Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Stochastic Multiple Gradient Decent For Inferring Action-Based Network Generators, Qian Wu, Viplove Arora, Mario Ventresca

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Networked systems, like the internet, social networks etc., have in recent years attracted the attention of researchers, specifically to develop models that can help us understand or predict the behavior of these systems. A way of achieving this is through network generators, which are algorithms that can synthesize networks with statistically similar properties to a given target network. Action-based Network Generators (ABNG)is one of these algorithms that defines actions as strategies for nodes to form connections with other nodes, hence generating networks. ABNG is parametrized using an action matrix that assigns an empirical probability distribution to vertices for choosing specific …

Haptic Foot Feedback For Kicking Training In Virtual Reality, Hank Huang, Hong Tan

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

As means to further supplement athletic performances increases, virtual reality is becoming helpful to sports in terms of cognitive training such as reaction, mentality, and game strategies. With the aid of haptic feedback, interaction with virtual objects increases by another dimension, in addition to the presence of visual and auditory feedback. This research presents an integrated system of a virtual reality environment, motion tracking system, and a haptic unit designed for the dorsal foot. The prototype simulates a scenario of virtual kicking and returns haptic response upon collision between the user’s foot and virtual object. The overall system was evaluated …

Classifying Pattern Formation In Materials Via Machine Learning, Lukasz Burzawa, Shuo Liu, Erica W. Carlson

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Scanning probe experiments such as scanning tunneling microscopy (STM) and atomic force microscopy (AFM) on strongly correlated materials often reveal complex pattern formation that occurs on multiple length scales. We have shown in two disparate correlated materials that the pattern formation is driven by proximity to a disorder-driven critical point. We developed new analysis concepts and techniques that relate the observed pattern formation to critical exponents by analyzing the geometry and statistics of clusters observed in these experiments and converting that information into critical exponents. Machine learning algorithms can be helpful correlating data from scanning probe experiments to theoretical models …

The Turning-Off Of Supernova Remnants: The Transition Into The Radiative Phase, Ryan A. Lazur, Rodolfo Barniol Duran, Dimitrios Giannios

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Supernovae are amongst the most energetic events in the Universe. Understanding the different stages of the life of a supernova is currently one of the main objectives in astrophysics. During a supernova explosion, material with mass several times that of the Sun is ejected with a speed about 1/10 that of light. In current models, the transition from the Sedov-Taylor to the radiative phase is assumed to be almost instantaneous, which is not entirely accurate. Here the physics of the transition to the radiative phase will be revisited. Observations indicate that the supernova ejecta remains bright in the radio band …

Gdd(Growth Degree Day) Module For Vinsense Visual Analytics System, Pradeep K. Lam, David Ebert , Phd, Jiawei Zhang

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Limited resources and increasing costs require vineyards to develop optimized methods of planting, growing, and harvesting crops in order to ensure max yield and stay competitive in the marketplace. Data from sensors planted within the soil paired with weather reports and observation data from farmers could help develop competitive farming strategies. While automatic computation models are usually a black box that cannot explain how the input data are transformed into output, the farmers require an approach that allows them to interactively manipulate and supervise the computation process. The VinSense project was developed for this purpose. In this paper, we focus …

Analyzing Sports Training Data With Machine Learning Techniques, Rehana Mahfuz, Zeinab Mourad, Aly El Gamal

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

In the sports industry, there has not been enough effort in analyzing the personalized monitoring data of athletes collected during training sessions. This research is an attempt to find meaningful patterns in the Purdue Women’s Soccer training data that could help the coach design more efficient training sessions. We are specifically interested in studying this problem as an unsupervised learning problem. Our initial attempt is to cluster the players as well as drills into groups using k-means, c-means and spectral clustering algorithms, combined with feature transformation and reduction steps. These basic algorithms serve as a benchmark to measure performance improvements …

Experimental Testing And Validation Of P-Band Bi-Static Remote Sensing Of Soil Moisture In 137-138mhz Range, Xiangyu Qu, Yao-Cheng Lin, James L. Garrison

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

Remote sensing using readily available communication signal transmitted by ORBCOMM satellites at very high frequency (VHF) range (137-138MHz) is a promising method for detecting the root zone soil moisture content. The radio wave reflectivity of soil is strongly correlated to soil moisture content. Therefore, if we were able to measure the reflectivity, we might be able to estimate the soil moisture content. In this preliminary study, we analyze direct signal data from the satellites to investigate and verify communication channels in frequency range of interest and their characteristics (bandwidth, pattern, etc.). The analysis of direct signal data is also used …

