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Preface. Neutrosophic Decision-Making, Artificial Intelligence And Large Language Models: Applications In Engineering, Education And Public Policy In Latin America. Special Issue Of The International Academic Meeting At Universidad Bernardo O'Higgins, Santiago, Chile (2026), Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vazquez, Alexis Matheu Perez, Florentin Smarandache

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

This special issue collects the papers presented at, and derived from, the international academic meeting held at Universidad Bernardo O'Higgins (UBO) in Santiago, Chile, over two days: Tuesday, June 30 and Wednesday, July 1, 2026. The meeting, organized by Professors Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vazquez and Alexis Matheu Perez, was honored by the presence of Professor Florentin Smarandache, founder of neutrosophy. Sessions covered the foundations of neutrosophic logic, NeutroAlgebra and AntiAlgebra, plithogenic statistics and probability, the epistemic auditing of large language models, and their applications to higher education, institutional evaluation, and public policy, in connection with the FONDECYT Regular 2026 project …

Project-Based Learning And Mathematical Competencies In Primary Education: A Neutrosophic Cognitive Map Reading Of A Critical Integrative Review, Uriostegui Adan Yurithzi Majogani

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Developing mathematical competencies in primary school is essential for interacting with the environment. Faced with the limitations of traditional direct instruction, project-based learning (PBL) has emerged as an active alternative. This study analyzes, through a critical integrative review of ten reference studies (2016-2026), whether PBL determines the development of basic mathematical competencies in primary school students, and formalizes the resulting conceptual system as a neutrosophic cognitive map (NCM) with eight concepts and nine causal connections classified as positive, negative, or indeterminate. The static analysis of the map identifies PBL as the most central concept and makes explicit that the direct …

Beyond Scalar Uncertainty: Independent Neutrosophic Evidence Coordinates For Conflict-Aware Retrieval-Augmented Generation, Florentin Smarandache, Maikel Yelandi Leyva Vazquez

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) pipelines reduce the quality of retrieved evidence to one number, and common scalar uncertainty summaries conflate evidential distinctions that a three-coordinate representation keeps apart: insufficient, contradictory and explicitly indeterminate evidence. We use the non-normalized neutrosophic triple (T, I, F) as a testable multidimensional evidence representation, with independent channels for support, explicit indeterminacy and opposition, and subject its defining design principle to a controlled empirical test on a pre-specified battery built on Climate-FEVER, validated externally on ConfRAG. The independent triple gives the best five-way behaviour with the LLM evaluator; normalization deletes the magnitude that signals insufficiency. The benefit …

Neutrosophic Multi-Criteria Assessment Of The Structural Performance Of Finger-Jointed Glued Laminated Timber From Five Tropical Wood Species, Maria Angelica Flores-Romayna, Victor Augusto Araujo-Abanto, David Leon-Moreno, Lenin Vladimir Vargas-Villa, Guillermo Augusto Pastor-Picon, Noe Cristian Fachin-Vargas

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Previous studies on finger-jointed glued laminated timber typically compare mechanical properties in isolation through classical statistical tests, which limits the ability to answer a question of greater relevance for structural design: which species most consistently retains its mechanical performance under experimental uncertainty and contradictory behavior across indicators. This study comparatively assessed the structural performance of finger-jointed glued laminated timber from five tropical forest species by integrating physical-mechanical indicators, inferential statistics and a neutrosophic CRITIC-TOPSIS multi-criteria model. The CRITIC-TOPSIS model ranked moena itauba and tornillo with the highest structural aptitude under uncertainty, results confirmed as reasonably robust by a sensitivity analysis …

Ahp-Topsis-Based Cybersecurity Control Prioritization For Local E-Government: Integrating Cobit 2019 And Iso/Iec 27001:2022 In Ecuador, Gabriel Neptali Bailon Arcentales, Jair Andres Semblantes Pinto, Noel Batista Hernandez

