Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Multi-Color Observations Of Short Grb Afterglows: 20 Events Observed Between 2007 And 2010, A. Nicuesa Guelbenzu, S. Klose, J. Greiner, D. A. Kann, T. Krühler, A. Rossi, S. Schulze, P. M. J. Afonso, J. Elliott, R Filgas, Dieter H. Hartmann, A Kupcu Yoldas, S Mcbreen, M Nardini, F Olivares E., A Rau, S Schmidl, P Schady, V Sudilovsky, A C. Updike, A Yoldas

Publications

We report on follow-up observations of 20 short-duration gamma-ray bursts (GRBs; T90 <2 >s) performed in g'r'i'z' JHKs with the Gamma-Ray Burst Optical Near-Infrared Detector (GROND) between mid-2007 and the end of 2010. This is one of the most compre-hensive data sets on GRB afterglow observations of short bursts published so far. In three cases, GROND was on target within less than 10 min after the trigger, leading to the discovery of the afterglow of GRB 081226A and its faint underlying host galaxy. In addition, GROND was able to image the optical afterglow and follow the light curve evolution in five …

Protein Nano-Object Integrator (Pronoi) For Generating Atomic Style Objects For Molecular Modeling, Nicholas Smith, Brandon Campbell, Lin Li, Chuan Li, Emil Alexov

Publications

Background

With the progress of nanotechnology, one frequently has to model biological macromolecules simultaneously with nano-objects. However, the atomic structures of the nano objects are typically not available or they are solid state entities. Because of that, the researchers have to investigate such nano systems by generating models of the nano objects in a manner that the existing software be able to carry the simulations. In addition, it should allow generating composite objects with complex shape by combining basic geometrical figures and embedding biological macromolecules within the system.

Results

Here we report the Protein Nano-Object Integrator (ProNOI) which allows for …

Fate And Reactivity Of Natural And Manufactured Nanoparticles In Soil/Water Environments, Allison Vandevoort

All Dissertations

Nanoparticles (NPs), < 100 nm in diameter, make up the smallest component of solid material. This small size often causes increased reactivity in soil/water environments, which is true for both natural NPs, such as very fine clay particles, and for manufactured nanoparticles, such as silver nanoparticles (AgNPs). As the importance of these particles is more widely recognized, and as manufactured nanoparticles, especially AgNPs, are increasing in production, it is essential to consider their effect on terrestrial and aquatic environments. The studies presented in this dissertation show that both the physicochemical characteristics of the NPs (e.g., particle size, surface coating, elemental composition), as well as soil-water interfacial chemistry (e.g., ionic strength, ligand concentration, pH), are instrumental in predicting environmental fate and reactivity.
Ligand type and concentration were especially important in NP reactivity and bioavailability. Using the hard/soft acid/base concept, the effect of phosphate ligand (hard base) on Fe/Al (hard acid) oxyhydroxide natural NPs was investigated in Chapters 2 and 3. Adding phosphate to soil NPs and reference nano-minerals (Fe-(oxyhydr)oxides and kaolinite) caused coagulation or dispersion, changing the particle size of the NPs, as well as affecting the amount of phosphate in its bioavailable (i.e., dissolved) form. A review of the literature in Chapters 1 and 3 revealed that changes in the soil conditions, and therefore, soil colloids/NPs (e.g., increasing organic …

Planet Formation In Transition Disks: Modeling, Spectroscopy, And Theory, Joseph Liskowsky

All Dissertations

An important field of modern astronomy is the study of planets. Literally for millennia, careful observers of the night sky have tracked these 'wanderers', with their peculiar motions initiating avenues of inquiry not able to elucidated by a study of the stars alone: we have discovered that the planets (as well as Earth) orbit the sun and that the stars are so far away, even their relative positions do not seem to shift perceptibly when Earth's position moves hundreds of millions of miles. With the advent of the telescope, and subsequent improvements upon it over the course of centuries, accelerating …

Sample Preparation Techniques For The Improvement Of Analytical Measurements: Capillary-Channeled Polymer Fibers Employed In Protein Solid Phase Extraction Applications And Characterization Of Active Components In Botanical Dietary Supplements, Carolyn Burdette

All Dissertations

The task of sample preparation encompasses many challenges and demands for analytical techniques. Appropriate preparative steps can be the determining factor between successful measurements and failures. Too little preparation can lead to the inability to detect analytes due to low concentrations, insufficient extraction of analytes, and/or strong matrix effects; exhaustive preparation steps increases analysis times, the potential for analyte losses, and the difficulty to obtain consistent reproducible results. Discussed here are several examples of analytical techniques where sample preparation is critical and can be used to improve existing techniques. Capillary-channeled polymer (C-CP) fibers used for solid phase extraction (SPE) protein …

