Digital Commons Network^™

In Situ Chlorine Generation And Rare Earth Chlorination By Molten Salt Electrolysis, Mark Schvaneveldt, Tyler Williams, Ranon Fuller, Devin Rappleye

Faculty Publications

Chloride volatility processes for purifying actinide and rare earth elements have historically required the use of Cl₂ tanks. To minimize the hazards associated with these processes, an apparatus was designed to produce Cl₂ via molten salt electrolysis. Within this apparatus, one can generate Cl₂, chlorinate metals, and consume excess Cl₂. Here, electrode materials were tested for their ability to generate Cl₂, the composition of the gaseous electrolysis product was evaluated using a quadrupole mass spectrometer, and a Ce foil sample was successfully chlorinated using the electrochemically generated Cl₂.

New Features Of Laboratory-Generated Epfrs From 1,2-Dichlorobenzene (Dcb) And 2-Monochlorophenol (Mcp), Lavrent Khachatryan, Marwan Y. Rezk, Divine Nde, Farhana Hasan, Slawomir Lomnicki, Dorin Boldor, Robert Cook, Phillip Sprunger, Randall Hall, Stephania Cormier

Faculty Publications

The present research is primarily focused on investigating the characteristics of environmentally persistent free radicals (EPFRs) generated from commonly recognized aromatic precursors, namely, 1,2-dichlorobenzene (DCB) and 2-monochlorophenol (MCP), within controlled laboratory conditions at a temperature of 230 °C, termed as DCB230 and MCP230 EPFRs, respectively. An intriguing observation has emerged during the creation of EPFRs from MCP and DCB utilizing a catalyst 5% CuO/SiO2, which was prepared through various methods. A previously proposed mechanism, advanced by Dellinger and colleagues (a conventional model), postulated a positive correlation between the degree of hydroxylation on the catalyst’s surface (higher hydroxylated, HH and less …

A Canonical Transformation For The Anderson Lattice Hamiltonian With F–F Electron Coupling, Guang-Lin Zhao

Faculty Publications

In this work, a new canonical transformation for the Anderson lattice Hamiltonian with f–f electron coupling was developed, which was further used to identify a new Kondo lattice Hamiltonian. Different from the single impurity Kondo effect, the resulted new Kondo lattice Hamiltonian only includes the spin-flip scattering processes between conduction electrons and f-electrons, while the normal process of non-spin-flip scattering is absent in this Hamiltonian, under the second order approximation. The new Kondo lattice Hamiltonian may be used to study some anomalous physical properties in some Kondo lattice intermetallic compounds.

Lotic-Sipco2: Adaptation Of An Open-Source Co2 Sensor System And Examination Of Associated Emission Uncertainties Across A Range Of Stream Sizes And Land Uses, Andrew L. Robison, Lauren E. Koenig, Jody D. Potter, Lisle E. Snyder, Christopher W. Hunt, William H. Mcdowell, Wilfred M. Wollheim

Faculty Publications

River networks play a crucial role in the global carbon cycle, as relevant sources of carbon dioxide (CO2) to the atmosphere. Advancements in high-frequency monitoring in aquatic environments have enabled measurement of dissolved CO2 concentration at temporal resolutions essential for studying carbon variability and evasion from these dynamic ecosystems. Here, we describe the adaptation, deployment, and validation of an open-source and relatively low-cost in situ pCO2 sensor system for lotic ecosystems, the lotic-SIPCO2. We tested the lotic-SIPCO2 in 10 streams that spanned a range of land cover and basin size. Key system adaptations for lotic environments included prevention of biofouling, …

Observational Features Of Charge Distribution In Earth's Inner Magnetosphere, Lai Gao, Chao Shen, Yufei Zhou, Yong Ji, Zuyin Pu, George Parks, Christopher T. Russell, Gang Zeng, Lan Ma, Roy B. Torbert, Yanyan Yang, James L. Burch