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Local governments in Ecuador manage critical citizen services yet operate with limited cybersecurity maturity. This paper presents MPEC-GAD, a cybersecurity governance model integrating COBIT 2019 strategic alignment with ISO/IEC 27001:2022 technical controls, using AHP-TOPSIS multi-criteria prioritization. Applied to GAD Jaramijo (Manabi, Ecuador), the four decision criteria weight risk reduction, implementation cost, deployment time, and technical complexity (AHP Consistency Ratio CR = 0.0054 < 0.10). The TOPSIS ranking directs scarce resources toward the 47 mandatory EGSI controls with highest risk-reduction per investment unit. A single-round structured review by seven experts rated pertinence, viability and completeness with mean scores >=4.0/5.0.

Multi-Criteria Credit Risk Prioritization In Cooperative Smes Using Ahp-Topsis: A Reproducible Pilot With Pseudonymized Data, Ramiro Javier Castillo Herrera, Dayron Rumbaut Rangel

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Credit risk assessment in small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) within savings and credit cooperatives presents persistent challenges due to incomplete, heterogeneous, and dispersed information. This paper reports and audits a pilot AHP-TOPSIS multi-criteria model for relative credit risk prioritization using a pseudonymized pilot dataset of seven SMEs (n=7) with active loans, implemented as a fully Excel-reproducible framework without proprietary software. AHP pairwise comparisons yield validated criterion weights (CR=0.0440 < 0.10). Results demonstrate the model's interpretability, traceability, and operational applicability for credit portfolio management in resource-constrained cooperative financial environments.

How Certain Is An Institutional Research Profile? Three Undeclared Decisions, And A Neutrosophic Reading Of What They Cost, Alexis Matheu Perez, Bastian Gutierrez

Neutrosophic Sets and Systems

Institutional bibliometric profiles report Lotka's exponent, a Bradford core and a Price ratio as if they were properties of the institution. They are properties of the institution together with three decisions that the reporting almost never states: which source defines the corpus, which document types are compared, and which population of authors the laws are fitted on. This article measures what each decision is worth, using Universidad Bernardo O'Higgins (UBO, Santiago, Chile) as the case and Universidad Bolivariana del Ecuador as a control. Since the resulting uncertainty is not sampling error, we give it a place to be reported: a …

Ask Dr. Wang: A Community Conversation On Ai At Cary Library, Stephen Yang, Zhengjia Yang, Julie Yin, Eric Gu, Jiawei Liu

Paul English Applied Artificial Intelligence (AI) Institute Publications

This report describes a community engagement project by the Youth STEAM Initiative (YSI) in conjunction with a public talk by Dr. Haixun Wang, “How AI Remembers, Imagines, and Creates,” held at the Cary Memorial Library in Lexington, Massachusetts. Prior to the talk, YSI collected questions and perspectives from community members through an online survey, gathering thirteen responses spanning students, parents, and professionals. This report summarizes the talk, themes that emerged from those responses, the community’s views on AI creativity, and reflections from the YSI team.

Dancing In Circles: Bon Dance As Performance Of The Past, Travis Robb Kim

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This capstone project traces the contours of the Japanese folk dance tradition of Bon Dance in Hawaiʻi through the nuances of public scholarship, diaspora, and racial capitalism by producing an original play which aims to perform the knowledge and praxis which the performance ritual puts forward. Treating Bon Dance as muse, the original play examines the necessity of turning to the past in order to disrupt a future made inevitable by oppressive systems; a fiction that comments on and critiques the predictive and generative technologies that have embedded themselves into society at large. Through intertwining conversations that explore prophecy and …

Introducing The Math Narrative Project, Liza Bondurant, Sarah Salisbury, Darolyn Flaggs, Belinda Edwards, Uchenna Miles, Daniel Kaufmann

