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Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

A Usability Study Of Fido2 Roaming Software Tokens As A Password Replacement, Brian Rasmussen Aug 2021

A Usability Study Of Fido2 Roaming Software Tokens As A Password Replacement, Brian Rasmussen

Theses and Dissertations

The use of passwords for user authentication has significant shortcomings. As society becomes more dependent on the internet and web services, we need to find a replacement authentication method that users are willing to use. WebAuthn is one potential technology for password replacement. Recent studies have shown that users enjoy the usability of WebAuthn and hardware tokens as a password replacement but don't want to carry them around. Meanwhile, little to no research involves the use of software tokens. I carried out a user study of WebAuthn and roaming software tokens when used as a password replacement. We were able …


Predicting Human Behavior In Repeated Games With Attitude Vectors, Brian L. James Aug 2021

Predicting Human Behavior In Repeated Games With Attitude Vectors, Brian L. James

Theses and Dissertations

As Artificial Intelligence systems are used by human users at an increasing frequency, the need for such systems to understand and predict human behavior likewise increases. In my work, I have considered how to predict human behavior in repeated games. These repeated games can be applied as a foundation to many situations where a person may interact with an AI, In an attempt to create such a foundation, I have built a system using Attitude Vectors used in automata to predict actions based on prior actions and communications. These Attitude Vector Automata (AVA) can transform information from actions in one …


Immunoaffinity Monoliths For Multiplexed Extraction Of Preterm Birth Biomarkers From Human Blood Serum In 3d Printed Microfluidic Devices, Haifa Mohammad Almughamsi Aug 2021

Immunoaffinity Monoliths For Multiplexed Extraction Of Preterm Birth Biomarkers From Human Blood Serum In 3d Printed Microfluidic Devices, Haifa Mohammad Almughamsi

Theses and Dissertations

Preterm birth (PTB) results in over 15 million early births annually and is the leading cause of neonatal deaths. There are no clinical methods currently available to evaluate risk of PTB at early stages in pregnancy; thus, a rapid diagnostic to analyze PTB risk would be beneficial. Microfluidic immunoaffinity extraction is a promising platform for preparing complex samples, such as maternal serum with PTB risk biomarkers. 3D printed microfluidic devices have advantages over conventional microfluidic systems including simple fabrication and potential for iterative optimization to improve designs. In this work, I developed immunoaffinity monoliths in 3D printed microfluidic devices modified …


Synthesis And Biological Evaluation Of Pyrazolo[1,5-A]Pyrimidines And (4-Hydroxy-6-Trifluoromethylpyrimidin-2-Yl) Guanidines, Justin Dave Singleton Aug 2021

Synthesis And Biological Evaluation Of Pyrazolo[1,5-A]Pyrimidines And (4-Hydroxy-6-Trifluoromethylpyrimidin-2-Yl) Guanidines, Justin Dave Singleton

Theses and Dissertations

A microwave reactor was used to synthesize a series of novel 3,6-disubstituted or 3-substituted pyrazolo[1,5-a]pyrimidines in a total of 1 hour reaction time over 3 steps. The products were obtained in good to excellent yields (34-92%, ave = 52%) using a straightforward synthesis starting with the reaction of dimethylformamide-dimethylacetal with commercially available aryl acetonitriles (120C, 20 min). This was followed by treatment with H2NNH2 • HBr (120C, 20 min), and then reacted with either 1,1,3,3-tetramethoxypropane or a 2-aryl-substituted malondialdehydes (120C, 20 min). The resulting product was either collected on a sintered glass funnel or purified via column chromatography. The compounds …


Petal Diagrams And Seifert Surfaces, Jason Robert Gardiner Aug 2021

Petal Diagrams And Seifert Surfaces, Jason Robert Gardiner

Theses and Dissertations

Petal diagrams of knots are projections of knots to the plane such that the diagram has exactly one crossing. Petal diagrams offer a convenient and combinatorial way of representing knots via their associated petal permutation. In this thesis we study the fundamental group and Seifert surfaces of knots in petal form. Using the Seifert-Van Kampen theorem, we give a group presentation of the fundamental group of the knot complement of a knot in petal form. We then discuss Seifert surfaces and use decomposition diagrams to represent the Seifert surfaces of knots in petal form. We finally give an algorithm to …


