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La Yeguada Volcanic Vomplex In The Republic Of Panama: An Assessment Of The Geologic Hazards Using 40ar/39ar Geochronology, Karinne L. Knutsen, William I. Rose, Brian Jicha

Department of Geological and Mining Engineering and Sciences Publications

La Yeguada volcanic complex is one of three Quaternary volcanic centers in Panama. To assess potential geologic hazards, new samples were analyzed using argon analysis (⁴⁰Ar/³⁹Ar), and obtained the following: the most recent eruption occurred approximately 32,000 years ago at the Media Luna cinder cone; the youngest dated eruption from the main dome complex occurred 357 ± 19 ka, producing the Castillo dome unit; Cerro Picacho, a separate dacite dome 1.5 km east of the main complex is 4.47 ± 0.23 Ma; and the El Satro Pyroclastic Flow unit surrounds the northern portion of the volcanic …

Four Faculty Members Recommended For Tenure, Macalester College

College Press Releases

No abstract provided.

U.S. Drought Monitor, November 26, 2013, Richard R. Heim Jr.

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of the United States for November 26, 2013 (11/26/13) plus: United States crop areas experiencing drought (map), an approximate percentage of crop located in drought by state (bar graph), and the percentage of crop area located in drought during the past 52 weeks (line graph) for corn, soybeans, hay, cattle, and winter wheat.

Calcite Dissolution Under Turbulent Flow Conditions: A Remaining Conundrum., Matthew D. Covington

KIP Articles

The aim of this article is to describe two-dimensional scallops (scallops guided inside ribs) found in a syphon, to compare them to the ordinary three-dimensional corrosion forms frequently found in karst systems (scallops and flutes). We also raise a certain number of questions regarding analogical and numerical modeling. The syphon is named “Combe du Creux” (department of the Doubs, France, EU). We have been exploring this flooded cave since 2003. Since 2015, we are studying its morphology and especially its scallops. When diving underwater underground (cave diving), observation work is more difficult. Therefore, photographs of the forms, of the tools …

Wave Heating And Jeans Escape In The Martian Upper Atmosphere, R. L. Walterscheid, Michael P. Hickey Ph.D., G. Schubert

Publications

Gusty flow over rough terrain is likely to be a significant source of fast gravity waves and acoustic waves in the atmosphere of Mars, as it is in Earth’s atmosphere. Accordingly, we have used a numerical model to study the dissipation in the thermosphere and exosphere of Mars of upward-propagating fast gravity waves and acoustic waves. Model simulations are performed for a range of wave periods and horizontal wavelengths. Wave amplitudes are constrained by the Mars Global Surveyor and Mars Odyssey aerobraking data, and gravity wave phase velocities are limited by occultation data. Dissipating gravity waves heat some regions of …

Homological And Homotopical Dehn Functions Are Different, Aaron Abrams, Noel Brady, Pallavi Dani, Robert Young

Faculty Publications

The homological and homotopical Dehn functions are different ways of measuring the difficulty of filling a closed curve inside a group or a space. The homological Dehn function measures fillings of cycles by chains, whereas the homotopical Dehn function measures fillings of curves by disks. Because the two definitions involve different sorts of boundaries and fillings, there is no a priori relationship between the two functions; however, before this work, there were no known examples of finitely presented groups for which the two functions differ. This paper gives such examples, constructed by amalgamating a free-by-cyclic group with several Bestvina-Brady groups.

Time Resloved Saxs Analysis Of Fusion Protein, Matthew Andorf

College of Science and Health Theses and Dissertations

The structural dynamics of the fusion protein (F protein) of parainfluenza virus 5 (PIV 5) was studied using time resolved Small Angle X-ray Scattering (SAXS). Conformational changes of the F protein, equivalent to the conformational changes the protein must undergo while infecting a host cell, are triggered by temperature jump to the protein in solution. The time and temperature dependence of the rate of the protein changing state is then determined through standard SAXS analysis. Thermodynamic transition state theory is then used to calculate the activation energy, enthalpy and entropy of the transition which is independent of any particular model. …

Terror As A Social Movement Tactic: Applying The Multi-Institutional Politics Approach To The Case Of The Abu Sayyaf Group, Erika Mae Lorenzana Del Villar

Master's Theses

Solely equating terrorism with criminality discounts the social, political, cultural, and historical motivations that drive people to employ violence as a strategy for collective action. Using the multi-institutional politics approach to social movements (Armstrong and Bernstein 2008), this study explores the choice of the Abu Sayyaf Group (ASG) in the Philippines to employ terror and violence as the primary social movement tactic to pursue their Islamic separatist cause. Analysis of archival and open-source data, together with original interviews, reveal that the problem is multi-institutional – developmental, cultural, historical, social and political all at the same time. The choice of violence …

