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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Improved Computational Prediction Of Function And Structural Representation Of Self-Cleaving Ribozymes With Enhanced Parameter Selection And Library Design, James D. Beck Dec 2022

Improved Computational Prediction Of Function And Structural Representation Of Self-Cleaving Ribozymes With Enhanced Parameter Selection And Library Design, James D. Beck

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Biomolecules could be engineered to solve many societal challenges, including disease diagnosis and treatment, environmental sustainability, and food security. However, our limited understanding of how mutational variants alter molecular structures and functional performance has constrained the potential of important technological advances, such as high-throughput sequencing and gene editing. Ribonuleic Acid (RNA) sequences are thought to play a central role within many of these challenges. Their continual discovery throughout all domains of life is evidence of their significant biological importance (Weinreb et al., 2016). The self-cleaving ribozyme is a class of noncoding Ribonuleic Acid (ncRNA) that has been useful for …


Towards Making Transformer-Based Language Models Learn How Children Learn, Yousra Mahdy Aug 2022

Towards Making Transformer-Based Language Models Learn How Children Learn, Yousra Mahdy

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Transformer-based Language Models (LMs), learn contextual meanings for words using a huge amount of unlabeled text data. These models show outstanding performance on various Natural Language Processing (NLP) tasks. However, what the LMs learn is far from what the meaning is for humans, partly due to the fact that humans can differentiate between concrete and abstract words, but language models make no distinction. Concrete words are words that have a physical representation in the world such as “chair”, while abstract words are ideas such as “democracy”. The process of learning word meanings starts from early childhood when children acquire their …


Computational Approaches To Understanding Subduction Zone Geodynamics, Surface Heat Flow, And The Metamorphic Rock Record, Buchanan C. Kerswell May 2022

Computational Approaches To Understanding Subduction Zone Geodynamics, Surface Heat Flow, And The Metamorphic Rock Record, Buchanan C. Kerswell

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Pressure-temperature (PT) estimates from exhumed high-pressure (HP) metamorphic rocks and global surface heat flow observations evidently encode information about subduction zone thermal structure and the nature of mechanical and chemical processing of subducted materials along the interface between converging plates. Previous work demonstrates the possibility of decoding such geodynamic information by comparing numerical geodynamic models with empirical observations of surface heat flow and the metamorphic rock record. However, ambiguous interpretations can arise from this line of inquiry with respect to thermal gradients, plate coupling, and detachment and recovery of subducted materials. This dissertation applies a variety of computational techniques to …


Characterization And Mitigation Of False Information On The Web, Anu Shrestha May 2022

Characterization And Mitigation Of False Information On The Web, Anu Shrestha

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Social media and Web sources have made information available, accessible, and shareable any time and anywhere nearly without friction. This information can be truthful, falsified, or can only be the opinion of the writer as users in such platforms are both information creators and consumers. In any case, it has the power to affect the decision of an individual, the beliefs of the society, activities, and the economy of the whole country. Thus, it is imperative to identify false information and mitigate the effects of false information that are ubiquitous across the Web and social media. Therefore, the main goal …