Digital Commons Network^™

Um Educators Fostering Cuban Educational Collaboration, Edwin B. Smith

University of Mississippi News

Six faculty members are applying principles, information gathered and shared during recent conference

Magmatic Response To Subduction Initiation: Part 1. Fore-Arc Basalts Of The Izu-Bonin Arc From Iodp Expedition 352, John W. Shervais, Mark Reagan, Emily A. Haugen, Renat R. Almeev, Julian A. Pearce, Julie Prytulak, Jeffrey G. Ryan, Scott A. Whattam, Marguerite Godard, Timothy Chapman, Hongyan Li, Walter Kurz, Wendy R. Nelson, Daniel Heaton, Maria Kirchenbaur, Kenji Shimizu, Tetsuya Sakuyama, Yibing Li, Scott K. Vetter

Geosciences Faculty Publications

The Izu-Bonin-Mariana (IBM) fore arc preserves igneous rock assemblages that formed during subduction initiation circa 52 Ma. International Ocean Discovery Program (IODP) Expedition 352 cored four sites in the fore arc near the Ogasawara Plateau in order to document the magmatic response to subduction initiation and the physical, petrologic, and chemical stratigraphy of a nascent subduction zone. Two of these sites (U1440 and U1441) are underlain by fore-arc basalt (FAB). FABs have mid-ocean ridge basalt (MORB)-like compositions, however, FAB are consistently lower in the high-field strength elements (TiO2, P2O5, Zr) and Ni compared to MORB, with Na2O at the low …

2014 - Quarternary Geologic Map Of North-Central Salinas River Valley And Arroyo Seco

Miscellaneous Monterey and San Luis Obispo County Documents and Reports

The new mapping provides a detailed stratigraphic history of incision and deposition from the early Pleistocene to the present. Infiltration from the Salinas River and its tributaries is the source of irrigation water in this agricultural region. Irrigation water is pumped from the aquifers at depths of about 55 and 120 m. Area has become intruded by seawater, especially between cities of Castroville and Salinas.

Virtual Robot Climbing Using Reinforcement Learning, Ujjawal Garg

Master's Projects

Reinforcement Learning (RL) is a field of Artificial Intelligence that has gained a lot of attention in recent years. In this project, RL research was used to design and train an agent to climb and navigate through an environment with slopes. We compared and evaluated the performance of two state-of-the-art reinforcement learning algorithms for locomotion related tasks, Deep Deterministic Policy Gradients (DDPG) and Trust Region Policy Optimisation (TRPO). We observed that, on an average, training with TRPO was three times faster than DDPG, and also much more stable for the locomotion control tasks that we experimented. We conducted experiments and …

Deep Visual Recommendation System, Raksha Sunil

Master's Projects

Recommendation system is a filtering system that predicts ratings or preferences that a user might have. Recommendation system is an evolved form of our trivial information retrieval systems. In this paper, we present a technique to solve new item cold start problem. New item cold start problem occurs when a new item is added to a shopping website like Amazon.com. There is no metadata for this item, no ratings and no reviews because it’s a new item in the system. Absence of data results in no recommendation or bad recommendations. Our approach to solve new item cold start problem requires …

Assessing Ground Penetrating Radar’S Ability To Image Subsurface Characteristics Of Icy Debris Fans In Alaska And New Zealand, Robert W. Jacob, Jeffrey M. Trop, R. Craig Kochel

Faculty Journal Articles

Icy debris fans have recently been described as fan shaped depositional landforms associated with (or formed during) deglaciation, however, the subsurface characteristics remain essentially undocumented. We used ground penetrating radar (GPR) to non-invasively investigate the subsurface characteristics of icy debris fans (IDFs) at McCarthy Glacier, Alaska, USA and at La Perouse Glacier, South Island of New Zealand. IDFs are largely unexplored paraglacial landforms in deglaciating alpine regions at the mouths of bedrock catchments between valley glaciers and icecaps. IDFs receive deposits of mainly ice and minor lithic material through different mass-flow processes, chiefly ice avalanche and to a lesser extent …

Multimodal Nondestructive Dry Cask Basket Structure And Spent Fuel Evaluation, J. Gladden, James Tulenko, Lingyu Yu, Haori Yang

Faculty and Student Publications (Open Access)

No abstract provided.

