Digital Commons Network^™

Analysis Of Environment-Marker Associations In American Chestnut, Markus Müller, Charles Dana Nelson, Oliver Gailing

Forest Health Research and Education Center Faculty Publications

American chestnut (Castanea dentata Borkh.) was a dominant tree species in its native range in eastern North America until the accidentally introduced fungus Cryphonectria parasitica (Murr.) Barr, that causes chestnut blight, led to a collapse of the species. Different approaches (e.g., genetic engineering or conventional breeding) are being used to fight against chestnut blight and to reintroduce the species with resistant planting stock. Because of large climatic differences within the distribution area of American chestnut, successful reintroduction of the species requires knowledge and consideration of local adaptation to the prevailing environmental conditions. Previous studies revealed clear patterns of genetic …

Systems Thinking In A Second Grade Curriculum: Students Engaged To Address A Statewide Drought, Margaret Sauceda Curwen, Amy Ardell, Laurie Macgillivray, Rachel Lambert

Education Faculty Articles and Research

Faced with issues, such as drought and climate change, educators around the world acknowledge the need for developing students’ ability to solve problems within and across contexts. A systems thinking pedagogy, which recognizes interdependence and interconnected relationships among concrete elements and abstract concepts (Meadows, 2008; Senge et al., 2012), has potential to transform the classroom into a space of observing, theorizing, discovering, and analyzing, thus linking academic learning to the real world. In a qualitative case study in one school located in a major metropolitan area in California, USA teachers and their 7- and 8-year-old students used systems thinking in …

Origin Of Localization In Ti-Doped Si, Yi Zhang, R. Nelson, K. M. Tam, W. Ku, U. Yu, N. S. Vidhyadhiraja, H. Terletska, J. Moreno, M. Jarrell, T. Berlijn

Faculty Publications

Intermediate band semiconductors hold the promise to significantly improve the efficiency of solar cells but only if the intermediate impurity band is metallic. We apply a recently developed first principles method to investigate the origin of electron localization in Ti doped Si, a promising candidate for intermediate band solar cells. We compute the critical Ti concentration and compare it against the available experimental data. Although Anderson localization is often overlooked in the context of intermediate band solar cells, our results show that in Ti doped Si it plays a more important role in the metal insulator transition than Mott localization. …

Project Management Madness: 3 Key Programs For Communication, Personal Tasks And Large Projects, Rachel S. Evans

Presentations

No matter what member of a team you are, be it content editor, web designer, database manager or systems administrator, getting things done and meeting goals depends largely on how you communicate with one another, handle your time and effectively collaborate on small and big projects. This session will use our own team's preferred platforms to show specific examples of how we are managing our taskflow across three different programs to tackle business as usual, short and long term work, and major special projects.

The three programs that will be compared for pros, cons, and their integration with one another …

A Secure Computing Platform For Building Automation Using Microkernel-Based Operating Systems, Xiaolong Wang

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Building Automation System (BAS) is a complex distributed control system that is widely deployed in commercial, residential, industrial buildings for monitoring and controlling mechanical/electrical equipment. Through increasing industrial and technological advances, the control components of BAS are becoming increasingly interconnected. Along with potential benefits, integration also introduces new attack vectors, which tremendous increases safety and security risks in the control system. Historically, BAS lacks security design and relies on physical isolation and "security through obscurity". These methods are unacceptable with the "smart building" technologies. The industry needs to reevaluate the safety and security of the current building automation system, and …

Usu-Csu Na Lidar Data, Tao Yuan

Browse all Datasets

The naturally existing mesospheric Na layer, overlapping the upper mesosphere and lower thermosphere, provides an excellent tracer for lidar remote sensing. The Na Doppler lidar technique is designed to measure neutral temperature and wind profiles in the mesopause region (~ 80-110 km) by observing the thermal broadening and Doppler shift of the atomic Na fluorescence spectrum. Relocated from Colorado State University (CSU), the Na lidar at Utah State University (USU) has been operating since the summer of 2010, for roughly 1000 hours per year. Enabled by a pair of Faraday filters, it has a unique daytime observation capability to study …

Reason In Motion, Luke Francis

Student Works

This essay will explain the historical models of the solar system, which was the known universe for most of human history. There is far more to each model than simply positioning different celestial bodies at the center of the system, and the stories of the astronomers who derived the controversial theories are not discussed often enough. The creation of these theories is part of a much broader revolution in scientific thought and marked the start of a series of observational discoveries that would change the the philosophy of science for centuries to come.

