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Group Developed Weighing Matrices, K. T. Arasu, Jeffrey R. Hollon

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications

A weighing matrix is a square matrix whose entries are 1, 0 or −1, such that the matrix times its transpose is some integer multiple of the identity matrix. We examine the case where these matrices are said to be devel- oped by an abelian group. Through a combination of extending previous results and by giving explicit constructions we will answer the question of existence for 318 such matrices of order and weight both below 100. At the end, we are left with 98 open cases out of a possible 1,022. Further, some of the new results provide insight into …

Provable Run Time Safety Assurance For A Non-Linear System, Cory Firmin Snyder

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Systems that are modeled by non-linear continuous-time differential equations with uncertain parameters have proven to be exceptionally difficult to formally verify. The past few decades have produced a number of useful verification tools which can be applied to such systems but each is applicable to only a subset of possible verification scenarios. The Level Sets Toolbox (LST) is one such tool which is directly applicable to non-linear systems, however, it is limited to systems of relatively small continuous state space dimension. Other tools such as PHAVer and the SpaceEx invariant of the Le Guernic-Girard (LGG) support function algorithm are specifically …

Computational Modeling Of Graphene Oxide Exfoliation And Lithium Storage Characteristics, Reza Mortezaee

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Graphene oxide is a two dimensional material obtained by adsorption of oxygen or oxygen-containing groups on graphene. Stacked layers of graphene oxide constitute graphite oxide. These materials have various applications such as a source material for graphene production, transport support for electron microscopy, flexible organic photovoltaic cells and use in Li-ion batteries. Generation of exfoliated graphene oxide from a graphite oxide precursor is achieved relatively easily in solution as compared to graphene exfoliation. In this study we investigate the details of the graphene oxide exfoliation procedure in solution by calculating the Gibb's free energies and reaction rates. We consider two …

A Latent Dirichlet Allocation/N-Gram Composite Language Model, Raymond Daniel Kulhanek

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I present a composite language model in which an n-gram language model is integrated with the Latent Dirichlet Allocation topic clustering model. I also describe a parallel architecture that allows this model to be trained over large corpora and present experimental results that show how the composite model compares to a standard n-gram model over corpora of varying size.

A Large Scale Distributed Syntactic, Semantic And Lexical Language Model For Machine Translation, Ming Tan

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The n-gram model is the most widely used language model (LM) in statistical machine translation system, due to its simplicity and scalability. However, it only encodes the local lexical relation between adjacent words and clearly ignores the rich syntactic and semantic structures of the natural languages. Attempting to increase the order of an n-gram to describe longer range dependencies in natural language immediately runs into the curse of dimensionality. Although previous researches tried to increase the order of n-gram on a large corpus, they did not see obvious improvement beyond 6-gram. Meanwhile, other LMs, such as syntactic language models and …

Type I Interferon Activation Of Natural Killer (Nk) Cells By Cytomegalovirus (Cmv) And Their Interaction With Dendritic (Dc) And Nkt Cells, Howaida A. Oulad Abdelati

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In our current study the roles of natural killer (NK) cells in regulation of the acute phase of murine cytomegalovirus (MCMV) infection were demonstrated. NK cells utilize perforin and gamma interferon to kill MCMV infected cells. Activation of NK cells is controlled by the balance between inhibitory and activation receptors and modulated by cytokines produced from the infected cells. Type I interferons are produced mainly by plasmacytoid dendritic cells (PDCs). Type I interferons have a substantial role in enhancing NK cells cytotoxic activity and NK cells proliferation and maintain cell survival through STAT mediated signaling pathway. IL-12 produced by dendritic …

Effect Of Sample History On Dissolution Rates Of Gypsum {010} Surfaces, Dennis Stefan Renier Lennaerts

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Mineral dissolution plays a significant role in geochemical processes such as carbon sequestration and isotope geochemistry. While factors such as temperature, pressure, and solution chemistry have been widely studied, the effects of sample history and surface morphology on dissolution rates have been studied to a lesser extent. This research focuses on the dissolution of cleaved, polished, and reacted samples of the atomically flat natural {010} cleavage plane of gypsum (CaSO4·2H2O) to further investigate upon the effect of sample history. Gypsum was chosen as the mineral of interest because of its planar crystal surface and relatively fast dissolution rate. Chemical dissolution …