Outside The Realm: The Counter-Narratives Of African American Parent Involvement, Deborah Watson-Hill

College of Education Theses and Dissertations

The present study explores the experiences of African American parents and how they support their children’s education inside and outside the school realm. More specifically, the study examines African American parents’ level of involvement or engagement in their children’s education and the impact this has upon their children. In this study, parent involvement refers to school-sanctioned, school-authored activities in which parents participate. Parent engagement refers to those activities that parents arrange for themselves and their self-directed, relational interactions with school person­nel. Moreover, parent involvement and parent engagement are not used interchangeably but as distinct terms. The participants in this study …

Evaluating The Effectiveness Of Design For The Environment Tools To Help Meet Sustainability And Design Goals, Ana Maria Leal-Yepes

Theses

Environmental impacts of electronics are a growing concern because the amount and type of materials used in production of the devices, the impacts to the environment from discarded

electronics and the early retirement of products due to rapidly evolving devices, changing design trends, and perceived technological obsolescence. Design for the Environment is a sustainability strategy that aims to reduce the environmental impacts through techniques that enable sustainability solutions during the design decision-making process. In order to suit the diverse

needs of sustainable design practitioners, there has been a large number of tools for Design for the Environment (DfE) developed, confusing …

Diffusion Of Energy Efficient Technology In Commercial Buildings: An Analysis Of The Commercial Building Partnerships Program, Chrissi Argyro Antonopoulos

Dissertations and Theses

This study presents findings from survey and interview data investigating replication of green building measures by Commercial Building Partnership (CBP) partners that worked directly with the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL). PNNL partnered directly with 12 organizations on new and retrofit construction projects, which represented approximately 28 percent of the entire U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) CBP program. Through a feedback survey mechanism, along with personal interviews, quantitative and qualitative data were gathered relating to replication efforts by each organization. These data were analyzed to provide insight into two primary research areas: 1) CBP partners' replication efforts of green building …

Single-Peaked Preferences Over Multidimensional Binary Alternatives, Jonathan K. Hodge, Lindsey Brown, Hoang Ha

Open Access Publishing Support Funded Articles

Single-peaked preferences are important throughout social choice theory. In this article, we consider single-peaked preferences over multidimensional binary alternative spaces—that is, alternative spaces of the form {0, 1}ⁿ for some integer n ≥ 2. We show that preferences that are single-peaked with respect to a normalized separable base order are nonseparable except in the most trivial cases. We establish that two distinct base orders can induce the same single-peaked preference order if any only if they differ by a transposition of their two central elements. We then use this result to enumerate single-peaked binary preference orders over a separable …

A Novel Spam Campaign In Online Social Networks, Yufeng Zhen

Theses and Dissertations

The increasing popularity of the Online Social Networks (OSNs)\nomenclature{$OSNs$}{Online Social Networks} has made the OSNs major targets of spammers. They aim to illegally gather private information from users and spread spam to them. In this paper, we propose a new spam campaign that includes following key steps: creating fake accounts, picking legitimate accounts, forming friendships, earning trust, and spreading spam. The unique part in our spam campaign is the process of earning trust. By using social bots, we significantly lower the cost of earning trust and make it feasible in the real world. By spreading spam at a relatively low …

Extending Mpt Models To Rasch Mpt: A General Framework, Demonstration, And Applications, Quan Tang

Electronic Theses and Dissertations Archive

Multinomial processing tree (MPT) models, as a family of hierarchical multinomial models tailored by cognitive theories, have been proven to be successful and applied to cognitive psychometrics Traditional MPT models measure the probability of success for each cognitive stage given their hierarchical relationships. However, this measure neither addresses individual and item difference, nor characterizes the subject's ability and the difficulty of the cognitive stage. In this study, I extend the cognitive stage parameter in MPT models to a Rasch model, and recruit MPT models for a source monitoring paradigm as an example to demonstrate the extension. To evaluate the properties …

Algorithms For Grid Graphs In The Mapreduce Model, Taylor P. Spangler

School of Computing: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The MapReduce programming paradigm has seen widespread use in analyzing large data sets. Often these large data sets can be formulated as graphs. Many algorithms, such as filtering based algorithms, are designed to work efficiently for dense graphs - graphs with substantially more number of edges than the number of vertices. These algorithms are not optimized for sparse graphs - graphs where the number of edges is of the same order as the number of vertices. However, sparse graphs are also common in big data sets. In this thesis we present algorithms for maximal matching, approximate edge covering, and approximate …

Getting To Excellence: What Every Educator Should Know About Consequences Of Beliefs, Attitudes, And Paradigms For The Reconstruction Of An Academically Unacceptable Middle School, James A. Johnson, Jay Cummings, Margaret Stroud, Gatsy Moye' -Lavergne, Wilbert J. Andrews Jr.