Carbon-13 Kinetic Isotope Effects Of Catalytic Co2 Reduction By Polypyridyl Transition Metal Complexes, Taylor William Schneider

Doctoral Dissertations

Herein, we have used carbon-13 kinetic isotope effects (¹³C KIEs) to probe the catalytic CO₂ reduction mechanisms of two different polypyridyl transition metal complexes, Re(bpy)(CO)₃Cl (1), which will convert CO₂ to CO, and [Ru(tpy)(bpy)Cl]PF₆ (2) (bpy = 2,2’‑bipyridine; tpy = 2,2’:6’,2”-terpyridine), which will convert CO₂ to a mixture of CO and formic acid. We used several sets of reaction conditions to drive CO₂ reduction. These included sodium mercury (Na(Hg)) amalgam as a sacrificial reducing agent, photocatalytic conditions in which triethanolamine (TEOA) was a sacrificial electron donor, and …

The Effect Of Mandating Algebra For All Students In Grade 8 Versus Grade 9 In A Small Suburban K-12 School District In New Jersey, Peter Crawley

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

The traditional sequencing of the ninth- to twelfth-grade math curriculum in the United States has students taking Algebra 1 in the ninth grade, Geometry in the tenth grade, Algebra 2 in the eleventh grade and an optional advanced math course (e.g. pre-calculus, statistics) in the twelfth grade. In this traditional setup, talented math students are given the opportunity to take Algebra 1 in the eighth grade, which allows them to take two or more years of advanced math before graduating from high school. In an effort to create more equitable access to advanced math courses, many districts are considering or …

Noise And Gain Characterization Of Interband Cascade Infrared Photodetectors, Eli A. Garduño

Electrical and Computer Engineering ETDs

Infrared (IR) detectors are an enabling technology for a broad and growing list of applications including gas detection, night vision, and space-based missile warning. There are ongoing efforts in IR detector research to explore the potential of new material systems and energy band structures in addition to continuously improving their sensitivity through increasing their quantum efficiency and lowering their dark current and noise. This dissertation examines an emerging class of IR detectors known as Interband Cascade Infrared Photodetectors (ICIPs).

ICIPs contain multiple regions to facilitate the collection of photogenerated electrons and to limit unwanted dark current. Theory regarding their performance …

Equitable Pricing Of Episodes Of Care In A Cluster-Based Bundled Payment System, Bikram P. Singh

Theses

Most of the individuals in the United States are concerned about healthcare affordability and rising healthcare costs. The prevalent healthcare cost reimbursement system, Fee-For-Service (FFS) has been deemed as a key driver for increasing healthcare costs. Bundle payments (BP) has been suggested as an alternative to replace FFS and has shown to reduce the rising healthcare costs. Under BP, the expected set of services involved in treating a diagnosis, or episode of care, is reimbursed by a single payment. We propose a systemic pricing of multiple diagnosis under a Cluster-Based Bundle Payment system (CBBP), where for a given diagnosis, groups …

Temperature Transient Analysis For Reservoir Characterization, Yilin Mao

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Recent developments in downhole temperature measurements open new alternatives contributing to reservoir characterization. In this dissertation, novel forward and inverse models to analyze production- and injection-induced temperature signals are developed for conventional and unconventional reservoir applications. Important limitations of the proposed models are addressed by accounting for fluid property variations and complex production strategies.