Assembly Of Nucleic Acid-Based Nanoparticles By Gas-Liquid Segmented Flow Microfluidics, Matthew L. Capek, Ross Verheul, David H. Thompson

The Summer Undergraduate Research Fellowship (SURF) Symposium

The development of novel and efficient mixing methods is important for optimizing the efficiency of many biological and chemical processes. Tuning the physical and performance properties of nucleic acid-based nanoparticles is one such example known to be strongly affected by mixing efficiency. The characteristics of DNA nanoparticles (such as size, polydispersity, ζ-potential, and gel shift) are important to ensure their therapeutic potency, and new methods to optimize these characteristics are of significant importance to achieve the highest efficacy. In the present study, a simple segmented flow microfluidics system has been developed to augment mixing of pDNA/bPEI nanoparticles. This DNA and …

Studies Of Arctic Tropospheric Ozone Depletion Events Through Buoy-Borne Observations And Laboratory Studies, John W. Halfacre

Open Access Dissertations

The photochemically-induced destruction of ground-level Arctic ozone in the Arctic occurs at the onset of spring, in concert with polar sunrise. Solar radiation is believed to stimulate a series of reactions that cause the production and release of molecular halogens from frozen, salty surfaces, though this mechanism is not yet well understood. The subsequent photolysis of molecular halogens produces reactive halogen atoms that remove ozone from the atmosphere in these so-called “Ozone Depletion Events” (ODEs). Given that much of the Arctic region is sunlit, meteorologically stable, and covered by saline ice and snow, it is expected that ODEs could be …

The Use Of Stable Isotopes And Particulate Matter In The Investigation Of Local And Regional Atmospheric Chemistry, Tanya Lynn Katzman

Open Access Dissertations

The chemical composition of particulate matter (PM), a known contributor to air pollution, is highly variable, and elemental analysis reveals information about local and regional sources, as well as how air masses and climate influence PM compositions. Seasonal changes in climate, such as temperature, amount of daylight, or meteorological patterns influence source emissions (increased residential heating activities, decreased natural soil emissions) and the relative importance of certain chemical pathways in the atmosphere. Since the magnitude of these seasonal changes are highly dependent on location, each sampling site is unique and the chemical composition of PM provides valuable insight into local …

Connecting Models Of Configuration Spaces: From Double Loops To Strings, Jason M. Lucas

Open Access Dissertations

Foundational to the subject of operad theory is the notion of an En operad, that is, an operad that is quasi-isomorphic to the operad of little n-cubes Cn. They are central to the study of iterated loop spaces, and the specific case of n = 2 is key in the solution of the Deligne Conjecture. In this paper we examine the connection between two E 2 operads, namely the little 2-cubes operad C 2 itself and the operad of spineless cacti. To this end, we construct a new suboperad of C2, which we name the operad of tethered …

Protein Lc-Ms Using Slip Flow Chromatography, Ximo Zhang

Open Access Dissertations

Histones are essential chromosomal proteins with large numbers of variants and post-translational modifications (PTMs). PTM levels of histones are known to correlate with different stages of cancer. Due to the lack of resolution on intact histone separations, conventional methods for histone analysis require time-consuming digestion, which often leads to the loss of PTM information. Slip flow chromatography with orderly packed nonporous silica particles has been shown to greatly increase the efficiency of protein separation by reducing eddy diffusion and resistance to mass transfer. In this work, higher resolution for intact histones separation was achieved by using a 5 cm capillary …

Localization And Delocalization In Two-Dimensional Quantum Percolation, Brianna S. Dillon Thomas

Open Access Dissertations

Quantum percolation is one of several disorder-only models that address the question of whether conduction, or more generally, delocalization, is possible in two dimensional disordered systems. Whether quantum percolation exhibits a delocalization-localization phase transition in two dimensions is an ongoing debate, but many recent studies point toward there being a delocalized phase at non-zero disorder, in contradiction to the behavior of the Anderson model, another disorder-only model. In this dissertation, I present my research on quantum percolation that shows a delocalized state is possible, both on isotropic lattices and on highly anisotropic lattices, and shows that the essential characteristics of …