Spider Mediation Of Polychlorinated Biphenyl Transport And Transformation Across Riparian Ecotones, Diana Delach

All Dissertations

Polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) contaminate the sediment of the Twelvemile Creek / Lake Hartwell Superfund Site, and are known to be transported throughout the resident biota via trophic transport. Riparian spiders have recently become of interest because they are terrestrial organisms that have significant PCB exposures derived from aquatic sources. Many riparian spiders primarily consume insects emerging from contaminated aquatic systems, and these spiders can have a body burden as high as 2900 ng/g lipid. These emergent insects carry contaminants out of the river and into the riparian zone where they are captured by spiders, which effectively directs the contamination towards …

Understanding Nanoparticle-Cell Interaction, Ran Chen

All Dissertations

Nanotechnology has revolutionalized the landscape of modern science and technology, including materials, electronics, therapeutics, bioimaging, sensing, and the environment. Along with these technological advancements, there arises a concern that engineered nanomaterials, owing to their high surface area and high reactivity, may exert adverse effects upon discharge to compromise biological and ecological systems. Research in the past decade has examined the fate of nanomaterials in vitro and in vivo, as well as the interactions between nanoparticles and biological and ecosystems using primarily toxicological and ecotoxicological approaches. However, due to the versatility in the physical and physicochemical properties of nanoparticles, and due …

Motion Capture Study Of Human Movement Recognition, Nicholas Kinerd

All Theses

In this thesis, we address questions about recognition of human movement through motion
capture. We begin by capturing the martial arts movements of four actors as they each perform
three different techniques. We then conduct a survey to determine if participants in
the survey are able to distinguish the various martial arts techniques and differentiate the
actors that portray said techniques. A secondary consideration of our survey is to determine
if the participants can distinguish the sex of the actors as they perform the martial arts
techniques. Our hypothesis is that people are able to distinguish actors and sex; however, …

Evaluation Of 26al Method As Star Formation Rate Indicator, Manjeet Singh

All Theses

The aim of this work is to evaluate the '26Al method' used to determine the Galactic Star Formation Rate (SFR) and compare it to other alternative methods. 26Al is a radioactive isotope produced mainly in massive star winds and in the ensuing core collapse supernova explosion. The radioactive 26Al decays with a life time of 106 years by emitting γ- ray photons in 1.808 MeV band. The 26Al method involves using the Galactic 26Al radioactive flux as a tracer. This approach based on the γ- ray line measurements does not suffer from extinction and small number statistics.
To evaluate the …

Objective Bayesian Inference On The Common Mean Of Normal Distributions, Shiyi Tu

All Theses

One of the oldest problems in statistical area is to make inference on a common mean of several different normal populations with unknown and probably unequal variances. There are several different ways to make inference on the common mean. The most common methods are point estimation, hypothesis testing, and interval estimation. Point estimation uses sample data to calculate a single value serving as a best guess for the unknown population mean. Hypothesis testing assumes all populations have the same mean as the null hypothesis. Interval estimation is an interval of possible values of the unknown mean.
In this paper, we …

Convex Hull Characterization Of Special Polytopes In N-Ary Variables, Ruobing Shen

All Theses

This paper characterizes the convex hull of the set of n-ary vectors that are lexicographically less than or equal to a given such vector. A polynomial number of facets is shown to be sufficient to describe the convex hull. These facets generalize the family of cover inequalities for the binary case. They allow for advances relative to both the modeling of integer variables using base-n expansions, and the solving of n-ary knapsack problems with weakly super-decreasing coefficients.

Hydromechanical Well Testing Using A 3d Fiber Optic Extensometer, Glenn Skawski

All Theses

Some fractured rock formations hold important resources, such as water, hydrocarbons or heat, whereas others are good candidates for waste disposal. Hydromechanical well tests have been developed to improve characterization of formation properties and parameter distributions by measuring displacement along with pressure while stressing a well. The displacement that occurs during a well test depends on the geometry of fractures or other sources of permeability, as well as the distribution of compliance or elastic modulus. Current methods of hydromechanical well testing, measures axial displacements along a wellbore, which may cause ambiguity in interpretations when 3-D components of deformation are present. …

Semantic Similarity Detection In Natural Language Documents, Lianyu Zhao

All Theses

Data leak prevention (DLP) solutions monitor and control data flow. Current techniques find data that matches user defined syntactic patterns. Unfortunately, large classes of DLP relevant data are defined by information semantics, rather than data syntax. Syntax refers to data format, whereas semantics refers to data meaning. The class of social security numbers can be adequately expressed using data syntax, whereas a new industrial process can only be adequately described using information semantics. In this paper, we propose methods for extracting and identifying document semantics using training sets of limited size (tens of documents). The first method is based on …