A Computational Study Of Linking Solid Oxide Fuel Cell Microstructure Parameters To Cell Performance, Chao Wang

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Solid Oxide Fuel Cell (SOFC) has been considered as a promising technology to replace the traditional fossil fuels due to high efficiency, low emission, and silent operation. The configuration of microstructures throughout the electrodes plays a significant role in improving cell performance. However, current research did not capture the connections of the microstructure parameters, which is vital to simulate the SOFC behavior under practical circumstances. This study explored the correlations of microstructure parameters from a micro scale level, together with mass transfer and electrochemical reactions inside the electrodes, providing a novel approach to predict the SOFC performance numerically. The results …

Effect Of Sample Miscut On Dissolution Kinetics Of Calcite (104) Cleavage Surfaces, Tahiru Sulley Addo

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Calcite is one of the most abundant naturally occurring carbonate minerals in the earth crust, and it is believe to play a crucial role in the long-term effectiveness of geochemical process works such as geological carbon sequestration. Due to the ease in which clean, flat calcite surfaces may be prepared, a lot of dissolution studies have been carried out on its (104) cleavage plane. However in geologic media, natural calcite grains consist of alternate surface terminations that do not display similar crystallographic properties as the (104) cleavage plane. This study focuses on the effect of miscut and step orientation on …

Water Level Dynamics Of The North American Great Lakes: Nonlinear Scaling And Fractional Bode Analysis Of A Self-Affine Time Series, Jeffrey Ralph Smigelski

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Time series that exhibit multiple scaling properties in the frequency domain are common in natural systems (e.g., temperature through geologic time). NOAA verified hourly water level data ranging from 20 to 30 years in duration for nine stations in the North American Great Lakes is converted to the frequency domain using a complex discrete fast Fourier transform (FFT) and then expressed as a power spectrum in terms of frequency versus power. To quantify power law scaling behavior, a scaling exponent (β) is determined by fitting a power function to a log-log plot of frequency (f) or …

Copper And Nickel Partitioning With Nanoscale Goethite, Kelsey Marie Danner

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Goethite is an ideal sorbent for investigations of metal partitioning with iron oxyhydroxides because it is the most abundant iron oxyhydroxide in sediments (Langmuir, 1997; van der Zee et al., 2003), and cations have a strong affinity for goethite (Coughlin and Stone, 1995). Steady-state partitioning of nickel (Ni) and copper (Cu) to nanoscale goethite (a-FeOOH) was investigated experimentally under conditions intended to be representative of those in natural waters. Manipulated conditions included i) sorbent mass, ii) solute metal concentration, iii) reaction time, iv) pH, v) ionic strength (I), and vi) humate concentration (competitive ligand) to examine how these factors influenced …

Cyclic Voltammetric And Square Wave Anodic Stripping Voltammetric Analysis Of Lead And Cadmium Utilizing The Novel Titanium Dioxide/ Zirconium Dioxide/ Tween 80 Carbon Paste Composite Electrode, Phuong Khanh Quoc Nguyen

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Heavy metals, particularly Lead (Pb) and Cadmium (Cd), had been long identified as hazardous pollutants in the environment. Joining the continuous effort to alleviate this dilemma, a new electro-chemical sensor has been developed to assess the level of Pb and Cd in aqueous environment. The current work describes the utilization of two different electro-analytical techniques, cyclic voltammetry (CV) and square wave anodic stripping voltammetry (SWASV), in conjunction with the novel Titanium Dioxide/ Zirconium Dioxide/ Tween 80 (TiO2/ ZrO2/ Tween 80) carbon paste composite electrode to qualitatively and quantitatively analyze Pb and Cd. In this dissertation, along with a comprehensive literature …

A Semantics-Based Approach To Machine Perception, Cory Andrew Henson

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Machine perception can be formalized using semantic web technologies in order to derive abstractions from sensor data using background knowledge on the Web, and efficiently executed on resource-constrained devices. Advances in sensing technology hold the promise to revolutionize our ability to observe and understand the world around us. Yet the gap between observation and understanding is vast. As sensors are becoming more advanced and cost-effective, the result is an avalanche of data of high volume, velocity, and of varied type, leading to the problem of too much data and not enough knowledge (i.e., insights leading to actions). Current estimates predict …

