Digital Commons Network^™

Planck's And Callendar's Blackbody Radiation Formulas And Their Fitness To Experimental Data, Max Tran

Publications and Research

In this paper, we compare the blackbody radiation density formula obtained with classical physics by Hugh L Callendar and the formula obtained by Max Planck using quantization of energy. We use R and Maxima to analyze their fitness on coordinating experimental data and indicate some limitations with experiments in this area.

Scythes, Sickles And Other Blades: Defining The Diversity Of Pectoral Fin Morphotypes In Pachycormiformes, Jeff J. Liston, Anthony E. Maltese, Paul H. Lambers, Dominique Delsate, William E.H. Harcourt-Smith, Anneke H. Van Heteren

Publications and Research

The traditional terminology of ‘scythe’ or ‘sickle’ shaped is observed to be flawed as an effective descriptor for pectoral fin shape in pachycormids. The diversity of pachycormid pectoral fin shapes is assessed across the 14 recognised genera that preserve complete pectoral fins, and improved terms are defined to more effectively describe their form, supported by anatomical observation and aspect ratio analysis of individual fins, and corroborated by landmark analysis. Three clear and distinct pectoral fin structural morphotypes emerge (falceform, gladiform, falcataform), reflecting a diversity of pachycormid lifestyles throughout the Mesozoic, from agile pursuit predator to slow-cruising suspension feeder.

Supporting The Changing Practices Of Teaching In Business At Queens College, City University Of New York, James Tasato Mellone, Edward F. Wall Iii, Qiong Xu

Publications and Research

This investigation sheds light on the teaching practices of Queens College (QC) faculty in Business. It identifies the Business faculty’s teaching support needs in order to develop ideas for improving Library services to them. This report is the result of research conducted under the guidance of Ithaka S+R, and in accordance with Office of Regulatory Compliance procedures at QC. Using a grounded theory approach to qualitative research, the investigators conducted in-person audio-recorded semi-structured interviews of seven full-time QC faculty who teach Business courses. Evidence derived from the transcribed interviews informed analysis of the current state of QC’s Business teaching experience, …

Academic Librarians Serving Diverse Populations Of Multilingual Students, Alexandra A. De Luise, Kanu A. Nagra, Bernadette M. López-Fitzsimmons, Michael W. Handis, Jeremy Czerw

Publications and Research

A group of academic librarians working in community and four-year colleges, graduate programs and other settings present strategies and approaches for serving diverse multilingual populations. Multilingual students improve their awareness and understanding of United States academic libraries and higher education when librarians are cognizant of their needs. Encounters can occur at the research desk, in classroom instruction, and during research consultations. Also included are tips on how academic librarians can assist multilingual and international students, including how to improve communication. Based on an ACRL 2019 panel discussion of the same title.

Hyperpolarized Relaxometry Based Nuclear T1 Noise Spectroscopy In Diamond, A. Ajoy, B. Safvati, R. Nazaryan, J. T. Oon, B. Han, P. Raghavan, R. Nirodi, A. Aguilar, K. Liu, X. Cai, X. Lv, E. Druga, C. Ramanathan, J. A. Reimer, C. A. Meriles, D. Suter, A. Pines

Publications and Research

The origins of spin lifetimes in quantum systems is a matter of importance in several areas of quantum information. Spectrally mapping spin relaxation processes provides insight into their origin and motivates methods to mitigate them. In this paper, we map nuclear relaxation in a prototypical system of ¹³C nuclei in diamond coupled to Nitrogen Vacancy (NV) centers over a wide field range (1 mT-7 T). Nuclear hyperpolarization through optically pumped NV electrons allows signal measurement savings exceeding million-fold over conventional methods. Through a systematic study with varying substitutional electron (P1 center) and ¹³C concentrations, we identify the operational …

Rasp 4: Ancestral State Reconstruction Tool For Multiple Genes And Characters, Yan Yu, Christopher Blair, Xingjin He

Publications and Research

With the continual progress of sequencing techniques, genome-scale data are increasingly used in phylogenetic studies. With more data from throughout the genome, the relationship between genes and different kinds of characters is receiving more attention. Here, we present version 4 of RASP, a software to reconstruct ancestral states through phylogenetic trees. RASP can apply generalized statistical ancestral reconstruction methods to phylogenies, explore the phylogenetic signal of characters to particular trees, calculate distances between trees, and cluster trees into groups. RASP 4 has an improved graphic user interface and is freely available from http://mnh.scu.edu.cn/soft/blog/RASP (program) and https://github.com/sculab/RASP (source code).

