Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Interpretation Of Rayleigh-Wave Ellipticity Observed With Multicomponent Passive Seismic Interferometry At Hekla Volcano, Iceland, Matthew M. Haney, Andrew Nies, Tim Masterlark, Sarah Needy, Rikke Pedersen

CGISS Publications and Presentations

The 2010 eruption of Eyjafjallajökull has drawn increased attention to Iceland’s Eastern Volcanic Zone (EVZ) due to the threat it poses to the heavily used air-traffic corridors of the northern Atlantic Ocean. Within the EVZ, Hekla is historically one of the most active volcanoes and has exhibited a decadal eruption pattern for the past 40 years. Hekla most recently erupted in 2000 and is thus ripe for another decadal eruption. Because Hekla is generally aseismic, except for a brief time period (hours) leading up to an eruption, monitoring has previously depended on precursory deformation signals (Linde et al., 1993). As …

Evapotranspiration In The Riparian Zone Of The Lower Boise River With Implications For Groundwater Flow, Brady Allen Johnson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Riparian zones in semi-arid regions often exhibit high rates of evapotranspiration (ET) in spite of low soil moisture content due to vegetation that is able to withdraw water from shallow aquifers. This work better defines the relationship between ET and the saturated zone by comparing the observed water table drawdown to analytically modeled drawdown in fully penetrating wells of an unconfined aquifer in response to daily ET flux. ET at the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site or BHRS (a riparian zone in a temperate, semi arid environment) is calculated following the approach of Batra et al. (2006) but uses site …

Spatial Distribution And Evolution Of A Seasonal Snowpack In Complex Terrain: An Evaluation Of The Snodas Modeling Product, Brian Trail Anderson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Hydrologists and water managers have been attempting to accurately estimate watershed scale snow water equivalent (SWE) for over a century. Extensive monitoring networks, remote sensing technology, and sophisticated modeling approaches have greatly improved these estimates; however, water inputs from snow in mountainous areas are still subject to considerable uncertainty due to SWE spatial variability. In an attempt to improve the understanding of physical processes and controls influencing SWE spatial variability, a field campaign to measure the spatial and temporal distribution of SWE within the Dry Creek Experimental Watershed (DCEW) was conducted during 2009 and 2010. These measurements are compared to …

Measuring The Rate Of Garnet Growth: Implications For Rb-Sr Garnet Chronology, Jessica Sousa

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Garnet growth rates have provided valuable information for understanding the rates of tectonometamorphic processes. In theory, during its growth, garnet records the decay of 87Rb within a rock matrix as steadily increasing ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr from core to rim. By measuring the Sr isotopic zoning within garnet and matrix Rb/Sr and ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr, the rate of garnet growth can be determined. To test this, we used ID-TIMS to measure Rb-Sr data for five samples from three major orogenic belts: central New England, southernmost Chile, and western Italian Alps. These new data introduce two major difficulties encountered using …

Modules Over Localized Group Rings For Groups Mapping Onto Free Groups, Nicholas Davidson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In 1964, Paul Cohn showed that if F is a finitely-generated free group, and Q a field, then all ideals in the group ring Q[F] are free as Q[F]-modules. In particular, all finitely-generated submodules of free Q[F]-modules are free. In 1990, Cynthia Hog-Angeloni reproved this theorem using techniques from geometric group theory. Leaning on Hog-Angeloni's methods, we prove an analogous statement for crossed products D * F, with D a division ring.

With this result in hand, we prove that if G = H⋊F, the semi-direct product …

Simultaneous Measurement Of Normal And Friction Forces Using A Cantilever-Based Optical Interfacial Force Microscope, Byung I. Kim, Jeremy R. Bonander, Jared A. Rasmussen

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

We measured normal and friction forces simultaneously using a recently developed cantilever-based optical interfacial force microscope (COIFM) technique for studies of interfacial structures and mechanical properties of nanoscale materials. We derived how the forces can be incorporated into the detection signal using the classical Euler equation for beams. A lateral modulation with the amplitude of one nanometers was applied to create the friction forces between tip and sample. We demonstrated its capability by measuring normal and friction forces of interfacial water at the molecular scale over all distance ranges.

