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Determing The Chaotic Nature Of Periodic Orbits, Bo Johnson

Physics Capstone Projects

The determination of the long-term behavior of periodic orbits is considered. Different numerical techniques, including the Lyapunov Exponent, the Smaller Alignment Index, and the Generalized Alignment Index are used. Because of the discontinuous nature of the system under consideration, these methods are found to be insufficient and a more simplistic approach is utilized. The simplistic approach determines long-term behavior up to 500 periods of an orbit. It is found that in-phase periodic modes result in the largest amount of stable modes. Future work will look at the common characteristics of the in-phase modes to better understand why they are more …

A New Sampler For The Collection And Retrieval Of Dry Dust Deposition, Janice Brahney, Gregory Wetherbee, Graham A. Sexstone, C. Youngbull, P. Strong, Ruth C. Heindel

Watershed Sciences Faculty Publications

Atmospheric dust can influence biogeochemical cycles, accelerate snowmelt, and affect air, water quality, and human health. Yet, the bulk of atmospherically transported material remains poorly quantified in terms of total mass fluxes and composition. This lack of information stems in part from the challenges associated with measuring dust deposition. Here we report on the design and efficacy of a new dry deposition sampler (Dry Deposition Sampling Unit (DSU)) and method that quantifies the gravitational flux of dust particles. The sampler can be used alone or within existing networks such as those employed by the National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP). Because …

Improving Instructional Practice Through Peer Observation And Feedback: A Review Of The Literature, Brady L. Ridge, Alyson L. Lavigne

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

The Every Student Succeeds Act provides an opportunity for policymakers and researchers to revisit what is known about effective teacher evaluation practices to make better-informed decisions moving forward. Principals—responsible for implementing new teacher evaluation reforms and accommodating the demands to spend more time observing and providing feedback to teachers—are overworked. They have little time to provide high-quality feedback, and may lack important content-based expertise. With these considerations in mind, we explore the role of peer observation and feedback as a vehicle to move beyond high-stakes evaluation and re-center efforts on instructional improvement. Our systematic review of extant literature (n …

Improving Instructional Practice Through Peer Observation And Feedback, Brady L. Ridge, Alyson Leah Lavigne

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

The Every Student Succeeds Act provides an opportunity for policymakers and researchers to revisit what is known about effective teacher evaluation practices to make better-informed decisions moving forward. Principals—responsible for implementing new teacher evaluation reforms and accommodating the demands to spend more time observing and providing feedback to teachers—are overworked. They have little time to provide high-quality feedback, and may lack important content-based expertise. With these considerations in mind, we explore the role of peer observation and feedback as a vehicle to move beyond high-stakes evaluation and re-center efforts on instructional improvement. Our systematic review of extant literature (n …

Investigating The Blandford-Znajek Process For Black Hole Jets, Melissa Rasmussen

Student Research Symposium

Out of the poles of some black holes come streams of charged particles, jets that travel across the universe to occasionally sweep past our remote planet Earth to be detected by scientists. Although the mechanism to produce these jets is currently unknown, one theory is the Blandford-Znajek process. This theory describes a spinning black hole surrounded by an electromagnetic field, where the extreme spin on the black hole drags and twists the electromagnetic field around itself, just as we know the spin drags the very fabric of spacetime. The twisted electromagnetic field may catch charged particles near the black hole’s …

Determining The Chaotic Nature Of Periodic Orbits, Bo Johnson

Student Research Symposium

Using Lyapunov exponents as a measure of chaos in integrable systems, we characterize the chaotic nature of 1243 distinct periodic modes in a two-magnetic dipole system. After finding these distinct modes from previous research we wanted to understand their long-term behavior. We implemented an algorithm to compute the spectrum of Lyapunov exponents for the dipole system, determining the chaotic nature of the orbit by the largest exponent found. The use of Lyapunov exponents for this particular system hasn't yet shown clear results of which orbits are chaotic or not, due to the non-smooth nature of the equations. We are looking …

A General Approach To Lifting-Line Theory, Applied To Wings With Sweep, Jackson Reid

Student Research Symposium

Implementations of lifting-line theory model the flow over a finite wing using a sheet of semi-infinite vortices extending from a vortex filament placed along the locus of aerodynamic centers of the wing. Prandtl's classical implementation is restricted to straight wings in flows without sideslip. In this work, it is shown that these limitations can be overcome if, at the control points where induced velocity is calculated, the second derivative of the locus of aerodynamic centers is zero and the trailing vortices are perpendicular to the locus. Therefore, a general implementation of lifting-line theory is presented that conditionally forces the second …