Publications

Whether you teach calculus to engineering students, algebra to future teachers, or developmental math to first-generation college students, the students in your classroom carry narra- tives about mathematics—about whether they belong, wheth- er it matters, and whether asking for help is safe. You carry narratives too. We authors are mathematics educators who work across university classrooms, secondary schools, and teacher preparation programs in Mississippi, Georgia, Texas, and Pennsylvania. In this piece, we introduce the Math Nar- rative Project (2026), a professional development initiative led by the Branch Alliance for Educator Diversity ([BranchED], n.d.) that we participated in as field testers. …

Identifying Influential Drivers To The Utilization Of Prefabrication On Student Housing At Cal Poly: A Case Study On The Delivery Method, Dominique Giang

Construction Management

As universities experience increasing enrollment and housing shortages, student housing projects require efficient delivery methods capable of meeting strict occupancy deadlines while minimizing disruption to active campus environments. This research investigates the influential drivers behind the utilization of prefabrication on an ongoing student housing project at California Polytechnic State University, San Luis Obispo. The seven-story project consists of 417 student beds and incorporates repetitive layouts and prefabricated building components. Through qualitative interviews with key project stakeholders involved in early decision-making and field execution, the study examines how project objectives, construction constraints, and delivery considerations influenced the decision to implement prefabrication. …

Opposition To Renewable Energy Facilities In The United States: September 2026 Edition, Romany M. Webb, Ivonne Norman

Sabin Center for Climate Change Law

For the first time in nearly 2 decades, the United States is seeing rapid growth in electricity demand, driven by the data center boom as well as expanding electrification. Total electricity use in the United States reached a record high of 4,430 terawatt hours (TWh) in 2025 — almost 3 percent above 2024 levels — and is expected to continue growing at a similar rate through 2050. Meeting this increased demand, while continuing to advance action on climate change, will require a massive ramp up in renewable energy development. Notable progress was made in 2025, with utility-scale solar generation in …

Biocorrosion And Biocompatibility Of Absorbable Mg-Li-Y Wires For Temporary Cardiovascular Scaffolds, Mitchell L. Connon, Weilue He, Ryan Jacoby, Kenneth Macleod, Carolyn W. Czerniak, Keith W. Macrenaris, Calum Macleod, David Bow, Alex Lamere, Zoe Haase, Jeremy Goldman, Mark Steckel, Roger J. Guillory

Michigan Tech Publications

The use of bioabsorbable metals in cardiovascular applications has shown potential to offer clinical advantages over conventional permanent materials such as stainless steel or cobalt-chromium. Among these, magnesium (Mg) is at the forefront of research for bioabsorbable stent design due to its favorable biocompatibility, suitable mechanical properties, controlled absorption kinetics, and a growing body of supportive clinical data. In this study, we determined that the novel magnesium-lithium-yttrium alloy system featured excellent properties as a bioabsorbable material candidate. The corrosion behavior and histological response were assessed at two levels of yttrium content, 0.5% and 2.0% (by weight). This study found that …

Recent Advances In Thermal Performance Improvement Of Parabolic Trough Solar Collectors Using Magnetic Nanofluids And Supercritical Carbon Dioxide Fluid, Taha Baig, Syeda Laraib Tariq, Furqan Jamil, Qamar Abbas, Hassan Bin Shahid, Hafiz Muhammad Ali

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Among various available types of sustainable energy sources, the role of solar energy is vital due to its safety and low cost. Multiple rigs have been designed to use solar energy to generate steam, where the parabolic trough solar collector (PTSC) is a prominent example. Numerous numerical and experimental studies have been conducted to date to improve the thermal effectiveness of PTSCs. These studies include using hybrid nanofluids, insert types, magnetic nanofluids and supercritical carbon dioxide. The current paper provides a review of these studies, including an in-depth discussion section, an account of remaining challenges, and suggestions for future directions. …

Spatiotemporal Assessment Of Water Quality Around Western Australian Central Business District Using Satellite Multispectral Imaging, Muhammad Hassnain, Cameron Veal, Muhammad Rizwan Azhar