Faculty Publications

Understanding the motion of charged particles in the electromagnetic field in the inner magnetosphere is essential for space science and space weather. Charge accumulation can occur due to the dipole magnetic and convective electric fields in this region. However, until the recent Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, there were few means to detect charge distribution in situ. We report unambiguous in situ observation of the spatial distribution of the excess charge density in the inner magnetosphere by the MMS mission. We find that a positive (negative) charge accumulates in the dusk (dawn) side inner magnetospheres, which is contrary to the long …

Observational Features Of Charge Distribution In Earth's Inner Magnetosphere, Lai Gao, Chao Shen, Yufei Zhou, Yong Ji, Zuyin Pu, George Parks, Christopher T. Russell, Gang Zeng, Lan Ma, Roy B. Torbert, Yanyan Yang, James L. Burch

Faculty Publications

Understanding the motion of charged particles in the electromagnetic field in the inner magnetosphere is essential for space science and space weather. Charge accumulation can occur due to the dipole magnetic and convective electric fields in this region. However, until the recent Magnetospheric Multiscale (MMS) mission, there were few means to detect charge distribution in situ. We report unambiguous in situ observation of the spatial distribution of the excess charge density in the inner magnetosphere by the MMS mission. We find that a positive (negative) charge accumulates in the dusk (dawn) side inner magnetospheres, which is contrary to the long …

Improving The Practical Skills Of Stem Students At A Historically Black College And University (Hbcu), Yasser Ismail, Phyllis Okwan, Fred Lacy

Faculty Publications

Improving the practical skills of Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) students at a historically black college and university (HBCU) was done by implementing a transformative teaching model. The model was implemented on undergraduate students of different educational levels in the Electrical Engineering (EE) Department at HBCU. The model was also extended to carefully chosen high and middle schools. These middle and high school students serve as a pipeline to the university, with a particular emphasis on fostering growth within the EE Department. The model aligns well with the core mission of the EE Department, aiming to enhance the theoretical …

Establishment And Characterization Of Turtle Liver Organoids Provides A Potential Model To Decode Their Unique Adaptations, Christopher Zdyrski, Vojtech Gabriel, Thea B. Gessler, Abigail Ralston, Itzel Sifuentes-Romero, Debosmita Kundu, Sydney Honold, Hannah Wickham, Nicholas E. Topping, Dipak Kumar Sahoo, Basanta Bista, Jeffrey Tamplin, Oscar Ospina, Pablo Piñeyro, Marco Arriaga, Jacob A. Galan, David K. Meyerholz, Karin Allenspach, Jonathan P. Mochel, Nicole Valenzuela

Faculty Publications

Painted turtles are remarkable for their freeze tolerance and supercooling ability along with their associated resilience to hypoxia/anoxia and oxidative stress, rendering them an ideal biomedical model for hypoxia-induced injuries (including strokes), tissue cooling during surgeries, and organ cryopreservation. Yet, such research is hindered by their seasonal reproduction and slow maturation. Here we developed and characterized adult stem cell-derived turtle liver organoids (3D self-assembled in vitro structures) from painted, snapping, and spiny softshell turtles spanning ~175My of evolution, with a subset cryopreserved. This development is, to the best of our knowledge, a first for this vertebrate Order, and complements the …

Comparative Methods For Teaching Contemporary And Ancient Saints, Todd E. French, Mohammed Forero Bucheli

Faculty Publications

This paper argues that a comparative study of saints is not only a useful classroom tool for historians and religionists, but an exceptionally powerful locus of pedagogical insight and cultural understanding. By reframing contemporary consumptive patterns, media representations, and power discourses as religious vectors of saintliness, the professor has an opportunity to explore and assess cultural values, rituals, beliefs, worldviews, communities, traditions, and meaning making in the contemporary college student’s world. By acknowledging the dangers and possibilities of the category of saint while reframing the ascetical impact on developing subjectivities, we propose six pedagogical examples of how this might best …

Identification Of Potential Therapist “Missteps” In The Context Of Engagement In Public Mental Health Services: Analysis Of Digital Recordings And Key Informant Validation, Hyun Seon Park, Kimberly Becker, Wendy Chu, Kendal Reeder, Carolina Lechuga, Johnathan K. Ahuna, Eleanor Wu, Lanalle Darden, Rosalyn Williams, Rosana Serrano, Bruce F. Chorpita

Faculty Publications

Objective: This study aimed to characterize and validate potential therapist “missteps,” or inadvertent behaviors that may impact youth and family engagement in mental health services.

