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Full-Text Articles in Data Science

A Nlp Approach To Automating The Generation Of Surveys For Market Research, Anav Chug May 2024

A Nlp Approach To Automating The Generation Of Surveys For Market Research, Anav Chug

Honors College Theses

Market Research is vital but includes activities that are often laborious and time consuming. Survey questionnaires are one possible output of the process and market researchers spend a lot of time manually developing questions for focus groups. The proposed research aims to develop a software prototype that utilizes Natural Language Processing (NLP) to automate the process of generating survey questions for market research. The software uses a pre-trained Open AI language model to generate multiple choice survey questions based on a given product prompt, send it to a targeted email list, and also provides a real-time analysis of the responses …


Evaluation Of An End-To-End Radiotherapy Treatment Planning Pipeline For Prostate Cancer, Mohammad Daniel El Basha, Court Laurence, Carlos Eduardo Cardenas, Julianne Pollard-Larkin, Steven Frank, David T. Fuentes, Falk Poenisch, Zhiqian H. Yu May 2024

Evaluation Of An End-To-End Radiotherapy Treatment Planning Pipeline For Prostate Cancer, Mohammad Daniel El Basha, Court Laurence, Carlos Eduardo Cardenas, Julianne Pollard-Larkin, Steven Frank, David T. Fuentes, Falk Poenisch, Zhiqian H. Yu

Dissertations & Theses (Open Access)

Radiation treatment planning is a crucial and time-intensive process in radiation therapy. This planning involves carefully designing a treatment regimen tailored to a patient’s specific condition, including the type, location, and size of the tumor with reference to surrounding healthy tissues. For prostate cancer, this tumor may be either local, locally advanced with extracapsular involvement, or extend into the pelvic lymph node chain. Automating essential parts of this process would allow for the rapid development of effective treatment plans and better plan optimization to enhance tumor control for better outcomes.

The first objective of this work, to automate the treatment …


A Framework That Explores The Cognitive Load Of Cs1 Assignments Using Pausing Behavior, Joshua O. Urry May 2024

A Framework That Explores The Cognitive Load Of Cs1 Assignments Using Pausing Behavior, Joshua O. Urry

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Pausing behavior in introductory Computer Science (CS1) courses has been related to a student’s performance in the course and could be linked to a student’s cognitive load, or assignment difficulty. Having an objective measure of the cognitive load would be beneficial to course instructors as it would help them design assignments that are not too difficult. Two studies are presented in this work. The first study uses Cognitive Load Theory and Vygotsky’s Zone of Proximal Development as a theoretical framework to analyze pause times between keystrokes to better understand what types of assignments need more educational support than others. The …


Data Engineering: Building Software Efficiency In Medium To Large Organizations, Alessandro De La Torre Apr 2024

Data Engineering: Building Software Efficiency In Medium To Large Organizations, Alessandro De La Torre

Whittier Scholars Program

The introduction of PoetHQ, a mobile application, offers an economical strategy for colleges, potentially ushering in significant cost savings. These savings could be redirected towards enhancing academic programs and services, enriching the educational landscape for students. PoetHQ aims to democratize access to crucial software, effectively removing financial barriers and facilitating a richer educational experience. By providing an efficient software solution that reduces organizational overhead while maximizing accessibility for students, the project highlights the essential role of equitable education and resource optimization within academic institutions.


Visualizing Nfl Player Metrics, Jayson Rhea Apr 2024

Visualizing Nfl Player Metrics, Jayson Rhea

Campus Research Day

This project is dedicated to reshaping the exploration of NFL player data. Tailored for sports analysts and fantasy football managers, the goal is to deliver convenience through seamless data navigation and precise filtering through an interactive dashboard. In contrast to the static formats found on the NFL website and ESPN, this dynamic interface offers interactive visualizations, empowering users to effortlessly compare data. These comparisons can be used draw quick conclusions about player performance.


