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The Effect Of High Elevation Weather Stations On The Usda's Pasture, Rangeland, And Forage Insurance Program, Wyatt Matthew Feuz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This paper examines the effect of high elevation weather stations on the rainfall index used by the Pasture, Rangeland, and Forage insurance program. Weather station data for the state of Utah is used to identify high elevation weather stations and their location. Utilizing the corresponding rainfall index data, the effect of the high elevation weather stations is determined. This paper finds when high elevation weather stations begin reporting there is a jump up of 19.01–27.88 percentage points on average in the rainfall index for the corresponding grid locations. This indicates the rainfall index may not accurately represent actual precipitation amounts …

Sonic Boom Loudness Reduction Through Localized Supersonic Aircraft Equivalent-Area Changes, Troy A. Abraham

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The NASA University Leadership Initiative (ULI) titled “Adaptive Aerostructures for Revolutionary Civil Supersonic Transportation” looks to study the feasibility of distributed structural adaptivity on a supersonic aircraft for maintaining acceptable en-route sonic boom loudness during overland flight. The ULI includes a team of industry and university partners that are working together to develop and implement the systems necessary to accomplish this goal.

The Utah State University Aerolab is a member of this ULI team and has been tasked with developing and using low-fidelity supersonic aerodynamic and sonic boom predictions tools to rapidly study the effects of localized geometry changes on …

Sensitivity And Estimation Of Aerodynamic, Propulsion, And Inertial Parameters For Rudderless Aircraft Using Simulation, Jaden W. Thurgood

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

A technique known as system identification is often used in aircraft design and testing to understand and validate the mathematical parameters that describe the aircrafts stability and handling characteristics. System identification can be thought of as the inverse of simulation. In the world of system identification, we have a physical system that we seek to understand in more detail by monitoring the system with an array of sensors. In short, we conduct tests of an aircraft while recording the inputs and response outputs. Then we take the input and output data and run it through an algorithm that seeks to …

Development Of A Variable Extensometer Method For Measuring Ductility Scaling Parameters, Adam J. Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Ductility is the measure of how much a material can stretch before separation. It is usually measured in percent elongation, which is the amount a material stretches divided by its original length before stretching. This is an important property to understand for both the design for performance and safety. A material’s ductility can be influenced by several factors including heat treatment, machining, temperature, and radiation dose. Materials used in nuclear energy facilities are often exposed to all these factors, and it is important to be able to understand ductility at each possible combination.

Ductility is usually characterized through tension tests …

Preschool Children's Development In Number, Geometry, And Executive Function: A Cross-Lagged Examination, Brionne G. Neilson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Children develop rapidly during early childhood, and this includes their mathematics and executive function (EF) skills. Past research has focused on connections between early mathematics and EF, but more work was needed to fully understand these relations. In particular, past studies have generally used numeracy-based measures to assess early mathematics, although professional guidelines indicate a more comprehensive construct that includes geometry. The research herein addresses some of the gaps of previous work as it examines unique connections between early number, geometry, and EF. One hundred eighteen preschool children from urban and rural communities, being an average age of 53 months …

Application Of Flow And Ion Data To Estimate Ungaged Inflows And Losses In Urban And Agricultural Sub-Reaches Of The Logan River Observatory, Hyrum Tennant

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Streams in urban and agricultural environments are often heavily diverted for irrigation and drinking water purposes. These streams can receive inflow from unmeasured sources including stormwater returns, groundwater drains, and irrigation runoff that will help sustain flow during dry periods. Due to an inability to identify the source of most of these inflows or directly measure their volumes, there is a clear need for identification and quantification methods. Streamflow data from the Logan River Observatory illustrates the importance of unidentified inflows in sections influenced by large diversions. To understand the role of unidentified inflows and possible outflows in this portion …

Raw Depth Image Enhancement Using A Neural Network, Xuan Xie

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The term image is often used to denote a data format that records information about a scene’s color. This dissertation object focuses on a similar format for recording distance information about a scene, “depth images”. Depth images have been used extensively in consumer-level applications, such as Apple’s Face ID, based on depth images for face recognition.