An Efficient Image Segmentation Algorithm Using Bidirectional Mahalanobis Distance, Rahul Suresh

All Theses

In this thesis, we present an efficient graph-based image-segmentation algorithm that improves upon the drawbacks of the minimum spanning tree based segmentation algorithm, namely leaks that occur due to the criterion used to merge regions, and the sensitivity of the output to the parameter k. To address these problems, we propose the use of bidirectional Mahalanobis distance, along with a Gaussian model for each region, and an intuitive normalized parameter τ that replaces k and works for all images without having to be changed. Furthermore, we propose an approximation to the algorithm that enables it to run efficiently in O(NlogN) …

Ultraluminous X-Ray Sources In Andromeda Galaxy: Two Recent Discoveries And Their Implications, Amanpreet Kaur

All Theses

Ultraluminous X-ray sources are believed to be associated with X-ray binaries, in which an accreting black hole generates X-ray luminosities in excess of 10 39 erg/s. The nature of the companion star and the underlying physics of the accretion process is not yet established with certainty. In particular, whether or not the accretion is super/sub Eddington is an open question, as is the mass of the companion star. We discuss the first two ULXs recently discovered in M31 and investigate the nature of their underlying sources. We present the X-ray observations for ULX-1 in detail and discuss its implications for …

Conservation Needs Of Nearshore Seabirds In The Southeastern U.S. Addressed Through Habitat Use Surveys And Assessments Of Health And Mercury Concentrations, Lisa Eggert

All Dissertations

Seabirds encounter a range of natural and anthropogenic stressors in the nearshore environment and are ideal candidate species for long-term monitoring of changes to coastal systems. The mitigation of threats to nearshore seabirds requires management of essential coastal habitat and monitoring population health and trends. In this dissertation, I first evaluated intertidal habitat use for a suite of coastal species as it relates to management practices at a seabird nesting island in South Carolina. Specifically, my objectives were (1) to determine intertidal areas of high bird abundance, (2) to examine course-scale habitat characteristics and human use of intertidal areas associated …

Sensitivity Analysis In Magnetic Resonance Elastography And A Local Wavelength Reconstruction Based On Wave Direction, Christopher Gillam

All Dissertations

or the detection of early stage cancer. MRE utilizes interior data for its inverse problems, which greatly reduces the ill-posedness from which most traditional inverse problems suffer.
In this thesis, we first establish a sensitivity analysis for viscoelastic scalar medium with complex wave number and compare it with the purely elastic case. Also we estimate the smallest detectable inclusion for breast and liver, which is about twice larger than using the purely elastic model. We also found the existence of optimal frequency (50 Hz) that maximizes the detectability when the Voigt model is used.
Second, we propose a local wavelength …

Asymptotics For The Arc Length Of A Multivariate Time Series And Its Applications As A Measure Of Risk, Tharanga Wickramarachchi

All Dissertations

The necessity of more trustworthy methods for measuring the risk (volatility) of financial assets has come to the surface with the global market downturn This dissertation aims to propose sample arc length of a time series, which provides a measure of the overall magnitude of the one-step-ahead changes over the observation time period, as a new approach for quantifying the risk. The Gaussian functional central limit theorem is proven under finite second moment conditions. Without loss of generality we consider equally spaced time series when first differences of the series follow a variety of popular stationary models including autoregressive moving …

Sorption And Enantiomerization Of Current Use Chiral Pesticides, April Hall

All Dissertations

Chiral pesticides are prevalent in the environment today and are known to react selectively with chiral environmental components such as microbes, enzymes, and other naturally occurring chiral materials. In addition, chiral sorption is a process that has been occasionally investigated in the study of homochirality (the exclusive presence of one enantiomer in living organisms), but almost overlooked in environmental science. For chiral sorption to occur, the sorbent and sorbate must be chiral entities. In the environment, there are abundant natural surfaces that are chiral, including clay minerals and organic matter present in soil, sediment and aqueous solution. A knowledge of …

Polyhedral Approximations Of Quadratic Semi-Assignment Problems, Disjunctive Programs, And Base-2 Expansions Of Integer Variables, Frank Muldoon