How To Create And Maintain An Effective Information Architecture And Navigation System For Science Gateway Websites, Noreen Y. Whysel, Omni Marketing Interactive

Publications and Research

Whether you have an existing Science Gateway website or are creating your first one, this hands-on tutorial will show you, step by step, how to create and update gateway websites so that their content is easier to find and easier to use.

As a Science Gateway provides its web-based tools and resources, it is essential that these sites utilize specific usability tests and other research methods to ensure positive and productive experiences with the sites. Successful information architecture (IA), intuitive site navigation, and clear user interfaces (UIs) all rely on knowing where various users expect to find needed information.

Since …

From The Human To The Planetary: Speculative Futures Of Care, Miriam Ticktin

Publications and Research

This is largely a theoretical, speculative essay that takes on the question of what ‘care’ looks like at a moment when climate change is increasingly taking center stage in public and political discussions. Starting with two new practices, namely, humanitarian care for nonhumans and One Health collaborations, I seek to determine what forms of political care can incorporate the well-being of future generations and future iterations of the earth. After an exploration of One Health as an approach to planetary care, I ask what its parts enable us to think, despite its limitations; I focus on the new human-nonhuman assemblages …

Invertebrate Retinal Progenitors As Regenerative Models In A Microfluidic System, Caroline D. Pena, Stephanie Zhang, Robert Majeska, Tadmiri Venkatesh, Maribel Vazquez

Publications and Research

Regenerative retinal therapies have introduced progenitor cells to replace dysfunctional or injured neurons and regain visual function. While contemporary cell replacement therapies have delivered retinal progenitor cells (RPCs) within customized biomaterials to promote viability and enable transplantation, outcomes have been severely limited by the misdirected and/or insuffcient migration of transplanted cells. RPCs must achieve appropriate spatial and functional positioning in host retina, collectively, to restore vision, whereas movement of clustered cells differs substantially from the single cell migration studied in classical chemotaxis models. Defining how RPCs interact with each other, neighboring cell types and surrounding extracellular matrixes are critical to …

Treatment Patterns And Economic Burden Of Sickle-Cell Disease Patients Prescribed Hydroxyurea: A Retrospective Claims-Based Study, Nirmish Shah, Menaka Bhor, Lin Xie, Rashid Halloway, Steve Arcona, Jincy Paulose, Huseyin Yuce

Publications and Research

Background: This study aimed to evaluate sickle-cell disease (SCD) treatment patterns and economic burden among patients prescribed hydroxyurea (HU) in the US, through claims data.

Methods: SCD patients with pharmacy claims for HU were selected from the Medicaid Analytic Extracts (MAX) from January 1, 2009 - December 31, 2013. The first HU prescription during the identification period was defined as the index date and patients were required to have had continuous medical and pharmacy benefits for ≥6 months baseline and 12 months follow-up periods. Patient demographics, clinical characteristics, treatment patterns, health care utilization, and costs were examined, and variables were …

Evaluation Of Approaches For Mapping Tidal Wetlands Of The Chesapeake And Delaware Bays, Brian T. Lamb, Maria A. Tzortziou, Kyle C. Mcdonald

Publications and Research

The spatial extent and vegetation characteristics of tidal wetlands and their change are among the biggest unknowns and largest sources of uncertainty in modeling ecosystem processes and services at the land-ocean interface. Using a combination of moderate-high spatial resolution (

Tio2/S-Doped Carbons Hybrids: Analysis Of Their Interfacial And Surface Features, Teresa Bandosz, Alfonso Policicchio, Marc Florent, Po S. Poon, Juan Matos

Publications and Research

Hybrids containing approximately equal amounts of P25 TiO2 and S-doped porous carbons were prepared using a water-based slurry mixing method. The materials were extensively characterized by adsorption of nitrogen, potentiometric titration, thermal analysis in air and in helium, XRD, XPS and SEM. The collected results showed the significant blockage of carbon micropores by TiO2 particles deposited on their outer surface. The formation of a new interface, especially for the S-rich samples, might also contribute to the porosity alteration. Analysis of surface chemistry suggested the presence of Ti-S bonds with an involvement of sulfur from thiophenic species in the carbon phase. …

Promoting Science Through The Arts (Or Vice Versa)., Aldemaro Romero Jr.