2-Phosphinoimidazole Derived Monometallic And Bimetallic Catalysts, Erin Martinez Jul 2021

2-Phosphinoimidazole Derived Monometallic And Bimetallic Catalysts, Erin Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

Transition metal catalysis is a necessary branch of organic synthesis. Both monometallic and bimetallic catalysts can reduce reaction times, improve regio- and enantioselectivity, and minimize byproducts. Additionally, bimetallic catalysts can cooperatively activate substrates, which can enable new reactions and mechanistic pathways. The first half of this work will describe the synthesis and catalytic ability of our novel Pd(I) and Pd(II) dimers. Both dimers use a 2-phosphinoimidazole ligand scaffold to bring the metal centers in close proximity. The Pd(II) dimer can catalyze the synthesis of 1,3-disubstituted naphthalene rings from commercially available aryl iodides and methyl ketones with high regioselectivity and yields. …


Invariant Lattices Of Several Elliptic K3 Surfaces, Joshua Joseph Fullwood Jul 2021

Invariant Lattices Of Several Elliptic K3 Surfaces, Joshua Joseph Fullwood

Theses and Dissertations

This work is concerned with computing the invariant lattices of purely non-symplectic automorphisms of special elliptic K3 surfaces. Brandhorst gave a collection of K3 surfaces admitting purely non-symplectic automorphisms that are uniquely determined up to isomorphism by certain invariants. For many of these surfaces, the automorphism is also unique or the automorphism group of the surface is finite and with a nice isomorphism class. Understanding the invariant lattices of these automorphisms and surfaces is interesting because of these uniqueness properties and because it is possible to give explicit generators for the Picard and invariant lattices. We use the methods given …


An Εhf And Δ18o Isotopic Study Of Zircon Of The Mount Osceola And Conway Granites, White Mountain Batholith, New Hampshire: Deciphering The Petrogenesis Of A-Type Granites, Javier Fabian Matos Strauss Jul 2021

An Εhf And Δ18o Isotopic Study Of Zircon Of The Mount Osceola And Conway Granites, White Mountain Batholith, New Hampshire: Deciphering The Petrogenesis Of A-Type Granites, Javier Fabian Matos Strauss

Theses and Dissertations

A-type granites form in anorogenic settings and typically have high REE concentrations, K2O, Na2O, SiO2, FeOtotal, but low contents of Al2O3, MgO, CaO compared to other granite types. They have been divided in two groups according to their geochemical characteristics: differentiates of mantle-derived magmas (A1), and granites that are the result of melting depleted, lower crust (A2). The two largest A-type granites of the Mesozoic White Mountain Batholith of New Hampshire are the Mount Osceola and Conway granites. Electron microprobe analyses of biotite and amphibole in both granites are similar to those in other A-type granites: Fe-rich, but low MgO, …


Relative Infrasound Calibration Of Microphones With Application To Outdoor Vector Intensity Measurements, Francisco Javier Irarrazabal Oliva Jul 2021

Relative Infrasound Calibration Of Microphones With Application To Outdoor Vector Intensity Measurements, Francisco Javier Irarrazabal Oliva

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis describes the phase and amplitude correction of 12.7 mm diameter, Type-1 microphones for three frequency bands, including within the infrasound regime, and its application to acoustic measurements. Previous data stem from acoustic intensity measurements using two-dimensional, four-microphone probes, which emphasized the requirement of having the acoustic phase and amplitude difference be much greater than the interchannel mismatch. Although correcting the amplitude/phase is well-known, obtaining the necessary transfer functions in the infrasound regime is challenging because (1) signal-to-noise ratios are often poor, (2) long measurement times are required for averaging, and (3) microphone responses vary significantly across these low …


Nonlinear Ultrafast Excitation And Two-Dimensional Terahertz Spectroscopy Of Solids, Brittany E. Knighton Jul 2021

Nonlinear Ultrafast Excitation And Two-Dimensional Terahertz Spectroscopy Of Solids, Brittany E. Knighton

