Digital Commons Network^™

Investigating The Effect Of Magma Viscosity Changes On The Eruption Style Of Masaya Caldera Complex, Nicaragua, Garima Lohani

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The Masaya caldera complex is a basaltic shield volcano that has produced rare basaltic Plinian eruptions (BPE) but is characterized by effusive activity in the last 6000 years. More than two million people live within a 20 km radius of the caldera. Magma viscosity plays an important role in determining the eruption style of a volcano. In this thesis, I provide the first viscosity measurements on an erupted magma composition and examine the role of magma viscosity in determining eruptive style at Masaya and in promoting BPE’s.

Viscosity experiments were conducted for a Masaya lava sample at superliquidus, subliquidus and …

Literacy Coaching For Disciplinary Literacy Instruction: An Exploration Of A Partnership At The Secondary Level, Kathy Jo Smith

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This case study sought to explore how literacy coaching at the secondary level can be used to assist teachers in the implementation of disciplinary literacy instruction, specifically in the high school history classroom. Based on the new Common Core State Standards, all teachers are required to teach reading, writing, and communicating as it pertains to each academic subject. In addition, standardized test scores continue to show little to no progress at the secondary level when it comes to reading and mathematics. Researchers have called for more rigorous disciplinary-literacy instruction at the high school level to address below-average standardized test scores. …

Exploring Factors Related To Acceptance Of 1:1 Devices Among High School Students, Victoria Therriault

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Studies show that students in lower socioeconomic status (SES) districts tend to have fewer resources, and in turn have greater achievement gaps than their affluent peers from neighboring districts. In an effort to bridge these gaps, schools have turned to 1:1 computing to bring electronic resources to their students that they might not have otherwise. However, to date there are minimal studies indicating whether or not high school students are willing to accept technology for classroom instructional purposes. This study examined the extent to which student demographic characteristics (e.g., sex, race/ethnicity, SES) are related to their acceptance of Chromebook use …

Minimizing Total Number Of Tardy Jobs In Two-Stage Flow Shop Using Simulated Annealing And Column Generation, Shashwot Uprety

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This research considers a scheduling problem where jobs need to be grouped in batches and scheduled in a two-stage flow shop with batch processing machines. The jobs are batched in such a way that machine capacity is not violated. The batches are scheduled in such a way to reduce the total number of tardy jobs. The problem under study, denoted as F2 | Batch | ΣUi in scheduling literature, has received less attention. The problem under study is NP-hard. Consequently, commercial solvers used to solve mathematical formulations to find an optimal solution require prohibitively long run times.

In this thesis, …

Grit As A Predictor Of Success And Persistence For Community College Students, Kathryn A. Rogalski

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This quantitative study investigated the ability of the noncognitive characteristic of grit to predict community college student success and persistence. Grit levels were measured using the eight-item Grit-S scale that was administered to students in classes of a large suburban community college. Individual-level institutional data also were collected at the time of application and during the time students were enrolled. Community college student success was assessed using two measures: (1) students' completion of all the courses they enrolled in at the beginning of the semester, and (2) students' end-of-semester, noncumulative, grade point average. Persistence was assessed by determining students' enrollment …

Impacts Of Different Forms Of Teacher Feedback On Student Mindset Beliefs And Goal Orientation, Matrisa Ann Shadley

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This thesis examines the type of feedback 12th grade AP English Literature students received from their teacher on their written assignments, and the students' perceptions of their teacher's feedback. It also examines associations between that feedback and students' mastery goal orientation, mindset toward writing, as well as the revisions and improvement they make in their writing skills over the course of a school year. The goal of the current study was to identify the types of feedback that impact an adolescent's value of effort and the writing process. Descriptive statistics, hierarchical multiple regression, and binary logistic regression were used to …

Improved Approximate Bayesian Computation Methods For Censored And Uncensored Data, Tatiana Dmitrieva

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Approximate Bayesian Computation (ABC) is a method of statistical inference that does not require the exact model to be known. It is generally used for complex models, where the likelihood function is intractable or computationally difficult. ABC has lately become very useful in areas such as genetics, biology, ecology, and epidemiology, due to the complex structures arising in these fields. Empirical likelihood is a nonparametric estimation approach in statistics that does not require the choice of a known distribution family for the data. Common ABC methods require the choice of summary statistic, which is very difficult to find, distance metric, …

Mathematical Programming And Magic: The Gathering®, Alexander Esche

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

In this paper mathematical programming techniques were used to determine the optimal strategy for playing Magic: The Gathering®. Games with the cards Lightning Bolt, Mountain, and Vexing Devil were evaluated using the minimax algorithm to determine the winner when all information about the cards is assumed known to both players. Computation time was shortened through the use of an evaluation function, a random forest algorithm that had been trained on 1000 completed games. A winning percentage was established for each pair of decks where the number of creatures was less than eight. Using linear programming, the optimal mixed strategy was …

Carbon Quantum Dots: Bridging The Gap Between Chemical Structure And Material Properties, Timothy J. Pillar-Little Jr.

