Digital Commons Network^™

A Critical Review On The Development Of Ionic Liquids-Based Nanofluids As Heat Transfer Fluids For Solar Thermal Energy, Titan C. Paul, Amitav Tikadar, Rajib Mahamud, Azzam S. Salman, A.K.M. Monjur Morshed, Jamil A. Khan

Faculty Publications

In recent years, solar thermal energy (STE) has attracted energy researchers because of its higher efficacy compared to the photovoltaic solar cell. STE is one of the forms of solar energy whereby heat is transferred via a secondary medium called heat transfer fluids (HTFs). Therefore, the overall performance of STE depends on the thermophysical properties and thermal performance of the HTFs. Traditional HTFs suffer from low decomposition temperature, high melting point, and higher vapor pressure. To overcome these limitations, researchers have recently begun working on new HTFs for STE. Ionic liquids (ILs) are considered as a potential candidate for the …

Maternal Methylmercury Exposure Through Rice Ingestion And Child Neurodevelopment In The First Three Years: A Prospective Cohort Study In Rural China, Sarah E. Rothenberg, Susan A. Korrick, Jihong Liu, Yanfen Nong, Chuan Hong, Eva P. Trinh, Xu Jiang, Fred J. Biasini, Fengxiu Ouyang

Faculty Publications

Background

Rice is an important dietary source for methylmercury; however, rice does not contain the same beneficial nutrients as fish. Our main objective was to assess associations of prenatal methylmercury exposure through rice ingestion with child neurodevelopment in rural China.

Methods

Eligible peripartum women were enrolled (n = 391), provided peripartum hair samples, and children’s neurodevelopment was assessed at 12 months (n = 264, 68%) and 36 months (n = 190, 48%) using the Bayley Scales of Infant Development, 2nd Edition, including the Mental Developmental Index (MDI) and the Psychomotor Developmental Index (PDI). Associations between prenatal methylmercury …

Agent-Based Coordinated Control Of Power Electronic Converters In A Microgrid, Maryam Nasri, Hebert L. Ginn Iii, Mehrdad Moallem

Faculty Publications

This paper presents the implementation of an agent-based architecture suitable for the coordination of power electronic converters in stand-alone microgrids. To this end, a publish-subscribe agent architecture was utilized as a distributed microgrid control platform. Over a distributed hash table (DHT) searching overlay, the publish-subscribe architecture was identified based on a numerical analysis as a scalable agent-based technology for the distributed real-time coordination of power converters in microgrids. The developed framework was set up to deploy power-sharing distributed optimization algorithms while keeping a deterministic time period of a few tens of milliseconds for a system with tens of converters and …

Associations Between Family-Based Stress And Dietary Inflammatory Potential Among Families With Preschool-Aged Children, Valerie Hruska, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., James R. Hébert Scd, Alison M. Duncan, Jess Hines, David W. L. Ma

Faculty Publications

Chronic stress is known to influence dietary choices, and stressed families often report poorer diet quality; however, little is known about how family-based stress is linked with dietary patterns that promote inflammation. This study investigated associations between family-based stress and the inflammatory potential of the diet among preschool-aged children and their parents. Parents (n = 212 mothers, n = 146 fathers) and children (n = 130 girls, n = 123 boys; aged 18 months to 5 years) from 241 families participating in the Guelph Family Health Study were included in the analyses. Parents reported levels of parenting distress, depressive symptoms, …

Meta-Heuristic Optimization Methods For Quaternion-Valued Neural Networks, Jeremiah Bill, Lance E. Champagne, Bruce Cox, Trevor J. Bihl

Faculty Publications

In recent years, real-valued neural networks have demonstrated promising, and often striking, results across a broad range of domains. This has driven a surge of applications utilizing high-dimensional datasets. While many techniques exist to alleviate issues of high-dimensionality, they all induce a cost in terms of network size or computational runtime. This work examines the use of quaternions, a form of hypercomplex numbers, in neural networks. The constructed networks demonstrate the ability of quaternions to encode high-dimensional data in an efficient neural network structure, showing that hypercomplex neural networks reduce the number of total trainable parameters compared to their real-valued …