Theses and Dissertations

Ultrafast spectroscopy allows us to probe and understand material properties. With it, we can measure phonon-polaritons (optical phonons coupled with light) and the resulting dispersion curve in lithium niobate. Customizing the excitation source in ultrafast measurements can excite phonon modes to large amplitudes, allowing the experimental exploration of the Potential Energy Surface in solids. However, stronger pump fluences and bigger signal isn't always the answer in ultrafast spectroscopy. When sample signals and their nonlinear and mechanisms cannot be distinguished with 1D measurements, simple 2D THz measurements are a great place to start searching for distinct factors as was the case …


Synthesis And Utility Of Chiral And Achiral Trifluoroacetamide Substrates In Cycloaddition Reactions, Isaac Theodore Smith Jul 2021

Synthesis And Utility Of Chiral And Achiral Trifluoroacetamide Substrates In Cycloaddition Reactions, Isaac Theodore Smith

Theses and Dissertations

In this document we report the synthesis, characterization, and utility of a chiral amidoacrylate substrate. This substrate features a reactive alkene that can be used in a variety of reactions. [3+2]-Cycloaddition reactions to form pyrroloindolines are shown to proceed with excellent diastereoselectivity (>20:1) and yield (86%). [3+2]-Reactions allow for the stereoselective construction of the pyrroloindoline backbone common in many natural products. Diels-Alder reactions catalyzed by TiCl4 show high yields (82%) with ~2:1 diastereoselectivity. Cyclopropanation reactions proceed in moderate yield (71%) and diastereoselectivity (~3:1). Both Diels-Alder and cyclopropanation reactions utilizing the chiral amidoacrylate substrate serve to stereoselectively produce unnatural amino …


Protein Conformational Stability Enhancement Through Pegylation And Macrocyclization, Qiang Xiao Jul 2021

Protein Conformational Stability Enhancement Through Pegylation And Macrocyclization, Qiang Xiao

Theses and Dissertations

PEGylation can improve the pharmacokinetic properties of protein therapeutics via decreasing renal clearance and shielding the protein surface from proteases, antibody neutrailization, and aggregation. Conformational stability enhancement can provide criteria for the identification of optimal sites for PEGylation, but how PEG influence the noncovalent interactions from the surface of proteins has not been well illustrated. Macrocyclization can effectively enhance the conformational stability of small peptides and large proteins. Combination of PEG-based conformational stability enhancement and macrocyclization-based conformational constraint has not been explored. Macrocycliziation has been employed to stabilize protein tertiary structures, but there are no general guidelines for interhelical staple …


Plot Extraction And The Visualization Of Narrative Flow, Michael A. Debuse Jul 2021

Plot Extraction And The Visualization Of Narrative Flow, Michael A. Debuse

Theses and Dissertations

In order to facilitate the automated extraction of complex features and structures within narrative, namely plot in this study, two proof-of-concept methods of narrative visualization are presented with the goal of representing the plot of the narrative. Plot is defined to give a basis for quality assessment and comparison. The first visualization presented is a scatter-plot of entities within the story, but due to failing to uphold the definition of plot, in-depth analysis is not performed. The second visualization presented is a graph structure that better represents a mapping of the plot of the story. Narrative structures commonly found within …


3-Adic Properties Of Hecke Traces Of Singular Moduli, Miriam Beazer Jul 2021

3-Adic Properties Of Hecke Traces Of Singular Moduli, Miriam Beazer

Theses and Dissertations

As shown by Zagier, singular moduli can be represented by the coefficients of a certain half integer weight modular form. Congruences for singular moduli modulo arbitrary primes have been proved by Ahlgren and Ono, Edixhoven, and Jenkins. Computation suggests that stronger congruences hold for small primes $p \in \{2, 3, 5, 7, 11\}$. Boylan proved stronger congruences hold in the case where $p=2$. We conjecture congruences for singular moduli modulo powers of $p \in \{3, 5, 7, 11\}$. In particular, we study the case where $p=3$ and reduce the conjecture to a congruence for a simpler modular form.