Learning Frameworks, Nobel Prizes, And World Peace, Nathan Justis

Student Research Symposium

In this presentation, I apply a working definition of new literacies, which are comprised of "new technical stuff" and "new ethos stuff," to conduct an analysis of three academic papers that each describe a framework for learning. The papers of interest include one on personalized learning (Halverson et al., 2015), one on participatory culture (Jenkins et al., 2006), and one on connected learning (Ito et al., 2013). Concept coding was used to identify instances of new technical stuff and new ethos stuff, as well as other themes across these three papers. Multiple examples were found within the papers to support …

Usgs Water Resources Research Institute Awards Through The Uwrl, Utah Water Research Laboratory

News

Faculty members at the Utah Water Research Laboratory (UWRL) and Watershed Sciences at USU and at the University of Utah recently received project awards as part of the USGS 104b program administered by the Utah Center for Water Resources Research (UCWRR) housed within the UWRL. As one of 54 state-level water resources research institues in the US authorized by the 1964 Water Resources Research Act, the UCWRR supports water resources and environmental quality research, outreach and information dissemination in the State of Utah.

Student Success: A Literature Review Of Faculty To Student Mentoring, David D. Law, Kim Hales, Don Busenbark

Journal on Empowering Teaching Excellence

This review summarizes the literature on university faculty to student mentoring programs. There has been a proliferation of mentoring programs because of the perceived benefit to student persistence and retention. While mentoring programs have become common, the research on these programs has not kept pace. Shortcomings identified thirty years ago such as lack of theoretical guidance, lack of operational definition of mentoring, and poor design continue to plague mentoring research. Recommendations to address these shortcomings and improve internal and external validity are examined. As universities continue to have increasingly constrained resources, and pressure to demonstrate strategies to help students be …

Boron-Made N2: Realization Of A B≡B Triple Bond In The B2al3− Cluster, Nikita Fedik, Chaonan Mu, Ivan A. Popov, Wei Wang, Jie Wang, Haopeng Wang, Kit H. Bowen, Alexander I. Boldyrev, Xinxing Zhang

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

Until now, all B≡B triple bonds have been achieved by adopting two ligands in the L→B≡B←L manner. Herein, we report an alternative route of designing the B≡B bonds based on the assumption that by acquiring two extra electrons, an element with the atomic number Z can have properties similar to those of the element with the atomic number Z+2. Specifically, we show that due to the electron donation from Al to B, the negatively charged B≡B kernel in the B2Al3− cluster mimics a triple N≡N bond. Comprehensive computational searches reveal that the global minimum structure of B2Al3− exhibits a …

Assessing The Potential For Industrial Activities To Disturb Polar Bears Denning On The Arctic Coastal Plain, Patricia A. Terletzky-Gese

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Predicting The Influence Of Climate On Grassland Area Burned In Xilingol, China With Dynamic Simulations Of Autoregressive Distributed Lag Models, Ali Hassan Shabbir, Jiquan Zhang, James D. Johnston, Samuel Asumadu Sarkodie, James A. Lutz, Xingpeng Liu

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

The influence of climate change on wildland fire has received considerable attention, but few studies have examined the potential effects of climate variability on grassland area burned within the extensive steppe land of Eurasia. We used a novel statistical approach borrowed from the social science literature—dynamic simulations of autoregressive distributed lag (ARDL) models—to explore the relationship between temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, wind speed, sunlight, and carbon emissions on grassland area burned in Xilingol, a large grassland-dominated landscape of Inner Mongolia in northern China. We used an ARDL model to describe the influence of these variables on observed area burned between …

Usu Biological Engineering Student Named Goldwater Scholar, Usu College Of Engineering

College of Engineering News

April 1, 2020 — Utah State University student Andrew Kjar was named a 2020 Goldwater Scholar in a prestigious national competition that recognizes outstanding achievements in science and mathematics.

Robust Secure Wireless Powered Miso Cognitive Mobile Edge Computing, Boyang Liu, Jiajia Song, Jin Wang, Haijan Sun, Qun Wang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Student Research

Wireless power transfer (WPT) and cognitive radio (CR) are two promising techniques in designing mobile-edge computing (MEC) systems. In this paper, we study a robust secure wireless powered multiple-input single-output (MISO) cognitive MEC system, which integrates several techniques: physical-layer security, WPT, CR, underlay spectrum sharing and MEC. Three optimization problems are formulated to minimize the total transmission power (TTP) of the primary transmitter (PT) and the secondary base station (SBS) under perfect channel state information (CSI) model, bounded CSI error model and the probabilistic CSI error model, respectively. The formulated problems are nonconvex and hard to solve. Three two-phase iterative …

Utah State Magazine, Spring 2020, Utah State University

Utah State Magazine

The quarterly magazine for friends and alumni of Utah State University.