Test Of Lepton-Flavor Universality In B→K∗ℓ+ℓ− Decays At Belle, S. Wehle, I. Adachi, K. Adamczyk, H. Aihara, D. M. Asner, H. Atmacan, V. Aulchenko, T. Aushev, R. Ayad, V. Babu, P. Behera, M. Berger, V. Bhardwaj, J. Biswal, A. Bozek, M. Bračko, T. E. Browder, M. Campajola, L. Cao, M. -C. Chang, Milind Purohit, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

We present a measurement of R_k+ , the branching fraction ratio B(B → K⁺μ⁺μ⁻)=B(B → K*e⁺e⁻),, for both charged and neutral B mesons. The ratio for the charged case R _K^* + is the first measurement ever performed. In addition, we report absolute branching fractions for the individual modes in bins of the squared dilepton invariant mass q². The analysis is based on a data sample of 711 fb⁻¹, containing 772 × 10⁶ BB̅ events, recorded at the ϒ(4S) resonance …

Sf6+: Stabilizing Transient Ions In Helium Nanodroplets, Simon Albertini, Stefan Bergmeister, Felix Laimer, Paul Martini, Elisabeth Gruber, Fabio Zappa, Milan Ončák, Paul Scheier, Olof E. Echt

Faculty Publications

There are myriads of ions that are deemed too short-lived to be experimentally accessible. One of them is SF₆⁺. It has never been observed, although not for lack of trying. We demonstrate that long-lived SF₆⁺ can be formed by doping charged helium nanodroplets (HNDs) with sulfur hexafluoride; excess helium is then gently stripped from the doped HNDs by collisions with helium gas. The ion is identified by high-resolution mass spectrometry (resolution m/Dm = 15000), the close agreement between the expected and observed yield of ions that contain minor sulfur isotopes, and collision-induced dissociation …

Characterization Of A Boron-Loaded Deuterated Liquid Scintillator For Fast And Thermal Neutron Detection, Bryan V. Egner, Michael Febbraro, James E. Bevins

Faculty Publications

The preparation and characterization of novel boron-loaded deuterated liquid scintillators (BLDLS) are presented for the first time to investigate the performance of a detector sensitive to both fast and thermal neutrons intended for future neutron spectroscopy measurements. Three deuterated toluene-based scintillation cocktails were produced, one without boron, one loaded with ortho-carborane (natural boron isotopic abundance), and one with 96 wt% 10B enriched ortho-carborane. General optical and material properties were analyzed to include the composition, density, index of refraction, photoluminescence emission spectra, and absorbance spectra in addition to the relative light yield, resolution, relative efficiency, and pulse-shape-discrimination performance for all three …

Moving Morality Beyond The In-Group: Liberals And Conservatives Show Differences On Group-Framed Moral Foundations And These Differences Mediate The Relationships To Perceived Bias And Threat., Brandon D. Stewart Phd, David S. M. Morris

Faculty Publications

Moral foundations research suggests that liberals care about moral values related to individual rights such as harm and fairness, while conservatives care about those foundations in addition to caring more about group rights such as loyalty, authority, and purity. However, the question remains about how conservatives and liberals differ in relation to group-level moral principles. We used two versions of the moral foundations questionnaire with the target group being either abstract or specific ingroups or outgroups. Across three studies, we observed that liberals showed more endorsement of Individualizing foundations (Harm and Fairness foundations) with an outgroup target, while conservatives showed …

Mlatticeabc: Generic Lattice Constant Prediction Of Crystal Materials Using Machine Learning, Yuxin Li, Wenhui Yang, Rongzhi Dong, Jianjun Hu

Faculty Publications

Lattice constants such as unit cell edge lengths and plane angles are important parameters of the periodic structures of crystal materials. Predicting crystal lattice constants has wide applications in crystal structure prediction and materials property prediction. Previous work has used machine learning models such as neural networks and support vector machines combined with composition features for lattice constant prediction and has achieved a maximum performance for cubic structures with an average coefficient of determination (R2) of 0.82. Other models tailored for special materials family of a fixed form such as ABX3 perovskites can achieve much higher performance due …

