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Structure And Property Calculations Of Amorphous Ceramics And Glasses Using Density Functional Theory Calculations And Empirical Potential Molecular Dynamic Simulations, Atreyi Dasmahapatra

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations - Archive

The work in this thesis involves modeling amorphous ceramics and glasses using the tools of DFT and classical MD. Systems investigated include: metal-silicate glasses (in particular HfO2- SiO2), composite coatings (comprising of Zr-Si-B-C-N), and the refractory materials amorphous silicon nitride (a-Si3N4) and amorphous silicon boron nitride (a-SiBN). Modeling techniques include traditional “melt-and-quench” simulations combined with simulated annealing. Structures are further investigated for their physical and chemical properties. A brief overview of each chapter is given below: Hafnia-silica glasses (HfO2-SiO2) find applications in microelectronics and optical waveguides. I did a computational study of the thermochemistry of these compounds exploring enthalpy of …

Enantioselective Synthesis Of An Anticancer Ruthenium Polypyridyl Complex (Rpc) And Influence Of Chiral Selectivity On Dna Photocleavage, Shomita Ferdous

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses - Archive

Ruthenium polypyridyl complexes (RPCs) represent a promising therapeiutic class of drugs for transition-metal based anticancer drug development. The complex [(phen)2Ru(tatpp)Ru(phen)2] (44+) is a RPC which has shown success in both cell free and cellular assay. Unlike many other RPCs, 44+ can selectively kill malignant cells without light irradiation from external sources. This binuclear complex 44+ is a DNA intercalator containing redox-active ligand tatpp (9,11,20,22-Tetraaza tetrapyrido[3,2-a:2'3'-c:3'',2''- 1:2''',3''']-pentacene) which cleaves DNA in presence of a mild reducing agent, i.e. glutathione (GSH).1,2,3 The cellular assay (MTT assay) with different types of malignant cells has also established this as an equally potent cytotoxic agent …

Petrophysical Properties Of The Woodford Formation In The Ardmore Basin In Oklahoma, U.S.A, Benjamin Ryan

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

A prolific source rock in Oklahoma, the Woodford Shale has sourced petroleum reservoirs for millions of years and produced oil and gas since 1939. Not until the shale boom of the early 2000’s was the full potential of the Woodford Shale, as a reservoir, realized. The focus of this research is to characterize three (the main ones) of the four petro-physically distinct zones within the Ardmore Woodford Shale in order to investigate the ideal zone for hydrocarbon extraction. The Woodford Shale is composed of tight, organic-rich, interbedded shale and chert beds deposited along a marine slope. Due to its tight …

Nano-Scale Petrophysical Studies Of The Gothic Shale Interval In The Paradox Basin, Colorado, U.S.A., Marvin L. Dunbar

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

Hydrocarbon production from shale has become a main energy source for the United States. Consequently, an increased knowledge of the petrophysical properties of shale such as porosity, permeability, tortuosity, and fluid-rock interactions (e.g., contact angle, imbibition) will improve production efficiency. Because of their minute size (nanoscale), the knowledge of pore structure (i.e., pore geometry and connectivity) has proven difficult to understand. Analyzing the pore size distribution and pore connectivity of Gothic Shale from selected locations in the Montezuma County of Colorado will lead to recommendations for greater oil production efficiency, fostering innovation into a thriving, environmentally safe, oil and gas …

Mapping Structural Deformation Associated With The Formation Of The Blue Ridge Salt Dome, Mason Phillip Bonner

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

Geologic mapping and subsurface imaging around salt has remained difficult. Seismic imaging is difficult near salt due to the large velocity contrasts between salt and the surrounding rocks, the steeply dipping salt and sediment interface, and the presence of pinching beds on the flanks of the dome; but when combined with well control from previously drilled wells on top and on the flanks of a salt dome, a more complete profile of the subsurface structure becomes possible. Previous work has produced models of salt dome formation and the surrounding structural deformation, and when compared to seismic data, show a good …

Coupled Geochemical And Nano-Petrophysical Study Of The Utica Play, Appalachian Basin, Ohio, U.S.A., Dillon Worley

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

Being more extensive than the Marcellus Play, the Utica Play covers from New York state in the north to northeastern Kentucky and Tennessee in the south. The Utica Play is a stacked play consisting of organic-rich mudstones from upper Ordovician units of Utica Shale, Point Pleasant, and the Logana member of the Lexington/Trenton Limestone. This study will focus on the pore structure and rock-fluid interaction and with relation to the rocks geochemical properties to assess the Utica Play. To achieve this research purpose, 7 core samples and 16 cuttings, with different maturities were collected from various wells, to study rocks …