Giving Students A Better Understanding Of The Concepts Behind The Coriolis Force, Ridge Cole

Physics Capstone Projects

The Coriolis force is a physical phenomenon that has proven difficult for students to understand for centuries. While the mathematical approach to teaching this phenomenon is well known and outlined, the concepts behind this force have proven to be very elusive to students. Through the use of modern technology and new ways of presenting these concepts, we hope to give students a clear understanding of the Coriolis force in the future.

Infrared And Visible Image Fusion Based On Oversampled Graph Filter Banks, Chunyan Song, Xueying Gao, Yu-Long Qiao, Kaige Zhang

Computer Science Student Research

The infrared image (RI) and visible image (VI) fusion method merges complementary information from the infrared and visible imaging sensors to provide an effective way for understanding the scene. The graph filter bank-based graph wavelet transform possesses the advantages of the classic wavelet filter bank and graph representation of a signal. Therefore, we propose an RI and VI fusion method based on oversampled graph filter banks. Specifically, we consider the source images as signals on the regular graph and decompose them into the multiscale representations with M-channel oversampled graph filter banks. Then, the fusion rule for the low-frequency subband is …

A Systematic Review Of Argumentation Related To The Engineering-Designed World, Amy Wilson-Lopez, Ashley R. Strong, Christina Marie Hartman, Jared Garlick, Karen H. Washburn, Angela L. Minichiello, Sandra Weingart, Jorge Acosta-Feliz

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Background

Across academic disciplines, researchers have found that argumentation‐based pedagogies increase learners' achievement and engagement. Engineering educational researchers and teachers of engineering may benefit from knowledge regarding how argumentation related to engineering has been practiced and studied.

Purpose/Hypothesis

Drawing from terms and concepts used in national standards for K‐12 education and accreditation requirements for undergraduate engineering education, this study was designed to identify how arguments and argumentation related to the engineering‐designed world were operationalized in relevant literature.

Methodology

Specified search terms and inclusion criteria were used to identify 117 empirical studies related to engineering argumentation and educational research. A qualitative …

Culturally Responsive Teaching Through The Lens Of Dual Language Education: Intersections And Opportunities, Tammy Oberg De La Garza, Alyson Leah Lavigne, Shouqing Si

Teacher Education and Leadership Faculty Publications

Students benefit from culturally responsive teaching (CRT). CRT is central to dual language (DL) education - an additive approach that is effective for educating emergent bilinguals and closing the achievement gap. Students' achievements in DL education models are higher than in any other type of language learning pedagogy – ESL, Bilingual and Monolingual. The purpose of this research was to identify the CRT practices that are employed in DL classrooms; so that teachers in other educational settings (i.e. mainstream, ESL, bilingual) might implement similar practices and improve their effectiveness with diverse students. Using survey responses from Dual Language teachers (N …

Stormtime Longitudinal Variability In The Ionosphere-Thermosphere System, Ludger Scherliess

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Proper Orthogonal Decomposition And Recurrence Map For The Identification Of Spatial–Temporal Patterns In A Low-Re Wake Downstream Of Two Cylinders, Meihua Zhang, Zhongquan Charlie Zheng, Huixuan Wu

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

Flow decomposition methods provide systematic ways to extract the flow modes, which can be regarded as the spatial distribution of a coherent structure. They have been successfully used in the study of wake, boundary layer, and mixing. However, real flow structures also possess complex temporal patterns that can hardly be captured using the spatial modes obtained in the decomposition. In order to analyze the temporal variation of coherent structures in a complex flow field, this paper studies the recurrence in phase space to identify the pattern and classify the evolution of the flow modes. The recurrence pattern depends on the …

Experimental Investigation Of The Secondary And Backscatter Electron Emission From New Spacecraft Surface Materials, Millan F. Diaz-Aguado, John W. Bonnell, Stuart D. Bale, Justin Christensen, Phillip Lundgreen, Jordan Lee, Jr Dennison, Justin Dekany, Brian Wood, Mike Gruntman

Journal Articles

The emission of secondary and backscattered electrons influences spacecraft surface potentials and the surrounding plasma. Modern spacecraft use new materials for which secondary emission properties have been unavailable. In this work, the total electron yield (i.e., the sum of secondary and backscattered electron yields) was measured for niobium-C103 alloy, molybdenum Titanium, Zirconium, Molybdenum (TZM) alloy, tantalum-tungsten alloy, Elgiloy®, graphite lubricant (DAG 213®), and titanium nitride. The surface properties of tungsten were also measured for comparison with past test data. The materials were readied as spacecraft flight materials and temperature-treated ("annealed") to predicted peak flight temperatures. The yield properties for 10 …

Understanding The Effects Of Above- And Belowground Linkages On Carbon Cycling In A High Latitude, Coastal Wetland, Trisha Atwood

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.