The Modern Plant Breeding Triangle: Optimizing The Use Of Genomics, Phenomics, And Enviromics Data, Jose Crossa, Roberto Fritsche-Neto, Osval A. Montesinos-Lopez, Germano Costa-Neto, Susanne Dreisigacker, Abelardo Montesinos-Lopez, Alison R. Bentley

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Prospects For Beyond The Standard Model Physics Searches At The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment, B. Abi, R. Acciarri, M. A. Acero, G. Adamov, D. Adams, M. Adinolfi, Z. Ahmad, J. Ahmed, T. Alion, S. Alonso Monslave, C. Alt, J. Anderson, C. Andreopoulos, M. P. Andrews, F. Andrianala, S. Andringa, A. Ankowski, M. Antonova, S. Antusch, A. Aranda-Fernadez, Roberto Petti

Faculty Publications

The Deep Underground Neutrino Experiment (DUNE) will be a powerful tool for a variety of physics topics. The high-intensity proton beams provide a large neutrino flux, sampled by a near detector system consisting of a combination of capable precision detectors, and by the massive far detector system located deep underground. This configuration sets up DUNE as a machine for discovery, as it enables opportunities not only to perform precision neutrino measurements that may uncover deviations from the present three-flavor mixing paradigm, but also to discover new particles and unveil new interactions and symmetries beyond those predicted in the Standard Model …

Impact Of Hurricane Michael (2018) On Local Vertical Total Electron Content, Joanna E.S. Williams, Robert C. Tournay, H. Rose Tseng, Daniel J. Emmons Ii, Omar A. Nava

Faculty Publications

An analysis of vertical total electron content (TEC) estimates from the MIT Madrigal database is performed for the regions surrounding the eye of Hurricane Michael (2018). Absolute and detrended TEC values show a noticeable increase during the tropical cyclone (TC) relative to fluctuations at the same locations prior to the storm. Direct comparisons of TEC perturbation magnitudes to the number of lightning flashes in latitude-longitude boxes surrounding the eye of Hurricane Michael for each 5 min period of 10 October 2018 showed no visible trends. A similar comparison of the vertical TEC fluctuations with respect to the rainfall rates showed …

Laser Power Stabilization Via Radiation Pressure, Marina Trad Nery, Jasper R. Venneberg, Nancy Aggarwal, Garrett D. Cole, Thomas Corbitt, Jonathan Cripe, Robert Lanza, Benno Willke

Faculty Publications

This Letter reports the experimental realization of a novel, to the best of our knowledge, active power stabilization scheme in which laser power fluctuations are sensed via the radiation pressure driven motion they induce on a movable mirror. The mirror position and its fluctuations were determined by means of a weak auxiliary laser beam and a Michelson interferometer, which formed the in-loop sensor of the power stabilization feedback control system. This sensing technique exploits a nondemolition measurement, which can result in higher sensitivity for power fluctuations than direct, and hence destructive, detection. Here we used this new scheme in a …

Improved Bounds On Lorentz Symmetry Violation From High-Energy Astrophysical Sources, Brett David Altschul

Faculty Publications

Observations of the synchrotron and inverse Compton emissions from ultrarelativistic electrons in astrophysical sources can reveal a great deal about the energy–momentum relations of those electrons. They can thus be used to place bounds on the possibility of Lorentz violation in the electron sector. Recent 𝛾 -ray telescope data allow the Lorentz-violating electron 𝑐^𝜈𝜇 parameters to be constrained extremely well, so that all bounds are at the level of 7×10⁻¹⁶ or better.

The Malina Oceanographic Expedition: How Do Changes In Ice Cover, Permafrost And Uv Radiation Impact Biodiversity And Biogeochemical Fluxes In The Arctic Ocean?, Philippe Massicotte, Rainer M.W. Amon, Antoine David, Sergio Balzano, Simon Bélanger, Ronald Benner, Dominique Boeuf, Annick Bricaud, Flavienne Bruyant, Gwenaëlle Chaillou, Malik Chami, Bruno Charrière, Jing Chen, Hervé Claustre, Pierre Coupel, Nicole Delsaut, David Doxaran, Jens Ehn, Cédric Fichot, Marie-Hélène Forget, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

