Digital Commons Network^™

On The Operation Of A Proteomics Core Facility: Selected Mass Spectrometric Studies And Methods, Rachel E. Muriph

Graduate Doctoral Dissertations

Mass spectrometry has become an indispensable analytical platform for investigating complex biological systems owing to its sensitivity, selectivity, and molecular specificity. This Dissertation demonstrates the versatility of liquid chromatography-tandem mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) through three studies focused on nanoparticle characterization, protein structural analysis, and plasma proteomics. In Chapter 2, LC-MS methods were developed to characterize novel lipidoid incorporated into lipid nanoparticles (LNPs) and to evaluate their in vivo biodistribution following systematic administration. Comparative proteomic analysis of the resulting protein coronas revealed distinct differences between liver and lung targeting LNP formulations, providing insight into the potential role of adsorbed blood proteins in …

Lessons Learned From The Adrenalin Load Disaggregation Challenge, András Balázs Tolnai, Zheng Ma, Igor Sartori, Clayton Miller, Stephen White, Matt Amos, Gustaf Bengtsson, Akram Hameed, Nørregaard Bo Jørgensen

Research Collection College of Integrative Studies

Crowdsourced data science competitions have emerged as a powerful mechanism for advancing research in energy informatics, offering scalable pathways for developing machine learning solutions that enhance energy efficiency and smart building operations. The ADRENALIN Load Disaggregation Challenge addressed a central problem in energy analytics—non-intrusive load monitoring (NILM) of heating and cooling loads in commercial buildings—while emphasizing the importance of model generalization across different buildings. This paper presents a comprehensive reflection on the lessons learned from organizing and executing the ADRENALIN competition, including technical insights, organizational challenges, and recommendations for future energy data challenges. In addition to the ADRENALIN case, a …

Sludge-To-Sod: Sustainability In Action At Bull Creek Water Treatment Plant, Ava Baker

Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

No abstract provided.

Protecting Wetlands In Georgetown County, Sophia Harrison

Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

No abstract provided.

Understanding The Correlation Between Prediction Performance And Trust In Ai Through Scenario-Based Tasks, Likhitha Kammara

Theses and Dissertations

Trust in artificial intelligence is commonly assessed through self-reported scales or behavioral reliance, yet behavioral reliance is retrospective and can only be observed after a decision has already been made. This thesis examines whether prediction accuracy — a user's ability to predict what an AI system will recommend before its output is revealed — can serve as a prospective correlate of trust in the same empirical sense as behavioral reliance. The study was conducted in two phases using scenario-based AI decision tasks across disaster response, healthcare, and infrastructure restoration contexts, employing a between-group design in which participants either predicted AI …

Bayesian Variable Selection In High-Dimensional Ordinal Quantile Regression Models, Mai Dao, Md. Sakhawat Hossain, Zhuanzhuan Ma

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Quantile regression (QR) provides a flexible statistical framework for modeling the entire conditional distribution of the response variable, making it useful for analysis in various fields. Despite its advantages, existing methods for QR often encounter numerical challenges in high-dimensional settings, especially for those with ordinal responses. In this paper, we use a latent-response framework to construct a Bayesian hierarchical model to conduct parameter estimation and variable selection for ordinal QR. Using the asymmetric Laplace working likelihood and the horseshoe prior for the regression coefficients, we obtain the posterior samples to be screened by the sequential two-means clustering process to identify …

Performance Of The Denitrification-Decomposition Model In Simulating Agronomic Properties And N2o Emissions Under Smallholder Climate-Smart Farming Systems, Esphorn Kibet, Collins M. Musafiri, Milka Kiboi, Onesmus K. Ng'etich, David K. Kosgei, Abdirahman Zeila, Franklin Mairura, Felix K. Ngetich

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

The DeNitrification-DeComposition (DNDC) model is a crucial tool for estimating soil greenhouse gas fluxes and understanding soil-plant interactions. This study evaluates the performance of the DNDC model in simulating soil temperature, moisture, crop yield, and nitrous oxide (N2O) fluxes across different land utilization types in Western Kenya. The land utilization types included: i) agroforestry M (agroforestry with Markhamia lutea, ii) sole sorghum, iii) agroforestry L (agroforestry with Leucaena leucocephala), iv) sole maize, and v) grazing Land, each replicated thrice. Fertilizer and manure were applied as part of the management practices, with manure applied at 2t ha⁻¹. Soil greenhouse …

