Digital Commons Network^™

Experimental Applications Of Virtual Reality In Design Education, Amber Bartosh, Phillip Anzalone

Publications and Research

By introducing rapid reproduction, algorithms, and complex formal configurations, the digital era of architecture began a revolution. Architects incorporated the computational capacity of the computer into the design process both as a tool and as a critical component of the theories and practice of architecture as a whole. As we move into what has been coined “the second digital turn,” a period in which digital integration is considered ubiquitous, how can we consider, prepare, and propel towards the next technological innovation to significantly inform design thinking, representation, and manifestation? What tools are available to investigate this speculative design future and …

On A Generalization Of A Theorem Of Ibukiyama, Brad Isaacson

Publications and Research

We generalize a theorem of Ibukiyama and express periodic generalized Bernoulli functions by generalized Bernoulli numbers. As a corollary, we obtain formulas expressing these character sums by generalized Bernoulli numbers using only elementary methods from algebra and number theory.

Episodic And Continuous Recharge Estimation From High-Resolution Well Records, Timothy Eaton

Publications and Research

Water table fluctuation (WTF) methods are a primary and well-established way to determine groundwater recharge based on the direct response of the water table to precipitation input. An emerging complexity of recharge is whether it occurs as an episodic and transient process, or a continuous steady-state process, however most studies have not focused on these short-term vs long-term timescales, in part because of a lack of data resolution. Here, high-resolution (subhourly) precipitation and water level data are analyzed for wells in the suburbs of New York City using two contrasting WTF approaches, with a common mathematical basis, that are suited …

Graded Quivers And B-Branes At Calabi-Yau Singularities, Cyril Closset, Sebastían Franco, Jirui Guo, Azeem Hasan

Publications and Research

A graded quiver with superpotential is a quiver whose arrows are assigned degrees c ∈ {0, 1, · · · , m}, for some integer m ≥ 0, with relations generated by a superpotential of degree m − 1. Ordinary quivers (m = 1) often describe the open string sector of D-brane systems; in particular, they capture the physics of D3-branes at local Calabi-Yau (CY) 3-fold singularities in type IIB string theory, in the guise of 4d N = 1 supersymmetric quiver gauge theories. It was pointed out recently that graded quivers with m = 2 and m …

Reconstruction Of Top Quark Pair Dilepton Decays In Electron-Positron Collisions, Helenka Casler, Matthew Manganel, Miguel C. N. Fiolhais, Andrea Ferroglia, António Onofre

Publications and Research

A new algorithm is presented to perform the full kinematic reconstruction of top quark pair events produced at future electron-positron colliders in the case of dilepton decays of the W bosons to electrons or muons. The momentum components of the undetected neutrino and antineutrino in the event are reconstructed by employing several kinematic conditions comprising a nonlinear system of six equations. This system is solved numerically using two independent methods, and the selection of the best candidate real solution for each event is determined by a likelihood discriminant. Results are presented for several reconstructed kinematic properties of the W^{± …}

Nature's Queer Negativity: Between Barad And Deleuze, Steven Swarbrick

Publications and Research

This essay offers a critique of the vitalist turn in queer and ecological theory, here represented by the work of Karen Barad. Whereas Barad advances an image of life geared towards meaningful connection with others, human and nonhuman, Deleuze advances an a-signifying ontology of self-dismissal. The point of this essay isn’t to separate their two views, but to draw out the consequences of their entanglement. Insofar as Barad’s work conceptualizes life (and art) as a vitalizing encounter, it cannot, this essay argues, account for the queer negativity at play in environmental politics, including the politics of climate change.