The MALINA oceanographic campaign was conducted during summer 2009 to investigate the carbon stocks and the processes controlling the carbon fluxes in the Mackenzie River estuary and the Beaufort Sea. During the campaign, an extensive suite of physical, chemical and biological variables were measured across seven shelf-basin transects (south-north) to capture the meridional gradient between the estuary and the open ocean. Key variables such as temperature, absolute salinity, radiance, irradiance, nutrient concentrations, chlorophyll a concentration, bacteria, phytoplankton and zooplankton abundance and taxonomy, and carbon stocks and fluxes were routinely measured onboard the Canadian research icebreaker CCGS Amundsen and from a …

Disparities In Meeting Uspstf Breast, Cervical, And Colorectal Cancer Screening Guidelines Among Women In The United States, Gabriel A. Benavidez, Anja Zgodic, Whitney Zahnd, Jan Eberth

Faculty Publications

Introduction

Many sociodemographic factors affect women’s ability to meet cancer screening guidelines. Our objective was to examine which sociodemographic characteristics were associated with women meeting US Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) guidelines for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer screening.

Methods

We used 2018 Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System data to examine the association between sociodemographic variables, such as race/ethnicity, rurality, education, and insurance status, and self-reported cancer screening for breast, cervical, and colorectal cancer. We used multivariable log-binomial regression models to estimate adjusted prevalence ratios and 95% CIs.

Results

Overall, the proportion of women meeting USPSTF guidelines for breast, cervical, …

Engineering Donor-Acceptor Conjugated Polymers For High-Performance And Fast-Response Organic Electrochemical Transistors, Hanyu Jia, Zhen Huang, Peiyun Li, Song Zhang, Yunfei Wang, Jie Yu Wang, Xiaodan Gu, Ting Lei

Faculty Publications

To date, high-performance organic electrochemical transistors (OECTs) have mostly been based on polythiophene systems. Donor–acceptor (D–A) conjugated polymers are expected to be promising materials for OECTs owing to their high mobility and comparatively low crystallinity (good for ion diffusion). However, the OECT performance of D–A polymers lags far behind that of the polythiophenes. Here we synergistically engineered the backbone and side chain of a series of diketopyrrolopyrrole (DPP)-based D–A polymers and found that redox potential, molecular weight, solution processability, and film microstructures all have a severe impact on their performance. After systematic engineering, P(bgDPP-MeOT2) exhibited the best figure-of-merit (μC …

Unified Multi-Objective Genetic Algorithm For Energy Efficient Job Shop Scheduling, Hongjong Wei, Shaobo Li, Huageng Quan, Dacheng Liu, Shu Rao, Chuanjiang Li, Jianjun Hu

Faculty Publications

In recent years, people have paid more and more attention to traditional manufacturing’s environmental impact, especially in terms of energy consumption and related emissions of carbon dioxide. Except for adopting new equipment, production scheduling could play an important role in reducing the total energy consumption of a manufacturing plant. Machine tools waste a considerable amount of energy because of their underutilization. Consequently, energy saving can be achieved by switching machines to standby or off when they lay idle for a comparatively long period. Herein, we first introduce the objectives of minimizing non-processing energy consumption, total weighted tardiness and earliness, and …

Spatial-Temporal Relationship Between Population Mobility And Covid-19 Outbreaks In South Carolina: Time Series Forecasting Analysis, Chengbo Zeng, Jiajia Zhang Ph.D., Zhenlong Li Ph.D., Xiaowen Sun, Bankole Olatosi Ph.D., Sharon Weissman, Xiaoming Li Ph.D.

Faculty Publications

Background: Population mobility is closely associated with COVID-19 transmission, and it could be used as a proximal indicator to predict future outbreaks, which could inform proactive nonpharmaceutical interventions for disease control. South Carolina is one of the US states that reopened early, following which it experienced a sharp increase in COVID-19 cases.

Objective: The aims of this study are to examine the spatial-temporal relationship between population mobility and COVID-19 outbreaks and use population mobility data to predict daily new cases at both the state and county level in South Carolina.