Continuous Query For Top-K Maximal Sum Intervals Over Streaming Data, Zhongshuai Zhang, Xiaochun Yang, Baihua Zheng, Rui Zhu, Haomin Li, Bin Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The continuous identification of top-k maximal sum intervals using a sliding window over a data stream is a critical operation for applications in IoT and beyond. A maximal sum interval is a non-overlapping, contiguous subsequence with the maximal sum in a sequence of signed values. Existing algorithms are ill-suited for streaming contexts: they either exhaustively enumerate all intervals even for small k values, or depend on indexes that require frequent and costly restructuring. We propose a novel partition-based strategy. Our core insight is a partitioning scheme that guarantees that any maximal sum interval is fully contained within a single partition, …

Three-Dimensional Gaussian Reconstruction Of Large-Scale Scenes Under Multi-View Geometry Constraints, Haohao Cui, Yanqiang Di, Qing Liu, Xianguo Meng

Journal of System Simulation

Abstract: To enhance the geometry reconstruction quality of the GS algorithm in large-scale scene reconstruction, an optimization method constrained by multi-view geometry reconstruction results was proposed. 2D Gaussian planes were used as geometric primitives to overcome depth anisotropy, and dense depth maps generated by DUSt3R and aligned by sparse point clouds were introduced as constraints. By designing a multi-stage optimization strategy that decouples geometry and rendering, the gradient conflict problem in multi-objective training was solved. Experiments on the MatrixCity dataset indicate that the method surpasses comparison methods in related indicators of geometry reconstruction quality and rendering quality in large-scale scenes. …

Sentinel: Evaluating Occlusion-Centered Next-Best-View Selection Using Rgb-Derived Pseudo-Geometry, Paul Nassar

Master's Theses

Three-dimensional cameras provide direct geometric measurements, but their cost, weight, power requirements, and calibration constraints can limit their use in various lightweight or large-scale sensing systems. A potential alternative is to use conventional two-dimensional RGB cameras together with geometric reconstruction models that infer a partial three-dimensional representation from images. This thesis evaluates that possibility for next-best-view (NBV) selection through Sentinel, an occlusion-centered system for static, object-centric scenes with known camera poses and intrinsics. Sentinel converts source RGB observations into pseudo-geometry using monocular depth or point-map predictions, combines those predictions with camera-ray evidence, identifies occluded unknown regions, and selects a candidate …

Predicting Student Belonging In Computing Education: A Multimodal Machine Learning Approach Using Eeg And Survey Data, Hannah Moshtaghi

Master's Theses

Measuring students’ sense of belonging, characterized by feelings of acceptance, inclusion, and encouragement from teachers, remains a significant challenge in computing education. Prior research has associated this multidimensional construct with positive academic outcomes and has identified instructors’ growth- and fixed-mindset messaging as a potential influence. However, belonging is a complex and deeply personal experience that is difficult to capture through direct observation alone. Current measurement methods rely on self-report surveys, which may not capture every aspect of an experience that can also involve emotional and cognitive responses.

This thesis investigates whether combining EEG data recorded during a belonging questionnaire with …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Carbon Quantum Dots And Gold Nanoparticles For Norovirus Biosensing Applications In Water Systems, Breanne Evans

Master's Theses

Rapid, reliable detection of viral pathogens remains a significant challenge across water-treatment and environmental monitoring systems, including drinking-water, wastewater, water reuse, and environmental surveillance applications. Waterborne viral contamination can pose substantial public-health risks, making early detection essential for protecting water quality and responding quickly to treatment failures or contamination events. Direct potable reuse (DPR) is one particularly demanding example because it requires continuous verification of treatment performance and the broader need for rapid virus monitoring extends across many water-treatment and environmental surveillance applications. Norovirus is a priority target because of its widespread occurrence in wastewater, environmental persistence, and exceptionally low …