Method: Ten misstep types were coded from 224 treatment sessions provided by 92 therapists. Rapid qualitative analysis using key informant interviews was conducted to examine insights related to the occurrence, expected impact, and perceived severity of therapist missteps as an indicator of the face validity of the missteps construct and types.

Results: All 10 misstep types demonstrated good reliability (Fleiss’ k = .71−.88). All 10 misstep types appeared to have facevalidity with key informants. Key …

Effects Of Adjunct Questions On L2 Reading Comprehension With Texts Of Different Types, Yunmei Sun, Wenhui Zhou, Shifang Tang

Faculty Publications

Answering text-related questions while reading is a questioning strategy which is called adjunct questions or embedded questions, the benefits of which have been established in first language reading as to enhance comprehension. The present study aims to study the effects different adjunct questions exert on second-language (L2) readers’ comprehension of texts of various types. One hundred and forty-four intermediate-level Chinese EFL learners participated in this study and were divided randomly into six groups. Each group was given either a narrative or an expository text with ‘what or why’ questions or no questions. A brief topic familiarity questionnaire was attached to …

Examining The Evolution Of Network Governance Forms Of An Event Leveraging Collective: A Longitudinal Investigation, Landy Lu, Ran Zhou, Guangzhou Chen, Laura Misener

Faculty Publications

This study aims to investigate how an event leveraging collective’s network governance forms evolved from pre- to post‐Games and how these forms influenced members' collaborative engagement. We adopted a longitudinal qualitative case study approach. Our primary data sources included 996 pages of archival documents and 18 interviews with collective members. We found that in the pre- and during-Games stage, the leveraging collective adopted a shared participant-governed form with a facilitator. This participant-driven structure could enhance connectedness and collaborative engagement among member organizations. In the postevent phase, the collective assumed a pillar-governed form with a facilitator. Although this structure appeared to …

Resonance: Collaborative Musicking Through Tactile Ecologies, Ka Hei Cheng, Jesse Allison

Faculty Publications

This paper unveils a PhD research on "Resonance,"an instrument at the crossroads of collaborative music-making, gameplay, and music-related human-computer interaction. Resonance creates a unique communal gameplay performance system, where players are interdependent, transcending the boundaries of human and non-human agency. This collective process has the potential to enhance human connections and bonding, amplifying players' sensitivity to one another and their environment. The heart of this collaboration comprises intricate networks of signals, nurturing relationships, shared expression, decision-making processes, negotiation, and a spectrum of implementations. Resonance's design showcases tactile and tangible interfaces, employing capacitive touch technology as a sound interface, thereby providing …

Sexual Orientation And Gender Identity Measures And Viral Suppression For People Living With Hiv: A Protocol For A Population-Based Cohort Study, Xueying Yang, Bankole Olatosi Ph.D., Sharon Weissman, Xiaoming Li Ph.D., Jiajia Zhang Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Introduction The measure of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) data in electronic health records (EHR) has been critical for addressing health disparities and inequalities, especially for HIV care. Given that gender and sexual minorities (eg, transgender, men who have sex with men and intersex) are key groups in people living with HIV (PLWH), SOGI data can facilitate a more accurate understanding about the HIV outcomes (eg, viral suppression) among this key group and then lead to tailored therapeutic services. The two-step SOGI collection method as an emerging gender measurement can be used to measure SOGI status in medical settings. …

Creating An Inclusive Metadata Policy, Nicole Lewis, Jeremy Myntti

Faculty Publications

Best of Core Forum webinar series

The BYU Library has created an Inclusive Metadata Policy for metadata creators to use when creating and remediating descriptions to be more inclusive. Accompanying the policy is a companion document with recommendations and examples, including links to many external resources. In addition to working with stakeholders in the library to develop the policy, we consulted with the University’s Office of Belonging. This presentation describes the process we used to undertake the creation of the library policy and recommendations document.

