Digital Commons Network^™

Application Of Data And Geospatial Analysis In Energy And Health Systems, Ali Faghani

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Having sustainable energy and health systems are the main factors in the vision plan of every country. Both of these systems are correlated with a variety of frameworks, including social, physical, technological, political, and economic factors. Therefore, different types of analytics methods can be implemented to develop the required assessments for those who make plans since understanding the effect of such factors individually, also their interactions, and the overall effect is crucial. With this regard, applications of data analysis and geospatial techniques in both energy, and health systems have recently gained attention. The proposed research here deployed advanced data analytics …

Thermal/Structural Analysis Of The Axion Quantum Metrology Cavity And Its Components, Tyler Funk

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This research was centered around maximizing the capability to cool dielectric material within a containment unit, or Photonic Band Gap (PBG) cavity, designed for detecting axion dark matter and identifying the unit’s thermal properties. There are multiple types of PBG cavities, but the latest version that axion researchers wish to use has been theorized to contain possible issues related to its thermal properties. Thermal conductivity is an issue with the dielectric material because it is made from alumina which is highly insulative. This is important since the research is being done in a cryogenic environment and the thermal noise affects …

Seismic Imaging Of The Lithospheric Structure Beneath The Upper Midwestern United States, Anthony Guajardo

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The upper midwestern United States is located within the North American Craton. This area has not undergone major deformation and metamorphism since the latest rifting events in the late Precambrian to early Cambrian (0.55 to 0.53 Ga). However, this area is not completely absent of seismicity, and major structural geologic features are present, including the Wisconsin Arch, LaSalle Deformation Belt, northern part of the Illinois basin and, deeper, the presumed transition between the Yavapai and Mazatzal tectonic provinces. Since the late 1800s, approximately 30 felt earthquakes of magnitude 2 or greater have occurred within the study area. It is likely …

Characterization Of Potential Anti-Infective Agents By Targeting Burkholderia Pseudomallei And Escherichia Coli Ispf, Dakota Lane Grote

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

With the likelihood of contracting an antibiotic resistant infection increasing, the need for novel anti-infective agents is critical. The development of novel anti-infective agents benefits from the identification of new target pathways necessary for the survival of the pathogen. One such target is the methylerythritol phosphate (MEP) pathway, responsible for the synthesis of the isoprenoid precursors isopentyl pyrophosphate (IPP) and dimethylallyl pyrophosphate (DMAPP) in bacteria and other pathogenic organisms. The MEP pathway is an attractive target because it is specific to a wide range of pathogenic organisms, while humans have a separate pathway, the mevalonate (MVA) pathway, for the biosynthesis …

Fly On The Wall: Comparing Arthropod Communities Between Islands With And Without House Mice (Mus Musculus), Wieteke A. Holthuijzen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Invertebrates are key to island ecosystems but impacts from invasive mammalian predators are not well documented or understood. Given this knowledge gap, we studied terrestrial arthropod communities in the presence of a common invasive rodent (house mice, Mus musculus) on a subtropical atoll—Midway Atoll National Wildlife Refuge (MANWR). Here, invasive mice recently began to attack and depredate nesting seabirds, prompting a mouse eradication. Although eradication planning efforts are underway, uncertainty remains regarding the ecosystem’s response to mouse removal. As part of a pre-eradication investigation, we conducted a baseline survey of MANWR’s arthropod community structure and diversity, comparing islands with and …

Traffic Fatality Rate Prediction Based On Deep Neural Network And Bayesian Neural Network, Yiqun Hu

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

There have been numerous studies on traffic accidents and their fatality rate. For this challenging machine learning regression problem, Neural Networks (NNs) have produced state-of-the-art data. Despite their success, they are often used in a fre- quentist scheme, which means they cannot account for uncertainty in their forecasts. BNNs are comprised of a Probabilistic Model and a Neural Network. The aim of such a design is to bring together the benefits of Neural Networks and stochastic modeling. Neural networks have the ability to approximate continuous functions uni- versally. Statistical models allow for the direct definition of a model with known …

A Time Series Analysis Approach To Forecasting Covid-19 Cases And Deaths: An Analysis Of Covid-19 Data In Colombia, Andrea Jackson-Sagredo

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The novel Coronavirus, known as COVID-19 is a highly contagious and transmissible infectious disease that has taken a toll throughout the entire world for over a year. The inner workings and long term effects of COVID-19 continue to be misunderstood. While COVID-19 has impacted all countries tremendously, Latin American countries and specifically Colombia have been impacted significantly by the virus. This thesis investigates the potential to forecast COVID-19 cases and deaths using Time Series Analysis methods and models for the South American country of Colombia. Time series analysis on Colombian COVID-19 data begins with data processing on a data set …