Publications and Research

Higher Education has a problem with the arts. In a sector that is increasingly serving first-generation students who come from lower-income families, the pressure to provide a path towards secure, well-paid jobs is on. That is particularly true in this time and age of political pressure upon public institutions of higher education to emphasize STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics) careers rather than the liberal arts (visual and performing arts, humanities, even social sciences) with the stereotype that if you become something like an artist or a poet you are more likely to end up being underemployed at best or …

“Our Stories”: First-Year Learning Communities Students Reflections On The Transition To College, Karen Goodlad, Sandra Cheng, Jennifer Sears, Mery Diaz, Ashwin Satyanarayana, Phil Freniske

Publications and Research

Analysis of diverse first-year and first-generation learning communities students’ reflective narratives shows this population of students at an urban commuter college of technology face significant challenges in the transition into college. Designed to assist in this transition, the “Our Stories” digital writing project incorporates reflective writing in the long established, yet recently revitalized, learning communities program. Through analysis of the “Our Stories” project, we examine how the structure of our learning communities program, together with writing on an open digital platform, builds community and has the potential to positively influence students as they identify, and begin to make sense, of …

Developing Open Practices In Teacher Education: An Example Of Integrating Oer And Developing Renewable Assignments, Jennifer Van Allen, Stacy Katz

Publications and Research

This manuscript offers a reasoning for and example of integrating Open Educational Resources (OER) and open pedagogy within a teacher education course. We highlight a collaborative partnership between library faculty and education faculty and the decision points and processes we used when redesigning this course to provide an example of adopting OER and our considerations for developing a renewable assignment. The benefits of using OER for K-12 teachers include increasing awareness of and providing opportunities to develop open practices. The transition to a renewable assignment creates a space for teaching candidates to meaningfully contribute to the profession and engage in …

Repeated Transspinal Stimulation Decreases Soleus H-Reflex Excitability And Restores Spinal Inhibition In Human Spinal Cord Injury, Maria Knikou, Lynda M. Murray

Publications and Research

Transcutaneous spinal cord or transspinal stimulation over the thoracolumbar enlargement, the spinal location of motoneurons innervating leg muscles, modulates neural circuits engaged in the control of movement. The extent to which daily sessions (e.g. repeated) of transspinal stimulation affects soleus H-reflex excitability in individuals with chronic spinal cord injury (SCI) remains largely unknown. In this study, we established the effects of repeated cathodal transspinal stimulation on soleus H-reflex excitability and spinal inhibition in individuals with and without chronic SCI. Ten SCI and 10 healthy control subjects received monophasic transspinal stimuli of 1-ms duration at 0.2 Hz at subthreshold and suprathreshold …

An Engineering Geological Anatomy Of The Padma River Bank Failure And Erosion, 2018: A Case Study Of Naria Bank Section, Bangladesh, Mir Fazlul Karim, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Shahidul Haque, M. Zillur Rahman, Muhammad Qumrul Hassan, Asm Maksud Kamal, Masud Ahmed, Belal A. Sayeed

Publications and Research

The Naria town of Bangladesh is developed on the right bank of the Padma River. The bank is an old natural levee of Meghna River. The Holocene-Recent geology of Naria is actively dominated by the fluvial processes of Ganges-Brahmaputra-Meghna River system where the deltaic sediments are characterized as unconsolidated fine sand and silt, covered by thin veneer of clayey silt and loam. The annual volume of water discharge and flow dynamics are dependent on the intensity of the rainfall, runoff and the length of dry winter. Excessive river bank erosion, channel avulsion, renewed submergence of floodplains, and formation of natural …

Utilizing Dplot, Sedlog, And Arcgis Pro To Enhance Geologic Field Skills: Rosendale, Ulster County New York, Malek Shami, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Stanley Schleifer, Zarine Ali, Leonardo Sanchez, Gugu Ginindza, Tyn Tyn Nai

Publications and Research

Capstone geologic field mapping courses in undergraduate geoscience programs aim to compliment the academic knowledge with technical field skills. As a pilot study, these tools were used to collect field data using folded lower Paleozoic to mid-Paleozoic sedimentary outcrops consisting of clastic, non-clastic and occasional mixed siliciclastics in Rosendale, Ulster County, New York. Rosendale is known for its classic geological outcrops with variable structural, stratigraphic, paleontological and sedimentological complexities – ideal for a field mapping course. Traditionally, students’ data acquisition in the field and its subsequent laboratory analysis to produce a final geologic field report utilized acetate overlays to produce …