Forward modeling approaches involve making relevant assumptions that allow rigorous analytical solutions to be constructed using Laplace transform, Method of Characteristics, and control volume analysis. Our results of the analytical models are benchmarked with those from commercial numerical simulation software. Multiple possible scenarios of conventional reservoirs …

Singularity Resolution In Anisotropic And Black Hole Spacetimes In Loop Quantum Cosmology, Sahil Saini

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Loop quantum cosmology (LQC) has in recent years led to successful resolution of singularities in cosmological models while agreeing with general relativity in low curvature limit. Existence of a bounce and the possibility of an effective continuum description closely approximating the quantum evolution have been notable features of this singularity resolution. The effective spacetimes of loop quantized isotropic and Bianchi-I models have been shown to be geodesically complete and free from strong singularities. In this dissertation, we extend these results to effective loop quantized Bianchi-II, Bianchi-IX and Kantowski--Sachs models with arbitrary minimally coupled matter, and also explore the possibility of …

Evaluating Construction Defect Mobile Application Using Think Aloud, Zan Azma Nasruddin, Azleen Markom, Maslina Abdul Aziz, Pa’Ezah Hamzah

Malaysian Journal of Computing (MJoC)

Construction Defect mobile application (app) is used by Ministry of Defense's Construction Defect Inspection Team to help the team in recording construction defect. However, the mobile app has never been evaluated formally to identify any usability problems. The objectives of this study are to identify usability problems of Construction Defect mobile app using think aloud and to recommend design improvement of Construction Defect mobile app based on the identified usability problems. The think aloud study involved 15 participants. During the evaluation, every participant carried out the given tasks and gave his impressions as he went along the tasks. Three usability …

Stem Superstar Women: Ada Lovelace, Pioneering Computer Programming, Erica Sonzogni

Children's Book and Media Review

When a person thinks of a scientist, they usually consider the men that dominate the field. In reality, there were many important women who made a strong contribution in this area. Ada Lovelace is one of those women. Ada’s life is chronicled from birth to death in this book. The text focuses on her many contributions to science and mathematics in a time when women were not supported in receiving an education. Ada’s mother encouraged this, her husband continued with the support, and Ada pursued her passion until her early death.

Melia And Jo, Samantha Bullock

Children's Book and Media Review

Melia spends most of her time inventing and experimenting in her backyard—until one day her makeshift STEM lab is turned upside down by her artsy, pirouetting new neighbor Jo. At first Melia isn’t sure what to think of this new girl who finds unorthodox uses for Melia’s half-completed inventions, but eventually she realizes that Jo’s artistic solutions are actually making the inventions better! The two girls work together to complete Melia’s inventions with Jo’s artistic sense, creating the ultimate STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics) team by combining their individual unique talents.

On The Absence Of A Normal Nonabelian Sylow Subgroup, Mark W. Bisslier, Jacob Laubacher, Corey F. Lyons

Faculty Creative and Scholarly Works

Let G be a finite solvable group. We show that G does not have a normal nonabelian Sylow p-subgroup when its prime character degree graph Δ(G) satisfies a technical hypothesis. Δ(G)">

Human Breast Cancer Xenograft Model Implicates Peroxisome Proliferator-Activated Receptor Signaling As Driver Of Cancer-Induced Muscle Fatigue, Hannah E. Wilson, Kacey K. Rhodes, Daniel Rodriguez, Ikttesh Chahal, David A. Stanton, Joseph Bohlen, Mary Davis, Aniello M. Infante, Hannah Hazard-Jenkins, David J. Klinke, Elena N. Pugacheva, Emidio E. Pistilli

Clinical and Translational Science Institute

Purpose: This study tested the hypothesis that a patient-derived orthotopic xenograft (PDOX) model would recapitulate the common clinical phenomenon of breast cancer–induced skeletal muscle (SkM) fatigue in the absence of muscle wasting. This study additionally sought to identify drivers of this condition to facilitate the development of therapeutic agents for patients with breast cancer experiencing muscle fatigue. Experimental Design: Eight female BC-PDOX–bearing mice were produced via transplantation of tumor tissue from 8 female patients with breast cancer. Individual hind limb muscles from BC-PDOX mice were isolated at euthanasia for RNA-sequencing, gene and protein analyses, and an ex vivo muscle contraction …