Clark Tailings Consolidated Waste Management Area Site Investigation Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp), Woodard & Curran

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Comparing 3-Connectedness And Roundness In Matroid Theory, Blanca Delia Larios

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

A matroid is a discrete mathematical object that abstracts and connects the various notions of independence found throughout mathematics. Such notions of independence include linear independence, algebraic independence, as well as notions of independence that arise in graph theory. There are many broad classes of matroids. Important examples include binary matroids, graphic matroids, regular matroids, uniform matroids, and various levels of connected matroids. Some of the most important problems in matroid theory involve characterizing classes of matroids so that such characterizations can be used to prove results concerning these matroid classes. This thesis is a study of two important classes …

The Relativity Of Education: Student Perspectives On Artificial Intelligence In Community College, Ashley Greta Magana

Electronic Theses, Projects, and Dissertations

This hermeneutic phenomenological study examined how diverse community college students experience and make meaning of the integration of generative artificial intelligence (AI) into their educational contexts. Although AI is quickly transforming higher education through automated grading, personalized learning systems, and new models of assessment, the discourse surrounding its implementation remains dominated by administrators, faculty, and institutional stakeholders, while the perspectives of students, specifically community college students who are often historically underrepresented and economically marginalized, are systematically excluded. Most existing research is quantitative and centered on universities, leaving a critical gap in qualitative understanding of the most diverse population in higher …

Laplace Factor Models In High-Dimensional Data, Siqi Liu, Xuerong Meggie Wen, Akim Adekpedjou, Guangbao Guo

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Laplace factor models (LFMs) provide a heavy-tailed alternative to Gaussian factor models by representing high-dimensional observations through a low-rank common component and Laplace-distributed idiosyncratic errors. This paper develops an assumption-consistent finite-sample analysis of matrix concentration, covariance estimation, and Monte Carlo integration under this model. We first formulate the model with explicit dimensional, independence, covariance, and identifiability conditions. Standard matrix Laplace-transform and matrix Bernstein inequalities are then recalled with their precise applicability conditions. Because untruncated Laplace variables are neither almost surely bounded nor strongly log-concave, these standard results cannot be applied directly in the forms commonly used for bounded or Gaussian-like …

Opening The Lantern: The Leiden Declaration, Mark Huber

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

The Leiden Declaration on Artificial Intelligence and Mathematics provides insight into how mathematicians view their discipline. However, when positioning mathematics against AI, the declaration falls short in recognizing recent advances. This column introduces the reader who might be unfamiliar with these new methods through the formal language Lean and discusses how these new abilities might change the way journals operate.

Wanted: A Book Reviews Editor For The Journal Of Humanistic Mathematics, Mark Huber, Gizem Karaali

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

To help us procure regular book review submissions and ensure that we can indeed include a solid book review in each upcoming issue, we would like to have an enthusiastic book worm join our small editorial team. In other words, we are looking for a book reviews editor.

We will review all applications that have been submitted by October 15, 2026. We hope to have our new book reviews editor start their term by January 2027.

Visualizing Irrationality: Digit Mosaics In Okabe–Ito, Raven Quilestino-Olario

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Five visual mosaics translate 10,000-digit segments of well-known mathematical constants into color. For each constant, the digits are placed in a 100×100 grid read left to right and top to bottom, including the digit before the decimal point, and each digit (0–9) is mapped to a color in the Okabe–Ito palette. A matching bar chart shows the digit counts within the same window, allowing quick comparison of how evenly digits appear. The series includes π, e, √2, φ, and the Euler–Mascheroni constant γ. Together, the mosaics and counts turn numerical randomness into visual harmony while keeping the work readable for …

The Pi-Royal Tire, Erik Talvila

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

In this humorous story, the half-wit proprietor of a tire manufacturing company thinks knowing pi to more digits will allow the production of rounder tires. An applied mathematician is recruited to fulfill a ridiculous industrial research agenda.