Improving Data Freshness To Enhance The Quality Of Observations In Wireless Sensor Networks, Ramya Bala Ammu

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are used to achieve either continuous monitoring or event-detection in the area of interest. In continuous monitoring applications, each sensor node transmits its sensed data to the sink node (base station) periodically; while in event-detection driven applications, nodes report to the sink node once an event occurs. Continuous monitoring applications require periodic refreshed data at the sink node. Data reaching the sink node after a certain threshold is not useful for processing or analysis because it is stale. Data freshness along with reliable data delivery is critical in such applications. Current protocols in this area measure …

Methods For Multilevel Parallelism On Gpu Clusters: Application To A Multigrid Accelerated Navier-Stokes Solver, Dana A. Jacobsen

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) is an important field in high performance computing with numerous applications. Solving problems in thermal and fluid sciences demands enormous computing resources and has been one of the primary applications used on supercomputers and large clusters. Modern graphics processing units (GPUs) with many-core architectures have emerged as general-purpose parallel computing platforms that can accelerate simulation science applications substantially. While significant speedups have been obtained with single and multiple GPUs on a single workstation, large problems require more resources. Conventional clusters of central processing units (CPUs) are now being augmented with GPUs in each compute-node to tackle …

Elliptic Pairs Of Primes In Cryptography And Their Effects On Rsa Security, Suzanne Craig, Liljana Babinkostova

College of Arts and Sciences Poster Presentations

Cryptography is a constantly evolving field – elliptic curve groups have been a major part of this field since 1987 when Koblitz and Miller separately proposed their use in cryptosystems such as RSA.

• Elliptic Curve: A curve defined by the equation: where A and B are less than a prime p, and where the discriminant is not equal to zero. We are concerned with the curves where A = 0.
• Elliptic Curve Group (ECG): A group whose elements are defined by the elliptic curve and the operation in question. Elliptic curves naturally qualify as groups due simply to their nature. …

Optimization Of Multiplex Pcr For Multiple Locus Variable Number Tandem Repeat Analysis For Salmonella Typhimurium, George Hafez, Remington Turner, Andrea Haskett, Rajesh Nagarajan

College of Arts and Sciences Poster Presentations

Salmonella typhimurium infects an estimated 1.4 million in the United States and kills over five hundred annually. The current way of categorization, Pulse Field Gel Electrophoresis (PFGE) and antibiotic sensitivity testing, lack the ability to distinguish between some closely related strains. We are attempting to optimize a new technique of categorization, Multiple Locus Variable number tandem repeat Analysis (MLVA). We made changes to temperature and concentration variables within the multiplex PCR procedure to streamline the identification process. By optimizing the multiplex PCR procedure we intend to create more consistent amplification of the loci used in MLVA analysis, which will improve …

Linear Feedback Shift Registers: Pseudo-Random Number Generators And Their Use In Cryptosystems, Michael Perez, Marion Scheepers

College of Arts and Sciences Poster Presentations

Cryptology is the study and application of encrypting and decrypting data so that only the intended recipient and senders can view data. This is important in applications such as online banking and military operations. Linear Feedback Shift Registers, or LFSRs for short, create a pseudo-random number stream that is computationally efficient. LFSRs are used (in conjunction with other methods) to encrypt items such as DVD’s and many wireless signals, including digital TV and radio. Using random methods, a seed value can be created to create a strong random number stream.

A Comparison Of Two Open Source Lidar Surface Classification Algorithms, Wade T. Tinkham, Hongyu Huang, Alistair M.S. Smith, Rupesh Shrestha, Michael J. Falkowski, Andrew T. Hudak, Timothy E. Link, Nancy F. Glenn, Danny G. Marks

Nancy Glenn

With the progression of LiDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) towards a mainstream resource management tool, it has become necessary to understand how best to process and analyze the data. While most ground surface identification algorithms remain proprietary and have high purchase costs; a few are openly available, free to use, and are supported by published results. Two of the latter are the multiscale curvature classification and the Boise Center Aerospace Laboratory LiDAR (BCAL) algorithms. This study investigated the accuracy of these two algorithms (and a combination of the two) to create a digital terrain model from a raw LiDAR point …

Magnetism Of Zno Nanoparticles: Dependence On Crystallite Size And Surfactant Coating, Aaron P. Thurber, Geoffrey L. Beausoleil Ii, Gordon A. Alanko, Joshua Anghel, Michael S. Jones, Lydia M. Johnson, Jianhui Zhang, Charles B. Hanna, Dmitri A. Tenne, Alex Punnoose

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Many recent reports on magnetism in otherwise nonmagnetic oxides have demonstrated that nanoparticle size, surfactant coating, or doping with magnetic ions produces room-temperature ferromagnetism. Specifically, ZnO has been argued to be a room-temperature ferromagnet through all three of these methods in various experimental studies. For this reason, we have prepared a series of 1% Fe doped ZnO nanoparticle samples using a single forced hydrolysis co-precipitation synthesis method from the same precursors, while varying size (6 – 15 nm) and surface coating concentration to study the combined effects of these two parameters. Size was controlled by modifying the water concentration. Surfactant …

