Digital Commons Network^™

Capillary Pressure – Saturation Relationships For Gas Shales Measured Using A Water Activity Meter, B. Donnelly, E. Perfect, L. D. Mckay, P. J. Lemiszki, V. H. Distefano, L. M. Anovitz, J. Mcfarlane, R. E. Hale, Chu-Lin Cheng

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Hydraulic fracturing of gas shale formations involves pumping a large volume of fracking fluid into a hydrocarbon reservoir to fracture the rock and thus increase its permeability. The majority of the fracking fluid introduced is never recovered and the fate of this lost fluid, often called “leak off,” has become the source of much debate. Information on the capillary pressure – saturation relationship for each wetting phase is needed to simulate leak off using numerical reservoir models. The petroleum industry commonly employs air – water capillary pressure – saturation curves to predict these relationships for mixed wet reservoirs. Traditional methods …

Assessment Of Indoor And Outdoor Pm Species At Schools And Residences In A High-Altitude Ecuadorian Urban Center, Amit U. Raysoni, Rodrigo X. Armijos, M. Margaret Weigel, Teresa Montoya, Patricia Eschanique, Marcia Racines, Wen-Whai Li

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

An air monitoring campaign to assess children’s environmental exposures in schools and residences, both indoors and outdoors, was conducted in 2010 in three low-income neighborhoods in Z1(north), Z2(central), and Z3(southeast) zones of Quito, Ecuador - a major urban center of 2.2 million inhabitants situated 2850 meters above sea level in a narrow mountainous basin. Z1 zone, located in northern Quito, historically experienced emissions from quarries and moderate traffic. Z2 zone was influenced by heavy traffic in contrast to Z3 zone which experienced low traffic densities. Weekly averages of PM samples were collected at schools (one in each zone) and residences …

Supplement:“Localization And Broadband Follow-Up Of The Gravitational-Wave Transient Gw150914”(2016, Apjl, 826, L13), B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, M. R. Abernathy, Martin Beroiz, T. Peñuela, Nicolas A. Pereyra, Matthew Benacquista

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

This Supplement provides supporting material for Abbott et al. (2016a). We briefly summarize past electromagnetic (EM) follow-up efforts as well as the organization and policy of the current EM follow-up program. We compare the four probability sky maps produced for the gravitational-wave transient GW150914, and provide additional details of the EM follow-up observations that were performed in the different bands.

Do Some Deep‐Sea, Sediment‐Dwelling Species Of Harpacticoid Copepods Have 1000‐Km‐Scale Range Sizes?, Erin E. Easton, David Thistle

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

The range sizes of sediment‐dwelling deep‐sea species are largely unknown. Such knowledge is important because a deep sea composed in large part of species with 100‐km‐scale ranges would be very different from one composed predominantly of species with 1000‐km‐scale ranges. For example, the total species richness would be much greater in the first case than in the second. As a step towards the determination of the distribution of species’ range sizes in the deep sea, we asked whether harpacticoid copepods (Crustacea) on the continental rise in the northeastern Pacific had 1000‐km‐scale range sizes. We chose harpacticoids because they occur widely …

A Novel Nano-Energetic System Based On Bismuth Hydroxide, Mkhitar A. Hobosyan, Srbuhi A. Yolchinyan, Karen S. Martirosyan

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We report the first study of gas generation and thermal wave behavior during the performance of a novel nano-energetic system based on aluminum and bismuth hydroxide Al–Bi(OH)3. Thermodynamic calculations demonstrate that this system is comparable to one of the most powerful known nanothermite systems, Al–Bi2O3, in terms of energy capacity per initial charge mass, and may generate more than twice the gaseous products: 0.0087 mol g1 . Differential scanning calorimetry analysis shows that homogenization of the as-received powder using mechanical activation is an essential step to reduce the decomposition energy of bismuth hydroxide by 30%. This results in nano-thermite with …

High-Energy Neutrino Follow-Up Search Of Gravitational Wave Event Gw150914 With Antares And Icecube, S. Adrián-Martínez, A. Albert, M. André, H. P. Daveloza, Joey S. Key, S. R. Morriss, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov, Joseph D. Romano