Binder, Tyler A. Peaster, Lindsey M. Davenport, Madelyn Little, Alex Bales Apr 2024

Binder, Tyler A. Peaster, Lindsey M. Davenport, Madelyn Little, Alex Bales

ATU Research Symposium

Binder is a mobile application that aims to introduce readers to a book recommendation service that appeals to devoted and casual readers. The main goal of Binder is to enrich book selection and reading experience. This project was created in response to deficiencies in the mobile space for book suggestions, library management, and reading personalization. The tools we used to create the project include Visual Studio, .Net Maui Framework, C#, XAML, CSS, MongoDB, NoSQL, Git, GitHub, and Figma. The project’s selection of books were sourced from the Google Books repository. Binder aims to provide an intuitive interface that allows users …


Techniques To Detect Fake Profiles On Social Media Using The New Age Algorithms – A Survey, A K M Rubaiyat Reza Habib, Edidiong Elijah Akpan Apr 2024

Techniques To Detect Fake Profiles On Social Media Using The New Age Algorithms – A Survey, A K M Rubaiyat Reza Habib, Edidiong Elijah Akpan

ATU Research Symposium

This research explores the growing issue of fake accounts in Online Social Networks [OSNs]. While platforms like Twitter, Instagram, and Facebook foster connections, their lax authentication measures have attracted many scammers and cybercriminals. Fake profiles conduct malicious activities, such as phishing, spreading misinformation, and inciting social discord. The consequences range from cyberbullying to deceptive commercial practices. Detecting fake profiles manually is often challenging and causes considerable stress and trust issues for the users. Typically, a social media user scrutinizes various elements like the profile picture, bio, and shared posts to identify fake profiles. These evaluations sometimes lead users to conclude …


Accessing Advanced National Supercomputing And Storage Resources For Computational Research, Ramazan Aygun Apr 2024

Accessing Advanced National Supercomputing And Storage Resources For Computational Research, Ramazan Aygun

All Things Open

This presentation will cover ACCESS (Advanced Cyberinfrastructure Coordination Ecosystem: Services & Support), and Kennesaw State University's involvement in Open Science Data Federation program as a data origin to help researchers and educators with or without supporting grants to utilize the nation’s advanced computing systems and services. ACCESS, a program established and funded by the National Science Foundation, is an ecosystem with capabilities for new modes of research and further democratizing participation. The presentation covers how to apply for allocations on ACCESS. The last part of the presentation will briefly explain Open Science Data Federation and Kennesaw State University's involvement as …


The Vulnerabilities Of Artificial Intelligence Models And Potential Defenses, Felix Iov Apr 2024

The Vulnerabilities Of Artificial Intelligence Models And Potential Defenses, Felix Iov

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

The rapid integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into various commercial products has raised concerns about the security risks posed by adversarial attacks. These attacks manipulate input data to disrupt the functioning of AI models, potentially leading to severe consequences such as self-driving car crashes, financial losses, or data breaches. We will explore neural networks, their weaknesses, and potential defenses. We will discuss adversarial attacks including data poisoning, backdoor attacks, evasion attacks, and prompt injection. Then, we will explore defense strategies such as data protection, input sanitization, and adversarial training. By understanding how adversarial attacks work and the defenses against them, …


Urinalysis Test Data Analysis And Prediction, Nikhil Mhatre Apr 2024

Urinalysis Test Data Analysis And Prediction, Nikhil Mhatre

2024 Datathon Challenges

OUTLIERS Team submission to the Urinalysis Test Results Timed Challenge

Researched various algorithms like boosting and random forest. We learned a lot about their strength and weaknesses, and used these algorithms accordingly to solve the issues faced in the dataset.


Artificial Intelligence Could Probably Write This Essay Better Than Me, Claire Martino Apr 2024

Artificial Intelligence Could Probably Write This Essay Better Than Me, Claire Martino

Augustana Center for the Study of Ethics Essay Contest

No abstract provided.


Localized Collocation Meshless Method For Modeling Transdermal Pharmacokinetics In Multiphase Skin Structures, Eduardo Divo Apr 2024

Localized Collocation Meshless Method For Modeling Transdermal Pharmacokinetics In Multiphase Skin Structures, Eduardo Divo

Math Department Colloquium Series

The human skin has a complicated structure with many multi-scale, biophysical effects impacting the propagation of skin-injected substances, such as partitioning, metabolic reactions, adsorption and elimination. An extended version of Fick’s second law governing the process of the compound diffusion in various skin layer is employed in the current work by considering the conservation of mass of the substance and the metabolic reaction of the substance in viable skin. Additionally, a model assuming linear coupling between the substance concentrations that are bound and unbound with blood was developed. Using such a model, a set of coupled partial differential equations are …