The Echo: November 9, 2018, Taylor University

2018-2019 (Volume 106)

New diversity position created – Taylor joins Colleges Against Cancer – Alumnus receives teaching fellowship – Lesner speaks on nonprofits – Trevor Osswald’s photos of the week – Bree’s Beat International News – Correction – Ivy and a son named Levi – Student hold each other’s stories – ‘Prevention is really our best medicine – croc thoughts – The Weekly Bachelor and Bachelorette – Humans of Taylor U – Weekly Crossword – Sudoku -- #TaylorU’s Top Tweets – Learn the art of looking through the eyes of another – Stories walk ‘Into the Woods’ and onto the stage – Discover …

Enhancing The Design Of A Cybersecurity Risk Management Solution For Communities Of Trust, James E. Fulford Jr.

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Research into cybersecurity risks and various methods of evaluating those threats has become an increasingly important area of academic and practitioner investigations. Of particular interest in this field is enhancing the designs and informing capabilities of cybersecurity risk management solutions for users who desire to understand how organizations are impacted when such risks are exploited. Many of the cybersecurity risk management solutions are extremely technical and require their users to have a commensurate level of technical acumen. In the situation evaluated during this research project, the founders of the company being researched had created a highly technical risk management solution …

Measurement Of Differential Cross Sections For Z Boson Pair Production In Association With Jets At S=8 And 13 Tev, Cms Collaboration, J. G. Acosta, S. Oliveros

Faculty and Student Publications (Open Access)

No abstract provided.

Scientia: Fall 2018

Scientia

Gerald Koocher Steps Down as Dean; Calculus, Conquered; Math Magic; New Programs: We've Got a Degree in That; Lab Notes; To Croatia, With Curiosity; Human Nature Inextricable from Scientific Advances; The Scientists of Summer

Bayesian Analysis Of Two Stellar Populations In Galactic Globular Clusters Ii: Ngc 5024, Ngc 5272, And Ngc 6352, Rachel Wagner-Kaiser, Ted Von Hippel, David Stenning, Elliot Robinson, Ata Sarajedini, David Van Dyk, Nathan Stein, William H. Jefferys

Publications

We use Cycle 21 Hubble Space Telescope (HST) observations and HST archival ACS Treasury observations of Galactic Globular Clusters to find and characterize two stellar populations in NGC 5024 (M53), NGC 5272 (M3), and NGC 6352. For these three clusters, both single and double-population analyses are used to determine a best fit isochrone(s). We employ a sophisticated Bayesian analysis technique to simultaneously fit the cluster parameters (age, distance, absorption, and metallicity) that characterize each cluster. For the two-population analysis, unique population level helium values are also fit to each distinct population of the cluster and the relative proportions of the …

Exploring Online Novelty Detection Using First Story Detection Models, Fei Wang, Robert J. Ross, John D. Kelleher

Conference papers

Online novelty detection is an important technology in understanding and exploiting streaming data. One application of online novelty detection is First Story Detection (FSD) which attempts to find the very first story about a new topic, e.g. the first news report discussing the “Beast from the East” hitting Ireland. Although hundreds of FSD models have been developed, the vast majority of these only aim at improving the performance of the detection for some specific dataset, and very few focus on the insight of novelty itself. We believe that online novelty detection, framed as an unsupervised learning problem, always requires a …

Structure-Based Design, Synthesis And Applications Of A New Class Of Peptidomimetics: 'Y-Aa Peptides And Their Derivatives, Ma Su

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Peptidomimetics can mimic hierarchical structures of peptides and proteins. Thus, they are extensively studied for therapeutic applications. To break the limitation of backbones and frameworks and expand the peptidomimetics family, a new class of peptidomimetics - “γ-AApeptides” was developed. Design of γ-AApeptides is based on the chiral peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) backbone.

The World Health Organization estimates that one -third of all deaths in the world are on account of infectious diseases. AMPs are important because of their high activity against broad spectrum microbes, less susceptible to grow resistance and selectivity in binding to bacterial cells over human cells. γ-AApeptides …

Constructing The First Year Experience: Improving Retention And Graduation Rates At A Hispanic-Serving Institution, Sonia M. Gipson Rankin, Tim Schroeder, Joe Suilmann, Pamela Cheek

Faculty Scholarship

In 2012, UNM teamed up with the Gardner Institute for Excellence in Undergraduate Education, to conduct a Foundations of Excellence® (FoE) First College Year Self Study addressing student success. As members of the First Year Steering Committee, we invented, coordinated, measured, and documented programs for linking students to the academic experiences and support that were best attuned to their needs.