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Carbon quantum dots (CQDs) are the latest generation of carbon nanomaterials in applications where fullerenes, carbon nanotubes, and graphene are abundantly used. With several attractive properties such as tunable optical property, edge-functionalization, and defect-rich chemical structure, CQDs have the potential to revolutionize optoelectronics, electro- and photocatalysis, and biomedical applications. Chemical modifications through the addition of heteroatoms, chemical reduction, and surface passivation are found to alter the band gap, spectral position, and emission pathways of CQDs. Despite extensive studies, fundamental understanding of structure-property relationship remains unclear due to the inhomogeneity in chemical structure and a complex emission mechanism for CQDs.

This …

Study Of The Effect Of Steric Bulk Of Side Chains On The Properties Of Conjugated Polymers, Bei Zhang

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Donor-acceptor conjugated polymers opened a new era for conjugated polymer research due to the abundant selection and combination of different conjugated units. This class of polymers function as semiconductor materials with potential application in plastic consumer electronics. The frontier molecular orbital energies of the polymers are generally determined by the selection of donor and acceptor units in the backbone structure, and their substituents. The side chains attached to the backbone not only affect the solubility of the materials, but also their self-assembly and morphological characteristics, which indirectly govern optoelectronic properties. It is important therefore to consider backbone architectures and the …

Catalytic Conversion Of Monosaccharides Into 5-(Hydroxymethyl)Furfural In Ionic Liquids Using Aluminum Complexes Bearing Bidentate (Aminomethyl)Phenolate Ligands, Daudi Sayialel Saang'onyo

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Currently, the major sources of fuel, energy, and chemicals are nonrenewable fossil resources such as petroleum, natural gas, and coal. Additionally, petroleum is used for the production of most transportation fuels and for the production of about 95% of organic chemicals. However, the production and use of non-renewable fossil fuels are unsustainable. For economic and environmental sustainability, there is a need to search for new and/or renewable resources and technologies for energy, fuels, and chemicals production that have the potential of effectively substituting fossil resources. In this context, lignocellulosic biomass is one of the candidates that meet these requirements due …

Heterogeneous Catalytic Deoxygenation Of Lipids To Fuel-Like Hydrocarbons Over Improved Bimetallic Nickel Catalysts, Ryan Andrew Loe

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Diminishing petroleum reserves and environmental considerations have strengthened the demand for developing renewable fuel technologies. One alternative is deoxygenating plant oils, animal fats, and waste lipid streams to fuel-like hydrocarbons. These fuels offer a drop-in replacement to petroleum products while potentially becoming carbon neutral, satisfying both fuel and environmental concerns. This fuel is obtained through catalytic deoxygenation via either hydrodeoxygenation (HDO) or decarboxylation/ decarbonylation (deCO_x). HDO requires problematic sulfided catalysts and extreme hydrogen pressures to convert lipids to fuel-like hydrocarbons. Therefore, this work focuses on the deCO_x pathway, where hydrogen is not required for deoxygenation to take …

Design And Synthesis Of Functional Organic Materials, Anthony Joseph Petty Ii

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Control of solid state ordering in conjugated small molecules is paramount to the continued development and implementation of organic materials in electronic devices. However, there exists no reliable method on which to predicatively determine how a change to the molecular structure will impact the solid-state packing. As such, the molecule must be synthesized before its solid-state packing can be definitively evaluated. However, once the packing structure of a material is known there exist both qualitative structure- function relationships derived from the literature, as well as quantitative computational methods that can be employed to suggest if a material will perform well …

Aqueous Photochemistry Of 2-Oxocarboxylic Acids, Alexis Eugene

Theses and Dissertations--Chemistry

Atmospheric aerosols affect climate change by altering the energy balance of the atmosphere, and public health due to their variable chemical composition, size, and shape. While the formation of secondary organic aerosol (SOA) from gas phase precursors is relatively well understood, it does not account for the abundance of SOA observed during field measurements. Recently it has become apparent that in-aerosol aqueous chemical reactions likely provide some of the missing sources of SOA production, and many studies of aqueous phase processes are underway.

