Digital Commons Network^™

Optimization Of Coverage Ratios For Basis And Freight Trading Portfolios, Adam Joseph Kroll

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

Changing commodity prices create opportunities for traders to profit or experience substantial losses if risk is not managed. Extensive research has been presented regarding optimal hedging strategies using futures markets to mitigate price risk of holding a physical commodity, but the literature has not introduced a method for optimizing basis or rail coverage ratios. This study introduces coverage ratios to manage basis and transportation risk. Coverage ratios are optimized for a portfolio of basis and rail positions consistent with expected utility theory using Monte Carlo simulation at various risk aversion levels. The results indicated that as risk aversion increased, optimal …

The United States And Brazil - Spatial And Logistical Interdependence For Soybean Shipments To China, Gwen Marie Scheresky

Agribusiness and Applied Economics

Analyzing the United States/Brazil competition for market share of Chinese soybean imports requires a detailed, stochastic approach. Using data from 2013 to 2019, this thesis attempts to model and explain the change in market share for each producing country as different variables fluctuate or enter the equation. Using five origins in each country, the PNW, USG, Santos, Paranaguá, and the northern arc of ports in Brazil, various transportation routes from origin to port, congestion and quality metrics, and ocean freight, a least-cost optimized Monte Carlo simulation is performed using time-series forecasting distributions for monthly variables. A distribution of outcomes for …

Implementing High-Throughput Phenotyping At The Ndsu Dry Bean (Phaseolus Vulgaris L.) Breeding Program Using Unmanned Aerial Systems, Diego Jose Gris

Agribusiness and Biosystems Engineering

Plant breeding has led to considerable yield gains to several crops. However, it alone might not be able to keep up with the growing demand for food. In this study, data extracted from UAS-collected RGB and multispectral images were assessed on their ability to estimate four agronomic traits in three market classes of dry beans in a breeding program. The results showed that (i) seed yield, 100-seed weight, stem diameter and days to flowering can be estimated within the same market class with variable accuracy; (ii) aggregating data from several flights yielded better results than using a single flight; (iii) …

Understanding The Relationship Between Weather Variables, Dry Matter Intake, And Average Daily Gain Of Beef Cattle, Mustapha Yusuf

Animal Sciences

The current National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine (NASEM) dry matter intake (DMI) prediction models are inadequate for DMI prediction of beef cattle in the Northern Great Plains. Four studies were conducted to account for additional variation in DMI and average daily gain (ADG) caused by weather variables. Experiment 1 and 2 had 13,895 steer-weeks observations, experiment 3 had 13,739 steer-weeks observations, and experiment 4 had 2,161 cow-weeks observations, respectively. Experiment 1 examined the influence of ambient temperature and solar radiation on DMI of beef steers. In experiment 2, 3, and 4, we examined the influence of ambient temperature, …

Biochemical And Cellular Characterization Of Replication Factor A (Rfa) During Meiosis And The Dna Damage Response In Saccharomyces Cerevisiae, Angela Marie Adsero

Cellular and Molecular Biology

Replication Factor A (RFA) is an essential heterotrimeric single-stranded DNA (ssDNA) binding complex, comprised of Rfa1, Rfa2, and Rfa3 in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. RFA is required for DNA replication, repair, recombination, and cell cycle regulation. RFA acts as a sensor of ssDNA, a common intermediate of these processes, and coordinates these processes through recruitment of proteins. For example, during the DNA damage response (DDR), RFA-coated ssDNA is necessary for the recruitment and activation of the sensor kinase Mec1. Additional checkpoint proteins, also recruited by RFA, are necessary for the downstream recruitment and activation of the effector kinase Rad53 that ultimately leads …

A Metal Catalyzed Approach For Heterocycle Coupling Reactions, Michael Robert Chhoun

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Heterocycles are cyclic compounds which contain atoms from at least two different elements. The work in this thesis describes methods we developed for the direct chemical transformation of indole heterocycles with various nitrogen heterocycles forming coupled heterocyclic compounds. The first chapter of this thesis introduces background information of the heterocycles worked with on in our research. The chapter will discuss why the synthesis of these compounds are an interesting research topic. The second chapter discusses the research of metal induced transformations of 4(3H)-quinazolinone. Specifically, the work that has been done in the literature to chemically transform these heterocycles. The last …