The Non-Backtracking Spectrum Of A Graph And Non-Bactracking Pagerank, Cory Glover Jul 2021

The Non-Backtracking Spectrum Of A Graph And Non-Bactracking Pagerank, Cory Glover

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis studies two problems centered around non-backtracking walks on graphs. First, we analyze the spectrum of the non-backtracking matrix of a graph. We show how to obtain the eigenvectors of the non-backtracking matrix using a smaller matrix and in doing so, create a block diagonal decomposition which more clearly expresses the non-backtracking matrix eigenvalues. Additionally, we develop upper and lower bounds on the matrix spectrum and use the spectrum to investigate properties of the graph. Second, we investigate the difference between PageRank and non-backtracking PageRank. We show some instances where there is no difference and develop an algorithm to …


Emotional Geographies Of Beginning And Veteran Reformed Teachers In Mentor/Mentee Relationships, Emily Joan Adams Jul 2021

Emotional Geographies Of Beginning And Veteran Reformed Teachers In Mentor/Mentee Relationships, Emily Joan Adams

Theses and Dissertations

Reformed teaching is better for students' conceptual understanding compared to the more popular traditional style of teaching. Many beginning teachers wanting to teach reformed conform to traditional teaching within their first couple years of teaching. I argue that this can happen because the emotional labor to continue teaching reformed without support is too high. Having a reformed math mentor can decrease this emotional labor and provide more support to beginning reformed teachers. This study builds on and adds to Hargreaves (2001) emotional geography framework to better understand the emotional closeness/distance beginning and veteran reformed teachers have talking about their practice. …


Sequence Specific Concentration And Labeling Of Bacterial Plasmids For Future Use In Detection Of Drug-Resistant Sepsis Cases Without Amplification, Robert L. Hanson Jun 2021

Sequence Specific Concentration And Labeling Of Bacterial Plasmids For Future Use In Detection Of Drug-Resistant Sepsis Cases Without Amplification, Robert L. Hanson

Theses and Dissertations

Rapidly diagnosing the precise drug resistance present in sepsis-inducing bacteria is a continuing need to maintain the efficacy of our medical systems. Diagnostics currently being developed for such scenarios are either sensitive or rapid, but not both. Sequence-specific single DNA molecule analysis could fill this gap if it could be adapted to work on smaller targets, similar to those produced by classical biological methods. In this work, I demonstrate that immobilized ssDNA in the appropriate hybridization buffer can rapidly pull its complementary sequence out of solution. I also demonstrate that such systems in a microfluidic chip can be used to …


Localized Anthropogenic And Geogenic Groundwater Contamination In The Structurally Complex Carbonate-Hosted East Tintic Mining District, Eureka, Ut, Usa, Cameron Patrick Cordner Jun 2021

Localized Anthropogenic And Geogenic Groundwater Contamination In The Structurally Complex Carbonate-Hosted East Tintic Mining District, Eureka, Ut, Usa, Cameron Patrick Cordner

Theses and Dissertations

Legacy mining areas throughout the world contain widespread contaminated surface and groundwater from both anthropogenic and geogenic sources. Abandoned mine waste can contribute harmful solutes to groundwater and surface water, as metals mobilize through oxidation of sulfide minerals. Geogenic contaminant sources, such as geothermal water and mineralization, may also contribute to groundwater pollution in mining areas. To investigate the relationship between various groundwater contamination sources in legacy mining areas we sampled ~30 cold springs in the East Tintic Mountains of Utah and 8 regional hot springs as a proxy for geothermal water during fall 2019 and spring/summer 2020. Water chemistry …


Bottom-Up Fabrication And Characterization Of Dna Origami-Templated Electronic Nanomaterials, Basu Ram Aryal Jun 2021

Bottom-Up Fabrication And Characterization Of Dna Origami-Templated Electronic Nanomaterials, Basu Ram Aryal

Theses and Dissertations

This work presents the bottom-up fabrication of DNA origami-assembled metal nanowires and metal-semiconductor junctions, and their electrical characterization. Integration of metal and semiconductor nanomaterials into prescribed sites on self-assembled DNA origami has facilitated the fabrication of electronic nanomaterials, whereas use of conventional tools in their characterization combines bottom-up and top-down technologies. To expand the contemporary DNA-based nanofabrication into nanoelectronics, I performed site-specific metallization of DNA origami to create arbitrarily arranged gold nanostructures. I reported improved yields and conductivity measurements for Au nanowires created on DNA origami tile substrates. I measured the conductivity of C-shaped Au nanowires created on DNA tiles …