Application Of Digital Particle Image Velocimetry To Insect Motion: Measurement Of Incoming, Outgoing, And Lateral Honeybee Traffic, Sarbajit Mukherjee, Vladimir Kulyukin

Computer Science Faculty and Staff Publications

The well-being of a honeybee (Apis mellifera) colony depends on forager traffic. Consistent discrepancies in forager traffic indicate that the hive may not be healthy and require human intervention. Honeybee traffic in the vicinity of a hive can be divided into three types: incoming, outgoing, and lateral. These types constitute directional traffic, and are juxtaposed with omnidirectional traffic where bee motions are considered regardless of direction. Accurate measurement of directional honeybee traffic is fundamental to electronic beehive monitoring systems that continuously monitor honeybee colonies to detect deviations from the norm. An algorithm based on digital particle image velocimetry is proposed …

Hematite (U-Th)/He Thermochronometry Detects Asperity Flash Heating During Laboratory Earthquakes, Melissa S. Chapot, Alexis K. Ault, Greg Hirth, Robert G. Mcdermott

Geosciences Faculty Publications

Evidence for coseismic temperature rise that induces dynamic weakening is challenging to directly observe and quantify in natural and experimental fault rocks. Hematite (U-Th)/He (hematite He) thermochronometry may serve as a fault-slip thermometer, sensitive to transient high temperatures associated with earthquakes. We test this hypothesis with hematite deformation experiments at seismic slip rates, using a rotary-shear geometry with an annular ring of silicon carbide (SiC) sliding against a specular hematite slab. Hematite is characterized before and after sliding via textural and hematite He analyses to quantify He loss over variable experimental conditions. Experiments yield slip surfaces localized in an ∼5–30-µm-thick …

Reducing Road Wear While Ensuring Comfort And Charging Constraints For Dynamically Charged Passenger Vehicles Through Noise-Shaped Path Variations, Clint Jay Ferrin, Randall Christensen

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

Dynamically charged vehicles suffer from power loss during wireless power transfer due to receiver and transmitter coil misalignment while driving. Autonomous, dynamically charged vehicles can maximize wireless power transfer by minimizing the misalignment, but the repeated high-precision driving increases road wear. To avoid unnecessary road wear and rutting, a noise shaping filter is proposed that adds variability to a vehicle's trajectory that complies with passenger acceleration and position constraints. However, introducing variability into an optimal charging path also risks depleting battery life prior to destination arrival. Therefore, a path planner is proposed that guarantees average charge within a specified probability …

Introduction To The Special Issue: The Role Of Seed Dispersal In Plant Populations: Perspectives And Advances In A Changing World, Noelle G. Beckman, Clare E. Aslan, Haldre S. Rogers

Biology Faculty Publications

Despite the importance of seed dispersal as a driving process behind plant community assembly, our understanding of the role of seed dispersal in plant population persistence and spread remains incomplete. As a result, our ability to predict the effects of global change on plant populations is hampered. We need to better understand the fundamental link between seed dispersal and population dynamics in order to make predictive generalizations across species and systems, to better understand plant community structure and function, and to make appropriate conservation and management responses related to seed dispersal. To tackle these important knowledge gaps, we established the …

Fire-Environment Analysis: An Example Of Army Garrison Camp Williams, Utah, Scott M. Frost, Martin E. Alexander, R. Justin Derose, Michael J. Jenkins

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

The planning of fuel treatments for ecological or societal purposes requires an in-depth understanding of the conditions associated with the occurrence of free-burning fire behavior for the area of concern. Detailed fire-environment analysis for Army Garrison Camp Williams (AGCW) in north-central Utah was completed as a prerequisite for fuel treatment planning, using a procedure that could be generally applied. Vegetation and fuels data, topographic and terrain features, and weather and climate data, were assessed and integrated into predictive fuel models to aid planning. A fire behavior fuel model map was developed from biophysical variables, vegetation type, and plot survey data …

Collaborative Research: Quantifying Crustal Hydration Effects In The Colorado Plateau From Xenoliths, Dennis Newell

Funded Research Records

No abstract provided.