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Monitoring urban surface waters requires methods that preserve spatial detail while capturing seasonal and interannual variability. Multispectral satellite remote sensing provides a scalable complement to conventional field and laboratory monitoring across rivers, wetlands, lakes and coastal receiving waters. This study used Sentinel-2 Level-2A imagery processed through the Pixxel Aurora workflow to map a model-based water quality index (WQI) for the Swan-Canning River system, adjacent urban lakes and nearby coastal waters around Perth, Western Australia, from 2018 to 2025. Of 150 candidate images, 96 monthly WQI maps were accepted after software-based cloud correction, area-of-interest coverage checks and visual quality review. Satellite-derived …

Spinal Cord Imaging For Multiple Sclerosis: Advances, Priorities, And Opportunities, Cornelia Laule, Matthew R Brier, Et Al.

2020-Current year OA Pubs

The spinal cord plays a central role in the pathophysiology and clinical manifestations of multiple sclerosis (MS), yet remains under-studied compared with the brain. This review summarizes key insights from the 2025 North American Imaging in MS Spinal Cord Imaging Workshop, highlighting recent advances, ongoing challenges, and future opportunities in MS spinal cord imaging. We review pathological studies and outline the clinical relevance of spinal cord lesions and atrophy for diagnosis, prognosis, and disease monitoring, highlighting emerging biomarkers of progression independent of relapse activity. Correlations between magnetic resonance imaging, histopathology, and clinical outcomes support the validation and translational potential of …

Ecu-Malnett V2, Matthew G. Gaber, Mohiuddin Ahmed, Michael N. Johnstone

Research Datasets

ECU-MALNETT (ECU MALware NETwork Traffic) is a real world, reproducible dataset of labeled benign and malicious network flows built from the Peekaboo execution corpus. Peekaboo runs evasive malware with dynamic binary instrumentation and records raw host-level PCAPs while granting full Internet access, yielding noisy, real-world captures with background OS activity and concurrent processes. To derive trustworthy labels from these traces, we apply Construct, a baseline aware, zero-trust labeling framework. Construct first ingests a baseline capture to establish reference sets (DNS qnames, HTTP hosts, TLS SNIs, and socket endpoints) and grows a conservative benign IP pool only via whitelisted DNS resolutions. …

Killer Whales (Orcinus Orca) In The Indo-Pacific: A Review Of Their Distribution, Population Structure, And Ecology, Paola Lacetera, Paul Tixier, Isabella M. Reeves, Maeva Terrapon, Aaron Barnes, Christophe Guinet, Simon H. Elwen, John Totterdell, Jennah Tucker, Paul Cross, Georgia K. Bisset, John Dickie, John P.Y. Arnould

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Aim: Killer whales, Orcinus orca, are cosmopolitan top predators showing highly variable ecology and behaviour across populations. In the Indo-Pacific, baseline knowledge in general remains scarce, limiting the assessment of their vulnerability to the accelerated environmental changes, including expanding fisheries this region is undergoing.

Methodology: This review synthesises 170 sources found between 2000–2025 to evaluate the current knowledge on distribution, population structure, and feeding ecology (including depredation) of killer whales in the Indo-Pacific, and to identify priorities for future research and management.

Results: Occurrence was highly variable, from sporadic sightings in most tropical sectors to seasonal and year-round presence at …

Biodesulfurization Of Crude Oil Using Locally Isolated Pseudomonas Aeruginosa From Oil-Contaminated Soil In Iraqi Kurdistan, Yousif Mohammed Sharif, Sherwan Mohammed Simo, Lokman Aziz Abdulkareem, Muthanna H. Al-Dahhan

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Locally sourced crude oil from Iraqi Kurdistan contains recalcitrant organosulfur compounds that impair air quality, corrode refinery equipment, and hinder compliance with fuel sulfur regulations. This study isolated a Pseudomonas sp. closely related to the Pseudomonas aeruginosa from oil-contaminated soil near Kashy Refinery (Duhok Province, Kurdistan Region, Iraq) and evaluated its biodesulfurization potential as an environmentally friendly alternative to hydrodesulfurization. Batch experiments were conducted at 34 °C and atmospheric pressure using mineral salts medium supplemented with 1%, 3%, and 5% (v/v) Tawki crude oil. The highest sulfur removal efficiency of 83.33% was obtained at 1% (v/v) crude oil after 10 …