Nanopetrophysics Characterization Of The Mancos Shale Formation In The San Juan Basin Of Northwestern New Mexico, U.S.A., Richard Kalteyer

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

The Mancos Shale of the San Juan Basin is no stranger to the drilling of oil and gas, but traditional exploration within the region has predominantly been limited to the use of conventional vertical wells. Due to the recent advances in drilling and completion technologies, a large focus of oil and gas exploration has shifted towards the development of unconventional reservoirs. Because of these significant breakthroughs, it comes as no surprise that an increased interest in further developing the Mancos Shale has taken place. However, like most unconventional plays, low porosity and extremely low permeability characterize the Mancos Shale. These …

Effective Thermal Conductivity Of Porous Media By Inverse Heat Transfer Analysis, Oscar Javier Ii Fabela

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

This research describes the application of inverse analysis to estimate the thermal conductivity of a porous material using temperature measurements at the surfaces. Finite volume analysis code is implemented in MATLAB and it is utilized to solve the steady state, axisymmetric heat transfer governing energy equation. The analysis code is coupled with a numerical optimization method and utilized to predict thermal conductivity using the measurements. An experimental setup was developed to test a porous media composed of a mixture of small pellets and air. In experiments, temperature is measured at outer surface of copper tube. These data, serves as input …

Pseudo-Spectral Methods Based Real-Time Optimal Path Planning For Unmanned Ground Vehicles, Denish Kamleshkumar Baman

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

Real-time optimal trajectory design and tracking for autonomous ground vehicles are maturing technologies with the potential to advance mobility by enhancing time and energy efficiency in application such as indoor surveillance robots or planetary exploration rovers. Pseudo-spectral methods based trajectory generation framework provides the desired trajectory which minimizes a prescribed objective function (i.e. minimum time, acceleration, and energy) while satisfying kinodynamics and various types of constraints (i.e. obstacle avoidance and smooth turning at waypoint transitions). In this thesis cyber-physical system architecture is used for the communication between rover-vehicle and the ground station. By using optimal state and control vector from …

Statistical Estimation In Multivariate Normal Distribution With A Block Of Missing Observations, Yi Liu

Mathematics Dissertations - Archive

Missing observations occur quite often in data analysis. We study a random sample from a multivariate normal distribution with a block of missing observations, here the observations missing is not at random. We use maximum likelihood method to obtain the estimators from such a sample. The properties of the estimators are derived. The prediction problem is considered when the response variable has missing values. The variances of the mean estimators of the response variable under with and without extra information are compared. We prove that the variance of the mean estimator of the response variable using all data is smaller …

On The Existence Of Bogdanov-Takens Bifurcations, Zachary Deskin

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

In bifurcation theory, there is a theorem (called Sotomayor's Theorem) which proves the existence of one of three possible bifurcations of a given system, provided that certain conditions of the system are satisfied. It turns out that there is a "similar" theorem for proving the existence of what is referred to as a Bogdanov-Takens bifurcation. The author is only aware of one reference that has the proof of this theorem. However, most of the details were left out of the proof. The contribution of this thesis is to provide the details of the proof on the existence of Bogdanov-Takens bifurcations.

Book Review - The Digital Payment Revolution: Books On Mobile, Bitcoin, And Beyond, Benjamin Geva

Articles & Book Chapters

This review discusses three short books covering different aspects of the digital revolution in payments. The first is written by an anthropologist. It focuses on mobile payments, particularly in the developing world, in the broad context of money and social relationships. The second is a comparative collection of papers on legal aspects relating to Bitcoin. The third addresses the potential of digital currencies and their underlying technology, well beyond Bitcoin, to forever revolutionize the world of money and payments.

Effects Of Ocean Warming And Acidification On Fertilization Success And Early Larval Development In The Green Sea Urchin, Lytechinus Variegatus, Brittney L. Lenz

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Climate change is predicted to affect the larval stages of many marine organisms. Ocean warming can reduce larval survival and hasten larval development, whereas ocean acidification can delay larval development. Ocean acidification is especially concerning for marine organisms that develop and grow calcified shells or skeletons in an environment undersaturated with calcium carbonate minerals. This study assessed the effects of ocean warming and acidification on the fertilization and larval development of the green sea urchin, Lytechinus variegatus, a tropical species common in Florida and the Caribbean. After spawning, gametes were fertilized and embryos/larvae were reared at: 1) 28°C and …

Variation In Coral Recruitment And Juvenile Distribution Along The Southeast Florida Reef Tract, Leah M. Harper