However, depth images suffer from low precision and high errors, and some post-processing techniques need to be utilized to improve their quality. Deep learning, or neural networks, are frameworks that use a series of hierarchically arranged nonlinear networks to process input data. Although each …

The Biggest Snowball Fight In Earth History: Stratigraphy, Facies Analysis, And Geochronology Of The Pocatello Formation, Matthew W. Ellison

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Snowball Earth Hypothesis details a time in Earth’s history (the Cryogenian period) where the entire planet was encapsulated by kilometer thick ice sheets for two, multi-million-year glaciations. The first, known as the Sturtian, lasted from 717 – 660 million years ago while the second, known as the Marinoan, lasted form approximately 650 – 635 million years ago. Snowball Earth was caused by a few processes that sort of built upon each other: Rodinia began splitting apart ~740 million years ago which allowed for increased rates of silicate weathering. High rates of silicate weathering resulted in CO₂ drawdown which …

Regionalized Models With Spatially Continuous Predictions At The Borders, Jadon S. Wagstaff

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Creating maps of continuous variables involves estimating values between measurement locations scattered throughout a geographic region. These maps often leverage observed similarities between geographically close measurements, but may also make predictions using other geographic information such as elevation. The relationship between the available geographic information and the variable of interest can vary with location, especially when mapping large areas like a continent. A simple way to account for the changing relationship is to divide the space into different sub-regions and model the relationship at each region. The naive implementation of this approach has the side effect of making sudden changes …

Socioscientific Issues In School-Based Agricultural Education: Describing And Exploring Factors Of Integration, Michelle S. Burrows

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Socioscientific issues (SSI) are complex issues which are scientific in nature and have societal impacts. Many SSI have connections to agriculture and as such should be included in agricultural education curriculum. A clear understanding of what school-based agricultural education (SBAE) teachers know about SSI is needed. The purpose of this research was to explore the knowledge and integration of SSI among SBAE teachers by describing and explaining the factors that influence integration. This quantitative survey research was guided by the SSI-based instruction framework and the three-component model of agricultural education. The population for this study was all SBAE teachers in …

Spatial And Temporal Patterns Of River Incision And Terrace Deposition In Response To Climate And Tectonics In Southern Taiwan, Dominique M. Shore

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Geologists often look at the Earth’s surface to understand the underlying processes that cause mountain formation. As tectonic forces drive uplift of Earth’s surface, processes of erosion transport sediment to lower elevations. Climate can play a large role in landscape formation as well as increased precipitation, accelerating rates of erosion. Rivers leave markers of landscape evolution through terrace landforms, former river floodplains that are left behind when rivers incise into a valley. To better understand landscape response to uplift, this research investigated the initial linkages between uplift, hillslope erosion (mass wasting) and river incision. At some point, it is thought …

Application Of Computational Fluid Dynamics To Determine Gas Expansion Factors Of Differential Pressure Flow Meters, Patrick L. Campana

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this research was to investigate if computer simulations could be used to accurately predict gas expansion in differential pressure flow meters. Differential pressure flow meters are used to measure the flow rate of pressurized liquids and gases through pipes. Computer simulations of liquid and gas flows were conducted for three distinct differential pressure flow meter geometries: Classical Venturis, Stand Concentric orifice plates, and wedge meters.

Gas flows were modeled as dry air using the assumption of a perfect gas. Expansion effects were modeled using the ideal gas law. Computer simulations of Classical Venturi and Standard Concentric orifice …

Studies Of Classical Analysis After Whittaker And Watson, Ting-Yao Lee

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The goal of this thesis is to solve problems from the first four chapters of the book, titled A Course of Modern Analysis: An Introduction to the General Theory of Infinite Processes and of Analytic Functions with an Account of the Principal Transcendental Functions by E.T. Whittaker and G.N. Watson. The titles of the first four chapters are “Complex Numbers,” “The Theory of Convergence,” “Continuous Functions and Uniform Convergence,” and “The Theory of Riemann Integration,” respectively. This book is a classic mathematical analysis textbook that contains some challenging end-of-chapter exercises and some details within each chapter are often left to …

Developing Advanced Electrodes And Electrolytes For Energy Storage Beyond Li Ion Batteries, Kevin V. Nielson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Electric vehicles, smart phones, and portable computers are all powered by lithium-ion batteries. This is because Li-ion batteries can store more energy in less space than other battery technologies. Also, they are rechargeable and last for a long time. The most recent 2019 Nobel prize in chemistry was awarded to John Goodenough, M. Stanley Whittingham and Akira Yoshino “for the development of lithium-ion batteries”. Through their work, they have made possible cars that do not burn fossil fuels and phones that are wireless and portable. Not only can Li-ion power your phone, it is an incredibly efficient way to store …

Remote Ocean Forcing On Interannual-To-Decadal Climate Variability Through Inter-Basin Interactions, Zachary F. Johnson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation explores the connection between ocean basins through the atmosphere by employing observational data analyses and a climate modeling approach. Sea surface temperature changes in the tropical Pacific, known as the El Niño Southern Oscillation, can influence worldwide weather and sea surface temperatures in other ocean basins. For instance, tropical Pacific sea surface temperatures can impact the Atlantic and Indian Oceans through airflow changes along the equator. However, Atlantic and Indian Ocean sea surface temperature changes can also influence the tropical Pacific through similar processes. Therefore, it is challenging to identify the mechanisms of these remote connections between ocean …

