Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Towards A Unification Of Supercomputing, Molecular Dynamics Simulation And Experimental Neutron And X-Ray Scattering Techniques, Benjamin Lindner

Doctoral Dissertations

Molecular dynamics simulation has become an essential tool for scientific discovery and investigation. The ability to evaluate every atomic coordinate for each time instant sets it apart from other methodologies, which can only access experimental observables as an outcome of the atomic coordinates. Here, the utility of molecular dynamics is illustrated by investigating the structure and dynamics of fundamental models of cellulose fibers. For that, a highly parallel code has been developed to compute static and dynamical scattering functions efficiently on modern supercomputing architectures. Using state of the art supercomputing facilities, molecular dynamics code and parallelization strategies, this work also …

Design And Synthesis Of Boronic Acid-Based Sensors For Microarray Analysis And Fret-Detection To Study Carbohydrates, Yilin Wang

Masters Theses

Carbohydrates play significant roles in various biological and pathological processes such as cancer metastasis and inflammation. They participate in various signaling pathways and are able to bind to a litany of biological receptors such as proteins and viruses. Biologists have known for decades that the structure of glycans changes with the onset of cancer and inflammation. Due to these important activities, carbohydrate sensing has long been a focus of research. One example of such a carbohydrate sensor is boronic acid-based sensors. Boronic acid-based sensors are of particular interest due to their selectivity for 1,2- or 1,3-diols. A variety of techniques …

Sp740-A Good Agricultural Practices Series: Testing Water For Fruit And Vegetable Production, Susannah Amundson, Grant Mccarty, Faith Critzer, Annette Wszelaki

Commercial Horticulture

No abstract provided.

Sp740-A Good Agricultural Practices Series: Testing Water For Fruit And Vegetable Production, Susannah Amundson, Grant Mccarty, Faith Critzer, Annette Wszelaki

Commercial Horticulture

No abstract provided.

Synthesis, Characterization And Self-Assembly Of Amphiphilic Block Copolymers, Xiaojun Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

This dissertation presents a review on state-of-the-art research of well-defined charged block copolymers, including synthesis, characterization, bulk morphology and self-assembly in aqueous solution of amphiphilic block polyelectrolytes. In Chapter 1, as a general introduction, experimental observations and theoretical calculations devoted towards understanding morphological behavior in charged block copolymer systems are reviewed along with some of the new emerging research directions. Further investigation of charged systems is urged in order to fully understand their morphological behavior and to directly target structures for the tremendous potential in technological applications. Following this background, in Chapters 2, 3, 4 and 5 are presented the …

A Novel Approach To Assess Environmental Changes In Marine Ecosystems Via Spectroscopic Analyses Of Microalgae, Rebecca Burke Horton

Doctoral Dissertations

Chemical analyses for environmental monitoring encounter many challenges which are imposed by a multitude of chemically complex and interrelated processes. For such investigations, innovative analytical methodologies must be developed which characterize chemical shifts of key environmental parameters in order to deduce insights into their ecological relevance. This dissertation is driven by an analytical chemistry perspective to develop chemical sensing techniques with the ultimate goal of gaining a deeper understanding of environmental changes and their chemical origins.

In order to overcome limitations inherent to any chemical sensor designed for a specific task, new paths are pursued which are based on the …

Identifying The Spatial Distribution Of Three Plethodontid Salamanders In Great Smoky Mountains National Park Using Two Habitat Modeling Methods, Matthew Stephen Kookogey

Masters Theses

The main objective was to create habitat models of three plethodontid salamander species (Desmognathus conanti, D. ocoee, and Plethodon jordani) in GSMNP. To investigate the relationships between salamanders and their habitats, I used three models—logistic regression with use-availability sampling, logistic regression with case-control sampling, and Mahalanobis distance (D²)—for each species to gain a robust view of the relationships. The secondary objective was to compare the different modeling methods within and across the three species. Elevation was the dominant variable for all three species.

D² for D. conanti predicted low elevations, close proximity …