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present the high-energy-neutrino follow-up observations of the first gravitational wave transient GW150914 observed by the Advanced LIGO detectors on September 14, 2015. We search for coincident neutrino candidates within the data recorded by the IceCube and Antares neutrino detectors. A possible joint detection could be used in targeted electromagnetic follow-up observations, given the significantly better angular resolution of neutrino events compared to gravitational waves. We find no neutrino candidates in both temporal and spatial coincidence with the gravitational wave event. Within ±500 s of the gravitational wave event, the number of neutrino candidates detected by IceCube and Antares were …

Search For Transient Gravitational Waves In Coincidence With Short-Duration Radio Transients During 2007-2013, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov, Joseph D. Romano

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present an archival search for transient gravitational-wave bursts in coincidence with 27 single-pulse triggers from Green Bank Telescope pulsar surveys, using the LIGO, Virgo, and GEO interferometer network. We also discuss a check for gravitational-wave signals in coincidence with Parkes fast radio bursts using similar methods. Data analyzed in these searches were collected between 2007 and 2013. Possible sources of emission of both short-duration radio signals and transient gravitational-wave emission include starquakes on neutron stars, binary coalescence of neutron stars, and cosmic string cusps. While no evidence for gravitational-wave emission in coincidence with these radio transients was found, the …

Properties Of The Binary Black Hole Merger Gw150914, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

On September 14, 2015, the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) detected a gravitational-wave transient (GW150914); we characterize the properties of the source and its parameters. The data around the time of the event were analyzed coherently across the LIGO network using a suite of accurate waveform models that describe gravitational waves from a compact binary system in general relativity. GW150914 was produced by a nearly equal mass binary black hole of masses 3⁢6+5−4⁢��⊙ and 2⁢9+4−4⁢��⊙; for each parameter we report the median value and the range of the 90% credible interval. The dimensionless spin magnitude of the more massive black …

Gw151226: Observation Of Gravitational Waves From A 22-Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, M. R. Abernathy, F. Acernese, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov, Joseph D. Romano

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We report the observation of a gravitational-wave signal produced by the coalescence of two stellar-mass black holes. The signal, GW151226, was observed by the twin detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) on December 26, 2015 at 03:38:53 UTC. The signal was initially identified within 70 s by an online matched-filter search targeting binary coalescences. Subsequent off-line analyses recovered GW151226 with a network signal-to-noise ratio of 13 and a significance greater than 5σ. The signal persisted in the LIGO frequency band for approximately 1 s, increasing in frequency and amplitude over about 55 cycles from 35 to 450 Hz, …

Progressive Bidirectional Age-Related Changes In Default Mode Network Effective Connectivity Across Six Decades, Karl Li, Angela R. Laird, Larry R. Price, D. Reese Mckay, John Blangero, David C. Glahn, Peter T. Fox

School of Medicine Publications

The default mode network (DMN) is a set of regions that is tonically engaged during the resting state and exhibits task-related deactivation that is readily reproducible across a wide range of paradigms and modalities. The DMN has been implicated in numerous disorders of cognition and, in particular, in disorders exhibiting age-related cognitive decline. Despite these observations, investigations of the DMN in normal aging are scant. Here, we used blood oxygen level dependent (BOLD) functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) acquired during rest to investigate age-related changes in functional connectivity of the DMN in 120 healthy normal volunteers comprising six, 20-subject, decade …

Temperature Profiles Of Railroad Tapered Roller Bearings With Defective Inner And Outer Rings, Constantine Tarawneh, Luz Sotelo, Anthony A. Villarreal, Nancy De Los Santos, Ryan L. Lechtenberg, Robert Jones

Mechanical Engineering Faculty Publications

In the railroad industry, monitoring the condition of key components such as bearings and wheels is vital to ensure the safe transport of goods and commodities. Bearing seizures are amongst the most dangerous types of failures experienced by trains because they occur unexpectedly and may lead to costly derailments. Current bearing health monitoring techniques include tracking the temperature and acoustic emissions given by the bearings. Although temperature histories of railroad tapered roller bearings are readily available, the literature does not provide information relating the temperature profiles to the severity of the bearing defect. The study presented here investigates the correlation …

Gw150914: First Results From The Search For Binary Black Hole Coalescence With Advanced Ligo, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, Teviet Creighton, Mario C. Diaz, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

On September 14, 2015, at 0950:45 UTC the two detectors of the Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory (LIGO) simultaneously observed the binary black hole merger GW150914. We report the results of a matched-filter search using relativistic models of compact-object binaries that recovered GW150914 as the most significant event during the coincident observations between the two LIGO detectors from September 12 to October 20, 2015 GW150914 was observed with a matched-filter signal-to-noise ratio of 24 and a false alarm rate estimated to be less than 1 event per 203000 years, equivalent to a significance greater than 5.1 σ.