Gender Disparities In Awards To Neuroscience Researchers, David Melnikoff, Virginia Valian

Publications and Research

Women in academia receive fewer prestigious awards than their male counterparts. Why this gender gap emerges, however, remains poorly understood. Thus, we tested multiple hypotheses about the proximate cause of the gender gap in award prestige. Our findings suggest that the gender gap in award prestige may emerge in part from gender schemas that portray women as warmer and less competent than men. Specifically, our results are consistent with the hypothesis that gender schemas lead to women’s papers receiving fewer citations than men’s papers, which in turn results in more prestigious awards for men than for women. Additionally, our results …

Do Readers Judge Books By Author Gender? Results From A Randomized Experiment, Adam Kapelner, Dana B. Weinberg

Publications and Research

We run a randomized experiment to examine gender discrimination in book purchasing with 2,544 subjects on Amazon’s Mechanical Turk. We manipulate author gender and book genre in a factorial design to study consumer preferences for male versus female versus androgynous authorship. Despite previous findings in the literature showing gender discrimination in book publishing and in evaluations of work, respondents expressed no gender preference across a variety of measures, including quality, interest, and the amount they were willing to pay to purchase the book. This nonfinding, if it holds up to additional research, suggests that book consumers may not express the …

Introduction To "The Oxford Handbook Of Ethics And Economics", Mark D. White

Publications and Research

Economics and ethics are both valuable tools for analyzing the behavior and actions of human beings and institutions. Adam Smith, the father of modern economics, considered them two sides of the same coin, but since economics was formalized and mathematicised in the late 1800s and early 1900s, the fields have largely followed separate paths.

The Oxford Handbook of Ethics and Economics provides a timely and thorough survey of the various ways ethics can, does, and should inform economic theory and practice. The first part of the book, Foundations, explores how the most prominent schools of moral philosophy relate to economics; …

New Perspectives On The Schrödinger-Pauli Theory Of Electrons: Part I, Viraht Sahni

Publications and Research

Schrödinger-Pauli (SP) theory is a description of electrons in the presence of a static electromagnetic field in which the interaction of the magnetic field with both the orbital and spin moments is explicitly considered. The theory is described from the new perspective of the individual electron via its equation of motion or ‘Quantal Newtonian’ first law. The law is in terms of ‘classical’ fields whose sources are quantum mechanical expectation values of Hermitian operators taken with respect to the system wave function. The law states that each electron experiences an external and an internal field, the sum of which vanish. …

Global Capital Flows, Time Varying Fundamentals And Transitional Exchange Rate Dynamics: An Ms-Var Approach, Süleyman Hilmi Kal, Ilhami Gunduz

Publications and Research

This paper studies whether dynamic relationship between exchange rate and economic and financial fundamentals vary depending on exchange rate is overvalued and undervalued with respect to its fundamental value. To achieve this, we implement two-state Markov Switching Vector Auto Regression (MSVAR) model with time varying transition probabilities to investigate whether the relationship among exchange rate, interest rate and inflation dynamics depend on overvaluation and undervaluation of exchange rates for the pre-crises period between years 1972-2009. We govern the transition between the undervalued and overvalued states by using Sharpe Ratios of debt and equity investments of the currency to assess whether …

Teaching With Technology: Using A Virtual Learning Community And Peer Mentoring To Create An Interdisciplinary Intervention, Rebecca Mazumdar, Nadia Benakli, Pamela Brown

Publications and Research

This paper describes the development and implementation of engaging and supportive experiences to promote student engagement, persistence and success at a commuter, open enrollment, public, minority serving institution. Project components included faculty development at the SENCER Summer Institute (SSI) 2016, attended by a team comprised of an academic administrator, full-time faculty from English and math, and part-time faculty in chemistry; creation of a virtual learning community of freshmen enrolled in chemistry, English, and math linked by the specific theme of the environmental impacts of deicing roads with salt and the overarching theme of the impacts of human activities on the …

New Perspectives On The Schrödinger-Pauli Theory Of Electrons: Part Ii: Application To The Triplet State Of A Quantum Dot In A Magnetic Field, Marlina Slamet, Viraht Sahni

Publications and Research

The Schrödinger-Pauli (SP) theory of electrons in the presence of a static electromagnetic field can be described from the perspective of the individual electron via its equation of motion or 'Quantal Newtonian' first law. The law is in terms of 'classical' fields whose sources are quantum-mechanical expectation values of Hermitian operators taken with respect to the wave function. The law states that the sum of the external and internal fields experienced by each electron vanishes. The external field is the sum of the binding electrostatic and Lorentz fields. The internal field is the sum of fields representative of properties of …