The Bridge: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Legal & Social Policy

In this chapter a discussion of a salient dimension of the external environment in which today’s educators find themselves practicing – the policy context - is presented. Critical elements of this discussion include a truncated history of the encroachment on local control of the schools and the ensuing standardized-tests-based accountability and standardized testing movement. We also pay some attention to growing efforts to push back against these movements. We conclude this chapter with perspectives of a set of scholarly informants on quality, equity, and adequacy. Our effort in this chapter is to trace the political distance traveled from education defined …

Urban Education Reform- Case Study: North Forest Independent School District, Jay K. Aiyer, Michael O. Adams, Subria Lapps

The Bridge: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Legal & Social Policy

Education reformers and advocates have conducted extensive studies and produced significant research around various models of school turnaround and reform. As a case study for policy in relation to models for school district turnaround, we will explore Houston’s North Forest Independent School District (NFISD). The purpose of this paper is threefold. First, as a study of policy we will retroactively explore the key factors that led to the proposed closure of NFISD. Second, using existing strategies of school turnaround, we will explore potential models of reform that may be applied to NFISD. Third, we will discuss biases and recommendations concerning …

Education Reform And The Political Safeguards Of Federalism, Elizabeth J. Sharma

The Bridge: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Legal & Social Policy

The passage of the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB) in 2001 sparked widespread controversy over the federal government’s proper role in public education. Opponents criticized the legislation as an unprecedented federal intrusion on state and local governments’ policymaking authority. Whereas previous incarnations of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act (ESEA) required local schools and districts to comply with detailed rules about how to spend categorical funds, federal moneys were never before made contingent on a rigorous testing and accountability regime. By requiring annual testing and tying federal funding to student outcomes, the new legislation signaled a shift in the …

How (And Why) Nclb Failed To Close The Achievement Gap:Evidence From North Carolina, 1998-2004, Roslyn Mickelson, Jason Giersch, Elizabeth Stearns, Stephanie Moller

The Bridge: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Legal & Social Policy

Recent state and national policy changes for public education are premised upon the idea that high-stakes tests can improve student outcomes and close achievement gaps. Opponents maintain that such policies fail on both counts. Using a unique longitudinal dataset from North Carolina, we find that high-stakes tests have failed to close achievement gaps associated with social class and race, and that the persistence of these gaps is related, at least in part, to academic tracking. Such findings add to the questions being raised about such policies as No Child Left Behind.

Computing A Logarithm Of A Unitary Matrix With General Spectrum [Dataset], Terry A. Loring

Math and Statistics Datasets

We analyze an algorithm for computing a skew-Hermitian logarithm of a unitary matrix, and also skew-Hermitian approximate logarithms for nearly unitary matrices. This algorithm is very easy to implement using standard software and it works well even for unitary matrices with no spectral conditions assumed. Certain examples, with many eigenvalues near -1, lead to very non-Hermitian output for other basic methods of calculating matrix logarithms. Altering the output of these algorithms to force an Hermitian output creates accuracy issues which are avoided by the considered algorithm. A modification is introduced to deal properly with the J-skew symmetric unitary matrices. Applications …

Brief Of The National Education Association And Arizona Education Association As Amici Curiae In Support Of Plaintiffs-Appellants, Counsel For Amici Curiae

Fred T. Korematsu Center for Law and Equality

Fighting Arizona's Attack on Ethnic Studies - Maya Arce, et al. v. John Huppenthal, et. al

Environmental Civility: Culture, Education, Enlightenment, And Wisdom, Sepänmaa Yrjö

Theoretical Studies in Literature and Art

Culture and civility, enlightenment and wisdom all relate to the environment, and the environment relates to them. Environmental civility is a conscious and emotional skill or readiness, which permits a basically positive attitude and way of acting. Civility and wisdom are close to each other and nearly synonyms. Knowledge is the foundation, but it needs the partnership of an attitude that maintains and refines life. Civility is value-positive, but as such also critical. It means proper respect and appreciation of well-done work, and always seeking something better. Eco-humanism emphasizes the positive value of humankind and human work, positive footprints: we …

Pvcrov : An Experimental Platform For Multi-Robot Control Systems, Nicholas Prince, Gregory Roos, Jennifer Semones, Chase Traficanti