Health And Healthcare: Designing For The Social Determinants Of Health And Blue Zones In North Nashville, Rebecca Tonguis, Honor Thomas, Olivia Hobbs Apr 2024

Health And Healthcare: Designing For The Social Determinants Of Health And Blue Zones In North Nashville, Rebecca Tonguis, Honor Thomas, Olivia Hobbs

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Owned by North Nashville’s First Community Church, a now empty site in the Osage-North Fisk neighborhood of North Nashville has been identified as a potential site for a new location of The Store, in addition to a community-centric architectural development based on the social determinants of health and informed by the principles behind Blue Zones, the locations with the highest lifespans in the world. Opened by Brad Paisley and Kimberly Williams-Paisley, The Store is a free grocery store that “allow[s] people to shop for their basic needs in a way that protects dignity and fosters hope”, for which North Nashville …


Demographic Data Analysis For Measuring Economic Impact Of The Branch Of Nashville, Tessa Pendleton, Annie Wardroup, Nicole Speyrer, Kimberly Amaya Hernandez Apr 2024

Demographic Data Analysis For Measuring Economic Impact Of The Branch Of Nashville, Tessa Pendleton, Annie Wardroup, Nicole Speyrer, Kimberly Amaya Hernandez

Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

As part of the Global Honors Scholars Collaborative, researchers aggregated data from The Belmont Data Collaborative to analyze the three primary ZIP codes (37211, 37013, 37217) served by The Branch of Nashville. These communities include immigrant and refugee populations, whom The Branch supports through its food bank, English classes, and further comprehensive care. Future program development will rely on the analysis of the current client base and eventual assessment of The Branch’s economic impact on the surrounding community. The goal of this research for The Branch of Nashville is twofold: (1) analyze the existing demographics within the above ZIP codes …


Combating Financial Crimes With Unsupervised Learning Techniques: Clustering And Dimensionality Reduction For Anti-Money Laundering, Ahmed N. Bakry, Almohammady S. Alsharkawy, Mohamed S. Farag, Kamal R. Raslan Apr 2024

Combating Financial Crimes With Unsupervised Learning Techniques: Clustering And Dimensionality Reduction For Anti-Money Laundering, Ahmed N. Bakry, Almohammady S. Alsharkawy, Mohamed S. Farag, Kamal R. Raslan

Al-Azhar Bulletin of Science

Anti-Money Laundering (AML) is a crucial task in ensuring the integrity of financial systems. One keychallenge in AML is identifying high-risk groups based on their behavior. Unsupervised learning, particularly clustering, is a promising solution for this task. However, the use of hundreds of features todescribe behavior results in a highdimensional dataset that negatively impacts clustering performance.In this paper, we investigate the effectiveness of combining clustering method agglomerative hierarchicalclustering with four dimensionality reduction techniques -Independent Component Analysis (ICA), andKernel Principal Component Analysis (KPCA), Singular Value Decomposition (SVD), Locality Preserving Projections (LPP)- to overcome the issue of high-dimensionality in AML data and …


Graph Neural Network Guided By Feature Selection And Centrality Measures For Node Classification On Homophilic And Heterophily Graphs, Asmaa M. Mahmoud, Heba F. Eid, Abeer S. Desuky, Hoda A. Ali Apr 2024

Graph Neural Network Guided By Feature Selection And Centrality Measures For Node Classification On Homophilic And Heterophily Graphs, Asmaa M. Mahmoud, Heba F. Eid, Abeer S. Desuky, Hoda A. Ali

Al-Azhar Bulletin of Science

One of the most recent developments in the fields of deep learning and machine learning is Graph Neural Networks (GNNs). GNNs core task is the feature aggregation stage, which is carried out over the node's neighbours without taking into account whether the features are relevant or not. Additionally, the majority of these existing node representation techniques only consider the network's topology structure while completely ignoring the centrality information. In this paper, a new technique for explaining graph features depending on four different feature selection approaches and centrality measures in order to identify the important nodes and relevant node features is …


Improving Educational Delivery And Content In Juvenile Detention Centers, Yomna Elmousalami Mar 2024

Improving Educational Delivery And Content In Juvenile Detention Centers, Yomna Elmousalami