Mechanistic Investigation Of Catalytic Chlorite Decomposition By Chlorite Dismutase, Zachary Geeraerts

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Water purification processes often involve chlorine-based disinfectants which consequently leads to formation of chloro oxyanions (ClOx−), potent water-soluble oxidizing agents. These chlorine species are kinetically stable in water which allows them to persist and buildup to hazardous concentrations. Chlorite (ClO2−), a common contaminant in water purification processes, has been labeled as a top ten major water contaminant by the United States Environmental Protection Agency. Therefore, there is pressing interest in developing methods for removal of ClOx− species from water. Chlorite dismutases are heme b dependent enzymes that catalyze the unimolecular decomposition of ClO2− into chloride (Cl−) and molecular oxygen (O2) …

Scrutinizing The Role Of Ambipolar Units In The Donor-Acceptor Framework, Trent Eugene Anderson

Chemistry and Biochemistry

Conjugated polymers (CPs) are a class of materials that contradict what is commonly considered when people hear the terms plastics and electronics. While these two phrases are generally considered exclusive, CPs combine the optical and electronic properties of inorganic materials and the flexibility and processability of traditional organic polymers and plastics. Research into CPs has resulted in an improved understanding of these compounds, leading to its application in the form of organic photovoltaics, organic light-emitting diodes, sensors, electrochromics, and field effects transistors. During this time, a number of models were developed for designing these polymers with desired characteristics, with the …

Vip Induces Snail1, A Master Emt Regulator: Upregulation In A375 Cancer Cells, Sejaa Al-Badrani

Chemistry and Biochemistry

VIP is neurotransmitter with pleiotropic functions in mammals. It is expressed by a large number of tissues, including the CNS, PNS, innate and adaptive immune systems. VIP has two endogenous G-protein coupled receptors, termed VPAC 1 and VPAC2. VIP signaling through VPAC1 receptor has been documented to transactivate EGFR in healthy and cancerous cells leading to the activation of multiple downstream signaling pathways. EGFR signaling is a potent inducer of the master regulator EMT, called Snail1, which is a zinc-finger, transcription factor that is associated with downregulating epithelial markers like E-cadherin, while upregulating mesenchymal markers necessary for invasion and metastasis. …

Beyond Transparency And Accountability: Three Additional Features Algorithm Designers Should Build Into Intelligent Platforms, Peter K. Yu

Faculty Scholarship

In the age of artificial intelligence, innovative businesses are eager to deploy intelligent platforms to detect and recognize patterns, predict customer choices and shape user preferences. Yet such deployment has brought along the widely documented problems of automated systems, including coding errors, corrupt data, algorithmic biases, accountability deficits and dehumanizing tendencies. In response to these problems, policymakers, commentators and consumer advocates have increasingly called on businesses seeking to ride the artificial intelligence wave to build transparency and accountability into algorithmic designs.

While acknowledging these calls for action and appreciating the benefits and urgency of building transparency and accountability into algorithmic …

Profitable Retail Customer Identification Based On A Combined Prediction Strategy Of Customer Lifetime Value, Yinglu Sun, Dong Cheng, Subir Bandyopadhyay, Wei Xue

Midwest Social Sciences Journal

As a fundamental concept of customer relationship management, customer lifetime value (CLV) serves as a crucial metric to identify profitable retail customers. Various methods are available to predict CLV in different contexts. With the development of consumer big data, modern statistics and machine learning algorithms have been gradually adopted in CLV modeling. We introduce two machine learning algorithms—the gradient boosting decision tree (GBDT) and the random forest (RF)—in retail customer CLV modeling and compare their predictive performance with two classical models—the Pareto/NBD (HB) and the Pareto/GGG. To ensure CLV prediction and customer identification robustness, we combined the predictions of the …