Mechanical Engineering Senior Theses

As the field of multi-robot control systems grows, the demand for flexible, robust and precise multi-robot testbeds increases. Up to this point, the testbeds that do exist for testing multi-robot controllers are often expensive, hard to deploy, and typically constrained to a single plane of motion. These constraints limit the capacity to conduct research which is why team Autonomously Controlled Electromechanical Systems (ACES) has created the PVCROV system. PVCROV is a low cost, underwater platform for testing multi-robot control systems. By utilizing an underwater environment, ACES created a testbed that is not constrained to a single plane of motion. Additionally, …

2013 November 25 - Graduate Council Minutes, College Of Graduate And Continuing Studies, East Tennessee State University

Graduate Council Agendas and Minutes

No abstract provided.

Determining The Extent And Characterizing Coral Reef Habitats Of The Northern Latitudes Of The Florida Reef Tract (Martin County), Brian K. Walker, David S. Gilliam

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Climate change has recently been implicated in poleward shifts of many tropical species including corals; thus attention focused on higher-latitude coral communities is warranted to investigate possible range expansions and ecosystem shifts due to global warming. As the northern extension of the Florida Reef Tract (FRT), the third-largest barrier reef ecosystem in the world, southeast Florida (25–27° N latitude) is a prime region to study such effects. Most of the shallow-water FRT benthic habitats have been mapped, however minimal data and limited knowledge exist about the coral reef communities of its northernmost reaches off Martin County. First benthic habitat mapping …

Iterative Feature Removal Yields Highly Discriminative Pathways, Stephen O’Hara, Kun Wang, Richard A. Slayden, Alan R. Schenkel, Greg Huber, Corey S. O’Hern, Mark D. Shattuck, Michael Kirby

Publications and Research

Background We introduce Iterative Feature Removal (IFR) as an unbiased approach for selecting features with diagnostic capacity from large data sets. The algorithm is based on recently developed tools in machine learning that are driven by sparse feature selection goals. When applied to genomic data, our method is designed to identify genes that can provide deeper insight into complex interactions while remaining directly connected to diagnostic utility. We contrast this approach with the search for a minimal best set of discriminative genes, which can provide only an incomplete picture of the biological complexity. Results Microarray data sets typically contain far …

"Dae Scotsmen Dream O 'Lectric Leids?" Robert Crawford's Cyborg Scotland, Alexander Burke

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis applies a Cybernetic interpretation to a selection of poetry by the Scottish Informationist poet Robert Crawford, drawn mostly from two collections: A Scottish Assembly (1990) and Sharawaggi: Poems in Scots (1990). Crawford is contextualized by observing the poetic influences of Robert Burns, John Davidson, and Hugh MacDiarmid, as well as the philosophical influence of George Elder Davie’s The Democratic Intellect. This paper argues that, in response to the Two Cultures hypothesis put forth by C. P. Snow and the widely-held belief that Scotland is irrevocably fractured, the shifting boundaries of the many disparate Scottish cultures are mediated by …

Mike Davison And The Latin Jazz Messengers, Department Of Music, University Of Richmond

Music Department Concert Programs

No abstract provided.

Information-Entropic Stability Bound For Compact Objects: Application To Q-Balls And The Chandrasekhar Limit Of Polytropes, Marcelo Gleiser, Damian Sowinski

Dartmouth Scholarship

Spatially-bound objects across diverse length and energy scales are characterized by a binding energy. We propose that their spatial structure is mathematically encoded as information in their momentum modes and described by a measure known as configurational entropy (CE). Investigating solitonic Q-balls and stars with a polytropic equation of state P=Kργ, we show that objects with large binding energy have low CE, whereas those at the brink of instability (zero binding energy) have near maximal CE. In particular, we use the CE to find the critical charge allowing for classically stable Q-balls and the Chandrasekhar limit for white dwarfs (γ=4/3) …

Regularization Methods For Predicting An Ordinal Response Using Longitudinal High-Dimensional Genomic Data, Jiayi Hou

Theses and Dissertations

Ordinal scales are commonly used to measure health status and disease related outcomes in hospital settings as well as in translational medical research. Notable examples include cancer staging, which is a five-category ordinal scale indicating tumor size, node involvement, and likelihood of metastasizing. Glasgow Coma Scale (GCS), which gives a reliable and objective assessment of conscious status of a patient, is an ordinal scaled measure. In addition, repeated measurements are common in clinical practice for tracking and monitoring the progression of complex diseases. Classical ordinal modeling methods based on the likelihood approach have contributed to the analysis of data in …