Piezoelectric-Based, Self-Sustaining Artificial Cochlea, Jared Evans

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Hearing loss is a prevalent issue, affecting all ages in innumerable occupations. Cochlear implants are one solution to sensorineural hearing complications; and though they are commonly used, the electronic devices have limitations in power consumption and external equipment. Piezoelectric films emulate the relationship between the basilar membrane and inner hair cell structures of the human cochlear epithelium, inducing a potential difference in response to sound pressure. Through proper MEMS fabrication and material selection, an artificial cochlear can be developed utilizing piezoelectrics, which is self-sustainable and functions naturally with the mechanisms of the human ear. This research investigates the feasibility of …

The Effect Of Hsv-1 Infection On Differentiated And Polarized U937 Cells, Allolo Dreiwish Aldreiwish

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Herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1) challenges the host immune system through several mechanisms (Frey, et al., 2009). In vitro, U937 cells (human macrophage-like precursor cell line) are not susceptible to HSV-1 infection when they are not differentiating (Lopez-Guerrero and Alonso, 1997). Differentiation of these cells resistance can abrogates their resistance to HSV-1 (Tenney and Morahan, 1991). In this study, we examined the effect of HSV-1 infection on differentiated and polarized U937 cells. U937 cells are differentiated to M0 cells.

Then, M0 cells are polarized to distinct phenotypes, M1 or M2. M1 are proinflammatory macrophages while M2 are anti-inflammatory cells. …

The Molecular Genetics Learning Progressions: Revisions And Refinements Based On Empirical Testing In Three 10th Grade Classrooms, Amber Nicole Todd

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In the past few decades, there has been a large push for increasing scientific literacy (AAAS, 1989; AAAS, 1993; Achieve, 2013; NRC, 1996; NRC, 2012), especially in areas that are rapidly advancing, like molecular genetics. Much research has been done on student understandings of molecular genetics and the consensus is that the concepts are difficult both to learn and teach (Fisher, 1992; Horwitz, 1996; Kindfield, 1992; Lewis & Kattmann, 2004; Marbach-Ad & Stavy, 2000; Stewart et al., 2005; Venville & Treagust, 1998; etc.). Two learning progressions in molecular genetics have been produced (Duncan et al., 2009; Roseman et al. 2006), …

Libraries From Libraries Approach To The Synthesis Of Arylidene Oxindoles, Kyle James Knisley

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A libraries from libraries combinatorial chemistry approach was employed to synthesize fluorinated derivatives of both oxindoles and isatins as potential pharmaceuticals or targeting agents for imaging purposes related to cancer or Alzheimer's disease. Synthesis for these fluorinated derivatives are described by routes involving, either: a) N-alkylation of 5-substituted isatins followed by Wolff-Kishner reduction to the corresponding oxindoles and final Knoevenagel condensation with aryl aldehydes, or; b) Wolff-Kishner reduction of the isatins followed by condensation and finishing with the N-alkylation of the aldol products. In specific cases, a click reaction followed the N-alkylation of the aldol products to form the isatin …

Trace Metals In Sediments On The Continental Margin Of The Northwest Atlantic Ocean, Daniel L. Marsh

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Trace metals in the ocean are derived from natural and anthropogenic sources. Despite increased human impact on the marine environment and biological productivity of continental margins, trace metal studies in marine sediments have focused primarily on near-shore regions. I investigated 22 metals in sediments on the continental margin of the northwest Atlantic Ocean to calculate enrichment factors (EF) relative to upper continental crust and identify spatial variations with distance from shore and depth below the sediment-seawater interface. Metals were well correlated with Al, Fe, organic matter, or CaCO3. No clear trends in metal EFs with distance from shore were evident …

Distributed Sensor Fault Diagnosis For Automated Highway Systems, Hui Chen

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Fault diagnosis problems for large-scale nonlinear systems have attracted significant attentions from researchers in recent years. Most fault detection and isolation (FDI) methods have been proposed based on a centralized architecture. However, due to the complexity of the system, most of these centralized fault detection and diagnosis schemes are not able to delivery effective fault detection and isolation performance for a large-scale nonlinear system, which contains subsystems interacting with neighboring subsystems.