Intermountain West Lichen Dna Reference Library, Brian Colgrove Jun 2021

Intermountain West Lichen Dna Reference Library, Brian Colgrove

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Accurate estimates of biodiversity can play crucial roles in monitoring ecological health. BYU’s Lichen Air Quality Biomonitoring program (Wright) represents one of the largest biomonitoring programs in the nation. Recently, DNA metabarcoding approaches have shown promise in streamlining lichen biodiversity inventories. However, to date, lichen diversity of western North America is poorly represented in available DNA reference libraries, preventing biologists and land managers from using DNA barcoding to identify unknown specimens. To solve this problem, I have developed a DNA reference library for over 500 species occurring in the Intermountain West region. Using bioinformatic and statistical tools, I created a …


A Fret Flow Cytometry-Based Screening Assay For Multiplex Analysis Of Metabolites In T. Brucei, Ronald A. Zegarra Jun 2021

A Fret Flow Cytometry-Based Screening Assay For Multiplex Analysis Of Metabolites In T. Brucei, Ronald A. Zegarra

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Kinetoplastid parasites are a significant public health issue in some tropical and subtropical regions of the world. Kinetoplastid parasites all require glycolysis for survival, with host glucose key for ATP production. One such parasite, Trypanosoma brucei, exclusively metabolizes glucose in its bloodstream form. Trypanosomal glycolysis is unique because it displays unconventional structural features. Hence, glucose metabolism has been studied extensively in T. brucei and is a therapeutic target in kinetoplastid parasites.The lack of in vivo analytical techniques for measuring vital glycolytic metabolites in situ has restricted the ability of researchers to test, with high sensitivity and specificity, the essential roles …


Who Uses Multi-Factor Authentication?, Leah Roberts Jun 2021

Who Uses Multi-Factor Authentication?, Leah Roberts

Undergraduate Honors Theses

A sample of 47 BYU students were recruited to participate in this study to determine who was using Multi-factor Authentication (MFA) on their online accounts. This study determined that there were many different factors that separated those who used MFA and those who did not. Some of those factors included: time spent on the internet each day, gender, the website itself, and personal privacy behaviors.


Exploration Of Fluorinated Α,Β-Dehydroamino Acids And Their Structure, Austin Lesueur Jun 2021

Exploration Of Fluorinated Α,Β-Dehydroamino Acids And Their Structure, Austin Lesueur

Undergraduate Honors Theses

This thesis explores the synthesis of fluorinated α,β-dehydroamino acids, specifically a fluorinated dehydrovaline derivative. Previous work has been done on the equivalent dehydrovaline derivative without fluorine present and this work builds toward the fluorinated version with the goal of comparing the two structurally. The synthesis presented here pulls from previous synthetic strategies employed for dehydrovaline while also exploring the synthetic impact of the electronegative fluorine atoms.


Interpretable Fine-Grained Visual Categorization, Pei Guo Jun 2021

Interpretable Fine-Grained Visual Categorization, Pei Guo

Theses and Dissertations

Not all categories are created equal in object recognition. Fine-grained visual categorization (FGVC) is a branch of visual object recognition that aims to distinguish subordinate categories within a basic-level category. Examples include classifying an image of a bird into specific species like "Western Gull" or "California Gull". Such subordinate categories exhibit characteristics like small inter-category variation and large intra-class variation, making distinguishing them extremely difficult. To address such challenges, an algorithm should be able to focus on object parts and be invariant to object pose. Like many other computer vision tasks, FGVC has witnessed phenomenal advancement following the resurgence of …


Cationic Steroid Antimicrobials: Applications To Medical Device Coatings, Mechanism Of Pro-Osteogenic Properties, And Potential Synergy With Common Antifungals, Brian J. Hilton Jun 2021

Cationic Steroid Antimicrobials: Applications To Medical Device Coatings, Mechanism Of Pro-Osteogenic Properties, And Potential Synergy With Common Antifungals, Brian J. Hilton