Top-Quark Pair Hadroproduction In Association With A Heavy Boson At Nlo+Nnll Including Ew Corrections, Alessandro Broggio, Andrea Ferroglia, Rikkert Frederix, Davide Pagani, Benjamin D. Pecjak, Ioannis Tsinikos

Publications and Research

This work studies the associated production of a top-quark pair with a W, Z, or Higgs boson at the LHC. Predictions for the total cross sections as well as for several differential distributions of the massive particles in the final state are provided. These predictions, valid for the LHC operating at 13 TeV, include without any approximation all the NLO electroweak and QCD contributions of O(αⁱ_sα^j+1) with i + j = 2, 3. In addition, the predictions presented here improve upon the NLO QCD results by adding the effects of soft gluon emission …

Measuring The Weizsäcker-Williams Distribution Of Linearly Polarized Gluons At An Electron-Ion Collider Through Dijet Azimuthal Asymmetries, Adrian Dumitru, Vladimir Skokov, Thomas Ullrich

Publications and Research

The production of a hard dijet with small transverse momentum imbalance in semi-inclusive DIS probes the conventional and linearly polarized Weizsäcker-Williams (WW) transverse momentum dependent (TMD) gluon distributions. The latter, in particular, gives rise to an azimuthal dependence of the dijet cross section. In this paper we analyze the feasibility of a measurement of these TMDs through dijet production in DIS on a nucleus at an electron-ion collider. We introduce the MCDIJET Monte Carlo generator to sample quark-antiquark dijet configurations based on leading-order parton level cross sections with WW gluon distributions that solve the nonlinear small-x QCD evolution equations. …

Hardly Habitual: Chimpanzees And Gorillas Show Flexibility In Their Motor Responses When Presented With A Causally-Clear Task, Sarah L. Jacobson, Lydia M. Hopper

Publications and Research

In contrast to reports of wild primates, studies of captive primates' flexibility often reveal conservatism: individuals are unable to switch to new and more efficient strategies when task demands change. We propose that such conservatism might be a result of task design and hypothesize that conservatism might be linked to primates' lack of causal understanding in relation to experimental apparatuses. We investigated if chimpanzees (Pan troglodytes) and western lowland gorillas (Gorilla gorilla gorilla) would show greater flexibility when presented with a causally-clear task. We presented six chimpanzees and seven gorillas with a clear tube from which …

Enabling Precision Medicine Via Standard Communication Of Hts Provenance, Analysis, And Results, Gil Alterovitz, Dennis Dean, Carole Globe, Michael R. Crusoe, Stiam Soiland-Reyes, Amanda Bell, Anais Hayes, Anita Suresh, Anjan Purkkayastha, Charles H. King, Dan Taylor, Elaine Johanson, Elaine E. Thompson, Eric Donaldson, Hiroki Morizono, Hsinyi Tsang, Jeet K. Vora, Jeremy Goecks, Jianchao Yao, Jonas S. Almeida, Jonathon Keeney, Kanakadurga Addepalli, Konstantinos Krampis, Krista M. Smith, Lydia Guo, Mark Walderhaug, Marco Schito, Matthew Ezewudo, Nuria Guimera, Paul Walsh, Robel Kahsay, Srikanth Gottipati, Timothy C. Rodwell, Toby Bloom, Yuching Lai, Vahan Simonyan, Raja Mazumder

Publications and Research

A personalized approach based on a patient's or pathogen’s unique genomic sequence is the foundation of precision medicine. Genomic findings must be robust and reproducible, and experimental data capture should adhere to findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) guiding principles. Moreover, effective precision medicine requires standardized reporting that extends beyond wet-lab procedures to computational methods. The BioCompute framework (https://w3id.org/biocompute/1.3.0) enables standardized reporting of genomic sequence data provenance, including provenance domain, usability domain, execution domain, verification kit, and error domain. This framework facilitates communication and promotes interoperability. Bioinformatics computation instances that employ the BioCompute framework are easily relayed, repeated …