On Personality Measures And Their Data: A Classification Of Measurement Approaches And Their Recommended Uses, John D. Mayer, Victoria M. Bryan

Faculty Publications

We employ a new approach for classifying methods of personality measurement such as self-judgment, mental ability, and lifespace measures and the data they produce. We divide these measures into two fundamental groups: personal-source data, which arise from the target person’s own reports, and external-source data, which derive from the areas surrounding the person. These two broad classes are then further divided according to what they target and the response processes that produce them. We use the model to organize roughly a dozen kinds of data currently employed in the field. With this classification system in hand, we …

Affirming Culture And Cultural Identity In The Bilingual/Esl Classrooms, Frank Lucido, David Jimenez, Shifang Tang

Faculty Publications

In Texas and throughout the United States, the increasing linguistic diversity within educational settings necessitates the expansion of bilingual and ESL programs. Approximately 5 million school-age children in the U.S. are identified as English learners, and many more are raised in non-English-speaking households. This represents about one-quarter of all K-12 students in the U.S., amounting to nearly 18 million children, most of whom have immigrant parents (Mitchell, 2020a). The urgency to address their needs is amplified by concerns that prolonged school closures could worsen the challenges faced by this demographic, which already includes heightened risks of homelessness, hunger, and educational …

Effector-Triggered Susceptibility By The Rice Blast Fungus Magnaporthe Oryzae, Ely Oliveira-Garcia, Xia Yan, Miriam Oses-Ruiz, Samuel De Paula, Nicholas J. Talbot

Faculty Publications

Rice blast, the most destructive disease of cultivated rice world-wide, is caused by the filamentous fungus Magnaporthe oryzae. To cause disease in plants, M. oryzae secretes a diverse range of effector proteins to suppress plant defense responses, modulate cellular processes, and support pathogen growth. Some effectors can be secreted by appressoria even before host penetration, while others accumulate in the apoplast, or enter living plant cells where they target specific plant subcellular compartments. During plant infection, the blast fungus induces the formation of a specialized plant structure known as the biotrophic interfacial complex (BIC), which appears to be crucial for …

The Impact Of Information Presentation On Consumer Perceptions Of Cricket-Containing Chocolate Chip Cookies, Yupeng Gao, Pitchayapat Chonpracha, Bin Li, Ryan Ardoin, Witoon Prinyawiwatkul

Faculty Publications

As a source of protein and other nutrients for a growing population, edible insect production offers environmental and sustainability advantages over traditional meat production. Although around 2 billion people consume insects worldwide, Western consumers are still reluctant to practice entomophagy, hindered largely by neophobia and negative emotions. In addition to sensory quality and safety, an informational component may be crucial to consumers’ decision making involving insect consumption. In this study, three different information types, namely text, image, and a tangible product, were used to convey information about chocolate chip cookies (CCCs) containing cricket flour. The nature of the information was …

Leadership For Social Change: Clara Whitehill Hunt And The Evolution Of Children’S Librarianship, Suzanne Marie Stauffer

Faculty Publications

The first generation of children’s librarians, who created the profession in the late-19th and early-20th centuries, were followed by a second generation who enlarged, expanded, and refined the scope of the collection. One of these women was Clara Whitehill Hunt, Superintendent of Work with Children for the Brooklyn Public Library from 1903 to 1940. In addition to developing training courses for children’s librarians, she wrote Library Work with Children for the A.L.A. Manuals of Library Economy series, The Bookshelf for Boys and Girls, a catalog of recommended children’s books and The First Three Hundred Books for the Children’s Library. For …

Understanding Implications Of Detection Heterogeneity In Wildlife Abundance Estimation, Jeffrey L. Laake, Bret A. Collier

Faculty Publications

Negative bias in mark-recapture abundance estimators due to heterogeneity in detection (capture) probability is a well-known problem, but we believe most biologists do not understand why heterogeneity causes bias and how bias can be reduced. We demonstrate how heterogeneity creates dependence and bias in mark-recapture approaches to abundance estimation. In comparison, heterogeneity, and hence estimator bias, is not as problematic for distance sampling and mark-resight methods because both techniques estimate detection probabilities based on a known quantity. We show how the introduction of a known number of individuals planted into a study population prior to a mark-recapture survey can reduce …