Superintegrable Relativistic Systems In Scalar Background Fields, L Ansell, T Heinzl, A Ilderton

School of Engineering, Computing and Mathematics

We consider a relativistic charged particle in a background scalar field depending on both space and time. Poincar\'e, dilation and special conformal symmetries of the field generate conserved quantities in the charge motion, and we exploit this to generate examples of superintegrable relativistic systems. We also show that the corresponding single-particle wavefunctions needed for the quantum scattering problem can be found exactly, by solving the Klein-Gordon equation.

Evaluation Of Spatial Generalization Characteristics Of A Robust Classifier As Applied To Coral Reef Habitats In Remote Islands Of The Pacific Ocean, Justin J. Gapper, Hesham El-Askary, Erik J. Linstead, Thomas Piechota

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

This study was an evaluation of the spectral signature generalization properties of coral across four remote Pacific Ocean reefs. The sites under consideration have not been the subject of previous studies for coral classification using remote sensing data. Previous research regarding using remote sensing to identify reefs has been limited to in-situ assessment, with some researchers also performing temporal analysis of a selected area of interest. This study expanded the previous in-situ analyses by evaluating the ability of a basic predictor, Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA), trained on Depth Invariant Indices calculated from the spectral signature of coral in one location …

The Legendre Transformation For Beginning Thermodynamics Students, Carl W. David

Chemistry Education Materials

The Legendre Transform, as traditionally taught in introductory Physical Chemistry classes, can be better understood with some simple examples, which are discussed herein.

Stem Roles: How Students’ Ontological Perspectives Facilitate Stem Identities, Dina Verdín, Allison Godwin, Monique Ross

Journal of Pre-College Engineering Education Research (J-PEER)

Educational researchers have explored the importance of performance, recognition, and interest in establishing and maintaining a STEM identity. Research has also demonstrated that the ways students describe themselves and how they participate in STEM communities can provide insight into their role identity salience; however, there has been little work to explore the ontological beliefs of students about STEM people and how this influences their ability to see themselves as possessing a STEM identity. This research explores the ontological beliefs of high school students, with specific attention to the ways in which they describe what constitutes a math person, science person, …

Book Review: Towards Inclusion Of All Learners Through Science Teacher Education, Greg Stefanich

Journal of Science Education for Students with Disabilities

It is a pleasure to receive an invitation to submit a review for the book titled Towards Inclusion of All Learners through Science Teacher Education. The contributors include four wellknown leaders in inclusive science education complemented by a spectrum of authors American and international, in pre-service and graduate science education, pre-service and graduate special education, science research, special education practitioners, classroom teachers, graduate students, and students through case studies and interviews.

The book presents an excellent overview of current practices in schools, descriptions of individual and team efforts to improve practice, and emerging innovations such as the application of Universal …

Policy And Security Configuration Management Systems In Cross-Organisational Settings, Sascha Pudenz, Markus Manhart, Daniel Bachlechner, Stefan Thalmann

International Journal of Business and Technology

A context of use analysis is an important step in every software engineering project. Comprising the identification of the key system users as well as an analysis of the system environment and the activities supported, this engineering step is crucial for the successful development of information systems. Clarity with respect to the users’ demand for system support and their participation in the activities supported by the system is considered particularly important for systems which are critical for organizational continuity and which are used across organizational boundaries. Systems supporting policy and security configuration management in networks of IT service providers, their …

Mobile-Cloud Cross Development (Mcx), Sachin Ahuja

International Journal of Business and Technology

There is a multitude of Mobile Operating Systems (MOSs) with iOS, Android, Windows Phone and, BlackBerry leading the space. New players continue to enter the market. Without a de-facto leader in this space, it has become necessary for businesses & developers to target multiple devices & MOSs in order to establish a relevant presence within their target audience. Cross-platform Mobile Development Tools (XMTs) were born out of this need to reduce developer effort in creating mobile applications by providing “write once run anywhere” (WORA) functionality. However, most of these tools sacrifice performance, features or maintainability in order to provide WORA …

Autonomous Agents As Tools For Modeling And Building Complex Control Systems That Operate In Dynamic And Unpredictable Environment, Alketa Hyso, Eva Çipi