Getting Old: A Design Solution To Improve Mental Health Post Retirement, Bailey Buschke

Architecture Theses

Individuals 65 years and older are struggling with the alarmingly high suicide rates among their peers. This is often caused by the sudden lack of purpose following retirement. Designing for community involvement while still maintaining a secure sense of independence will play a major role in increasing the quality of life in those 65 and older. The American population over 65 is projected to grow from the current 16.3% to about 19% by 2050. This means a solution to this growing problem is needed now more than ever. Retirement communities have grown all around the United states, but seem to …

Continuum, Joshua Trojan

Architecture Theses

As a contemporary society, we pursue sustainability to mitigate environmental unbalance. However, we rarely reflect on the temporal and cyclical nature of our existence, which exposes the premise of sustainability; continuance through mindfulness and stewardship. Like much of the world, cities such as San Francisco have evicted the dead from the city. The displacement of cemeteries from the urban fabric threatens to conceal our temporal nature, condemning us to mindlessly dwell in the present with little concern for the wellbeing of the future. This project seeks to reverse this trend by making room for a dynamic urban cemetery that reveals …

Almost All Permutation Matrices Have Bounded Saturation Functions, Jesse Geneson

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Saturation problems for forbidden graphs have been a popular area of research for many decades, and recently Brualdi and Cao initiated the study of a saturation problem for 0-1 matrices. We say that a 0-1 matrix A is saturating for the forbidden 0-1 matrix P if A avoids P but changing any zero to a one in A creates a copy of P . Define sat(n, P ) to be the minimum possible number of ones in an n × n 0-1 matrix that is saturating for P . Fulek and Keszegh proved that for every 0-1 matrix P, either …

Extensible Embedded Processor For Convolutional Neural Networks, Joshua Misko, Shrikant S. Jadhav, Youngsoo Kim

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Convolutional neural networks (CNNs) require significant computing power during inference. Smart phones, for example, may not run a facial recognition system or search algorithm smoothly due to the lack of resources and supporting hardware. Methods for reducing memory size and increasing execution speed have been explored, but choosing effective techniques for an application requires extensive knowledge of the network architecture. This paper proposes a general approach to preparing a compressed deep neural network processor for inference with minimal additions to existing microprocessor hardware. To show the benefits to the proposed approach, an example CNN for synthetic aperture radar target classification …

The Integer-Antimagic Spectra Of Graphs With A Chord, Richard M. Low, Dan Roberts, Jinze Zheng

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Let A be a nontrival abelian group. A connected simple graph G = (V, E) is Aantimagic if there exists an edge labeling f : E(G) → A \ {0} such that the induced vertex labeling f+ : V (G) → A, defined by f+(v) = Puv∈E(G) f(uv), is injective. The integer-antimagic spectrum of a graph G is the set IAM(G) = {k | G is Zk-antimagic and k ≥ 2}. In this paper, we determine the integer-antimagic spectra for cycles with a chord, paths with a chord, and wheels with a chord.

Differences In Ride-Hailing Adoption By Older Californians Among Types Of Locations, Manish Shirgaokar, Asha Weinstein Agrawal, Bonnie Dobbs, Aditi Misra, Martin Wachs

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

Ride-hailing services such as Lyft and Uber can complement rides offered by family, friends, paid providers, and public transit. To learn why older adults might wish to use ride-hail, we conducted an online survey of 2,917 California respondents age 55 and older. Participants were asked whether they would value four features hypothesized to be benefits of ride-hailing. We specified binary logit models and used market segmentation to investigate whether there were location-based differences in the use of ride-hailing. Our analysis showed that women, city dwellers, persons with disabilities, and those who rely on others for rides were more open to …

Unpacking Challenges In Student-Faculty Partnerships On Departmental Action Teams, Gina M. Quan, Joel C. Corbo, Sarah Wise, Courtney Ngai