Effect Of Polymer Concentration Rotational Speed And Solvent Mixture On Fiber Formation Using Forcespinning®, Nancy Obregon, Victor Agubra, Madhab Pokhrel, Howard Campos, David Flores, David De La Garza, Yuanbing Mao, Javier Macossay-Torres, Mataz Alcoutlabi

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Chemistry)

Polycaprolactone (PCL) fibers were produced using Forcespinning® (FS). The effects of PCL concentration, solvent mixture, and the spinneret rotational speed on fiber formation were evaluated. The concentration of the polymer in the solvents was a critical determinant of the solution viscosity. Lower PCL concentrations resulted in low solution viscosities with a correspondingly low fiber production rate with many beads. Bead-free fibers with high production rate and uniform fiber diameter distribution were obtained from the optimum PCL concentration (i.e., 12.5 wt%) with tetrahydrofuran (THF) as the solvent. The addition of N, N-dimethylformamide (DMF) to the THF solvent promoted the gradual formation …

Observing Gravitational-Wave Transient Gw150914 With Minimal Assumptions, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, Mario C. Diaz, Joey S. Key, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

The gravitational-wave signal GW150914 was first identified on September 14, 2015, by searches for short-duration gravitational-wave transients. These searches identify time-correlated transients in multiple detectors with minimal assumptions about the signal morphology, allowing them to be sensitive to gravitational waves emitted by a wide range of sources including binary black hole mergers. Over the observational period from September 12 to October 20, 2015, these transient searches were sensitive to binary black hole mergers similar to GW150914 to an average distance of ∼600 Mpc. In this paper, we describe the analyses that first detected GW150914 as well as the parameter estimation …

Sensitivity Of The Advanced Ligo Detectors At The Beginning Of Gravitational Wave Astronomy, D. V. Martynov, E. D. Hall, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, C. Adams, R. X. Adhikari, R. A. Anderson, Volker Quetschke, G. Valdes

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

The Laser Interferometer Gravitational Wave Observatory (LIGO) consists of two widely separated 4 km laser interferometers designed to detect gravitational waves from distant astrophysical sources in the frequency range from 10 Hz to 10 kHz. The first observation run of the Advanced LIGO detectors started in September 2015 and ended in January 2016. A strain sensitivity of better than 10-23/Hz was achieved around 100 Hz. Understanding both the fundamental and the technical noise sources was critical for increasing the astrophysical strain sensitivity. The average distance at which coalescing binary black hole systems with individual masses of 30 M could be …

The Effects Of Musical Ensembles-In-Residence On Elementary Students’ Auditory Discrimination And Spatial Reasoning Skills: A Longitudinal Study, Daniel C. Johnson, Virginia Davis

School of Music Faculty Publications

The purpose of this longitudinal project was to investigate the effects of a program combining musical ensembles-in-residence with regular classroom music instruction on elementary students’ auditory discrimination and spatial intelligence scores. In combination with regular, sequential general music classes as part of their school curriculum, participants in the program received two half-hour lesson each week, from musical-ensembles-in-residence. These chamber ensembles provided aural models for reinforcing fundamental concepts for four consecutive years. Researchers collected data from a stratified, random sample of students in grades K-2 and 4-5 receiving the experimental program and demographically similar comparison schools, which did not receive any …

Tests Of General Relativity With Gw150914, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, M. R. Abernathy, F. Acernese, Mario C. Diaz, Joey S. Key, Soma Mukherjee, Volker Quetschke, Malik Rakhmanov

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

The LIGO detection of GW150914 provides an unprecedented opportunity to study the two-body motion of a compact-object binary in the large-velocity, highly nonlinear regime, and to witness the final merger of the binary and the excitation of uniquely relativistic modes of the gravitational field. We carry out several investigations to determine whether GW150914 is consistent with a binary black-hole merger in general relativity. We find that the final remnant's mass and spin, as determined from the low-frequency (inspiral) and high-frequency (postinspiral) phases of the signal, are mutually consistent with the binary black-hole solution in general relativity. Furthermore, the data following …