Riding The Rails Of Reason: A Dialogue On Truth, Logic, And Proof, Surinder Pal Singh Kainth

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

On a quiet train ride, I found myself in conversation with Noor, an inquisitive teenager with sharp questions about truth, logic, and mathematical proof. As we talked, I used the train itself as a metaphor to explain how mathematical proofs provide certainty, far beyond what repetitive verification alone can offer. Our discussion ranged from common misconceptions about the foundations of logic to the need for clear definitions and axioms. We also touched on fundamental ideas such as the challenges posed by the Axiom of Choice and the limitations revealed by Gödel’s incompleteness theorem.

In Praise Of Smaller Models, Pedro Poitevin

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

No abstract provided.

Count, Robin Young

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

It's the thought that counts? No, it's this canzone that counts! This poem explores the philosophy of counting through five stanzas from shoreline pebbles to Godel's incompleteness theorems. Counting becomes our guide through Zeno's paradoxes, irrational numbers, Cantor's infinities, and quantum measurement problems. The poem counts, recounts, and discovers that some things simply cannot be counted.

Group Theory For Poets, Holley Friedlander

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This poem instructs the reader on how to put a group structure on an arbitrarily chosen set. Through accentual, rhyming verse, it playfully discusses the beauty and utility of groups as a mathematical concept via examples and applications. This work is inspired by the Patricia Toht book, Pick a Pine Tree.

My Journey To Mathematics, Thao Thuan Vu Ho

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

No abstract provided.

A Lament For Linear Algebra, Jasmine A. Elmrabti

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

What assumptions underlie our axiomatic definitions? A meditation on the nature of linear algebra and its metaphysical implications during use, this poem is a reflection on the markedness of discrete entities upon which we rely to utilize the axioms of linear algebra.

Mathematics As Creative Structure: A Review Of Marcus Du Sautoy’S Blueprints, Sangeetha Balakrishnan, Latha R

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

Marcus du Sautoy’s Blueprints: How Mathematics Shapes Creativity (2025) makes a provocative claim that creativity emerges not in opposition to constraint, but through it. Working through nine mathematical “blueprints” — symmetry, randomness, the Fibonacci sequence, among others — du Sautoy traces recurring structural patterns across artistic practice, natural phenomena, and mathematical thought. The argument is ambitious and persuasive. In this review we consider what the book adds to longstanding conversations about the relationship between scientific and humanistic ways of knowing, and reflect on what it means to reframe mathematics as an imaginative and exploratory enterprise rather than a purely technical …

The Logic Of Leaves: Mathematical Poems And Graphs, Ksawery Tomczak

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This collection explores the intersection of mathematics and poetry through six original works that blend formal rigor with lyrical expression. Each poem draws from a distinct mathematical concept—proof, set theory, combinatorics, graph theory, and cardinality—reframing it through metaphoric and aesthetic lenses. From the lyrical contemplation of infinite sets to the emotive longing of a graph in love, the verses reveal the emotional resonance and philosophical depth embedded in mathematical thought. The collection culminates in a visual piece rendered in \LaTeX and TikZ, illustrating all integer partitions of the number five as a branching tree, accompanied by a poem that sings …

College Algebra: A Key Element To Degree Completion, Christopher Charlie Jett, Gregory Downing

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

College Algebra is often under scrutiny because it serves as a critical gateway to graduation for students enrolled in our nation’s undergraduate degree programs. In this paper, we problematize the authority typically ascribed to this course and discuss meeting students’ discipline-specific needs in core mathematics courses such as it. To help facilitate college student success with respect to mathematics course requirements, we recommend that educational constituents and leaders expand dual-enrollment opportunities, infuse culturally relevant practices, and leverage other core mathematics courses as alternatives to College Algebra. In doing so, we add to the ongoing conversation about addressing this issue in …

An Essay On Teaching And Learning Mathematics: Through The Lens Of Artificial Intelligence, Music, And Sports, James Diederich

Journal of Humanistic Mathematics

This essay is aimed at a wide audience: anyone who has engaged in learning or teaching math. It provides a unique perspective drawn from a mathematician’s interests in working with K-12 teachers, familiarity with artificial intelligence (AI), and amateur pursuits of learning to play an instrument and of learning a difficult sport. While I delve into these topics, no special background is needed in the slightest. In particular, I draw lessons from some failures in AI that reflect on why the conventional procedural approach to teaching and learning math fails many students. I also provide insight into how we learn …