Using Water Quality Index To Assess Groundwater Suitability At Gazipur District, Bangladesh, Muhammad Qumrul Hassan, Jowaher Raza, Mir F. Karim, Nazrul I. Khandaker

Publications and Research

This study targeted to the suitability of groundwater for drinking purpose at Gazipur District undergoing rapid urbanization and increasing industrialization. The District has an area of 1741.53 km², located in between 23°53' and 24°21' north latitudes and in between 90°09' and 92°39' east longitudes. From six Upazilas in Gazipur District, a total of 130 groundwater samples were collected, which are, Gazipur Sadar Upazila, Sreepur Upazila, Kaliakoir Upazila, Kapasia Upazila, and Kaligonj Upazila. A recent field observation review of industrial sludge found that heavy metal concentration was above the acceptable limit for agricultural soil. Gazipur being adjacent to Dhaka …

Positive Outcomes Of Involving Undergraduate And High School Students In Broader Aspect Of Earth System Science Through Peer Mentoring And Research Activities, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Shuayb Siddique, Matthew Khargie, Juanpablo Rodriguez, Adacia Teemal, Krishna Mahabir, Michael Robinson, Ality Aghedo, Zachary A. Sanichar, Sol De Leon, Tamzid Mubin, Elton Selby

Publications and Research

The importance of involving undergraduates and high school students in field-and-laboratory research investigations at an early stage through peer mentoring has been clearly demonstrated as a critical tool for essential training to fully comprehend academic content and a deeper understanding of the various STEM, geoscience-and- environmental science related topics. As far as we are concerned, student presenters/participants (over 1000) in our topical sessions since 2004 have always found face-to-face presentation through poster sessions to be an ideal scientific venue where exchange of knowledge and discussion are fruitful, constructive and encouraging. It is quite revealing to note that among the student …

Paleoenvironment Of The Devonian Fossiliferous Glenerie Limestone, Rosendale, Upstate New York, Gugu Ginindza, B'Jorn K. Forde, Sebastian R. Agustin, Nazrul I. Khandaker, Malek Shami, Stanley Schleifer

Publications and Research

The Devonian Glenerie limestone outcrops throughout the Hudson Valley and is believed to correlate with the glauconite-rich Oriskany sandstone elsewhere in upstate New York. Field inspection of well-preserved outcrops in Rosendale, upstate New York, indicated the Glenerie formation to be composed of both thin and thickly-bedded chert, interbedded shale, and both calcareous to arenaceous limestone. The Glenerie formation is dominated by spirifer arenosis fossil, which is the index fossil for this formation. The goal of this research is to determine the conditions of the paleoenvironment prevalent to the deposition of the Glenerie formation. Within the arenaceous layers are the spirifer …

A Review Of Protocols For Fiducial Reference Measurements Of Water-Leaving Radiance For Validation Of Satellite Remote-Sensing Data Over Water, Kevin G. Ruddick, Kenneth Voss, Emmanuel Boss, Alexandre Castagna, Robert Frouin, Alex Gilerson, Martin Hieronymi, B. Carol Johnson, Joel Kuusk, Zhongping Lee, Michael Ondrusek, Viktor Vabson, Riho Vendt

Publications and Research

This paper reviews the state of the art of protocols for measurement of water-leaving radiance in the context of fiducial reference measurements (FRM) of water reflectance for satellite validation. Measurement of water reflectance requires the measurement of water-leaving radiance and downwelling irradiance just above water. For the former there are four generic families of method, based on: (1) underwater radiometry at fixed depths; or (2) underwater radiometry with vertical profiling; or (3) above-water radiometry with skyglint correction; or (4) on-water radiometry with skylight blocked. Each method is described generically in the FRM context with reference to the measurement equation, documented …

Master Integrals For The Two-Loop, Non-Planar Qcd Corrections To Top-Quark Pair Production In The Quark-Annihilation Channel, Matteo Becchetti, Roberto Bonciani, Valerio Casconi, Andrea Ferroglia, Simone Lavacca, Andreas Von Manteuffel

Publications and Research

We present the analytic calculation of the Master Integrals for the two loop, non-planar topologies that enter the calculation of the amplitude for top-quark pair hadroproduction in the quark-annihilation channel. Using the method of differential equa tions, we expand the integrals in powers of the dimensional regulator and determine the expansion coefficients in terms of generalized harmonic polylogarithms of two dimensionless variables through to weight four.