Hydrocarbons In The Niobrara Formation, Powder River Basin, Northeast Wyoming, From Geophysical Well Logs, Jennifer Shilo James

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The Powder River Basin, located in Wyoming, is a moderate producer of hydrocarbons with production hovering around 100 million barrels of oil per year. Recently the Niobrara Formation has garnered attention for hydrocarbon exploration and production using both conventional and unconventional drilling. A quick-look method for evaluating organic content, using either existing or real time data sets gathered from geophysical well logs, provides an opportunity to rapidly, accurately, and economically assess the formation’s organic content and thus hydrocarbon bearing potential. The popular Schmoker method determines organic content by relating gamma ray intensity to formation density. It has been successfully employed …

Geometric Properties Of Representation Varieties For An Elementary Abelian Group Of Rank 2 In Positive Characteristic, Eric Johnson

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation’s motivation is the exploration of the irreducible components of Repn(kG), the affine variety whose points are n-dimensional representations of a finite group G over a field k. We let G = Z/pZ×Z/pZ and assume k is algebraically closed with char(k) = p > 0. In this case there is an isomorphism of affine varieties φ : Repn (kG) → C nil 1 (n) where C nil 1 (n) = {(x, y) Mn(k)×Mn(k) | x p = y p = xy−yx = 0}. Hence, for an irreducible component X of Repn (kG), φ(X) is an irreducible component of C nil …

Coaxially Electrospun Fibrous Polymer Scaffolds For Tissue Regeneration And Drug Delivery, Matthew Michael Kleszynski

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

A biomaterial is a substance that is specifically engineered to take on a role within the body, either alone or in conjunction with other materials, with the purpose of influencing the body. Using Polymers as a biomaterial is an exciting field of study that has the potential to further our abilities to help those in need. Creating composite nanofibrous scaffolds composed of hydrophobic and hydrophilic polymers may outperform structures made of a single polymer in both in vitro and in vivo environments. Hydrophilicity governs the behavior of polymers in the body and has influence over the mechanical properties of the …

The Effect Of Digital Game-Based Learning On Students' Motivation In Math Classes, Rania Abdulkareem Kokandy

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Students often see mathematics as a hard subject because they have to rely on logic, mathematical theories of equations, proofs, and some of math concepts that are difficult to understand, which contributes to students’ poor performance and low motivation to learn math. Therefore, the purpose of this quantitative study was to investigate the effects of using digital math games on fourth-grade elementary students' motivation to learn math in Saudi Arabia. This study also focused on the effects of gender differences on their motivation to learn math. Data for this a quasi-experimental research were collected from 200 students using a pre- …

Testing A Global Standard For Quantifying Species Recovery And Assessing Conservation Impact, Molly K. Grace, John Carroll, 201 Other Scholars

School of Biological Sciences: Faculty Publications

Recognizing the imperative to evaluate species recovery and conservation impact, in 2012 the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) called for development of a “Green List of Species” (now the IUCN Green Status of Species). A draft Green Status framework for assessing species’ progress toward recovery, published in 2018, proposed 2 separate but interlinked components: a standardized method (i.e., measurement against benchmarks of species’ viability, functionality, and preimpact distribution) to determine current species recovery status (herein species recovery score) and application of that method to estimate past and potential future impacts of conservation based on 4 metrics ( …

Factors Influencing Faculty Members’ Behavioral Intentions To Use Flipped Classrooms In Saudi Arabia At Taif University, Abier Jaber Akiry

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This study explores the differences among faculty members at Taif University in Saudi Arabia regarding their behavioral intentions toward the use of flipped classrooms. This study investigated the relationship between the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT) constructs and the behavioral intention of faculty members. Gender was studied as a potential moderator of the relationship between each of the three predictors (performance expectancy, effort expectancy, and social influence) and the outcome (behavioral intention). Quantitative methods were used to collect data from 197 survey respondents. Findings showed that performance expectancy and effort expectancy were the only statistically significant …

Electrochemical Study Of The Performance Of Manganese Vanadium Oxide Cathodes In Zinc Batteries, Sarat Alabidun

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Zinc metal batteries are considered a promising alternative for grid energy storage due to the low redox potential (-0.76V vs SHE) and high theoretical specific capacity (850mAh/g) of zinc metal anode as well as its compatibility with aqueous electrolytes. They however face issues of poor cathode stability and rapid capacity fading. Several methods have been devised to improve the stability of the cathode materials and develop novel cathode materials with better performance including the metal ion doping of intercalation materials.This study investigated the performance of zinc metal batteries with novel manganese vanadium oxide cathodes. Organic structure directing agents have been …

Comparing Students’ Academic Achievement And Attitudes In Undergraduate Flipped And Non-Flipped Classrooms: A Mixed-Methods Study, Rabab Alareifi