Boundary Twists, Instabilities, And Creation Of Skyrmions And Antiskyrmions, Aldo Raeliarijaona, Rabindra Nepal, Alexey Kovalev

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

We formulate and study the general boundary conditions dictating the magnetization profile in the vicinity of an interface between magnets with dissimilar properties. Boundary twists in the vicinity of an edge due to Dzyaloshinskii-Moriya interactions have been first discussed by Wilson et al. [Phys. Rev. B 88, 214420 (2013)] and by Rohart and Thiaville [Phys. Rev. B 88, 184422 (2013)]. We show that in general case the boundary conditions lead to the magnetization profile corresponding to the Néel, Bloch, or intermediate twist. We explore how such twists can be utilized for creation of skyrmions and antiskyrmions, e.g., in a view …

Sampling Bias Overestimates Climate Change Impacts On Forest Growth In The Southwestern United States, Stefan Klesse, R. Justin Derose, Christopher H. Guiterman, Ann M. Lynch, Christopher D. O’Connor, John D. Shaw, Margaret E.K. Evans

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Climate−tree growth relationships recorded in annual growth rings have recently been the basis for projecting climate change impacts on forests. However, most trees and sample sites represented in the International Tree-Ring Data Bank (ITRDB) were chosen to maximize climate signal and are characterized by marginal growing conditions not representative of the larger forest ecosystem. We evaluate the magnitude of this potential bias using a spatially unbiased tree-ring network collected by the USFS Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program. We show that U.S. Southwest ITRDB samples overestimate regional forest climate sensitivity by 41–59%, because ITRDB trees were sampled at warmer and …

Fighting For Their Lives: Why The Marginalized Irish From The 1840s-1910 Dominated American Prizefighting, Owen Marshall

Honors Program Theses and Projects

One of the most recognizable figures in the world during his lifetime, heavyweight boxing champion Muhammad Ali, previously Cassius Clay and Cassius X, put his self-esteem on display with the simple declaration “I am the greatest.” This was a phrase he told himself long before he truly was the greatest, but he proved it to the world in 1964 when he defeated defending champion Sonny Liston. Upon knocking out his dangerous, violent, and cheating opponent, Ali whipped himself into a frenzy, as onlookers saw him fall over the ropes, scream at the ringside reporters who had previously doubted him, and …

Advancements In Fractal Plasmonics: Structures, Optical Properties, And Applications., Gregory Q Wallace, Francois Lagugne-Labarthet

Chemistry Publications

The structural characteristics of plasmonic nanostructures directly influence their plasmonic properties, and therefore, their potential role in applications ranging from sensing and catalysis to light- and energy-harvesting. For a structure to be compatible with a selected application, it is critical to accurately tune the plasmonic properties over a specific spectral range. Fabricating structures that meet these stringent requirements remains a significant challenge as plasmon resonances are generally narrow with respect to the considered selected spectral range. Adapted from their well-established role in GHz applications, plasmonic fractal structures have emerged as architectures of interest due to their ability to support multiple …

Movement Activities For Kindergarten Through Second Grade Teachers In An Alaska Classroom, Krista K. Borba

Education

Physical activities in the classroom are very important for student growth and learning. Classroom teachers often teach physical activities in between core subjects in order to meet the Alaska Physical Activity in Schools Law which states that children should be getting 54 minutes of movement a day. However, many schools throughout Alaska do not have a designated PE teacher. Subsequently, this puts the responsibility of these standards on the general education teacher. However, few elementary teachers have a background in physical education, making it more challenging to know how to integrate meaningful physical activities in the classroom. The purpose of …

A Teacher's Role In Feedback And Instructional Conversations In A Kindergarten Ela Classroom, Emerie Fairbanks

Education

This teacher action research examines the role of the teacher and the use of feedback to support kindergarten students' language development. This study provides three emergent categories: A) Corrective feedback provided by the teacher with and without the option of the correct form of students' utterance. B) Student provided feedback: self-correction (no teacher influence) or correcting a classmate. C) Extending the conversation through teacher prompting and students collaborating in the meaning-making process. The findings showed providing feedback was beneficial to students' language development. The findings in this research study can be used to inform educators interested in the role feedback …