Integrating Ligand-Receptor Interactions And In Vitro Evolution For Streamlined Discovery Of Artificial Nucleic Acid Ligands, Hasan E. Zumrut, Sana Batool, Kimon V. Argyropoulos, Nicole Williams, Roksana Azad, Prabodhika R. Mallikaratchy

Publications and Research

To discover DNA ligands against a predetermined receptor protein complex, we introduce a comprehensive version of ligand-guided selection (LIGS). LIGS is, itself, a variant of systematic evolution of ligands by exponential enrichment (SELEX). Herein, we have optimized LIGS to identify higher affinity aptamers with high specificity. In addition, we demonstrate the expandability of LIGS by performing specific aptamer elution at 25C, utilizing multiple monoclonal antibodies (mAbs) against cultured cells and primary cells obtained from human donors expressing the same receptor. Eluted LIGS libraries obtained through Illumina high-throughput (HT) DNA sequencing were analyzed by bioinformatics tools to discover five DNA aptamers …

Trends In Drought Over The Northeast United States, Nir Y. Krakauer, Tarendra Lakhankar, Damien Hudson

Publications and Research

The Northeast United States is a generally wet region that has had substantial increases in mean precipitation over the past decades, but also experiences damaging droughts. We evaluated drought frequency, intensity, and duration trends in the region over the period 1901–2015. We used a dataset of Standardized Precipitation Evapotranspiration Index (SPEI), a measure of water balance based on meteorology that is computed at multiple timescales. It was found that the frequency of droughts decreased over this period, but their average intensity and duration did not show consistent changes. There was an increase in mean SPEI, indicating mostly wetter conditions, but …

Amazon Alexa + Linked Open Data: Theorizing Concerning Relationships Between (Surveillant) Smart-Home Voice Assistants And Linked Open Data, Michelle Nitto

Publications and Research

No abstract provided.

Deep Machine Learning Techniques For The Detection And Classification Of Sperm Whale Bioacoustics, Peter C. Bermant, Michael M. Bronstein, Robert J. Wood, Shane Gero, David F. Gruber

Publications and Research

We implemented Machine Learning (ML) techniques to advance the study of sperm whale (Physeter macrocephalus) bioacoustics. This entailed employing Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) to construct an echolocation click detector designed to classify spectrograms generated from sperm whale acoustic data according to the presence or absence of a click. The click detector achieved 99.5% accuracy in classifying 650 spectrograms. The successful application of CNNs to clicks reveals the potential of future studies to train CNN-based architectures to extract finer-scale details from cetacean spectrograms. Long short-term memory and gated recurrent unit recurrent neural networks were trained to perform classification tasks, including (1) …

Modeling Interval Timing By Recurrent Neural Nets, Theodore Raphan, Eugene Dorokhin, Andrew R. Delamater

Publications and Research

The purpose of this study was to take a new approach in showing how the central nervous system might encode time at the supra-second level using recurrent neural nets (RNNs). This approach utilizes units with a delayed feedback, whose feedback weight determines the temporal properties of specific neurons in the network architecture. When these feedback neurons are coupled, they form a multilayered dynamical system that can be used to model temporal responses to steps of input in multidimensional systems. The timing network was implemented using separate recurrent “Go” and “NoGo” neural processing units to process an individual stimulus indicating the …

Going Big: A Large-Scale Study On What Big Data Developers Ask, Mehdi Bagherzadeh, Raffi Khatchadourian

Publications and Research

Software developers are increasingly required to write big data code. However, they find big data software development challenging. To help these developers it is necessary to understand big data topics that they are interested in and the difficulty of finding answers for questions in these topics. In this work, we conduct a large-scale study on Stackoverflow to understand the interest and difficulties of big data developers. To conduct the study, we develop a set of big data tags to extract big data posts from Stackoverflow; use topic modeling to group these posts into big data topics; group similar topics into …

Yields Of Weakly Bound Light Nuclei As A Probe Of The Statistical Hadronization Model, Yiming Cai, Thomas D. Cohen, Boris A. Gelman, Yukari Yamauchi

Publications and Research

The statistical hadronization model successfully describes the yields of hadrons and light nuclei from central heavy-ion collisions over a wide range of energies. It is a simple and efficient phenomenological framework in which the relative yields for very high energy collisions are essentially determined by a single model parameter—the chemical freeze-out temperature. Recent measurements of yields of hadrons and light nuclei covering over nine orders of magnitudes from the ALICE collaboration at the Large Hadron Collider were described by the model with remarkable accuracy with a chemical freeze-out temperature of 156.5 ± 1.5 MeV. A key physical question is whether …