This work explores the fates of the simplest 2-oxocarboxylic acids, glyoxylic acid (GA) and pyruvic acid (PA), …

On Uniformly Quasiregular Solutions To The Schroder Functional Equation And Strongly Automorphic Mappings, Douglas Malcolm Macclure

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The work presented in this thesis pertains to the function theoretic and geometric aspects of quasiregular mappings. The central theme of this thesis involves the properties of strongly automorphic quasiregular mappings and the properties and dynamics of their associated uniformly quasiregular (uqr) maps arising as solutions to a Schroder functional equation. Of key interest here is when the strongly automorphic mapping is a linearizer of the associated uqr mapping, since one can deduce properties of the uniformly quasiregular mapping via properties of a linearizer. Chapter 1 contains introductions to the key facets of complex analysis and complex dynamics, some of …

Course Portfolio For Math 407 Mathematics For High School Teaching: Refining Conceptual Understanding In A Mathematics Course For Pre-Service Teachers, Alexandra Seceleanu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

My intention in this portfolio is to present my approach to teaching an upper-level mathematics course for pre-service secondary level mathematics teachers. Several teaching strategies are discussed in the context of designing a coherent approach to this course, which emphasizes the need for conceptual reasoning above all other goals. These strategies are evaluated and assessed in connection to the learning outcomes using samples of student work from the course.

Also presented are samples of course materials that were used to lead students through an organized discussion of the relevant concepts. These materials convey some basic mathematical knowledge and therefore may …

Strategic Financial Management, Fina-475, Roberto Stein

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

Strategic Financial Management is the new, case-based capstone course of the Finance Major at the UNL College of Business. Introduced in the Fall 2016 Term, it has since been revised and is being continually updated, to better achieve the its academic goals. In this portfolio, I describe the course’s overall structure, goals and main components. I then detail a number of changes made for the Spring 2018 version of the course, and proceed to analyze data pertaining to the outcomes observed from these changes. Finally, I outline potential strategies and further changes that might be implemented in future iterations of …

A Digital Class For An In-Person Discipline: Creating An Online Class For Introduction To Theatre, Ian Borden

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

No abstract provided.

Aecn 376-Rural Community Economics: Engaging Students In Learning, Daniela M. Mattos

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

AECN376-Rural Community Economics attracts students with different economics background and interests. In the three previous years I taught this course I was struggling to find a balance in class activities to make the course more engaging and effective to all students. The usual method of delivery is lecture along with PowerPoint slides. While this is the dominant form of pedagogy, particularly in higher education (Harvard Magazine 2015, Time Magazine 2012), an increasing amount of research indicates that the somewhat passive learning environment of the lecture does not reach all students with the same efficiency. In creating this portfolio, my goals …

Cyaf374: Purposeful Planning—Reflection And Practice In Enriching Students’ Lesson Design, Kelley Buchheister

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio documents my process of embracing, modeling, and implementing reflective teaching practices to enhance the lesson designs of my prospective early childhood professionals in CYAF374: Curriculum Planning in Early Childhood. Throughout this project I attended to and applied five critical components emphasized in the peer review of teaching project and integrated these ideas within the foundational elements of Japanese lesson study in order to implement instructional practices that would benefit my students. These five elements are extensively discussed throughout the portfolio on multiple levels: (a) understanding the role of reflective practice, (b) identifying goals through backward design, (c) outlining …

Stat 380: Statistics And Applications, Yumou Qiu

UNL Faculty Course Portfolios

This portfolio prepares for the introduction level undergraduate statistic course (Stat 380) for the students with calculus background, which includes the course goals, contents as well as teaching methods for large session classes. Analysis and evaluation of student learning are also included. In-class activities and discussion helping students’ engagement are introduced. The homework is assigned by Canvas, which summaries the students’ solution and provides analysis for each student.