All Dissertations

This research is concerned with developing improved representations for special families of mixed-discrete programming problems. Such problems can typically be modeled using different mathematical forms, and the representation employed can greatly influence the problem's ability to be solved. Generally speaking, it is desired to obtain mixed 0-1 linear forms whose continuous relaxations provide tight polyhedral outer-approximations to the convex hulls of feasible solutions. This dissertation makes contributions to three distinct problems, providing new forms that improve upon published works.
The first emphasis is on devising solution procedures for the classical quadratic semi-assignment problem(QSAP), which is an NP-hard 0-1 quadratic program. …

The Behavior And Toxicity Of Metal Oxide Nanoparticles In Aqueous Solution, Phenny Mwaanga

All Dissertations

The dissolution and aggregation of metal oxides nanoparticles (NPs) in aqueous solution not only alter the abundance and toxicology of NPs, but also makes the effective assessment and the correct interpretation of effects of NPs on organisms challenging. The extent to which these processes (dissolution and aggregation) occur largely depend on pH, ionic strength, dissolved natural organic matter (NOM) and NPs characteristics. This study investigated the dissolution and aggregation behavior of the four metal oxide NPs (nZnO, nCuO, nFe2O3 and nTiO2) in aqueous solution as influenced by pH, ionic strength and NOM and examined the toxicity of these NPs to …

Solvation Energy Of Biomolecular Structures: A Study Of The Effect Of Salt On Biomolecules Through Implicit As Well As Explicit Solvation Methods, Mihir Date

All Dissertations

In the current dissertation, studies related to solvation energy of protein structures using implicit as well explicit solvation methods have been discussed. Special focus is given to explore effect of salt on the fold stability of proteins and enzymes. Salt plays a crucial role in the functioning of all proteins, enzymes and nucleic acids. Change in salt concentration of the medium has large impact on stability and activity of these biological macromolecules. Therefore exploring mechanism of salt effect on them and development of an efficient model to calculate the salt effect has fundamental as well as practical importance in the …

Spectroscopic Signature For Bundling, Edge States And Impurities In 1d And 0d Materials, Kiran Kumar Lingam

All Dissertations

Study of nanomaterials has gained interest of researchers from various fields of science and technology due to their unique electronic and vibrational properties as compared to their bulk counterparts. In particular, carbon nanotechnology has evolved rapidly over the past few decades and nowadays, carbon nanotubes are used in various fields such as energy storage, electronics etc. However, the quest for new properties of this material is never ending and the invention of graphene generated enormous interest in the scientific community due to its excellent properties such as strength, high electron mobility, thermal conductivity etc. In this thesis, I aim at …

Hydrologic Influences Within A Tidal Freshwater Forested Wetland, Brooke V. James, Carl C. Trettin, Timothy J. Callahan

S.C. Water Resources Conference

2012 S.C. Water Resources Conference - Exploring Opportunities for Collaborative Water Research, Policy and Management

Sediment Based Turbidity Analyses For Representative South Carolina Soils, K E. Resler, C B. Sawyer, C V. Privette Iii, J C. Hayes

S.C. Water Resources Conference

2012 S.C. Water Resources Conference - Exploring Opportunities for Collaborative Water Research, Policy and Management

Application Of Qpcr Technologies In Stormwater Source Tracking And Determination Of Host Contributions Of Fecal Indicator Bacteria, J Michael Trapp, Erin Burge, Susan Libes

S.C. Water Resources Conference

2012 S.C. Water Resources Conference - Exploring Opportunities for Collaborative Water Research, Policy and Management

Genetic Sequencing Methodologies To Assess Human Contributions Of Fecal Coliforms To A Freshwater Receiving Stream, D A. Graves, D E. Chestnut, E B. Rabon, W J. Jones, J G. Moore, C Johnston

S.C. Water Resources Conference

2012 S.C. Water Resources Conference - Exploring Opportunities for Collaborative Water Research, Policy and Management

Fish Health In The Reedy-Saluda Watershed, As Measured Through Biochemical Markers, Peter Van Den Hurk, Jessica Mierzejewski, Lindsay Gerzel, Dennis C. Haney

S.C. Water Resources Conference

2012 S.C. Water Resources Conference - Exploring Opportunities for Collaborative Water Research, Policy and Management

Water Supply Planning: Finding Our Hidden Reservoirs, Rebecca L. Haynes

S.C. Water Resources Conference

2012 S.C. Water Resources Conference - Exploring Opportunities for Collaborative Water Research, Policy and Management

Spatially Explicit Decision Support For Watershed Management On Military Lands: Stream Integrity, Interactive Programming, And Best Management Practices, J Pike, D Lipscomb, R Baldwin, W English

S.C. Water Resources Conference

2012 S.C. Water Resources Conference - Exploring Opportunities for Collaborative Water Research, Policy and Management