Enhancing Structural Design Methodologies For Pavements Incorporating Engineered Emulsion Stabilized Cold Recycled Materials, Ebubechukwu Uche Al-Ihekwaba

Doctoral Dissertations

The transportation sector is confronted with the necessity of sustainability, and the utilization of recycling techniques in the construction and rehabilitation of asphalt pavements has emerged as a viable strategy for preserving pavement infrastructure. Among the various recycling methods, cold recycling is distinguished by its efficient reutilization of existing pavement materials, ease of mix preparation & construction, and reduced dependence on virgin materials and fossil fuels, thereby contributing to lower emissions. The three primary cold recycling techniques, cold in-place recycling (CIR), cold central plant recycling (CCPR), and full-depth reclamation (FDR), differ in their construction methodologies, material processing approaches, and the …

Influence Of Material Composition And Constitutive Representation Of Cold Recycled Asphalt Mixtures On Mechanical Response And Pavement Performance, Fausto Bisanti

Doctoral Dissertations

Cold recycling technologies provide a sustainable approach for pavement rehabilitation by reusing existing materials while reducing the consumption of virgin resources, transportation requirements, production temperatures, and construction-related environmental impacts. However, the mechanical response of cold recycled mixtures (CRM) differs from that of both conventional hot mix asphalt and unbound granular materials and is influenced by material composition, volumetric characteristics, confinement, curing, and stress state. These characteristics create uncertainty regarding material selection, mechanical characterization, and the prediction of the structural contribution of cold recycled layers. Further opportunities to enhance the sustainability of cold recycling lie in the incorporation of alternative recycled …

Reliable Gait Analysis With Context-Aware Wearable Sensor Systems, Stella Abena Ansah

Doctoral Dissertations

Accurate gait analysis is important for clinical assessment, rehabilitation monitoring, fall-risk evaluation, sports performance analysis, and the control of assistive devices. While wearable sensor systems offer practical solutions for estimating key gait parameters outside the laboratory, their accuracy is often affected by sensor noise, drift, activity-dependent movement patterns, and changes in sensor response over time. These challenges limit their practical use in real-world settings, where continuous ground-truth validation and repeated laboratory calibration are not always available.This study addresses these challenges by developing context-aware wearable sensing methods for reliable gait analysis during everyday activities. The proposed approaches use information about the …

Multiaxial Characterization And Machine Learning – Enhanced Modeling Of Anisotropic Materials For Forming Applications, Abrar Salam Ebrahim

Doctoral Dissertations

Reliable prediction of material deformation in forming processes requires constitutive models that accurately capture anisotropy while remaining practical to calibrate. This dissertation combines mechanical testing, full-field deformation measurements, finite element (FE) analysis, and artificial neural networks (ANNs) to address three complementary requirements: representation of complex material behavior, characterization across an expanded multiaxial loading space, and experiment-efficient identification of advanced anisotropic yield functions using machine learning. Chapter 2 develops a hybrid ANN-enhanced constitutive framework for Grade 1 commercially pure titanium (CP-Ti) sheet metal to describe temperature and strain rate-dependent hardening and anisotropy. Implemented in an Abaqus user material subroutine, the framework …

Systems Analyses For Sustainable Water Infrastructure Management: Road- Stream Crossings And Urban Drainage Networks, Koorosh Asadifakhr

Doctoral Dissertations

Road-stream crossings (RSCs) and municipal storm sewer networks convey water across and beneath the built environment, and their failure carries consequences for flood risk, aquatic habitat, and public safety. Much of this infrastructure is aging and incompletely characterized, and it is managed under simultaneous budget, coordination, and data constraints. Replacement needs exceed available funding, responsibility is divided among agencies with differing mandates, and asset inventories are maintained for operational rather than analytical purposes. Decisions with large and long-lived consequences are therefore made without the systematic analysis that would inform them. This dissertation develops systems analyses directed at that gap, combining …