Methods: This longitudinal study used disease surveillance …

The Whole Is Greater Than Its Parts: Ensembling Improves Protein Contact Prediction, Wendy M. Billings, Connor J. Morris, Dennis Della Corte

Faculty Publications

The prediction of amino acid contacts from protein sequence is an important problem, as protein contacts are a vital step towards the prediction of folded protein structures. We propose that a powerful concept from deep learning, called ensembling, can increase the accuracy of protein contact predictions by combining the outputs of different neural network models. We show that ensembling the predictions made by different groups at the recent Critical Assessment of Protein Structure Prediction (CASP13) outperforms all individual groups. Further, we show that contacts derived from the distance predictions of three additional deep neural networks—AlphaFold, trRosetta, and ProSPr—can be substantially …

Implications Of The Quantum Dna Model For Information Sciences, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

The DNA molecule can be modeled as a quantum logic processor, and this model has been supported by pilot research that experimentally demonstrated non-local communication between cells in separated cell cultures. This modeling and pilot research have important implications for information sciences, providing a potential architecture for quantum computing that operates at room temperature and is scalable to millions of qubits, and including the potential for an entanglement communication system based upon the quantum DNA architecture. Such a system could be used to provide non-local quantum key distribution that could not be blocked by any shielding or water depth, would …

Magnetic Vector Potential Manipulation Of Majorana Fermions In Dna Quantum Logic, F. Matthew Mihelic

Faculty Publications

In the quantum logic of the DNA molecule, electrons are held and conducted coherently as spinless Cooper pairs and are shielded from electromagnetic energy by a Faraday cage effect of the double lipid bilayer of the nuclear membrane. The magnetic vector potential generated by cellular depolarization can synchronize logical activity in portions of the DNA molecule by affecting spin directions of appropriately oriented spinless electrons via the Aharonov-Bohm effect, but is not blocked by that Faraday cage effect. Within the logically and thermodynamically reversible chiral enantiomeric symmetry of the deoxyribose moieties the decoherent transition of Cooper pair to Dirac pair …

The Supercam Instrument Suite On The Mars 2020 Rover: Science Objectives And Mast-Unit Description, S. Maurice, R. C. Wiens, P. Bernardi, P. Caïs, S. Robinson, T. Nelson, O. Gasnault, J. -M. Reess, M. Deleuze, F. Rull, J. -A. Manrique, S. Abbaki, R. B. Anderson, Y. André, Stanley M. Angel, G. Arana, T. Battault, P. Beck, K. Benzerara, S. Bernard, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

On the NASA 2020 rover mission to Jezero crater, the remote determination of the texture, mineralogy and chemistry of rocks is essential to quickly and thoroughly characterize an area and to optimize the selection of samples for return to Earth. As part of the Perseverance payload, SuperCam is a suite of five techniques that provide critical and complementary observations via Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS), Time-Resolved Raman and Luminescence (TRR/L), visible and near-infrared spectroscopy (VISIR), high-resolution color imaging (RMI), and acoustic recording (MIC). SuperCam operates at remote distances, primarily 2–7 m, while providing data at sub-mm to mm scales. We report …

Is A Common Goal A False Hope In Convergence Research?: Opportunities And Challenges Of International Convergence Research To Address Arctic Change, Jessica G. Ernakovich, N. Eklund, Ruth K. Varner, N. Kirchner, J. Jeuring, Katharine Duderstadt, A. Granebeck, E. Golubeva, Asiaq Participants

Faculty Publications

The Arctic faces multiple pressures including climate change, shifting demographics, human health risks, social justice imbalances, governance issues, and expanding resource extraction. A convergence of academic disciplines—such as natural and social sciences, engineering and technology, health and medicine—and international perspectives is required to meaningfully contribute to solving the challenges of Arctic peoples and ecosystems. However, successfully carrying out convergent, international research and education remains a challenge. Here, lessons from the planning phase of a convergence research project concerned with the health of Arctic waters developed by the Arctic Science IntegrAtion Quest (ASIAQ) are discussed. We discuss our perspective on the …

Dietary Inflammatory Index Is Associated With Inflammation In Japanese Men, Ayaka Kotemori, Norie Sawada, Motoki Iwasaki, Taiki Yamaji, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., James Hébert Scd, Junko Ishihara, Manami Inoue, Shoichiro Tsugane

Faculty Publications

Background: Dietary components are known to affect chronic low-grade inflammation status. The dietary inflammatory index (DII®) was developed to measure the potential impact of a diet on an individual's inflammatory status, and it has been validated mainly in Western countries.