Achieving Hate Speech Detection In A Low Resource Setting, Peiyu Li

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Online social networks provide people with convenient platforms to communicate and share life moments. However, because of the anonymous property of these social media platforms, the cases of online hate speeches are increasing. Hate speech is defined by the Cambridge Dictionary as “public speech that expresses hate or encourages violence towards a person or group based on something such as race, religion, sex, or sexual orientation”. Online hate speech has caused serious negative effects to legitimate users, including mental or emotional stress, reputational damage, and fear for one’s safety. To protect legitimate online users, automatically hate speech detection techniques are …

Fruit Tree Responses To Water Stress: Automated Physiological Measurements And Rootstock Responses, William D. Wheeler

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

New orchard plantings utilize trees grafted to dwarfing rootstocks planted close together to facilitate larger harvests. These dwarfing rootstocks have not been comprehensively studied for their ability to withstand drought. This is of special importance in the Intermountain West which has limited rainfall. Additionally, orchard growers face competition for water from a growing population and increased uncertainty in rainfall from climate change. My research examined the use of dendrometers, which measure changes in trunk diameter, and sap flow sensors, which measure how quickly sap moves, as methods to inform growers about tree water status. I also used a weighing lysimeter …

Exact Generalized Voronoi Diagram Computation Using A Sweepline Algorithm, Daniel Marsden

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Voronoi Diagrams can provide useful spatial information. Little work has been done on computing exact Voronoi Diagrams when the sites are more complex than a point. We introduce a technique that measures the exact Generalized Voronoi Diagram from points, line segments and, connected lines including lines that connect to form simple polygons. Our technique is an extension of Fortune’s method. Our approach treats connected lines (or polygons) as a single site.

"You Can Tell They Care": A Phenomenographic Study Of Student Experiences With Empathic Concern Expressed By Professors In Engineering, Kate Youmans

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In order to address the increasingly complex challenges of the 21st century, there is a need to continue to grow the technical workforce by improving graduation rates of engineering students. To accomplish this, the culture of engineering programs must shift from demanding or intimidating to more inclusive and supportive. Professors can play a critical role in creating these cultures by building relationships with students. Empathic concern is essential in building relationships that can encourage student growth and development. This form of empathy, sometimes referred to as care or concern, is expressed through actions of understanding, compassion, and non-judgement. While research …

Exploring The Feasibility Of Introducing Alternative Fuel Vehicles Into Fleet, Samia Rubaiat

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Transportation is one of the most significant contributing sectors to emissions and consequently air pollution in the United States. Many state and private fleet agencies have announced their visions of zero-emission fleet programs. Adopting alternative fuel vehicle (AFV) is a viable option for achieving this objective. AFVs offer lower emissions along with low operating and maintenance costs, and higher fuel economy. The advancement of technologies has provided several AFV options, such as hybrid electric vehicles (HEV), electric vehicles (EV), compressed natural gas vehicles (CNGV), and liquefied petroleum gas vehicles (LPGV). The main challenges in adopting AFVs are the high purchasing …

Water, Fish, And Fire: Interdisciplinary Research On Ecosystem Services And Climate Adaptation, Liana Prudencio

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Ecosystem services, or benefits from the environment, are plentiful and vary from place to place. Human activities and climate change have impacted these services in every region of the world. This dissertation explores multiple ecosystem services, from water quality improvement to provisioning of fish and habitat, in multiple and international contexts. The first chapter synthesizes the literature on stormwater management and ecosystem services, finding that research at this intersection has provided many parcel-level studies and frameworks for implementing green infrastructure. The second chapter extends the stormwater management literature by quantifying the impacts of green infrastructure on water quantity and quality …

Embedded-Atom-Method Modeling Of Alkali-Metal/Transition-Metal Interfaces, Jake D. Christensen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Understanding the thermal properties of materials is essential to using those materials for technological advancement which can benefit civilization. For example, it has been proposed that essential components of tokamaks, devices which perform fusion, be made out of tungsten with a thin layer of lithium on the surface. To that end, this thesis seeks to calculate the thermal properties of a layer of alkali atoms, like lithium and sodium, on tungsten and molybdenum substrates. We use an Embedded Atom Method (EAM) model to perform our calculations. This type of model has been widely used to describe the interaction between atoms …

Classification Of Jacobian Elliptic Fibrations On A Special Family Of K3 Surfaces Of Picard Rank Sixteen, Thomas Hill

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

K3 surfaces are an important tool used to understand the symmetries in physics that link different string theories, called string dualities. For example, heterotic string theory compactified on an elliptic curve describes a theory physically equivalent to (dual to) F-theory compactified on a K3 surface. In fact, M-theory, the type IIA string, the type IIB string, the Spin(32)/Z₂ heterotic string, and the E₈ x E₈ heterotic string are all related by compactification on Calabi-Yau manifolds.