Taxonomy, Nomenclature, And Evolution Of The Early Schubertellid Fusulinids, Vladimir I. Davydov

Geosciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

The types of the species belonging to the fusulinid genera Schubertella and Eoschubertella were examined from publications and type collections. Eoschubertella in general possesses all the features of Schubertella and therefore is a junior synonym of the latter. However, the concept of Eoschubertella best describes the genus Schubertina with its type species Schubertina curculi. Schubertina is closely related to the newly established genus Grovesella the concept of which is emended in this paper. Besides Schubertella, Schubertina, and Grovesella, the genera Mesoschubertella, Biwaella are reviewed and three new species, Grovesella nevadensis, Biwaella zhikalyaki, and Biwaella poletaevi, are described. The phylogenetic relationships …

Making The Human Dimensions Of Sustainable Community Development Visible To Engineers, Juan Lucena, Jen Schneider, Jon A. Leydens

Jen Schneider

Recently, engineers – particularly those working on sustainability-related initiatives – have increasingly turned their efforts towards under-served communities. This paper summarises the findings in Engineering and Sustainable Community Development (Juan Lucena et al., 2010) aimed at a diversity of these efforts which are grouped here under the term ‘engineering to help’. These initiatives often exist under names such as community service, humanitarian engineering, and engineers without borders or activities such as the Institution of Civil Engineers' co-sponsored workshop ‘Helping local communities to help themselves’. Although there has been a blossoming of engineering-to-help-related programmes around the world, there is a …

Unified Framework For Development, Deployment And Robust Testing Of Neuroimaging Algorithms, Alark Joshi, Dustin Scheinost, Hirohito Okuda, Dominique Belhachemi, Isabella Murphy, Lawrence H. Staib, Xenophon Papademetris

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Developing both graphical and commandline user interfaces for neuroimaging algorithms requires considerable effort. Neuroimaging algorithms can meet their potential only if they can be easily and frequently used by their intended users. Deployment of a large suite of such algorithms on multiple platforms requires consistency of user interface controls, consistent results across various platforms and thorough testing.

We present the design and implementation of a novel object-oriented framework that allows for rapid development of complex image analysis algorithms with many reusable components and the ability to easily add graphical user interface controls. Our framework also allows for simplified yet robust …

How Do Mathematicians Make Sense Of Definitions?, Laurie O. Cavey, Margaret T. Kinzel, Thomas A. Kinzel, Kathleen L. Rohrig, Sharon B. Walen

Laurie O. Cavey

It seems clear that students’ activity while working with definitions differs from that of mathematicians. The constructs of concept definition and concept image have served to support analyses of both mathematicians’ and students’ work with definitions (c.f. Edwards & Ward, 2004; Tall & Vinner, 1981). As part of an ongoing study, we chose to look closely at how mathematicians make sense of definitions in hopes of informing the ways in which we interpret students’ activity and support their understanding of definitions. We conducted interviews with mathematicians in an attempt to reveal their process when making sense of definitions. A striking …

Graphitized Carbon On Gaas(100) Substrates, J. Simon, P. J. Simmonds, J. M. Woodall, M. L. Lee

Paul J. Simmonds

We report on the formation of graphitized carbon on GaAs(100) surfaces by molecular beam epitaxy. We grew highly carbon-doped GaAs on AlAs, which was then thermally etched in situ leaving behind carbon atoms on the surface. After thermal etching, Raman spectra revealed characteristic phonon modes for sp²-bonded carbon, consistent with the formation of graphitic crystallites. We estimate that the graphitic crystallites are 1.5–3 nm in size and demonstrate that crystallite domain size can be increased through the use of higher etch temperatures.

Improving Low Power Processor Efficiency With Static Pipelining, Ian Finlayson, Gang-Ryung Uh, David Whalley, Gary Tyson

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

A new generation of mobile applications requires reduced energy consumption without sacrificing execution performance. In this paper, we propose to respond to these conflicting demands with an innovative statically pipelined processor supported by an optimizing compiler. The central idea of the approach is that the control during each cycle for each portion of the processor is explicitly represented in each instruction. Thus the pipelining is in effect statically determined by the compiler. The benefits of this approach include simpler hardware and that it allows the compiler to perform optimizations that are not possible on traditional architectures. The initial results indicate …

Unfortunate Outcomes Of A “Funny” Physics Problem: Some Eye-Opening Youtube Comments, Josip Slisko, Dewey I. Dykstra Jr.