In this thesis, a distributed fault detection and isolation method is developed for the automated highway systems (AHS). For each subsystem of AHS, a distributed fault detection and isolation …

Computational Analysis Of Vortex Structures In Flapping Flight, Zongxian Liang

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Vortex structures and vortical formation in flapping flight are directly related to the force production. To analyze the connection between vortex structures and aerodynamic performance of flapping flight, we have developed highly efficient algorithms for large-scale flow simulations with moving and deforming bodies. To further understand the underlying mechanisms of force generation caused by the coherent structures of the vortex formation, a new analysis method has been developed to measure the influence of Proper Orthogonal Decomposition (POD) modes on aerodynamic forces.

It is challenging to finish three-dimensional Direct Numerical Simulations (DNS) of insect flight in a limited amount of time. …

Accurate Splicing Of Hdac6 Requires Son, Vishnu Priya Chowdary Battini

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Pre-mRNA splicing requires proper splice site selection mediated by many factors including snRNPs and serine-arginine rich (SR) splicing factors. Son is the largest known SR splicing factor, and it has several putative functional domains including an RS domain, a glycine rich patch (G-patch) and double stranded RNA binding domain (DSRBD). One-third of Son's amino acid sequence consists of novel repetitive sequence motifs of unknown function (Sharma et al., 2010). Son is essential for organization of pre-mRNA processing factors in nuclear speckles and for cell cycle progression (Sharma et al., 2010; Sharma et al., 2011; Ahn et al 2011). Exon array …

A Methodology For Extracting Human Bodies From Still Images, Athanasios Tsitsoulis

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Monitoring and surveillance of humans is one of the most prominent applications of today and it is expected to be part of many future aspects of our life, for safety reasons, assisted living and many others. Many efforts have been made towards automatic and robust solutions, but the general problem is very challenging and remains still open. In this PhD dissertation we examine the problem from many perspectives. First, we study the performance of a hardware architecture designed for large-scale surveillance systems. Then, we focus on the general problem of human activity recognition, present an extensive survey of methodologies that …

The Phylogenetics Of Tachinidae (Insecta: Diptera) With An Emphasis On Subfamily Structure, Daniel J. Davis

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The parasitoid flies of the Tachinidae family are an important and diverse (>10,000 species) lineage of insects. However, tachinids are not well studied partially due to their confusing classification and taxonomy. DNA sequences were obtained from twenty tribal representatives of Tachinidae, along with eight outgroups in order to phylogenetically reconstruct the superfamilial, subfamilial and tribal relationships of Tachinidae. Seven gene regions of six genes (18S, 28S, COI, CAD, Ef1a, and TPI) were sequenced for each taxon (6214 bp total). Both maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods were used to infer phylogenies. The Sarcophagidae and Oestridae were usually reconstructed as monophyletic. …

Design And Fabrication Of An Eddy Current Brake Dynamometer For Efficiency Determination Of Electric Wheelchair Motors, Wesley Brin

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Electric wheelchairs have a considerable impact on improving the quality of life for the millions of disabled persons around the world. These modern pieces of technology offer freedom and mobility for disabled persons to interact with the world outside of their homes. The goal of this project is to assist in advancements of conventional electric wheelchairs. This includes replacing the heavy, bulky, and inefficient lead acid batteries and worm gear drive systems with lithium-ion batteries and wheel hub motors in order to decrease weight and size, and increase efficiency. This master thesis research is focused on designing, fabricating, and testing …

Anomalies In Sensor Network Deployments: Analysis, Modeling, And Detection, Giovani Rimon Abuaitah

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A sensor network serves as a vital source for collecting raw sensory data. Sensor data are later processed, analyzed, visualized, and reasoned over with the help of several decision making tools. A decision making process can be disastrously misled by a small portion of anomalous sensor readings. Therefore, there has been a vast demand for mechanisms that identify and then eliminate such anomalies in order to ensure the quality, integrity, and/or trustworthiness of the raw sensory data before they can even be interpreted.