Undergraduate Research Symposium

Students in juvenile detention centers have the greatest need to receive improvements in educational delivery and content; however, they are one of the “truly disadvantaged” populations in terms of receiving those improvements. This work presents a qualitative data analysis based on a focus group meeting with stakeholders at a local Juvenile Detention Center. The current educational system in juvenile detention centers is based on paper worksheets, single-room style teaching methods, outdated technology, and a shortage of textbooks and teachers. In addition, detained students typically have behavioral challenges that are deemed "undesired" in society. As a result, many students miss classes …


Extracting Dnn Architectures Via Runtime Profiling On Mobile Gpus, Dong Hyub Kim Mar 2024

Extracting Dnn Architectures Via Runtime Profiling On Mobile Gpus, Dong Hyub Kim

Masters Theses

Due to significant investment, research, and development efforts over the past decade, deep neural networks (DNNs) have achieved notable advancements in classification and regression domains. As a result, DNNs are considered valuable intellectual property for artificial intelligence providers. Prior work has demonstrated highly effective model extraction attacks which steal a DNN, dismantling the provider’s business model and paving the way for unethical or malicious activities, such as misuse of personal data, safety risks in critical systems, or spreading misinformation. This thesis explores the feasibility of model extraction attacks on mobile devices using aggregated runtime profiles as a side-channel to leak …


Investigation Of Gas Dynamics In Water And Oil-Based Muds Using Das, Dts, And Dss Measurements, Temitayo S. Adeyemi Mar 2024

Investigation Of Gas Dynamics In Water And Oil-Based Muds Using Das, Dts, And Dss Measurements, Temitayo S. Adeyemi

LSU Master's Theses

Reliable prediction of gas migration velocity, void fraction, and length of gas-affected region in water and oil-based muds is essential for effective planning, control, and optimization of drilling operations. However, there is a gap in our understanding of gas behavior and dynamics in water and oil-based muds. This is a consequence of the use of experimental systems that are not representative of field-scale conditions. This study seeks to bridge the gap via the well-scale deployment of distributed fiber-optic sensors for real-time monitoring of gas behavior and dynamics in water and oil-based mud. The aforementioned parameters were estimated in real-time using …


Automated Identification And Mapping Of Interesting Mineral Spectra In Crism Images, Arun M. Saranathan Mar 2024

Automated Identification And Mapping Of Interesting Mineral Spectra In Crism Images, Arun M. Saranathan

Doctoral Dissertations

The Compact Reconnaissance Imaging Spectrometer for Mars (CRISM) has proven to be an invaluable tool for the mineralogical analysis of the Martian surface. It has been crucial in identifying and mapping the spatial extents of various minerals. Primarily, the identification and mapping of these mineral spectral-shapes have been performed manually. Given the size of the CRISM image dataset, manual analysis of the full dataset would be arduous/infeasible. This dissertation attempts to address this issue by describing an (machine learning based) automated processing pipeline for CRISM data that can be used to identify and map the unique mineral signatures present in …


Data To Science With Ai And Human-In-The-Loop, Gustavo Perez Sarabia Mar 2024

Data To Science With Ai And Human-In-The-Loop, Gustavo Perez Sarabia

Doctoral Dissertations

AI has the potential to accelerate scientific discovery by enabling scientists to analyze vast datasets more efficiently than traditional methods. For example, this thesis considers the detection of star clusters in high-resolution images of galaxies taken from space telescopes, as well as studying bird migration from RADAR images. In these applications, the goal is to make measurements to answer scientific questions, such as how the star formation rate is affected by mass, or how the phenology of bird migration is influenced by climate change. However, current computer vision systems are far from perfect for conducting these measurements directly. They may …


Historical Perspectives In Volatility Forecasting Methods With Machine Learning, Zhiang Qiu, Clemens Kownatzki, Fabien Scalzo, Eun Sang Cha Mar 2024

Historical Perspectives In Volatility Forecasting Methods With Machine Learning, Zhiang Qiu, Clemens Kownatzki, Fabien Scalzo, Eun Sang Cha