Uv-Vis Spectrophotometric Strategies For Stormwater Analysis: Lab- And Field-Verified Multivariate Regression, Monte Carlo Assessment Of Sampling Protocols, Cost And Power Budgets, And Field-Validated Best Practices, Daniel Macadam

Doctoral Dissertations

Stormwater runoff conveys nutrients, sediments, and pollutants to receiving waters. Conventional monitoring produces temporally sparse observations that introduce substantial uncertainty in pollutant load estimates. Ultraviolet-visible (UV-Vis) spectrophotometry offers a continuous, high-resolution alternative but lacks a standardized calibration framework, formal comparison with conventional protocols, and field-validated operational guidance for stormwater applications. This dissertation addresses these three gaps.The first chapter developed and compared multivariate regression models (principal component regression, partial least squares regression, and artificial neural network) for predicting the concentrations of total nitrogen, nitrate, total Kjeldahl nitrogen, total phosphorus, reactive orthophosphate, and total suspended solids from UV-Vis absorbance spectra. The calibration …

Improving Physical And Biochemical Properties Of Gelatin Microgels For Tissue Engineering, Ziqiang Guan

Doctoral Dissertations

Gelatin-based microgels are modular biomaterial building blocks that can be injected and assembled into three-dimensional scaffolds for tissue engineering. Their performance, however, is limited by the transport properties of individual particles, the difficulty of directly encapsulating cells while preserving viability and secondary crosslinking capacity, and the limited ability of passive scaffolds to provide externally controlled physical stimulation. This dissertation investigated three complementary strategies to expand the structural and functional capabilities of gelatin-based microgel systems. First, thermally stable porous gelatin/alginate microgels were produced using calcium-mediated ionic crosslinking and subsequently annealed with microbial transglutaminase. The resulting assemblies maintained internal porosity at physiological …

Baseline Studies To Quantify Microplastic Pollution In Living And Non-Living Estuarine Resources In Selected U.S. Atlantic Coast Estauries, Taja Sims-Harper

Doctoral Dissertations

Global plastic pollution is increasing in part because more than 90% of plastic is discarded and not recycled. Plastic travels from rivers, shorelines, coastal soils, and estuaries, ultimately reaching the open ocean, where it now represents the most abundant form of marine debris. Degradation of plastic polymers has resulted in smaller particles <5mm in size termed microplastics (MP). Attempts to quantify the amount of MP, especially in the oceans, are stymied by the variable interpretations of MP in samples. Their ability to remain suspended in the water column for long periods, means marine species are likely to accumulate MP over time in their muscles and organs and thus, marine MP have been reported to have multiple lasting effects in marine organisms around the world. The aim of this dissertation was to build a baseline of microplastic (MP) concentrations for Great Bay Estuary (GBE) and evaluate MP distribution patterns in the GBE water column and living resources.Surface water samples were collected May to November, 2018-2022 at multiple sites. The body burden of MP in three ecologically important taxa of Great Bay Estuary, NH (GBE) was determined from 310 specimens of each collected through the months of May through October in 2021 and 2022. and oysters were collected throughout the months of June and August of 2022 from two regions, Rehoboth Bay, Delaware, and Casco Bay, Maine. Microplastic burdens were quantified in gut content from European green crabs, Carcinus maenas, whole body preparations of Eastern oysters, Crassostrea virginica, and gut, gill, and muscle tissues from Atlantic silverside fish, Menidia menidia. Oysters collected throughout the months of June-August 2022 from two regions, Rehoboth Bay, Delaware, and Casco Bay, Maine, were analyzed for MP content to 1 determine if there were consistent predictable differences between farmed and wild. All three studies used standardized methods of separation, chemical digestion of biogenic matter, and filtration of MP, after which MP were quantified and analyzed using laser direct infrared (LDIR) spectrometry on all samples and specimens. Across 389 water samples, MP were detected in GBE waters at an average of 248±23 particles m-3. Particle quantity and morphology varied significantly across sites on any particular sampling day. On average, MP shapes were nearly circular. The most commonly identified particles were polyvinyl chloride (the third most common synthetic plastic used for packaging and construction), polypropylene (the most used thermoplastic polymer in food containers, automotive parts, and packaging), and polyamide (mostly known as nylon and used for automotive and machinery parts). Simulations using velocity fields obtained from hydrodynamic modeling and offline particle tracking algorithms showed significant spatial variation of MP particles sampled high and low tide, and particle distributions changed rapidly at all sites and at most sampling stations, usually by day two of a simulation. Most MP extracted from tissues were approximately 10-50 μm in diameter and had aspect ratios close to 1-1.5, indicative of rounder shapes. Most polymers detected (88±2%) were biogenic as opposed to anthropogenic, and 40±5% of biogenic particles were rubber. In living resources, the predominant anthropogenic MP among 14 total MP polymer types detected across all 40 specimens were polyurethane and polypropylene. European green crabs, C. maenas (n=20), had a gut MP range from 0-3 ́104 MP. Eastern oysters, C. virginica (n=10), had a whole-body range of 257-8 ́103 MP. Tissues from Atlantic silverside fish, M. menidia (n=10), had MP ranging from 725 to 11 ́104 in their guts, MP ranging from 11 ́104 to 32 ́104 in their gills, and MP in muscle tissue ranging from 2 ́103 to 3 ́103 MP. 2