International Journal of Business and Technology

Complex control systems that operate in not entirely predictable environment have to deal with this environment in an autonomous manner using adaptability, the ability to predict environmental changes, and to maintain their integrity. Elements of the system must be able to find a new solution in a dynamic way. In this paper, we present the modeling of a traffic lights’ control system using a multivalent system. This is a large-scale distributed system, consisting of autonomous and rational traffic light agents, in which there is no centre imposing an outcome. Multiagent system brings another kind of organization of the distributed control. …

An Innovative Web Application For Managing Academic Documents, Krenare Pireva, Petros Kefalas

International Journal of Business and Technology

Archiving versions of academic documents in consideration of green thinking was the motivation to develop an innovative tool that could organize academic documents in a centralized database. This paper presents a new web application, which aims to move towards a paperless University model for managing academic documents that are used within an educational institution, such as proposal courses, syllabuses etc. AcaDocMan, the developed application can be used by academic staff and quality assurance officers of institutions who are able not only to manage their course syllabuses but also to generate different consistent document formats for various purposes.

Dynamic Modeling And Analysis Of Propulsion Effect Of 3 Dof Robot, Ahmet Shala, Xhevahir Bajrami

International Journal of Business and Technology

Dynamical Modeling of robots is commonly first important step of Modeling, Analysis and Control of robotic systems. This paper is focused on using Denavit-Hartenberg (DH) convention for kinematics and Newton- Euler Formulations for dynamic modeling of 3 DoF - Degree of Freedom of 3D robot. The process of deriving of dynamical model is done using Software Maple. Simulations are done using Matlab/Simulink for analysis of propulsion effect under Earth gravity when First Link rotates with 1000 rpm, second Link can move free in vertical direction and Third Link can rotates free around their rotations axle. Simulations results shows very good …

Material Balance Adjustement In Raw Material Processing, Migena Hoxha, Piro Zoga, Aida Bode

International Journal of Business and Technology

Circuit of one processing plant was studied in order to adjust the mass balance. The granulometric composition of the streams that belong to grinding and classifying processes was analyzed, while the chemical content was determined only at the streams related to separation process. Three connection matrixes are considered in this paper, one corresponding to the size fraction equations, the second corresponding to the chemical content measurements and the third, the solid flow rate balance. The technique used consisted of filtering all the data by a weighted least-squares procedure. Then running the output data in a custom designed feature of the …

The Effectiveness Of The Use Of Solar Panels In Hotels Of Durres Area, Asllan Hajderi, Shkelqim Gjevori

International Journal of Business and Technology

In the present study is analyzing the case of the application of solar energy with vacuum tube collectors for heating water for sanitary needs in hotels of Durres areas. In recent years there has been a special interest by the leading authorities to the EU countries and the U.S., for the use of renewable energies in general and solar energy in particular. This is mainly related with the reduction of environmental pollution from gas CO2, which directly influences the greenhouse effect and global warming.

Unlike other forms of renewable energy, like wind turbines, photovoltaic panels and biomass usages, the use …

Advancement Of The Plastering Machine, Bujar Ademi, Peter Kopacek

International Journal of Business and Technology

Automation of water flow at plastering machines is a solution which serves the process of plastering, to adhere international standards. Automation of water flow by taking signals from the condition of the material depending on humidity. So its output is used to influence the increase or decrease of the amount of water flow in the valve. Water flow automation is a system which consists of several components in which the already, develop different processes. To release the feedback we need a sensor which is built by piezoelemnt in which we have the phenomenon of the frequency. With which we have …

Modeling In The Physiology Classroom, Sowmya Anjur

Faculty Publications & Research

Physiology and Disease is a Biology elective at IMSA that has been developed to be mostly student-centered. Some examples of student projects include modeling heart structure to reflect function and creating LED arduino monitors to measure heart rate. Students also measure their lung capacity and blood pressure to demonstrate correlation of these values with heart rate, and trace the correlation back to neuronal controls. Projects such as these integrate other disciplines such as engineering and conform to NGSS Science and Engineering standards and NGSS Cross cutting Concepts standards. Students take responsibility for their own learning and articulate better on tests.

Exploring Other Worlds: A Project In Planetary Science Class, Eric Hawker

Faculty Publications & Research

Planetary science is a highly interdisciplinary field, it often requires knowledge of physics, chemistry, geology, biology, and atmospheric science. In addition much of what we know of planets and moons come from missions that are exemplars of good engineering practices. In order to give my students a very basic understanding of what a planetary scientist does, they do a project that simulates the process of designing, proposing, operating, and analyzing the data from a robotic mission to a planet or moon. In this workshop, participants will work in groups to go through the steps of this project.