HCNSO Student Theses and Dissertations

Coral recruitment in Southeast Florida is being outpaced by mortality, resulting in population declines in many species. Identifying the coral species most likely to recruit and survive on Southeast Florida reefs and evaluating spatial variation in recruitment and survivorship is crucial for managing decreasing coral populations. This study focuses on 12 sites in Broward and Miami-Dade counties that have served as long-term stations for monitoring adult coral cover and demographics. At each site, thirty-two 225cm² grooved terracotta settlement tiles were attached to the substrate in winter of 2015 and retrieved in winter of 2016 to evaluate scleractinian and octocoral …

Exploring Oculus Rift: A Historical Analysis Of The ‘Virtual Reality’ Paradigm, Chastin Gammage

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

This paper will first provide background information about Virtual Reality in order to better analyze its development throughout history and into the future. Next, this essay begins an in-depth historical analysis of how virtual reality has developed prior to 1970, a pivotal year in Virtual Reality history, followed by an exploration of how this development paradigm shifted between the 1970's and the turn of the century. The historical analysis of virtual reality is concluded by covering the modern period from 2000-present. Finally, this paper examines the layout of the virtual reality field in respect to he history and innovations presented.

Proteomics Standards Initiative: Fifteen Years Of Progress And Future Work., Eric W Deutsch, Sandra Orchard, Pierre-Alain Binz, Wout Bittremieux, Martin Eisenacher, Henning Hermjakob, Shin Kawano, Henry Lam, Gerhard Mayer, Gerben Menschaert, Yasset Perez-Riverol, Reza M Salek, David L Tabb, Stefan Tenzer, Juan Antonio Vizcaíno, Mathias Walzer, Andrew R Jones

Articles, Abstracts, and Reports

The Proteomics Standards Initiative (PSI) of the Human Proteome Organization (HUPO) has now been developing and promoting open community standards and software tools in the field of proteomics for 15 years. Under the guidance of the chair, cochairs, and other leadership positions, the PSI working groups are tasked with the development and maintenance of community standards via special workshops and ongoing work. Among the existing ratified standards, the PSI working groups continue to update PSI-MI XML, MITAB, mzML, mzIdentML, mzQuantML, mzTab, and the MIAPE (Minimum Information About a Proteomics Experiment) guidelines with the advance of new technologies and techniques. Furthermore, …

Teacher Development Multi-Year Studies: Conceptual Framework, Hilary Hollingsworth, Elizabeth Cassity, Debbie Wong, Jacqueline Cheng

Initial Teacher education

The purpose of this conceptual framework for DFAT’s teacher development multi-year study series is to improve the following elements across the series: clarity on the purpose of the series; consistency in terminology and methodology; connections to give the ability to draw common conclusions and explain differences; communication to create a shared understanding of the series and each stakeholder’s role and responsibility, and to use internal and external means to engage strategically and disseminate findings. To date, Timor-Leste, Vanuatu and Laos have committed to undertake multi-year studies of their teacher development investments.

One-Shot Learning In Deep Sequential Generative Models, Hanyu Guo

All Theses

Regardless of the Deep Learning community's continuous advancements, the challenging domain of one-shot learning still persists. While the human brain is capable of learning a new visual concept with ease, sometimes even at a glance, Deep Learning-based techniques show serious drawbacks in handling problems with small datasets. Much of the existing work on one-shot learning employs a variety of sophisticated network algorithms, prior domain knowledge, and data manipulation to address the generalization challenges presented in such problems. In this work, we demonstrate a one-shot learning method that contains three learning networks — a deep sequential generative model, a candidate network, …

Notes From The Director, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Matrix Factorizations For Polynomials, Andrew Soto-Levins

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

Full Issue, The Mcnair Team

McNair Scholars Research Journal

No abstract provided.

2017-December-01-Commencement Address, University Marketing And Communications, East Tennessee State University

ETSU News

No abstract provided.

A Swift Guide To Butterflies Of North America, Second Edition., Ann B. Swengel

The Prairie Naturalist

As soon as I got my hands on A Swift Guide to Butterflies of North America, I immediately checked the species account for Aphrodite Fritillary (Speyeria aphrodite). The prairie version of this species can be sufficiently different from the typically illustrated nominate subspecies such that it must be specifically explained as being distinct. This book passed my first test—describing details that were not only essential for identifying this fritillary species but also for realizing how similar its underside can be to our prairie specialty, the stunning Regal Fritillary (S. idalia).