Dynamic Volunteer Engagement And Impactful Educational Outreach Taking Us Into The Next 50 Years Of The Extension Master Gardener Program, Heather Kirk-Ballard, Kristine M. Lang, Esther Mcginnis, Kerry Smith, Lucy Bradley

Faculty Publications

According to the 2021 Extension Master Gardener (EMG) National Summary, the EMG Volunteer Program had an estimated 84,700 volunteers throughout the United States. These volunteers helped communities garden and grow food, provided opportunities to engage in activities that improved physical and mental health, and worked on projects that addressed environmental issues. In total, these programs contributed 3.1 million hours of education to local communities and $88 million dollars in value to the public. However, the COVID-19 pandemic presented challenges for the program, with many states implementing reduced requirements and increased flexibility for volunteers. The workshop “Dynamic Volunteer Engagement and Impactful …

Decay Of Multi-Point Correlation Functions In Zd, Rui Han, Fan Yang

Faculty Publications

We prove multi-point correlation bounds in Z^d for arbitrary d≥1 with symmetrized distances, answering open questions proposed by Sims–Warzel (Commun Math Phys 347(3):903–931, 2016) and Aza–Bru–Siqueira Pedra (Commun Math Phys 360(2):715–726, 2018). As applications, we prove multi-point correlation bounds for the Ising model on Z^d, and multi-point dynamical localization in expectation for uniformly localized disordered systems, which provides the first examples of this conjectured phenomenon by Bravyi–König (Commun Math Phys 316(3):641–692, 2012).

Mapping Crown Rust Resistance In The Oat Diploid Accession Pi 258731 (Avena Strigosa), Rawnaq N. Chowdhury, Tyler Gordon, Md Ali Babar, Stephen A. Harrison, Shahryar F. Kianian, Kathy Esvelt Klos

Faculty Publications

Oat crown rust, caused by Puccinia coronata Corda f. sp. avenae Eriks. (Pca), is a major biotic impediment to global oat production. Crown rust resistance has been described in oat diploid species A. strigosa accession PI 258731 and resistance from this accession has been successfully introgressed into hexaploid A. sativa germplasm. The current study focuses on 1) mapping the location of QTL containing resistance and evaluating the number of quantitative trait loci (QTL) conditioning resistance in PI 258731; 2) understanding the relationship between the original genomic location in A. strigosa and the location of the introgression in the A. sativa …

Approaching 25 Years Of Progress Towards Fusarium Head Blight Resistance In Southern Soft Red Winter Wheat (Triticum Aestivum L.), Richard E. Boyles, Carolina Ballén-Taborda, Gina Brown-Guedira, Jose Costa, Christina Cowger, Noah Dewitt, Carl A. Griffey, Stephen A. Harrison, Amir Ibrahim, Jerry Johnson, Jeanette Lyerly, David S. Marshall, R. Esten Mason, Mohamed Mergoum, J. Paul Murphy, Nicholas Santantonio, Gautam Saripalli, Russell Sutton, Vijay Tiwari, David Van Sanford, Zachary J. Winn

Faculty Publications

Tremendous progress has been made in variety development and host plant resistance to mitigate the impact of Fusarium head blight (FHB) since the disease manifested in the southeastern United States in the early 2000s. Much of this improvement was made possible through the establishment of and recurring support from the US Wheat & Barley Scab Initiative (USWBSI). Since its inception in 1997, the USWBSI has enabled land-grant institutions to make advances in reducing the annual threat of devastating FHB epidemics. A coordinated field phenotyping effort for annual germplasm screening has become a staple tool for selection in public and private …

Hamiltonian Formulation And Symplectic Split-Operator Schemes For Time-Dependent Density-Functional-Theory Equations Of Electron Dynamics In Molecules, François Mauger, Cristel Chandre, Mette B. Gaarde, Kenneth Lopata, Kenneth J. Schafer