We study a special family of K3 surfaces, namely a family of rank sixteen K3 surfaces polarized by the lattice H⊕E …

Delta Hedging Of Financial Options Using Reinforcement Learning And An Impossibility Hypothesis, Ronak Tali

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In this thesis we take a fresh perspective on delta hedging of financial options as undertaken by market makers. The current industry standard of delta hedging relies on the famous Black Scholes formulation that prescribes continuous time hedging in a way that allows the market maker to remain risk neutral at all times. But the Black Scholes formulation is a deterministic model that comes with several strict assumptions such as zero transaction costs, log normal distribution of the underlying stock prices, etc. In this paper we employ Reinforcement Learning to redesign the delta hedging problem in way that allows us …

Cost-Effective Planning Strategies For Battery Electric Bus Systems, Yi He

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In recent years, actions have been taken by countries around the world to create a more sustainable energy future. Electrifying transit buses is considered as a promising option to reduce emissions and increase sustainability of the transportation sector. However, there are still several barriers to the adoption of electric buses (e-buses). The barriers include, but are not limited to, the range limitations of e-buses, high up-front costs of e-buses, large capital expenses for charging infrastructure, and a lack of understanding regarding e-bus operation and management. This dissertation aims to overcome these barriers through the development of cost-effective planning strategies from …

The Development And Use Of A Secondary Electron Yield Database For Spacecraft Charge Modeling, Phillip Lundgreen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Charge modeling of electron-solid interactions requires a detailed and accurate compilation of experimental data on which to base its physics and against which to test its predictions. Historically researchers used methods involving individual research or information taken from existing, vague, databases that were often found wanting. To streamline the charge modeling process, a collection of data has been assembled and categorized based upon surface morphology and contamination from various published sources and existing databases. The quality and quantity of the compilation vary widely with very little information offered with regards to surface conditions of various materials (contamination, morphology, etc. ...). …

Triggerable, Targetable, And Trackable Flavonol-Based Carbon Monoxide-Releasing Molecules, Livia S. Lazarus

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Long known as a toxic gas, carbon monoxide (CO) has been recently redefined as a health beneficial molecule produced endogenously in humans. The biological activity of CO has been extensively examined in inflammatory conditions, vasoprotection, anti-apoptotic and anticancer studies, although the mechanisms of action are still not well defined. Because CO is a gaseous molecule, a straightforward administration would be inhalation. However, this delivery method is limited to use in hospital settings under professional supervision. For improved control over the amount and location of CO delivery, metal-free and light-triggered carbon monoxide-releasing molecules are of particular current interest. Our lab is …

Formal Verification Of The Adversarial Robustness Property Of Deep Neural Networks Through Dimension Reduction Heuristics, Refutation-Based Abstraction, And Partitioning, Joshua Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Neural networks are tools that are often used to perform functions such as object recognition in images, speech-to-text, and general data classification. Because neural networks have been successful at approximating these functions that are difficult to explicitly write, they are seeing increased usage in fields such as autonomous driving, airplane collision avoidance systems, and other safety-critical applications. Due to the risks involved with safety-critical systems, it is important to provide guarantees about the networks performance under certain conditions. As an example, it is critically important that self driving cars with neural network based vision systems correctly identify pedestrians 100% of …

The Relationship Between Mindfulness, Academic Stress, And Attention, Tida Blackburn

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Some degree of anxiety in learning situations is expected and normal. However, excessive anxiety and stress negatively affect cognitive performance, especially working memory, concentration, and sustained attention. Studies have shown that higher success in academics is related to a better ability to maintain focus on the information presented including auditory and visual attention. College students who are better able to manage stress are more successful than those who cannot. One method of coping with stress and anxiety is the practice of mindfulness. Mindfulness is the ability to be fully present in the moment, be aware of one’s mind, body, and …

Environmental Controls On Didymosphenia Geminata Bloom Formation, Lindsay Capito

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Climate change is causing rapid glacial recession and earlier snowmelt, which alter the physical and chemical properties of rivers. As a result, organisms at the base of the food web are responding in unforeseen ways. We use the nuisance algae D. geminata (Didymo) as a case study for how climate induced shifts in the timing of glacial and snowmelt runoff are affecting river ecosystems. We evaluated how shifts in the timing of nutrient concentrations and light availability affect nuisance blooms of Didymo in three complementary ways. These are, field studies across streams in various stages of glacial recession, weekly measurements …