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

This paper is a case study analysis of one student-faculty partnership working to enact departmental change. Students as Partners (SaP) is an approach in which students and faculty work in partnership on the co-design of a curricular or institutional change effort. Our team implements SaP through Departmental Action Teams (DATs), which are facilitated teams of faculty, students, and staff within a single STEM department working on an issue related to undergraduate education. In our research, we aim to understand the ways in which SaP becomes enacted in DATs. Through analyzing interviews with student and faculty members of a single DAT, …

Multifidelity Approaches For Uncertainty Estimation In Wildfire Spread Simulators, Mario Miguel Valero, Lluís Jofre, Ricardo Torres

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

A variety of wildfire models are currently used for prescribed fire management, fire behaviour studies and decision support during wildfire emergencies, among other applications. All these applications are based on predictive analysis, and therefore require careful estimation of aleatoric and epistemic uncertainties such as weather conditions, vegetation properties and model parameters. However, the large computational cost of high-fidelity computaional fluid dynamics models prohibits the straightforward utilization of traditional Monte Carlo methods. Conversely, low-fidelity fire models are several orders of magnitude faster but they typically do not provide enough accuracy and they do not resolve all relevant phenomena. Multifidelity frameworks offer …

Metatheme Analysis: A Qualitative Method For Cross-Cultural Research, Amber Wutich, Melissa Beresford, Cindi Sturtzsreetharan, Alexandra Brewis, Sarah Trainer, Jessica Hardin

Faculty Research, Scholarly, and Creative Activity

In recent years, there has been a florescence of cross-cultural research using ethnographic and qualitative data. This cutting-edge work confronts a range of significant methodological challenges, but has not yet addressed how thematic analysis can be modified for use in cross-cultural ethnography. Thematic analysis is widely used in qualitative and mixed-methods research, yet is not currently well-adapted to cross-cultural ethnographic designs. We build on existing thematic analysis techniques to discuss a method to inductively identify metathemes (defined here as themes that occur across cultures). Identifying metathemes in cross-cultural research is important because metathemes enable researchers to use systematic comparisons to …

Financial Literacy, Experience, And Age Differences In Monetary Sequence Preferences, Jenna M. Wilson

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The emerging research on age differences in monetary sequence preferences suggests that older adults make decisions that are normatively correct from the standpoint of economic theory when choosing to receive larger versus smaller amounts of money sooner than later, but make non-optimal decisions about paying money. In an adult life-span sample (N = 594, aged 20-88, M_age = 46.48, SD= 15.16) recruited through MTurk, the present study examined age differences in monetary sequence preferences. Participants received eight hypothetical scenarios that described monetary events, and completed measures of financial literacy and financial experience. Older age was associated with …

Intrusion Detection With An Autoencoder And Anova Feature Selector, Rashmi Satyal

Computer Science

Intrusion detection systems are systems that aim at identifying malicious activities or violation of policies in a network. The problem of high dimensionality in intrusion detection systems is a barrier in processing data and analyzing network traffic. This work aims at tackling problems associated with high data dimensionality using a feature selection technique based on one way ANOVA F-test before the classification process. It also involves study of autoencoder as a classification technique for network data as opposed to the traditional use of autoencoders in image data. Experiments have been conducted using the popular NSL-KDD dataset and the results of …

Conceptual Cost Estimation Models For Bridge Projects, Adikie Esinam Essegbey

Construction Management and Engineering

Conceptual cost estimating is typically completed early in the project lifecycle when little design work has been completed. Because little information is known at this early stage, the estimate usually deviates substantially from the actual construction cost. Therefore, the objective of this research is to develop a conceptual cost estimate model for bridge infrastructure projects. In this study, a systematic literature review and meta-analysis of Mean Average Percentage Errors (MAPEs) of cost models was undertaken to identify the various cost estimation methods, the input variables that have adopted in the development of models and determine the impact of cost estimation …

Conceptual Cost Estimation Of Highway Bid Items Using Geostatistical Interpolation, Bright Awuku

Construction Management and Engineering

Challenges associated with ensuring the accuracy and reliability of cost estimation of highway bid items, especially during the conceptual phase of a project, are of significant interest to state highway agencies. Even with the existing research undertaken on the subject, the problem of inaccurate estimation of highway bid items still exists. A systematic literature review was performed to determine research trends, identify, categorize the factors influencing highway unit prices, and assess the performance of conceptual cost prediction models. This research proposes a geographic information system (GIS)–based methodology that leverages vast historical bid data for unit-price estimation and the robust GIS …

Accuracy Of Implant Placement Utilizing Stereolithographic Guides Printed With And Without Cross-Arch Stabilization Struts, Caitlin Libby Dds

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Objectives: The purpose of this study was to assess the accuracy of implant placement using stereolithographic guides printed with and without stabilization struts by comparing the post-operative position to the planned implant position.