The International Conference On Intelligent Biology And Medicine (Icibm) 2018: Bioinformatics Towards Translational Applications, Xiaoming Liu, Lei Xie, Zhijin Wu, Kai Wang, Zhongming Zhao, Jianhuan Ruan, Degui Zhi

Publications and Research

The 2018 International Conference on Intelligent Biology and Medicine (ICIBM 2018) was held on June 10–12, 2018, in Los Angeles, California, USA. The conference consisted of a total of eleven scientific sessions, four tutorials, one poster session, four keynote talks and four eminent scholar talks, which covered a wild range of aspects of bioinformatics, medical informatics, systems biology and intelligent computing. Here, we summarize nine research articles selected for publishing in BMC Bioinformatics.

Nano-Based Systems And Biomacromolecules As Carriers For Metallodrugs In Anticancer Therapy, Mina Poursharifi, Marek T. Wlodarczyk, Aneta J. Mieszawska

Publications and Research

Since the discovery of cisplatin and its potency in anticancer therapy, the development of metallodrugs has been an active area of research. The large choice of transition metals, oxidation states, coordinating ligands, and different geometries, allows for the design of metal-based agents with unique mechanisms of action. Many metallodrugs, such as titanium, ruthenium, gallium, tin, gold, and copper-based complexes have been found to have anticancer activities. However, biological application of these agents necessitates aqueous solubility and low systemic toxicity. This minireview highlights the emerging strategies to facilitate the in vivo application of metallodrugs, aimed at enhancing their solubility and bioavailability, …

Interference And Control Of The Nosocomial Transmission Of Methicillin-Resistant Staphylococcus Aureus, Sen Pei, Flaviano Morone, Fredrik Liljeros, Hernan Makse, Jeffrey L. Shaman

Publications and Research

Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus (MRSA) is a continued threat to human health in both community and healthcare settings. In hospitals, control efforts would benefit from accurate estimation of asymptomatic colonization and infection importation rates from the community. However, developing such estimates remains challenging due to limited observation of colonization and complicated transmission dynamics within hospitals and the community. Here, we develop an inference framework that can estimate these key quantities by combining statistical filtering techniques, an agent-based model, and real-world patient-to-patient contact networks, and use this framework to infer nosocomial transmission and infection importation over an outbreak spanning 6 years in …

A Classroom Activity For Teaching Kohlberg’S Theory Of Moral Development, Cheryl L. Carmichael, Anna M. Schwartz, Maureen Coyle, Matthew H. Goldberg

Publications and Research

In two studies, we demonstrate an engaging classroom activity that facilitates student learning about Kohlberg’s theory of moral development by using digital resources to foster active, experiential learning. In addition to hearing a standard lecture about moral development, students watched a video of a morally provocative incident, then worked in small groups to classify user comments posted in response to the video according to Kohlberg’s six stages. Students in both studies found the activity enjoyable and useful. Moreover, students’ scores on a moral development quiz improved after completing the activity (Study 1), and students who completed the activity in addition …

Open Source Foundations For Spatial Decision Support Systems, Jochen Albrecht

Publications and Research

Spatial Decision Support Systems (SDSS) were a hot topic in the 1990s, when researchers tried to imbue GIS with additional decision support features. Successful practical developments such as HAZUS or CommunityViz have since been built, based on commercial desktop software and without much heed for theory other than what underlies their process models. Others, like UrbanSim, have been completely overhauled twice but without much external scrutiny. Both the practical and the theoretical foundations of decision support systems have developed considerably over the past 20 years. This article presents an overview of these developments and then looks at what corresponding tools …

Analysis And Simulation Of Convolution Reverb Using City Tech’S New Auditorium, Tian Leng

Publications and Research

In digital signal processing, convolution reverb can simulate the reverberation of a real acoustic space. The acoustics of different seating areas in an auditorium can vary from each other. To determine the reverberant characteristics of City Tech new building’s auditorium, impulse response (IR) signals are recorded in five key locations of the auditorium.