A Usability Assessment For A Career Planning Educational Video Game, Jiaqi Wang

Open Access Theses

This study focused on the design, implementation and usability assessment of an educational 2D iPad job matching game The Place You’ll Go (TPYG), which meant for matching student skill sets with career profiles. The development of the game is conducted in collaboration with Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management and Polytech Institute. A total of 7 subjects, as high school teachers, participated in the usability study. TPYG as one possible solution for job matching data visualization, did not provide players with a good experience. However, conclusions and findings can be used in similar education game development. Based on survey and …

Particle Modeling Of Non-Equilibrium Field Emission Driven Rf Microplasmas, Siva Sashank Tholeti

Open Access Dissertations

Non-equilibrium microplasmas at atmospheric pressures have been investigated for active flow control, micropropulsion and electronic display applications to name a few. The operational voltages for these microplasmas are on the order of kilovolts. When the electric field at the electrodes reaches GV/m or tens of GV/m either due to reduced interelectrode spacing and surface irregularities or due to carefully designed nanostructures on the electrodes, quantum processes such as field emission and field ionization come into effect. These can potentially reduce the operational voltages of microplasma devices by an order of magnitude. Due to the rarefied and non-equilibrium nature of these …

Intestinal Adaptation To Repeated Exposure Of Flavonoid-Rich Foods: In Vitro And Clinical Data, Bejamin W. Redan

Open Access Dissertations

Interest in application of flavonoids for chronic disease prevention has grown significantly, but the low oral bioavailability of these compounds from acute doses is commonly highlighted as a limitation when considering their biological significance. Still, the impact of broad dietary patterns such as repeated exposure on flavonoid’s absorption, metabolism, and eventual efficacy is critical to consider since evidence suggests that their bioavailability may be enhanced with repeated exposure. To fill this gap in knowledge, this dissertation will focus on three major areas including characterization of flavonoid metabolites, in addition to use of in vitro models and clinical work to test …

Two-Particle Correlation Studies In Heavy Ion Collisions At The Large Hadron Collider, Lingshan Xu

Open Access Dissertations

Results on two-particle angular correlations in pPb at [square root sNN] =5.02 TeV and PbPb collisions at [square root sNN] =2.76 TeV are reported. The long-range correlations in pseudorapidity (“ridge'') has been seen in various systems, including PbPb, pPb and pp systems. In this thesis, two-particle correlations in pPb collisions at nucleon-nucleon center-of-mass energy of 5.02 TeV are studied as a function of the pseudorapidity separation (Δ η) of the particle pair at small azimuthal angle separation (|Δ&phis;| < π/3). The correlations are decomposed into a jet component that dominates the short-range correlations (|Δη| < 1), and a component that persists at large Δη, which is the ridge. The ridge may be associated with collective behavior of the produced system, well …

Improving Cloud Middlebox Infrastructure For Online Services, Rohan S. Gandhi

Open Access Dissertations

Middleboxes are an indispensable part of the datacenter networks that provide high availability, scalability and performance to the online services. Using load balancer as an example, this thesis shows that the prevalent scale-out middlebox designs using commodity servers are plagued with three fundamental problems: (1) The server-based layer-4 middleboxes are costly and inflate round-trip-time as much as 2x by processing the packets in software. (2) The middlebox instances cause traffic detouring en route from sources to destinations, which inflates network bandwidth usage by as much as 3.2x and can cause transient congestion. (3) Additionally, existing cloud providers do not support …

Synthesis, Characterization, And Application Of Magnetic Gold Nanoclusters, Naveen Reddy Kadasala

Open Access Dissertations

Au–Fe3O4 nanocomposites are of great interest for technological reasons due to their combined optical and magnetic properties. Nanosized Fe3O4 particles are superparamagnetic and can also be coated with a layer of Au, which supports localized plasmon resonances for useful optical properties. The dual properties of Au–Fe3O 4 nanoparticles have inspired chemists to design a variety of synthetic routes, some with good control of overall shape and size. However, most approaches require organic solvents, surfactants, or harsh chemical conditions. In this thesis we describe a simple and highly reproducible synthesis of magnetically active gold nanoclusters (MGNCs) with average particle sizes under …

Mass Spectrometric Characterization Of Remotely Charged Amino Acids And Peptides, Damodar Koirala

Open Access Dissertations

Ion–molecule reactions in a flowing afterglow are used to examine the electronic structure of 3- and 4-pyridinylnitrene-n-oxide radical anions. Reactions with nitric oxide are generally similar to those reported previously for other aromatic nitrene radical anions. In particular, phenoxide formation by nitrogen–oxygen exchange is observed with both isomers. Oxygen atom abstraction by NO is also observed with both isomers. Very significant differences in the reactivity are observed in the reactions of the two isomers with carbon disulfide. The reactivity of the 3-noxide isomer with CS2 is similar to that observed previously for nitrene radical anions, and reactions of the n-oxide …

Manufacturer Perspectives On Content Transparency And Material Health In The Us Building Products Industry, Alexandra A. Muller

Open Access Theses

Flawed U.S. federal regulation of chemicals has resulted in a materials market that undervalues human and environmental health in favor of the more traditional attributes of price, performance and aesthetics. In the building products industry, global, dynamic supply chains and proprietary information concerns further complicate the task of assessing the material health of products.