Prior to identifying anomalies, it is essential to understand the various anomalous behaviors prevalent in a sensor …

The Synthesis Of Haplomyrtin Utilizing The Triisopropylsilyl Protecting Group, William S. Barrow

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The synthesis of the arylnaphthalene lignan haplomyrtin using vanillin as a starting material is synthesized via: 1) a bromination of vanillin, 4-hydroxy-5-methoxybenzaldehyde, to produce 6-bromovanillin 2) a hydroxyl protection step of 6-bromovanillin with triisopropylsilylchloride to produce 2-bromo-4-triisopropylsilyoxy-5-methoxybenzaldehyde 3) an aldehyde protection step through a cyclic acetal formation using ethylene glycol to produce 2-(2-bromo-4-triisopropylsilyloxy-5-methoxyphenyl)-1,3-dioxolane 4) a lithium for halogen exchange of the doubly protected 6-bromovanillin leads to neucleophilic coupling with piperonal producing 1,3-benzodioxol-5-yl-[5-triisopropylsilyloxy-2-(1,3-dioxolane-2-yl)-4-methoxyphenyl]methanol and 5) an acid catalyzed intramolecular cycloaddition /Diels Alder adduct with dimethyl acetylenedicarboxylate producing dimethyl 1-(1,3-benzodioxol-5-yl)-4-hydroxy-6-methoxy-7-triisopropylsilyloxynaphthalene-2,3-dicarboxylate.

Visualizing Confusion Matrices For Multidimensional Signal Detection Correlational Methods And Semantic Cluster Based Visualization In Virtual Environments, Yue Zhou

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General Recognition Theory (GRT) is a multidimensional signal detection theory framework for capturing sources of perceptual and decisional dependence. The primary type of data for GRT models is an identification-confusion matrix derived in a complete factorial identification task. This confusion matrix plots the responses of study participant for a given signal. The responses may reveal that participants were unable to recognize the signal properly. Such violations of any type of independence in the GRT framework result in response patterns that reflect some form of correlation in the GRT space. While an individual confusion matrix is rather small and relatively easy …

Iodo Containing Sulfone And Sulfonamide Based Poly(Arylene Ether)S, Fadwa G. Constandinidis

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In an ongoing project involving the synthesis of functionalized poly(arylene ether)s that carry pendent phenyl sulfonyl groups, the introduction of an iodo group was desired. The effects of fluorine position on the electrophilic iodination of the 2,4-, 2,6-, and 2,5- and 3,5-isomers of difluorodiphenylsulfone, DFDPS were studied. The relative reactivity, toward EAS, was probed via ¹³C NMR spectroscopy and verified experimentally by iodination with N-iodosuccinimide. The product mixtures and corresponding structures indicated that intermediate stability did not always correlate to reactivity. Model studies were also conducted on DFDPS isomers that successfully carry in iodo groups in a pendent …

Examination Of The African-American Father-Daughter Relationship: Application Of The Marschack Interaction Method, Amber N. Thornton

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Early research on the Black family implied an enormous lack of African-American father presence and involvement among African-American fathers. However, more current research negates those findings by highlighting the contributions African-American fathers make when parenting their children (Coley, 2003; Cooper, 2009; Mandara, Murray & Joyner, 2005). In spite of facing unique psychological and social challenges, such as disproportionate levels of poverty, and race related social barriers, such as the invisibility syndrome (Franklin & Boyd-Franklin, 2000), researchers who have studied the African-American father-daughter dyad have discovered that this relationship has many benefits for African-American girls, including cognitive and academic enhancements, reductions …

Barriers To Group Therapy For Latino College Students In The United States, Michelle C. Stoyell

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While group therapy appears to be gaining popularity at University Counseling Centers, scant research has been done on Latino students' group therapy participation. The present study examined the barriers that Latino college students face in considering whether to join group therapy. Participants (N=81) completed three measures. The first measure was a demographic questionnaire. The second measure was a modified version of the Barriers Scale, originally developed by Harris (2012), a 44-item survey in which participants were assessed in terms of: their willingness to consider group therapy, group therapy modality preferences, expectations of group therapy, expectations of group members, expectations of …