Methods: A pre-operative cone-beam computed tomography (CBCT) of a drillable maxillary model was obtained and data was uploaded into coDiagnostiX for preoperative planning. The implant position was planned in an edentulous space of #5 using a 3.3x10mm Bone Level Tapered (BLT) implant (Straumann). Ten surgical guides were designed utilizing a stabilization strut (Group A), while ten guides were designed without the stabilization strut (Group B). Twenty guides …

Well Performance Analysis Of Mseel1 And Mseel2 Wellpads, Mohammad Faiq Adenan

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

MSEEL1 and MSEEL2 are wellpads that were developed as a means of conducting research into how a gas well being developed in the Marcellus shale can be optimized from the reservoir identification stage to the completions and operational stage. This thesis provides a report of the workflow performed to use the generated data from different sources and analyze them for optimization.

MIP-3H and Boggess 17H were designated as science wells, for which the majority of the well logging and coring experiments were conducted on. The data obtained from the experiments were used as a basis for petrophysical analysis, the results …

The Impact Of Unsaturated Zone Thickness On The Severity Of Saltwater Intrusion In Coastal Aquifers From Overtopping, Dennis Jesse Carpinello

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Storm-surge inundation and wave overwash, collectively overtopping, causes the land surface to be inundated with seawater, resulting in vertical infiltration of saline waters into underlying coastal aquifers, which can have severe consequences on freshwater resources. Unsaturated zone thickness plays an important role in determining the severity of saltwater contamination resulting from an overtopping event. This study uses numerical modeling to investigate vertical saltwater infiltration and salinization, and the subsequent aquifer recovery to overtopping events for coastal aquifers with different unsaturated zone thicknesses. Groundwater models were developed using the numerical code SUTRA to solve saturated-unsaturated, density-dependent groundwater flow and solute …

Improving Deep Learning Models In Weakly Supervised Learning Paradigms, Fariborz Taherkhani

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have provided promising achievements for image classification problems. However, training a CNN model relies on a large number of labeled data. Considering the vast amount of unlabeled data available on the web, it is important to make use of these data in conjunction with a small set of labeled data to train a deep learning model. In this thesis, we aim to develop some methods that can make use of unlabeled data along with partially labeled data to obtain a better generalization performance for CNN models. Moreover, it is also often easier to collect labels that …

Plant Species Identification In The Wild Based On Images Of Organs, Meghana Kovur

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Image-based plant species identification in the wild is a difficult problem for several reasons. First, the input data is subject to a very high degree of variability because it is captured under fully unconstrained conditions. The same plant species may look very different in different images, while different species can often appear very similar, challenging even the recognition skills of human experts in the field. The large intra-class and small inter-class image variability makes this a fine-grained visual classification problem. One way to cope with this variability and to reduce image background noise is to predict species based on the …

Gas Phase Reactions Of Cyclopentadiene With Ch And Oh Radicals, Kacee Lynn Caster

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

The formation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and carbon-based nanoparticles in combustion environments is driven by the pyrolysis and oxidation of abundant fuel molecules. The subsequent growth of these pyrolytic byproducts is then propagated by reactions with small free radical species like OH, CH, O atoms, and C₂H. Cyclopentadiene (C₅H₆) is a significant five-member combustion intermediate that has been detected in many high temperature reactions, such as in the pyrolysis of jet fuels like JP-10. Experimental and theoretical investigations in the reactions of cyclopentadiene with these small free radical species are necessary towards understanding …