Objective: This study aimed to examine the validity of the energy-adjusted DII (E-DIITM) using high-sensitivity C-reactive protein (hs-CRP) concentration in Japanese men and women.

Methods: In total, 6,474 volunteers from a cancer-screening program (3,825 men and 2,649 women) completed a food frequency questionnaire (FFQ) and their hs-CRP concentrations were evaluated. E-DII scores were calculated on the basis of 30 food …

Broken-Hearted” Carbon Bowl Via Electron Shuttle Reaction: Energetics And Electron Coupling, Gabrielle A. Leith, Allison M. Rice, Brandon J. Yarbrough, Preecha Kittikhunnatham, Abijai Mathur, Nicholas A. Morris, Megan J. Francis, Anna A. Berseneva, Poonam Dhull, Richard D. Adams, M. Victoria Bobo, Aaron A. Vannucci, Mark D. Smith, Sophya Garashchuk, Natalia B. Shustova

Faculty Publications

Unprecedented one-step CC bond cleavage leading to opening of the buckybowl (π-bowl), that could provide access to carbon-rich structures with previously inaccessible topologies, is reported; highlighting the possibility to implement drastically different synthetic routes to π-bowls in contrast to conventional ones applied for polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. Through theoretical modeling, we evaluated the mechanistic pathways feasible for π-bowl planarization and factors that could affect such a transformation including strain and released energies. Through employment of Marcus theory, optical spectroscopy, and crystallographic analysis, we estimated the possibility of charge transfer and electron coupling between “open” corannulene and a strong electron acceptor such …

Change In Dietary Inflammatory Index Score Is Associated With Control Of Long-Term Rheumatoid Arthritis Disease Activity In A Japanese Cohort: The Tomorrow Study, Yoshinari Matsumoto, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., Yuko Sugioka, Masahiro Tada, Tadashi Okano, Kenji Mamoto, Kentaro Inui, Daiki Habu, James R. Hébert Scd, Tatsuya Koike

Faculty Publications

Background: The dietary inflammatory index (DII®), a quantitative measure of the inflammatory potential of daily food and nutrient intake, and associations between a variety of health outcomes have been reported. However, the association between DII score and disease activity of rheumatoid arthritis (RA) is unclear. Therefore, this study was designed to test whether higher DII score contributes to disease activity and as a corollary, y, whether reducing DII score helps to achieve or maintain low disease activity or remission in patients with RA.

Methods: We performed a cross-sectional and longitudinal analysis using 6 years of data (from 2011 to 2017) …

Latent Class Analysis Of K-12 Teachers’ Barriers To Implementing Oer, Hengtao Tang Ph.D., Yu Bao

Faculty Publications

Open educational resources (OER) are a cost-effective alternative to traditional textbooks for K-12 teachers to provide differentiated instruction at a much lower cost. However, teachers have to overcome barriers to implement OER in their classrooms, especially if cultural and economic factors are considered. To help each teacher overcome individual barriers, a person-centered approach to understand teachers’ barriers of implementing OER is needed yet absent. This research thus filled the gap by conducting a latent class analysis of teachers’ profiles in terms of their barriers in using OER. The findings identified three types of teacher profiles and revealed how different profiles …

Synthesis Of The Microbial Polysaccharide Gellan From Dairy And Plant-Based Processing Coproducts, Thomas P. West

Faculty Publications

The purpose of this review is to provide both background about the microbial polysaccharide gellan and, more specifically, to examine bacterial gellan synthesis on dairy and plant-based processing coproducts. The anionic heteropolysaccharide gellan is known to be synthesized by Sphingomonas elodea strain ATCC 31461 [1,2]. Although originally classified as Pseudomonas elodea, this strain was reclassified as a species of Sphingomonas [3,4]. Structurally, the water-soluble gum gellan exists as a tetrasaccharide composed of 20% glucuronic acid, 60% glucose and 20% rhamnose [5–7]. The native form of gellan has been shown to contain acetyl and L-glyceryl groups. These substituents need to be …