Faculty Publications

We revisit Kohn–Sham time-dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) equations and show that they derive from a canonical Hamiltonian formalism. We use this geometric description of the TDDFT dynamics to define families of symplectic split-operator schemes that accurately and efficiently simulate the time propagation for certain classes of DFT functionals. We illustrate these with numerical simulations of the far-from-equilibrium electronic dynamics of a one-dimensional carbon chain. In these examples, we find that an optimized 4th order scheme provides a good compromise between the numerical complexity of each time step and the accuracy of the scheme. We also discuss how the Hamiltonian structure …

Ras/Mapk Signaling Mediates Adipose Tissue Control Of Ovarian Germline Survival And Ovulation In Drosophila Melanogaster, Tancia Bradshaw, Chad Simmons, Rachael Ott, Alissa Richmond Armstrong

Faculty Publications

From insects to humans, oogenesis is tightly linked to nutritional input, yet little is known about how whole organism physiology matches dietary changes with oocyte development. Considering that diet-induced adipose tissue dysfunction is associated with an increased risk for fertility problems, and other obesity-associated pathophysiologies, it is critical to decipher the cellular and molecular mechanisms linking adipose nutrient sensing to remote control of the ovary and other tissues. Our previous studies in Drosophila melanogaster have shown that amino acid sensing, via the amino acid response pathway and mTOR-mediated signaling function within adipocytes to control germline stem cell maintenance and ovulation, …

Sedimentary Processes And Instability On The Mississippi River Delta Front Near The Shipwreck Of The Ss Virginia, Nathan Figueredo, Samuel J. Bentley, Jason D. Chaytor, Kehui Xu, Navid Jafari, Ioannis Y. Georgiou, Melanie Damour, Jeffrey Duxbury, Jeffrey Obelcz, Jillian Maloney

Faculty Publications

Sediment cores were collected from a mudflow lobe (80 m water depth) offshore of the Mississippi River’s Southwest Pass in 2017 to better understand the sedimentology near the lobe entraining the SS Virginia shipwreck (sunk by a German U-boat in 1942) and surrounding Mississippi River delta front. Core analyses included ²¹⁰Pb/¹³⁷Cs geochronology, granulometry, and X-radiography. Sediment accumulation rates (SAR) calculated from excess ²¹⁰Pb activity in multicores are 0.22–0.29 cm/y at seabed depths less than 20 cm and 0.29–0.51 cm/y at depths greater than 20 cm. Accumulation rates for ¹³⁷Cs have been ~0.15 to ~0.37 cm/y …

Energy And Spectrum Efficient Federated Learning Via High-Precision Over-The-Air Computation, Liang Li, Chenpei Huang, Dian Shi, Hao Wang, Xiangwei Zhou, Minglei Shu, Miao Pan

Faculty Publications

Federated learning (FL) enables mobile devices to collaboratively learn a shared prediction model while keeping data locally. However, there are two major research challenges to practically deploy FL over mobile devices: (i) frequent wireless updates of huge size gradients v.s. limited spectrum resources, and (ii) energy-hungry FL communication and local computing during training v.s. battery-constrained mobile devices. To address those challenges, in this paper, we propose a novel multi-bit over-the-air computation (M-AirComp) approach for spectrum-efficient aggregation of local model updates in FL and further present an energy-efficient FL design for mobile devices. Specifically, a high-precision digital modulation scheme is designed …

Global Change Impacts On Indigenous Sustainability In Sakha Republic: A Synthesis Of Knowledge, Stanislav Saas Ksenofontov, Andrey N. Petrov

Faculty Publications

Indigenous understanding of sustainability is embedded in close relations to land and environment, Indigenous Knowledge systems, Indigenous epistemologies and ontologies, and Indigenous languages. However, the sustainability of Indigenous peoples’ livelihoods is significantly affected by various global change drivers. In the Arctic, Indigenous peoples’ livelihoods are impacted by environmental, social, and cultural changes, including climate change, environmental pollution, economic processes, and resource extraction. This paper aims to review and synthesize recent academic and gray literature on the sustainability of Indigenous communities in Sakha Republic, Northeast Siberia, Russia in the face of global change with a particular focus on land- and water-based …