Much of my research on butterflies occurs in grasslands. For …

Avian Diversity, Abundance, And Nest Success Among Managed Prairies And Agricultural Plots In Oklahoma And Texas, Phillip J. Leonard, Douglas R. Wood, Wayne E. Meyer

The Prairie Naturalist

Over the last 50 years, grassland birds experienced rapid declines due to habitat loss and degradation as a result of agricultural practices. Our objective was to document the diversity, abundance, and nest success of bird communities using managed prairie and agricultural plots at the Tishomingo National Wildlife Refuge (NWR) in southern Oklahoma and Hagerman NWR in northern Texas. From April 1 to July 15, 2013–2014, point count surveys, nest searches, nest monitoring, and vegetation sampling were conducted among three habitat treatments: managed prairie, unharvested wheat, and fallow agricultural plots. Species richness values for potential nesting species were higher in managed …

Severe Drought Impacts Female Pheasant Physiology In Southwest Nebraska, Jessica A. Laskowski, Gwen C. Bachman, Joseph J. Fontaine

The Prairie Naturalist

In 2012, Nebraska experienced one of the worst droughts since the 1930s, accompanied by abnormally high temperatures. We studied the impacts of the 2012 summer drought on female ring-necked pheasant (Phasianus colchicus) body condition and baseline and stress-induced corticosterone concentrations (CORT). We hypothesized that drought conditions would reduce pheasant body condition, increase chronic stress resulting in elevated baseline CORT levels, and down-regulate pheasant stress response to acute stressors, resulting in reduced stress-induced CORT concentrations. In southwestern Nebraska, we captured female pheasants in 2012 (pre-drought) and 2013 (post-drought). Pheasants had poorer body condition after the drought. Although female CORT measures were …

Energy Sprawl Solutions, Nicola Koper

The Prairie Naturalist

Energy sprawl affects all the major conservation issues of our age, from habitat loss and fragmentation to anthropogenic noise and climate change. As such, minimizing and solving its associated problems should be a key focus for conservation biologists. Kiesecker and Naugle provide an impressive and compact book that focusses on solving environmental and social problems likely to result from a transition from non- renewable to far less efficient renewable energy sources.

Energy Sprawl Solutions summarizes numerous relevant peer-reviewed academic papers, and outlines management and planning implications of each one, ultimately resolving these into fairly clear prescriptive recommendations for moving forward. …

Unique Nesting Behavior By Trumpeter Swans (Cygnus Buccinator), Heather M. Johnson, Michael Forsberg, Letitia Reichart, Mark P. Vrtiska

The Prairie Naturalist

Nesting behavior by Trumpeter swans (Cygnus buccinator) has been well documented for most populations. Both sexes cooperate in nest construction, which takes 11–35 days to complete (Hansen et al. 1971, Cooper 1979). Nests generally range from 1.5–3.6 meters in diameter and 1.5 meters in height and are typically built on solid structures such as a muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus) house or an island (Hansen et al. 1971, Cooper 1979). However, we discovered an atypical Trumpeter swan nest built of cattail (Typha angustifolia L.) located on Vaughn Lake, in Cherry County, Nebraska on 13 May 2016.

We monitored the atypical nest by …

The Considerations Given To Determining Authorship, Christopher N. Jacques

The Prairie Naturalist

Greetings GPNSS members! Over the past year, I have been asked by prospective authors and colleagues whether The Prairie Naturalist has criteria for authorship. Given that this issue continues to arise, it is comforting to know that I am not the only one who struggles with considerations given to determining authorship. I checked the current submission guidelines and found nothing specific, which in turn motivated me to explore what other journals such as the Journal of Wildlife Management, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, and Ecology recommend to prospective authors (Merrill 2015). Much to my surprise, discussions of authorship …

One More Warbler: A Life With Birds., Laura Erickson

The Prairie Naturalist

Imagine going on a Victor Emanuel Nature Tour, seated in the van next to Victor Emanuel himself. Between birding stops, this man who has seen over 6,000 species as a world-renowned conservationist and innovator in ecotourism regales you with stories. He starts with his “spark bird”: when he was eight years old, he was taken with the beauty of a pair of Northern Cardinals (Cardinalis cardinalis), and was hooked. Whenever people pile back into the van after a birding stop, he starts another story.

That’s how One More Warbler: A Life with Birds reads, as if Emanuel sat down with …

Field Discrimination Of Prairie Deer Mice And White-Footed Mice Using Morphological Characteristics, Jacob L. Berl, Kelton M. Verble, Elizabeth A. Flaherty, Robert K.S. Swihart

The Prairie Naturalist

Field discrimination of prairie deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus bairdii) and white-footed mice (P. leucopus noveboracensis) can be difficult throughout much of the central United States where they co-occur. We live-trapped prairie deer mice and white-footed mice within forested and row-crop habitats in central Indiana and used multiplex PCR with species-specific primers to positively determine species identification. We collected a suite of commonly measured external morphological traits (body weight and lengths of ear, hindfoot, tail, and body) from each captured animal. Individuals were assigned to species based on analysis of DNA; discriminant function analysis was used to …