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Today’s classrooms are filled with a diversity of students of different cultural backgrounds, languages, and socioeconomic statuses, and these differences can impact the students’ learning styles and outcomes. To meet their individual needs, the focus of educational institutions has been on transforming the role of teachers from lecturers to “guides on the side” by developing student-centered active learning strategies and employing effective instruction.A flipped classroom model of instruction is student centered and grounded in the constructivist theory of learning and serves as a potential instructional model to achieve these goals. Recently, a movement has emerged in higher educational institutions in …

Collisional Methods With Applications To Charged Particle Beams, Afnan Al Marzouk

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Accurate and efficient computational methods are essential to study the dynamics of charged particle beams. Most of the available numerical methods in beam physics are based on the collisionless model which is sufficient for applications that does not depend on Coulomb collisions of the simultaneously interacting particles. However, the development of collisional numerical methods has become greatly important in recent years for applications where collisions play an important role such as the electron cooling of high energy hadron beams. While collisional methods can provide very accurate simulations, their algorithms are very complex, and they face efficiency challenges. In this work, …

Using Community Of Inquiry To Examine The Effect Of Station Rotation Strategy In Elementary Mathematics, Ahmad Alshahrani

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Problem-based learning (PBL) has been implemented to encourage students to learn through problem-solving in the KSA. However, this method does not address students’ capability to apply the knowledge learned and a new learning approach are needed. The current study examined the effects of using a station rotation strategy on students’ achievement, attitude, and educational presence using a sample of 50 male sixth-grade mathematics students in the KSA, using the Community of Inquiry (CoI) as a framework. The findings demonstrated that there were statistically significant, positive effects of the station rotation strategy on student achievement, student attitude, and student education presence …

Investigating The Determinants Of Mobile Computer Acceptance By Special Education Teachers, Rashed Alsulami

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The development of special education teaching has recently been shifting to highlight the importance of integrating technology to this essential field of education. The integration process, however, requires teachers to “buy in” to facilitate implementation and use of such methods for improving instructional practice. Thus, there is a need to investigate factors that affect special education teachers’ acceptance of using mobile computer devices as an instructional tool. The purpose of this study was to investigate the determinants that predict Saudi Arabian special education teachers’ behavioral intention of using mobile computer devices as an instructional tool in their classrooms, as well …

Stochastic Infection In Network Models With Applications To Pollution Analysis, Alexander Thor Wold

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The continued adoption and escalation of commercial surface extraction techniques threatens to contaminate adjacent river networks across the coal mining landscape. We look to simulate the movement of this pollution across connected graph structures using stochastic block model methodologies, fueled from work and theory derived from exponential random graph models. We begin our study by applying our virtual experiment to the motivating material, later offering an exhaustive walk through of the simulation itself. Afterwards, we present our findings and their implications to water pollution analysis, emphasizing a need for this research and expanding on some inferential statistics left for later …

The Relationship Between Academic Coaching And Student Retention For Community College Students Enrolled In Developmental Education Courses, Tanya Woltmann

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examined the relationship between participation in an academic coaching program and retention for community college students enrolled in developmental education courses. With low retention and completion rates for students beginning in developmental courses, support programs to improve student success are needed. This quantitative study examines the participation in an academic coaching program and student retention in both the short-term and the long-term as well as the effect of the level of program participation on retention. Data was collected on over 8,000 students attending a community college who were enrolled in a developmental education course. The quantitative analysis included …

New Features For Speech Processing Standard Pronunciation Classification, Mutian Zhuang

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Pronunciation is essential in language learning. Standard English speakers could pronounce in the right way, because their pronunciation procedure is correct. The aim of this research is to see how an artificial intelligence program can be developed to provide feedback to people while they learn to generate accurate phoneme /r/. The audio signal will first be detected, after which features of audio signal will be extracted, and finally, classification will be performed. This suggested algorithm and method may be applied to other related topics. This thesis proposes new features and uses them to classify standard English speakers and non-standard English …

Assessing Faculty Perceptions Of A Guided Pathways Model, Lesley Lynn Zimmerman-Cooper

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Since the inception of the guided pathways model in 2015, most related research has focused on the interconnecting processes and practices that lead to student persistence and completion. While the processes and practices are the basis of the model, scholars acknowledge that the model's human capital and change management components are just as significant. An institution must have a majority of its faculty and staff engaged in and excited about shifting to guided pathways for the model to succeed and be sustainable. Buy-in across the institution, but especially from faculty, is essential to the model's overall effectiveness.This qualitative case study, …

Tensor Network Approach For Simulation Of Quantum Many-Body Systems, Danylo Lykov