On Solutions For Linear And Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations With Variable Coefficients: A Computational Approach, Gabriel Amador, Kiara Colon, Nathalie Luna, Gerardo Mercado, Enrique Pereira, Erwin Suazo

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

In this work, after reviewing two different ways to solve Riccati systems, we are able to present an extensive list of families of integrable nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equations with variable coefficients. Using Riccati equations and similarity transformations, we are able to reduce them to the standard NLS models. Consequently, we can construct bright-, dark- and Peregrine-type soliton solutions for NLS with variable coefficients. As an important application of solutions for the Riccati equation with parameters, by means of computer algebra systems, it is shown that the parameters change the dynamics of the solutions. Finally, we test numerical approximations for the …

Ultrasound Assisted One-Pot Synthesis Of Benzo-Fused Indole-4, 9-Dinones From 1,4-Naphthoquinone And Α-Aminoacetals, Quang H. Luu, Jorge D. Guerra, Cecilio M. Castañeda, Manuel A. Martinez, Jong Saunders, Benjamin A. Garcia, Brenda V. Gonzales, Anushritha R. Aidunuthula, Shizue Mito

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Chemistry)

A one-pot synthesis of benzo[f]indole-4,9-diones from 1,4-naphthoquinone with α-aminoacetals has been developed. This method provides a straightforward synthesis of benzo[f]indole-4,9-diones via intramolecular nucleophilic attack of aminoquinones to aldehydes under mild reaction conditions. The detailed mechanism was also investigated.

Development Of Arginyl-Trna Synthetase From Pseudomonas Aeruginosa As A Platform To Screen For Inhibitors Of Protein Synthesis, Daniel Cantu

Theses and Dissertations

Pseudomonas aeruginosa is a Gram- negative bacteria that is the leading cause of mortality in immunocompromised patients. Arginyl-tRNA synthetase (ArgRS) is an enzyme that catalyzes the covalent attachment of arginine to the cognate tRNAArg during protein synthesis. Scintillation proximity assays (SPA) were adapted to the aminoacylation assay and used to screen, one natural compound library (800) and one synthetic compound library (890) to identify inhibitors of the activity of ArgRS. Five compounds were identified which inhibited greater than 50% of enzymatic activity, two of these compounds (BT04F10 and BT11F03) exhibited promising MICs against Gram+ bacteria and moderate activity against Gram- …

The Effects Of Project-Based Learning On The Academic And Linguistic Achievement Of Emergent Bilingual Learners: A Mixed Methods Approach, Melinda Hardy

Theses and Dissertations

This mixed methods study examined the academic and linguistic impact of teaching emergent bilingual leaners through robotics project-based learning aligned to state standards. Two hundred ten middle school students attending a public charter school in the Rio Grande Valley in Texas participated in the study. Twenty percent of the students were emergent bilingual learners. Qualitative observation notes recorded students’ learning process as they completed an adapted Khan Academy robotics project. The students also completed pre- and post-assessments that quantitatively measured academic and linguistic gains. Emergent bilingual learners grew 20.1% points in academic content and 28.6% points in language development (p …

Opinion Formation About Childhood Immunization And Disease Spread On Networks, Shan Shan Zhao

Theses and Dissertations

People are physically and socially connected with each other. Those connections between people represent two, probably overlapping, networks: biological networks, through which physical contacts occur, or social network, through which information diffuse. In my thesis research, I am trying to answer that question in the context of pediatric disease spread on the biological network between households as well as within them and its relationship with information sharing on the social network of households (parents in that case) via "Information Cascades." I mainly focus on the Erdos-Renyi network model. In particular, I use two different but overlapping Erdos-Renyi networks for the …

Generalized Reciprocal Identities, Timothy Huber, Daniel Schultz

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Included in Ramanujan’s Notebooks are two reciprocal identities. The first identity connects the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction with an eta quotient. The second identity is a level thirteen analogue. These are special cases of a more general class of relations between eta quotients and modular functions defined by product generalizations of the Rogers-Ramanujan continued fraction. Each identity is shown to be a relation between generators for a certain congruence subgroup. The degree, form, and symmetry of the identities is determined from behavior at cusps of the congruence subgroup whose field of functions the parameters generate. The reciprocal identities encode information about …

A Comparative Approach To Question Answering Systems, Josue Balandrano Coronel

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper I will analyze three different algorithms and approaches to implement Question Answering Systems (QA-Systems). I will analyze the efficiency, strengths, and weaknesses of multiple algorithms by explaining them in detail and comparing them with each other. The overarching aim of this thesis is to explore ideas that can be used to create a truly open context QA-System. Open context QA-Systems remain an open problem.