Microplastics were found in 100% of farmed and wild oysters collected from Rehoboth and Casco Bays. The MP were predominantly circular, £ 50 μm in size, round (very few fibers), and consisted of many types of polymers. Numbers of MP g-1 wet tissue in Casco Bay oysters ranged …

Quantifying Greenhouse Gas Emissions And Mental Health Impacts As Co-Benefits Of Flood Risk Mitigation, Sebastian Rowan

Doctoral Dissertations

Flooding is the most perilous natural hazard in the United States. Flood risk has historically been mitigated by constructing flood defenses such as sea walls or levees that are designed to prevent flood waters from reaching developed areas. However, climate change is increasing the frequency and intensity of flood events beyond the magnitude for which many flood defenses were designed, and the presence of flood defenses has incentivized development within floodplains significantly increasing the consequences of flooding when these systems fail. Total annual flood risk in the U.S. has been estimated in the tens of billions of dollars; however such …

Enhancing Implementation Of Balanced Mix Design For Asphalt Mixtures Through Improved Material Selection, Cracking Characterization, And Performance Prediction, Shubham Harishbhai Modi

Doctoral Dissertations

Balanced Mix Design (BMD) has emerged as a promising approach for improving asphalt mixture performance by balancing rutting and cracking resistance through performance tests rather than relying solely on volumetric criteria. Therefore, its application is increasingly being explored by transportation agencies for both highway and airfield domains. Despite its advantages, several challenges still limit the widespread implementation of BMD. These challenges include uncertainties associated with the compatibility of asphalt mixture components, the limited practicality of existing cracking performance tests, and the lack of performance prediction tools suitable for process control during mixture production. This dissertation addresses these critical challenges by …

A Systematic Study Of Solar Wind Tangential Discontinuity Inclination And Their Impact On Dayside Magnetospheric Dynamics Using Global Mhd Simulations, Neha Srivastava

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents a systematic investigation of how the inclination of solar wind tangential discontinuities controls the dayside magnetospheric response using global MHD simulations conducted with the OpenGGCM model. This study is motivated by the need to understand how TD orientation controls dayside magnetospheric response, and adopts the view that the bow shock (BS) and magnetopause (MP) can be treated as large-scale discontinuities, such that their interaction with an interplanetary TD may be interpreted as a nonlinear discontinuity–discontinuity interaction. Within this framework, the role of TD orientation in governing the coupled evolution of disturbances across the dayside magnetospheric system is …