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The simulation of quantum many-body systems and many-body statistical systems presents a challenge for classical computers. Quantum computation, which recently gained significant scientific interest, can provide a potential advantage over classical approaches in this area. While there are multiple methods for the simulation of the physics of many-body quantum systems, most of them scale exponentially with the number of elements. A Tensor Network approach allows to reduce this exponential scaling for some cases and reduces the pre-factor for others. This approach can be used for the simulation of classical statistical physics models, quantum many-body systems, and quantum computers in particular. …

Carborane-Appended Levodopa For Prostate-Specific Membrane Antigen And Boron Neutron Capture Therapy, Alejandra Macias

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

A multi-step organic synthetic method to attach carborane cages to biocompatible organic compounds for application in Boron Neutron Capture Therapy (BNCT) was conducted. Boron Neutron Capture Therapy is a form of radiation therapy that promises a new and effective form of cancer treatment that involves the destruction of tumor cells using an isotope of boron (10B). The effectiveness of this therapy depends on the boron content accumulated in cancerous tissue. Carboranes are boron-rich clusters that possess unique physical and chemical properties making them suitable for a wide range of applications including medicinal chemistry. Because of their high boron content, carborane-appended …

The Co-Requisite Model: A Quantitative Analysis Of Its Relationship With Gateway English Course Success, Anita Moore-Bohannon

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine if students’ participation in the ALP co-requisite developmental English program relates to the likelihood of passing gateway college-level English. Data was collected to allow for analysis of gateway college-level English passing probability for all students who participated in gateway college-level English courses during the fall and spring semesters between Fall 2018 and Spring 2021. To show trends in the data, descriptive statistics were calculated using the frequencies procedure, which shows counts and percentages of study participants that fall into each category of data. The chi-square test was used to show relationships …

Design And Optimization Of Superconducting Radio-Frequency Electron Sources, Osama Mohsen

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

High brightness electron beams are an essential component that drives current and future accelerators and accelerator-based light sources including Free-Electron lasers (FELs), electron cooling experiments, and compact ultrafast electron probe setups (e.g. ultrafast electron diffraction). In FEL, the possible use of a superconducting radiofrequency (SRF) electron gun to support the generation of high-repetition-rate bright-beam can produce copious amounts of radiation over a broad range of the electromagnetic spectrum which can be used in several scientific experiments while in electron probes, the use of SRF gun can enable the generation of high brightness electron beams at high repetition rates, e.g., necessary …

The Simulation Extrapolation Method With Differential Measurement Error, Dominic Partipilo

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Most of statistical theory operates under the assumption that the true values of covariates have been measured correctly, but it is not always possible to obtain the true values of these covariates. A common issue, specifically in regression models, is that predictors are misclassified or measured with systematic measurement error. There have been many methods developed for handling measurement error, specifically in the case where measurement error is nondifferential, where the measurement error can be treated as independent from the covariates. The frequentist method known as simulation extrapolation (SIMEX) is one of these methods that specifically handles the case for …

Optimization Of Dynamic Objective Functions Using Path Integrals, Paramahansa Pramanik

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Path integrals are used to find an optimal strategy for a firm under a Walrasian system. We define dynamic optimal strategies and develop an integration method to capture all non-additive non-convex strategies. We also show that the method can solve the non-linear case, for example Merton-Garman-Hamiltonian system, which the traditional Pontryagin maximum principle cannot solve in closed form. Furthermore, we assume that the strategy space and time are inseparable with respect to a contract. Under this assumption we show that the strategy spacetime is a dynamic curved Liouville-like 2-brane quantum gravity surface under asymmetric information and that traditional Euclidean geometry …

Superconducting Cuprates: Synthesis, Characterization And Diffuse Scattering Properties, Bisham Poudel

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

Since its discovery more than a century ago, the fascinating phenomenon of superconductivity remains as mysterious as ever with the greatest challenge facing the condensed matter community being the elusive understanding of the microscopic origin leading to its inception. Many outstanding questions remain of which the role played by nematic fluctuations and structural disorder for the stabilization of superconductivity is not well understood. In this respect, superconducting YBa2Cu3O6+x (YBCO)-type cuprates present an ideal framework in which charge doping, structural disorder and various site manipulations can be explored in efforts to address some of these questions. Extensive synthesis and characterization efforts …

Seeds Of Knowledge: Integration Of A Garden-Based Science Curriculum At Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School, A Youth Connection Charter School, Nancy Therese Prange

Graduate Research Theses & Dissertations

This Engaged Scholarship study includes three parts, a grant proposal to redesign the greenhouse at Dr. Pedro Albizu Campos High School into a learning garden and two mixed method studies. The Costco Charitable Giving grant proposal to redesign the greenhouse is provided as a supplemental document to this dissertation. The two mixed method studies were designed around a garden-based science curriculum. The first study investigated the effects of the curriculum on students’ attitudes toward science. The second investigated this same curriculum on students’ attitudes toward and consumption of fruits and vegetables.

Paper 1, prepared for Science and Education, utilized the …