Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Understanding Patterns And Functional Impacts Of An Invasive Tree And Its Biological Control In A Riparian System, Annie L. Henry

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Invasive species have become an inextricable part of the landscape, particularly in riparian plant communities, and removal is often a key component of restoration programs. Biological control (biocontrol) is a method of removal that is often both efficient and effective. However, the impact of biocontrol on target species and indirect effects from invasive species removal can be hard to predict. While monitoring the impact of invasive species removal usually involves some species-based assessment such as changes in diversity, historically dominant species or native species, these strategies do not typically provide insight into the mechanisms underlying plant community response to removal. …

The Ecological Resilience Of A Tropical Montane Pine Forest To Droughts, Fire, And Hurricane Disturbance, Daniel Erland Brugger Swann

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Owing to the geographic isolation and unique climatic conditions which occur in tropical montane forests (TMFs), these systems are highly sensitive to changes in both climate and disturbance. Therefore, as ongoing climate change alters disturbance regimes – potentially facilitating multiple disturbance interactions much greater than that of isolated disturbances – TMFs may be shifted to alternate stable states. However, study of TMF resilience is essentially unknown given the lack of long-term studies in these systems. We address the resiliency of the tropical montane pine forests of the Cordillera Central, Dominican Republic using long-term climate records, remeasured vegetation data, and reconstructed …

Validation Of A Deployable Proteomic Assay For The Serological Screening Of Sexual Assault Samples, Catherine O'Sullivan Brown

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Protein mass spectrometry (MS) has emerged as a technique to supplant traditional serological tests for body fluid identification. It was hypothesized that proteomic techniques would surpass the sensitivity and specificity of traditional serological techniques. An automated workflow coupled with protein MS has been developed for the confirmatory identification of five biological fluids. A developmental validation was completed, assessing parameters such as reproducibility, sensitivity, ion suppression, and limit of detection. Implementation was determined through tandem sample processing by MS, traditional serological tests, and standard DNA profiling methods. The MS approach offered superior detection limits while also providing true confirmatory results, producing …

Zn Orbifolds Of Vertex Operator Algebras, Daniel Graybill

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given a vertex algebra V and a group of automorphisms of V, the invariant subalgebra V^G is called an orbifold of V. This construction appeared first in physics and was also fundamental to the construction of the Moonshine module in the work of Borcherds. It is expected that nice properties of V such as C2-cofiniteness and rationality will be inherited by V^G if G is a finite group. It is also expected that under reasonable hypotheses, if V is strongly finitely generated and G is reductive, V^G will also be strongly finitely generated. This is an analogue …

Compressible Hydrodynamics Of Few Body Optical Vortices, Jasmine M. Andersen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The ubiquity of vortices nearly rivals that of the innumerable fluids and spaces in which they live. Not only do they exist in systems such as superfluids, superconductors, optical fields, or cold atomic gases, for example, but they also exist in our atmospheres, oceans, and even in our veins. This makes understanding and accurately predicting the dynamics of vortices in various systems a relevant and meaningful endeavor.

From a typical hydrodynamic perspective, vortices move within a given fluid because of the background fluid density and phase gradients at the vortex location. However, we find that these gradients alone are insufficient …

Modeling Disorder In Proteins Yields Insights Into The Evolution Of Stability And Function, Jonathan Huihui

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The central dogma of molecular biology dictates that a DNA sequence codes for an RNA sequence, which in turn codes for a sequence of amino acids that comprises a protein. Proteins are responsible with performing myriad functions within living organisms and most proteins require a folded structure in order to perform their function. The protein's structure is the direct link from sequence to function. This is known as the sequence - structure - function paradigm. However, this does not mean that the unfolded state is unimportant. In order to properly model the stability of the folded state, one needs to …

Photoassisted Synthesis Of Complex Polyheterocycles Via Rational Design Of Tailored Photoprecursors, Tina Alanna Holt

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Natural products remain the most common source for drug leads, although diversity-oriented synthesis of unnatural complex molecules is gaining momentum. Our lab has been developing experimentally simple and straightforward approaches to complex molecular architectures via photochemical reactions involving a minimal number of experimental steps. In order to achieve this, photoprecursors were assembled via high yielding reactions. Next, we deployed photoinduced cycloadditions to create complex 3-dimentional structures. Lastly, with this obtained primary photoproduct, post-photochemical transformations were used to further grow its scaffold complexity.

One method to increase scaffold complexity is the [4+2] intramolecular cycloadditions of azaxylylenes, which are developed through standard …

Epr Relaxation Of Modified Triphenylmethyl And Nitroxide Radicals, Whylder Moore

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Trityl and nitroxide radicals are widely used as probes in chemical and biochemical systems. Understanding of factors that impact the electron spin relaxation for these radicals is important for selection of probes and experimental operating conditions. It has been previously reported that ¹³C isotope enrichment of the central carbon of the trityl yields a highly sensitive micro viscosity probe. It was important to characterize the impact of this substitution on the relaxation processes in fluid solution and immobilized samples.

Electron spin relaxation times for perdeuterated Finland trityl 99% enriched in ¹³C at the central carbon (¹³C …

Exponential Random Graphs And A Generalization Of Parking Functions, Ryan Demuse

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Random graphs are a powerful tool in the analysis of modern networks. Exponential random graph models provide a framework that allows one to encode desirable subgraph features directly into the probability measure. Using the theory of graph limits pioneered by Borgs et. al. as a foundation, we build upon the work of Chatterjee & Diaconis and Radin & Yin. We add complexity to the previously studied models by considering exponential random graph models with edge-weights coming from a generic distribution satisfying mild assumptions. In particular, we show that a large family of two-parameter, edge-weighted exponential random graphs display a phase …