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Volatility forecasting in the financial market plays a pivotal role across a spectrum of disciplines, such as risk management, option pricing, and market making. However, volatility forecasting is challenging because volatility can only be estimated, and different factors influence volatility, ranging from macroeconomic indicators to investor sentiments. While recent works suggest advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence for volatility forecasting, a comprehensive benchmark of current statistical and learning-based methods for such purposes is lacking. Thus, this paper aims to provide a comprehensive survey of the historical evolution of volatility forecasting with a comparative benchmark of key landmark models. We …


Machine Learning Prediction Of Photoluminescence In Mos2: Challenges In Data Acquisition And A Solution Via Improved Crystal Synthesis, Ethan Swonger, John Mann, Jared Horstmann, Daniel Yang Mar 2024

Machine Learning Prediction Of Photoluminescence In Mos2: Challenges In Data Acquisition And A Solution Via Improved Crystal Synthesis, Ethan Swonger, John Mann, Jared Horstmann, Daniel Yang

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Transition metal dichalcogenides (TMDCs) like molybdenum disulfide (MoS2) possess unique electronic and optical properties, making them promising materials for nanotechnology. Photoluminescence (PL) is a key indicator of MoS2 crystal quality. This study aimed to develop a machine-learning model capable of predicting the peak PL wavelength of single MoS2 crystals based on micrograph analysis. Our limited ability to consistently synthesize high-quality MoS2 crystals hampered our ability to create a large set of training data. The project focus shifted towards improving MoS2 crystal synthesis to generate improved training data. We implemented a novel approach utilizing low-pressure chemical vapor deposition (LPCVD) combined with …


Deep Learning Can Be Used To Classify And Segment Plant Cell Types In Xylem Tissue, Reem Al Dabagh, Benjamin Shin, Sean Wu, Fabien Scalzo, Helen Holmlund, Jessica Lee, Chris Ghim, Samuel Fitzgerald, Marinna Grijalva Mar 2024

Deep Learning Can Be Used To Classify And Segment Plant Cell Types In Xylem Tissue, Reem Al Dabagh, Benjamin Shin, Sean Wu, Fabien Scalzo, Helen Holmlund, Jessica Lee, Chris Ghim, Samuel Fitzgerald, Marinna Grijalva

Seaver College Research And Scholarly Achievement Symposium

Studies of plant anatomical traits are essential for understanding plant physiological adaptations to stressful environments. For example, shrubs in the chaparral ecosystem of southern California have adapted various xylem anatomical traits that help them survive drought and freezing. Previous studies have shown that xylem conduits with a narrow diameter allows certain chaparral shrub species to survive temperatures as low as -12 C. Other studies have shown that increased cell wall thickness of fibers surrounding xylem vessels improves resistance to water stress-induced embolism formation. Historically, these studies on xylem anatomical traits have relied on hand measurements of cells in light micrographs, …


Mechanistic Investigation Of C—C Bond Activation Of Phosphaalkynes With Pt(0) Complexes, Roberto M. Escobar, Abdurrahman C. Ateşin, Christian Müller, William D. Jones, Tülay Ateşin Mar 2024

Mechanistic Investigation Of C—C Bond Activation Of Phosphaalkynes With Pt(0) Complexes, Roberto M. Escobar, Abdurrahman C. Ateşin, Christian Müller, William D. Jones, Tülay Ateşin

Research Symposium

Carbon–carbon (C–C) bond activation has gained increased attention as a direct method for the synthesis of pharmaceuticals. Due to the thermodynamic stability and kinetic inaccessibility of the C–C bonds, however, activation of C–C bonds by homogeneous transition-metal catalysts under mild homogeneous conditions is still a challenge. Most of the systems in which the activation occurs either have aromatization or relief of ring strain as the primary driving force. The activation of unstrained C–C bonds of phosphaalkynes does not have this advantage. This study employs Density Functional Theory (DFT) calculations to elucidate Pt(0)-mediated C–CP bond activation mechanisms in phosphaalkynes. Investigating the …


Research On Boundary Reconstruction And Government Supervision Strategy For Digital Platform, Jichang Dong, Feiyang Zhan, Wei Li, Jinlu Guo, Ying Liu Mar 2024

Research On Boundary Reconstruction And Government Supervision Strategy For Digital Platform, Jichang Dong, Feiyang Zhan, Wei Li, Jinlu Guo, Ying Liu