Directly recorded balloon burst is chosen as the source of impulse source. An omnidirectional and a cardioid microphone with flat frequency response curves are used to record IR signals to 24-bit monophonic wav files. Each IR signal, along with a vocal, is convoluted in MATLAB through both …

The Investigation Of The French Curve, Cheriyah Wilmot

Publications and Research

The creation of irregular curves has evolved from employing splines to computer aided design (CAD); with French Curves being an integral part of this evolution. Such curvilinear irregularity can be seen in the curve of the auditorium at the new academic building. This project investigates the origins of the French Curve, in terms of its history, usage, and mathematical components. For centuries, French curves were used to accurately create portions of ellipticals and other curves in schematic drawings. The commonly used Burmester set contains an amalgamation of mathematical equations where the point of inflection is not symmetrical. These are derived …

Fractals And The Geometry Of Matrix Operators, Xiaona Zhou

Publications and Research

In this project, we are interested in how certain fractals can be generated by using introductory linear algebra techniques. A fractal is an object or a structure that is self-similar in all length scales. Sierpinski Carpet and Sierpinski Triangle are two classic examples of fractals. Fractals have many applications in real life, for instance, in imaging, art and biological sciences. In this project, we apply classes of linear transformation to describe and generate fractals in the Euclidean plane, and we generate different examples of fractal using MATLAB.

Instances Of Influenza In The United States Visualized, Parth Patel

Publications and Research

The Tycho Project collects large data sets related to healthcare and in particular, instances and geographical information of diseases. We look at the instance counts and locations of Influenza from 1919-1951 across the United States. We hope to find seasonal and geographical insight to the spread of the disease.

Computational Techniques For Scattering Amplitudes, Juliano A. Everett

Publications and Research

Scattering amplitudes in quantum field theory can be described as the probability of a scattering process to happen within a high energy particle interaction, as well as a bridge between experimental measurements and the prediction of the theory.

In this research project, we explore the Standard Model of Particle Theory, it’s representation in terms of Feynman diagrams and the algebraic formulas associated with each combination.

Using the FeynArts program as a tool for generating Feynman diagrams, we evaluate the expressions of a set of physical processes, and explain why these techniques become necessary to achieve this goal.

Chemistry Student Attitudes And Utilization Of Office Hours, Dieng Barbacar, Edgar Gomez, Andre Rodriguez

Publications and Research

While research has demonstrated that faculty-student interactions increase retention and graduation rates, faculty often report that their office hours are underutilized. To better understand students’ attitudes, usage and plans towards faculty hours a survey was administered in the second to third week of the fall 2018 semester to students in 5 sections of general chemistry courses. The goal was to better understand how students perceive the benefits and hindrances of office hours, along with current or planned attendance. Prior to survey administration, it was speculated that not attending office hours could be because they were not scheduled at a convenient …

Analysis Of Land Surface Temperature Over Urban Landcover Types Using Satellite Remote Sensing And Ground-Based Applications, Makini Valentine, Justine Ginchereau

Publications and Research

Urban areas have discrete differences in their land surface temperatures (LST) compared to rural areas. These regions are covered with impermeable materials with less vegetation and moisture. Consequently, this phenomenon causes major thermal intensities of different land surfaces, negatively impact people and environment. The objective of this project is to examine and to compare land surface temperature obtained from in-situ data and satellite-based observations in order to understand the diurnal variation and heat transfer at each surface type. The study utilizes series of hand held thermal infrared cameras and one Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) infrared camera to find land surface …

Historical Effects Of Electronic Interfaces, G James Mitchell

Publications and Research

Electronic interfaces are a primary tool for most professional and personal communication currently happening. Electronics, like the human mind, are limited by the understanding of executing will, or commands. This can be characterized as “interface limitations” of digital technology. Identifying this bottleneck in technological development has been critical in historical changes to both hardware and software technology. Recent medical research examines a novel user interface to reduce task load. I hypothesize, interface developments that take cues from nonverbal human communication enhance and sustain the significance of those technologies in society. By examining pivotal moments of historical technology we can identify …