Role Of Dietary Fat And Supplementation In Modulating Neurodegenerative Pathology In Two Animal Model Systems, Malabika Maulik

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Neurodegenerative disorders are progressive conditions that worsen over time and results in death of neurons. Parkinson's disease (PD) is a prevalent example of one such age-related disease, which is characterized by movement disorder (ataxia) and/or cognitive disability (dementia). Pathologically, PD is characterized by a toxic accumulation of α-synuclein protein in the midbrain leading to degeneration of the dopaminergic neurons. The etiology of PD is intricate, and the cause is attributed to genetic mutations and environmental factors like insecticides or heavy metals. Moreover, treatment options are limited and often aimed at treating the symptoms rather than the actual disease progression. Using …

Metal(Loid) Liberation From Alaskan Coal Combustion Products As A Function Of Time In Various Aqueous Media, Kyle P. Milke

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Little is known about the fate and potential toxicity of metal(loid)s that could be leached from coal combustion products by a (sub- )Arctic environment. Several potentially toxic elements are enriched in coal combustion products relative to the average crustal abundance including As, Cu, Se, and Sb. The overarching goal of this project is to examine the release of these and other metal(loid)s from early stage coal ash and fly ash from the University of Alaska Fairbanks (UAF) power plant and identify transformations in the presence of aqueous environmental media. Bioaccessibility experiments performed indicate that early stage coal ash and fly …

Integrating Comprehension Instruction, Multimodalities And Co-Construction Into Cultural Learning, Christine Harrington

Education

This study explores the impact of a story-based approach to teaching reading strategies, and examines the implementation of and co-construction within multimodal activities. Eight third grade students participated in this study in a charter school focused on Alaska Native cultural learning. The phases of the PACE Model focused on transitional words and phrases in the context of a traditional story from the Tlingit, Haida, and Tsimshian cultures of Alaska. Their attention to the language feature was extended to summarizing and retelling as part of the Extension phase of the model. The results are consistent with previous studies that attributed focus …

Testing Multispecies Coalescent Simulators With Summary Statistics, Hector Daniel BañOs Cervantes

Mathematics and Statistics

The Multispecies coalescent model (MSC) is increasingly used in phylogenetics to describe the formation of gene trees (depicting the direct ancestral relationships of sampled lineages) within species trees (depicting the branching of species from their common ancestor). A number of MSC simulators have been implemented, and these are often used to test inference methods built on the model. However, it is not clear from the literature that these simulators are always adequately tested. In this project, we formulated tools for testing these simulators and use them to show that of four well-known coalescent simulators, Mesquite, Hybrid-Lambda, SimPhy, and Phybase, only …

Studying Auroral Microphysics Using Multiple Optically Tracked Rocket Sub-Payloads, Joshua M. Vann

Physics

There is insufficient knowledge of scale length parameters associated with ionospheric plasma structures. Using a novel technique combining rocket-based instrument data with ground-based optical and instrumental data measurements, ISINGLASS attempts to determine the spatial scale lengths over which parameter differences in auroral arcs present in the upper ionosphere. Determination of such scale lengths has the propensity to strengthen preexisting models of magnetosphere-ionosphere interactions. While analysis is not complete and the extent of such scale lengths is still unknown, after completion of the experiment phase of the mission, differences in measurements have been found that cannot be accounted for through experimental …

The Effects Of Mindfulness-Based Interventions For Care Courses On Nurses' Awareness And Mood In Taiwan, Meei-Horng Yang, Hung-Ru Lin, Yue-Cune Chang, Wei-Ling Huang

International Nursing Research Congress (INRC)

Qualitative and quantitative approaches were used to understand the effects of mindfulness-based interventions on nurses' awareness and mood. A pre- and post-test design was used in this study. The results of GEE method showed that that there were no significantly differences between these two groups in both CMAAS and BSRS-5.