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Digital platform is the most important form of organization in the digital era. How to clarify the boundary between platform autonomy and government regulation so as to exert the order maintenance function of platforms effectively is the key issue in the region of the digital economy governance. This study firstly introduces the basic model of platform autonomy and the regulatory challenges it faces, basing on the background of the emergence of digital platform autonomy. Secondly, through a comparative analysis of the regulatory theories and legal policies of the digital platform autonomy in the European Union and the United States, this …


Research On Chinese Data Sovereignty Policy Based On Lda Model And Policy Instruments, Han Qiao, Junru Xu Mar 2024

Research On Chinese Data Sovereignty Policy Based On Lda Model And Policy Instruments, Han Qiao, Junru Xu

Bulletin of Chinese Academy of Sciences (Chinese Version)

Data sovereignty has become an important component of national sovereignty in the dual context of the digital economy development and the overall national security concept. Major countries and regions are actively carrying out data sovereignty strategic deployment and engaging in fierce competition in data resources, data technology, and data rules. This work adopts the policy text analysis method to study China’s data sovereignty policy, and employs the LDA model and policy instruments to quantitatively analyze the process evolution and thematic characteristics of China’s data sovereignty policy. Drawing on these findings, this study comprehensively considers the global data sovereignty policy and …


A Machine Learning Model Of Perturb-Seq Data For Use In Space Flight Gene Expression Profile Analysis, Liam F. Johnson, James Casaletto, Lauren Sanders, Sylvain Costes Mar 2024

A Machine Learning Model Of Perturb-Seq Data For Use In Space Flight Gene Expression Profile Analysis, Liam F. Johnson, James Casaletto, Lauren Sanders, Sylvain Costes

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

The genetic perturbations caused by spaceflight on biological systems tend to have a system-wide effect which is often difficult to deconvolute it into individual signals with specific points of origin. Single cell multi-omic data can provide a profile of the perturbational effects, but does not necessarily indicate the initial point of interference within the network. The objective of this project is to take advantage of large scale and genome-wide perturbational datasets by using them to train a tuned machine learning model that is capable of predicting the effects of unseen perturbations in new data. Perturb-Seq datasets are large libraries of …


Characterization Of Biological Particles Using An Integrated Hyperspectral Imaging And Machine Learning, Kaeul Lim, Arezoo Ardekani Mar 2024

Characterization Of Biological Particles Using An Integrated Hyperspectral Imaging And Machine Learning, Kaeul Lim, Arezoo Ardekani

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

Hyperspectral imaging (HSI) is a promising modality in medicine with many potential applications. This study focuses on developing a label-free lipid nanoparticle characterization method using a convolutional neural network (CNN) analysis of HSI images. The HSI data, hypercube, consists of a series of images acquired at different wavelengths for the same field of view, providing continuous spectra information for each pixel. Three distinct liposome samples were collected for analysis. Advanced image preprocessing and classification methods for HSI data were developed to differentiate liposomes based on their material compositions. Our machine learning-based classification method was able to distinguish different liposome types …


Modelling The "Bottom-Up" Development Pattern Of Tar Spot Disease In Corn, Brenden Lane, Joaquín Guillermo Ramírez-Gil, Carlos Góngora-Canul, Mariela Sofia Fernandez Campos, Andres Cruz-Sancan, Fidel E. Jiménez-Beitia, Alex G. Acosta-Guatemal, Wily Sic, C. D. Cruz Mar 2024

Modelling The "Bottom-Up" Development Pattern Of Tar Spot Disease In Corn, Brenden Lane, Joaquín Guillermo Ramírez-Gil, Carlos Góngora-Canul, Mariela Sofia Fernandez Campos, Andres Cruz-Sancan, Fidel E. Jiménez-Beitia, Alex G. Acosta-Guatemal, Wily Sic, C. D. Cruz

Graduate Industrial Research Symposium

In 2015, the corn-infecting pathogen Phyllachora maydis (causal agent of tar spot disease) was reported for the first time in the United States. The disease has since spread across the US, causing major yield losses. In 2021 alone, 5.88 million metric tons (231.3 million bushels) of US corn yield were lost to this disease, costing an estimated US$1.25 billion. Though fungicides can protect against these agroeconomic losses, application timing can be difficult to optimize because our understanding of tar spot dynamics is still evolving. The current view is that tar spot typically develops bottom-up through a repeating infection cycle. Because …