Impact Of Temperature Increase On Freshwater Fish Species: Energetics And Muscle Mechanics Of Two Centrarchids, Israt Jahan

Masters Theses

Fishes have evolved physiologically to live within a specific range of environmental variation and existence outside of that range can be stressful or fatal. These ranges can coincide for fishes that evolved in similar habitats. This study investigates physiological processes limiting thermal tolerance, specifically how changes in water temperature affect the swimming energetics and muscle mechanics in largemouth bass (Micropterus salmoides) and bluegill (Lepomis macrochirus). I focused on the impact of temperature change at the muscle level in these two species and the capacity to adapt to rapid changes in the environment. Fish were housed at …

Examining 8th Grade Students Disciplinary Literacy Of Science Material, Chelsie P. Doughty

Masters Theses

Education standards are shifting to reflect a skills-based, rather than a content-centered, curriculum that focuses on students being literate across all disciplines. This study focuses on the skills of critical thinking, close reading, and text-based writing as it applies to the scientific and historical disciplines. Eighth grade students engaged in a text-based writing assignment that required evaluation of multiple sources to support their claims. Student responses were analyzed textually and verbally as it related to the content. Findings included the ability to identify students' struggles and successes with close reading, writing claims, evaluating evidence for importance, and connecting documents to …

The Transcriptional Response Of Trametes Versicolor To Growth On Maple Chips And Miscanthus Straw, Maha Alanazi

Masters Theses

This thesis research explored the transcriptional response of Trametes versicolor, a white-rot fungus, in response to fundamentally different types of lignocellulosic biomass (miscanthus and maple) and rich medium (malt extract agar). After five weeks of growth by the fungus on the biomass, the fungal RNA was extracted from three biological replicates per biomass type and mRNA was sequenced (approximately 30 million reads per sample). The reads were processed using ArrayStar to covert to RPKM and annotated using JGI's T. versicolor GO annotation file along with NCBI's BLAST. Comparisons were made between average gene expression of the fungus grown on …

Water Quality Trends Following Anomalous Phosphorus Inputs To Grand Bay, Mississippi, Usa, Marcus W. Beck, Kimberly Cressman, Cher Griffin, Jane Caffrey

Gulf and Caribbean Research

Grand Bay National Estuarine Research Reserve (GBNERR) is a 7500 ha protected area in Jackson County, MS. In 2005, a levee breach at a fertilizer manufacturing facility released highly acidic and phosphate—rich wastewater into the reserve. A second spill occurred in September 2012 following Hurricane Isaac. We used orthophosphate (PO₄^3-) concentrations to categorize the 2 events, post— events, and non—impact periods between the 2 spills. We examined spatial and temporal patterns in nutrients, chlorophyll, pH, and other parameters within and between monitoring stations. After the first event, pH at the Bangs Lake water quality station decreased to …

Restriction Of A Quadratic Form Over A Finite Field To A Nondegenerate Affine Quadric Hypersurface, Edoardo Ballico

Turkish Journal of Mathematics

Let $h, h_M: \mathbb {F} _q^n\to \mathbb {F} _q$ be quadratic forms with $h$ not degenerate. Fix $k\in \mathbb {F} _q$ and set $C_n(k,h)_{\mathbb {F} _q}:= \{h(x_1,\dots ,x_n)=k\}\subset \mathbb {F}_q^n$. We compute (in many cases) the image of $h_{M C_n(k,h)_{\mathbb {F} _q}}$. This question is related to a question on the numerical range of matrices over a finite field.

A Coanalytic Menger Group That Is Not $\Sigma$-Compact, Seçi̇l Tokgöz

Turkish Journal of Mathematics

Under $V=L$ we construct coanalytic topological subgroups of reals, demonstrating that even for definable groups of reals, selection principles may differ.

The Equation ${Dd'+D'D=D^2}$ For Derivations On C$^*$-Algebras, Sayed Khalil Ekrami, Madjid Mirzavaziri

Turkish Journal of Mathematics

Let $\mathcal{A}$ be an algebra. A linear mapping $d:\mathcal{A}\to\mathcal{A}$ is called a derivation if $d(ab)=d(a)b+ad(b)$ for each $a,b\in\mathcal{A}$. Given two derivations $d$ and $d'$ on a C$^*$-algebra $\mathcal{A}$, we prove that there exists a derivation $D$ on $\mathcal A$ such that $dd'+d'd=D^2$ if and only if $d$ and $ d' $ are linearly dependent.

Boolean Differential Operators, Luis Hernandez Encinas, Ángel Martín Del Rey

Turkish Journal of Mathematics

In this work the notion of boolean differential operator is revisited and some new properties are stated.

Analysis Of Periodic And Asymptotically Periodic Solutions In Nonlinear Coupled Volterra Integro-Differential Systems, Youssef Raffoul

Turkish Journal of Mathematics

In this note, we investigate the existence of periodic and asymptotically periodic solutions of a system of coupled nonlinear Volterra integro-differential equations with infinite delay. We will make use of Schauder fixed point theorem to prove our maps have fixed points.