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The impressions we make as instructors of physics can affect student learning and public perception of physics teachers, physics as an academic subject, and physics as a profession. There are many sources from which we can collect evidence of these impressions. Among these sources are online public forums such as those at the Internet site known as YouTube. Whether we are proud of these impressions we make or not, we should consider how constructive these impressions are for our students' physics learning and their impact on the public perception of physics and the community of physicists.

Hammer Seismic Reflection Imaging In An Urban Environment, Lee M. Liberty

CGISS Publications and Presentations

Subsurface characterization within urban centers is critically important for city planners, municipalities, and engineers to estimate groundwater resources, track contaminants, assess earthquake or landslide hazards, and many other similar objectives. Improving geophysical imaging methods and results, while minimizing costs, provides greater opportunities for city/project planners and geophysicists alike to take advantage of the improved characterization afforded by the particular method. Seismic reflection results can provide hydrogeologic constraints for groundwater models, provide slip rate estimates for active faults, or simply map stratigraphy to provide target depth estimate. While many traditional urban seismic transects have included the use of vibroseis sources to …

Numerical Solutions For A Model Of Tissue Invasion And Migration Of Tumour Cells, Mikhail Kolev, Barbara Zubik-Kowal

Mathematics Faculty Publications and Presentations

The goal of this paper is to construct a new algorithm for the numerical simulations of the evolution of tumour invasion and metastasis. By means of mathematical model equations and their numerical solutions we investigate how cancer cells can produce and secrete matrix degradative enzymes, degrade extracellular matrix, and invade due to diffusion and haptotactic migration. For the numerical simulations of the interactions between the tumour cells and the surrounding tissue, we apply numerical approximations, which are spectrally accurate and based on small amounts of grid-points. Our numerical experiments illustrate the metastatic ability of tumour cells.

A Meta-Analysis Of Global Urban Land Expansion, Karen C. Seto, Michail Fragkias, Burak Güneralp, Michael K. Reilly

Michail Fragkias

The conversion of Earth's land surface to urban uses is one of the most irreversible human impacts on the global biosphere. It drives the loss of farmland, affects local climate, fragments habitats, and threatens biodiversity. Here we present a meta-analysis of 326 studies that have used remotely sensed images to map urban land conversion. We report a worldwide observed increase in urban land area of 58,000 km2 from 1970 to 2000. India, China, and Africa have experienced the highest rates of urban land expansion, and the largest change in total urban extent has occurred in North America. Across all regions …

Metamorphic Gaasp Buffers For Growth Of Wide-Bandgap Ingap Solar Cells, J. Simon, S. Tomasulo, P. J. Simmonds, M. Romero, M. L. Lee

Paul J. Simmonds

GaAs_xP_1−x graded buffers were grown via solid source molecular beam epitaxy(MBE) to enable the fabrication of wide-bandgap In_yGa_1−yP solar cells. Tensile-strained GaAs_xP_1−x buffers grown on GaAs using unoptimized conditions exhibited asymmetric strain relaxation along with formation of faceted trenches, 100–300 nm deep, running parallel to the [011] direction. We engineered a 6 μm thick grading structure to minimize the faceted trench density and achieve symmetric strain relaxation while maintaining a threading dislocation density of ≤10⁶ cm⁻². In comparison, compressively-strained graded GaAs_xP_1−x buffers on …

Putting Partnership First: A Dialogue Model For Science And Risk Communication, Jen Schneider, Roel Snieder

Jen Schneider

In April 2010, the New York Times reported that Vattenfall AB, an energy company owned by the Swedish government, had built one of the first coal-fired power plants designed to capture ~90% of the CO₂ it produced, with plans to sequester that CO₂ underground in geologic repositories near its plant in Brandenburg, Germany (Voosen, 2010). By most measures, if the plant's operations were proven to be successful, it could have served as a model for other carbon capture and sequestration plants worldwide.

Ice Rafts Not Sails: Floating The Rocks At Racetrack Playa, Ralph D. Lorenz, Brian K. Jackson, Jason W. Barnes, Joe Spitale, John M. Keller

Brian Jackson

We suggest that the existence of many of the rock-carved trails at Racetrack Playa in Death Valley National Park is predominantly due to the effect of arbitrarily weak winds on rocks that are floated off the soft bed by small rafts of ice, as also occurs in arctic tidal beaches to form boulder barricades. These ice cakes need not have a particularly large surface area if the ice is adequately thick—the ice cakes allow the rocks to move by buoyantly reducing the reaction and friction forces at the bed, not by increasing the wind drag. The parameter space of ice …