graphene Field Effect Transistors (Fets) And Ideal Graphene - Silicon Schottky Diodes, Dhiraj Sinha Jan 2014

Fundamental Studies Of Supported Graphene Interfaces : Defect Density Of States In Graphene Field Effect Transistors (Fets) And Ideal Graphene - Silicon Schottky Diodes, Dhiraj Sinha

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

The physics of transport in atomically thin 2D materials is an active area of research, important for understanding fundamental properties of reduced dimensional materials and for applications. New phenomena based on graphene may include properties of topologically protected insulators. Applications of these materials are envisioned in electronics, optoelectronics and spintronics.


Seasonal Variations Of Wind Farm Impacts On Land Surface Temperature And Vegetation Over Northern Illinois, Lauren Slawsky Jan 2014

Seasonal Variations Of Wind Farm Impacts On Land Surface Temperature And Vegetation Over Northern Illinois, Lauren Slawsky

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Operating wind turbines enhance near surface turbulence and alter the exchanges of surface energy, water, and momentum, thus affecting local micrometeorology. Climatic impacts of three wind farms in northern Illinois are assessed using land surface temperature (LST) from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data onboard the Terra and Aqua satellites for the period 2003-2013. Changes in LST between two periods (before and after construction of the wind turbines) and between wind farm pixels (WFPs) and nearby non wind farm pixels (NNWFPs) are quantified. An increase in LST is observed at nighttime over each wind farm, with the pattern of …


New Matching Algorithm-- : Outlier First Matching (Ofm) And Its Performance On Propensity Score Analysis (Psa) Under New Stepwise Matching Framework (Smf), Yi Sun Jan 2014

New Matching Algorithm-- : Outlier First Matching (Ofm) And Its Performance On Propensity Score Analysis (Psa) Under New Stepwise Matching Framework (Smf), Yi Sun

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

An observational study is an empirical investigation of treatment effect when randomized experimentation is not ethical or feasible (Rosenbaum 2009). Observational studies are common in real life due to the following reasons: a) randomization is not feasible due to the ethical or financial reason; b) data are collected from survey or other resources where the object and design of the study has not been determined (e.g. retrospective study using administrative records); c) little knowledge on the given region so that some preliminary studies of observational data are conducted to formulate hypotheses to be tested in subsequent experiments. When statistical analysis …


Time Will Tell : Temporal Reasoning In Clinical Narratives And Beyond, Weiyi Sun Jan 2014

Time Will Tell : Temporal Reasoning In Clinical Narratives And Beyond, Weiyi Sun

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Temporal reasoning in natural language refers to the extraction and understanding of time-related information conveyed in free text. A clinical narrative temporal reasoning component can enable a spectrum of medical natural language processing (NLP) applications that directly improve patient care documentation efficiency, accessibility and accountability. This dissertation contributes in three subtasks under temporal reasoning: temporal annotation, temporal expression extraction and temporal relation inferences. The temporal annotation work described in the dissertation produced one of the first publicly available clinical narratives. We published one of the first sets of temporal


Probing Secondary And Tertiary Rna Folding Using Force And Temperature, William Stephenson Jan 2014

Probing Secondary And Tertiary Rna Folding Using Force And Temperature, William Stephenson

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

RNA folding is the process whereby a single stranded RNA molecule assumes its three-dimensional functional conformation. Along with the protein folding problem, the RNA folding problem remains as one of the great unsolved problems in biophysics. Generally RNA folding occurs in a hierarchical manner whereby the sequence of an RNA (primary structure) determines which regions will form helical segments (secondary structure) before further rearrangement and base pairing of secondary structure motifs (tertiary structure). Due to the intimate connection between structure and function within molecular biology, increased familiarity with the thermodynamic and kinetic factors that govern RNA folding will permit the …


Growth And Characterization Of Graphene On Cuni Substrates, Parul Tyagi Jan 2014

Growth And Characterization Of Graphene On Cuni Substrates, Parul Tyagi

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

Graphene is a single layer of sp2 bonded carbon atoms that crystallizes in the honeycomb structure. Because of its true two-dimensional structure, it has very unique electrical properties, including a very high carrier mobility that is symmetric for holes and electrons. To realize these unique properties, it is important to develop a method for growing graphene films with uniform thickness and low defect density. One of the most popular methods of growth is by chemical vapor deposition on Cu substrates, because it is self-limited. However many applications require the growth of graphene films that are more than one atomic layer …


An Analysis Of Arctic Climate, The Intense Arctic Cyclone Of Early August 2012, And Middle To High Latitude Snowcover, Adam H. Turchioe Jan 2014

An Analysis Of Arctic Climate, The Intense Arctic Cyclone Of Early August 2012, And Middle To High Latitude Snowcover, Adam H. Turchioe

Legacy Theses & Dissertations (2009 - 2024)

On 03 August 2012, a cyclone formed over Central Siberia and progressed northeastwards. By 0000 UTC 05 August, the cyclone reached the Arctic Ocean with a mean sea-level pressure (MSLP) of 984 hPa. Once over the Arctic Ocean, the cyclone rapidly intensified and reached a minimum pressure of 966 hPa on 06 August near 83°N and 170°W. The cyclone slowly weakened, and on 0000 UTC 10 August once again had a minimum MSLP of 984 hPa. The motivation for this presentation is driven by the likelihood that this cyclone is one of the most intense storm systems to ever impact …