The various algorithms and approaches presented in this work will be focused on complex questions. Complex questions are usually verbose and the context of the question is equally important to answer the query …

Elementary Educators' Perspective Of Physical Education And The Physical Education Teacher, Jennifer M. Garcia

Theses and Dissertations

Physical education continues to have the reputation it has had for years of being a subject of marginalization and of least importance in the school curriculum. The purpose of this study is to gain a better understanding of the perceptions of educators of physical education and the physical education teacher in the Rio Grande Valley. The researcher attempts to find, understand, and describe the perceptions of the educator’s view of this subject matter. Statistical significance was set at the .05 level for both tests of analyses. The researcher offers the null hypothesis of no difference between educator’s perception of PE …

The Relationship Between Entity Beliefs And Socioeconomic Status-Based Rejection Sensitivity: Academic Achievement In A Predominantly Hispanic Sample, Anna Kushner

Theses and Dissertations

Previous research has shown that entity beliefs can moderate or buffer the impact of class-based rejection sensitivity on expected and official grade point averages of low-income college students. This study attempted to replicate previous research, which found that class-based rejection sensitivity (RS-class) and entity beliefs had negative main effects on academic outcomes (grade point average), and that entity beliefs served as a moderator in the relationship between RS-class and academic outcomes. While the predicted relationships were not replicated, this study found that higher acculturation scores are related to greater levels of academic achievement as measured by GPA. This attempted replication …

Global Entropy Based Greedy Algorithm For Discretization, Sai Jyothsna Jonnalagadda

Theses and Dissertations

Discretization algorithm is a crucial step to not only achieve summarization of continuous attributes but also better performance in classification that requires discrete values as input. In this thesis, I propose a supervised discretization method, Global Entropy Based Greedy algorithm, which is based on the Information Entropy Minimization. Experimental results show that the proposed method outperforms state of the art methods with well-known benchmarking datasets. To further improve the proposed method, a new approach for stop criterion that is based on the change rate of entropy was also explored. From the experimental analysis, it is noticed that the threshold based …

Lie Symmetry To Nonlinear Oscillator Systems And Applications, Xiaoyan Li

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, we apply the theory of Lie symmetry to study a generalized second-order nonlinear differential equation, which includes several physical nonlinear oscillators such as force-free Helmholtz oscillator, force-free Duffing and Duffing-van der Pol oscillators, modified Emden-type equation and its hierarchy etc, and investigate the dynamical properties of this rather general equation. We identify and classify several new integrable cases for arbitrary values of exponents, which determine the tangent vector as well as the infinitesimal generator. Using the Lie point symmetry, we find the useful infinitesimal generators and canonical coordinates, and obtain the first integrals of the second-order nonlinear …

On Hypergroups Of Order At Most 6, Jordy C. Lopez

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis surveys recent results on hypergroups as defined by Frédéric Marty in [3] and [4] and their relation to association schemes as presented in [5]. We show that every association scheme is a hypergroup. Then, we compile a few general results on hypergroups needed for our investigation of hypergroups with three, four and six elements. From [1] and [7], we give examples of hypergroups that do not come from finite schemes and from no scheme at all. Our main result occurs when considering hypergroups S with six elements that have a non-normal closed subset T of order 2 with …

Development Of A Phased Array Using Lnbs With Non-Synchronized Clocks, James I. Murray

Theses and Dissertations

A passive phased array is an array of antennas in which the phases of the signals on each element are controlled to be added to form a spatial beam. The advantage is that one can steer the beam without physically moving the constituent elements as well as create multiple beams on the sky simultaneously. This has application in the field of satellite and spacecraft communications where there is expected to be a large increase in satellite volume due to the increasing access to space. Traditional phased arrays can become costly to synchronize at satellite down-link frequencies, therefore we have built …