Theses and Dissertations

Cationic steroid antimicrobials (CSAs or ceragenins) are a novel class of synthetic, cholic acid-based mimics of endogenous antimicrobial peptides. These small molecule compounds display broad bactericidal activity against gram-negative and gram-positive bacteria, potent ability against fungal pathogens, and cidal effects against drug resistant and multidrug resistant microbes. Implantable medical devices provide an abiotic surface upon which bacteria and fungi can accumulate--thereby leading to localized or systemic infection. We proposed that CSA antibiotics can be incorporated into medical device surface coatings which can be optimized for the active release or elution of the CSA compounds over time to prevent device-associated infections. …


Simple Ssh Management, Torstein Calvin Collett Jun 2021

Simple Ssh Management, Torstein Calvin Collett

Theses and Dissertations

SSH certificates are used by administrators so connections to the server can be verified. This ensures that only authorized administrators can access the server and that the server being accessed is the intended machine. Current solutions for managing SSH certificates are focused on commercial use, which makes them cumbersome for small groups and individuals to use. These solutions require running multiple services that companies already use but add significant overhead for smaller groups. We developed a new standalone system that makes it easy to manage SSH certificates for small amounts of servers and users, without requiring additional servers to be …


Developing The Definite Integral And Accumulation Function Through Adding Up Pieces: A Hypothetical Learning Trajectory, Brinley Nichole Stevens Jun 2021

Developing The Definite Integral And Accumulation Function Through Adding Up Pieces: A Hypothetical Learning Trajectory, Brinley Nichole Stevens

Theses and Dissertations

Integration is a core concept of calculus. As such, significant work has been done on understanding how students come to reason about integrals, including both the definite integral and the accumulation function. A path towards understanding the accumulation function first, then the definite integral as a single point on the accumulation function has been presented in the literature. However, there seems to be an accessible path that begins first with understanding the definite integral through an Adding Up Pieces (AUP) perspective and extending that understanding to the accumulation function. This study provides a viable hypothetical learning trajectory (HLT) for beginning …


The Role Of The Cytosolic Chaperonin Cct In Folding Β-Propeller Proteins, William Grant Ludlam Jun 2021

The Role Of The Cytosolic Chaperonin Cct In Folding Β-Propeller Proteins, William Grant Ludlam

Theses and Dissertations

Many Proteins require the aid of molecular chaperones to achieve a stable folding state and avoid misfolding pathologies. A major eukaryotic chaperone is the cytosolic chaperonin CCT. While CCT is known to fold a significant portion of all cytosolic proteins, there is no general model for the mechanism CCT uses to fold substrate proteins. One class of proteins that CCT is known to fold are β-propeller containing proteins. Here, we present structural and biochemical data on the processes that CCT uses to fold three distinct β-propeller proteins: the G-protein Beta 5 (Gβ5) subunit of the Gβ5-RGS complex, mLST8 of the …


Zeros Of A Family Of Complex Harmonic Polynomials, Samantha Sandberg Jun 2021

Zeros Of A Family Of Complex Harmonic Polynomials, Samantha Sandberg

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis we study complex harmonic functions of the form f where f is the sum of a nonconstant analytic and a nonconstant anti-analytic function of one variable. The Fundamental Theorem of Algebra does not apply to such functions, so we ask how many zeros a complex harmonic function can have and where those zeros are located. This thesis focuses on the complex harmonic family of polynomials p_c where p_c is the sum of z+(c/2)z^2 and the conjugate of (c/(n-1))z^(n-1)+(1/n)z^n. We first establish properties of the critical curve, which separates orientation preserving and reversing regions. These properties are then …


Pegylation Stabilizes The Conformation Of Proteins And The Noncovalent Interactions Within Them, Steven R. E. Draper Jun 2021

Pegylation Stabilizes The Conformation Of Proteins And The Noncovalent Interactions Within Them, Steven R. E. Draper

Theses and Dissertations

PEGylation has been used for decades to enhance the pharmacokinetic properties of protein therapeutics. This method has been effective at increasing the serum half-life of these drugs, but the mechanism of how it does this is unclear. Chapter 1 is an introduction to the methods of PEGylation. In chapter 2 we show that the effect of PEGylation on the conformational stability of the WW domain differs based on amino acid linker and conjugation site. We show that all positions in the WW domain that were tested can be stabilized by at least one amino acid linker. The rate of proteolysis …