Voluntary material health programs in the green building industry are intended to incentivize the manufacture and selection of safer products by getting companies to gather and assess ingredient, hazard and risk information from their supply chain. Building product manufacturers considered early adopters of the main material …

Simulation Of Flow And Water Quality From Tile Drains At The Watershed And Field Scale, Colleen Moloney

Open Access Theses

Simulation models such as the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) have become widely used in determining the water quality impacts of various management practices. Ensuring that the algorithms accurately represent the processes simulated has become an important goal. Tile drainage is a standard practice in the Midwest, US in order to reduce risk of yield loss due to excess water. Multiple tile drainage and water table algorithms have been available in the SWAT model between the initial SWAT release and revision 638 used in this study. Testing of those algorithms is often limited. Furthermore, algorithms in the current version …

Tool Comparison Of Semantic Parsers, Robert Hinh

Open Access Theses

Natural Language Processing (NLP) is a vital aspect for artificial intelligence systems to achieve integration into human lives, which has been a goal for researchers in this industry. While NLP focuses on an array of problems, semantic parsing will be specifically focused on throughout this paper. These parsers have been considerably targeted for improvement through the scientific community and demand for semantic parsers that achieve high accuracy has increased. There have been many approaches developed for this specific purpose and in this paper, a deep analysis was performed to compare the performance of semantic parsing systems. The implications of this …

Development Of A Novel Polymer-Garnet Solid State Composite Electrolyte Incorporating Li-La-Zr-Bi-O And Polyethylene Oxide, Muhammed Ramazan Oduncu

Open Access Theses

Current lithium ion batteries are comprised of organic liquid electrolytes - a mixture of lithium salts and binary solvents such as ethylene carbonate (EC) and dimethyl carbonate (DMC). The main drawbacks of this liquid mixture related to safety are flammability of the organic solvents and chemical instability with the electrode materials. To date, various ceramic and polymer materials have been considered which overcome safety issues. However, a common problem of these solid state materials is that they are not able to provide high ionic conductivity at ambient temperatures. Garnet-type cubic Li7La 3Zr2O12 ceramic material has attracted much interest because of …

Catalytic Conversion Of Chlorite To Chlorine Dioxide By Non-Heme Complexes, Manasa Ramachandra

Open Access Theses

The oxyanions of chlorine (ClOx-, x=1-4) have diverse applications and are used in a variety of commercial products. They are very stable in an aqueous environment leading to water contamination, thereby posing a concern for the environment and human health. At the microbial level, the enzyme perchlorate reductase catalyzes the reduction of perchlorate (ClO4-) to chlorite (ClO2-) and chlorite dismutase further reduces chlorite to innocuous chloride (Cl -) and dioxygen (O2). Two non-heme complexes [Fe III-TAML]- (Tetraamido Macrocyclic Ligand), and [Mn II-(BnTPEN)] in the presence of peracetic acid (PAA) have been studied as catalysts for chlorite dismutation under ambient conditions. …

Polymerizable Lipids For Controlled Functionalization Of Layered Materials, Kortney Kaye Rupp

Open Access Theses

Self-assembled monolayers (SAM’s) offer a straightforward approach to tailoring the interfacial properties of metals, metal oxides and semiconductors. Noncovalent functionalization of single-layer graphene offers the possibility to finely tune surface chemistry for future applications in electronics. Polymerization of photochemically reactive molecules in a lying-down phase has been used to increase the strength of intermolecular interactions between long alkanes and HOPG substrates. Long-chain fatty acid derivatives with internal diyne groups yield a conjugated ene-yne polymer upon UV irradiation. Diyne lipids with phosphocholine (diyne PC) and phosphoethanolamine (diyne PE) groups offer a charged form of the head group that is robust towards …

Applications Of The Homotopy Analysis Method To Optimal Control Problems, Shubham Singh

Open Access Theses

Traditionally, trajectory optimization for aerospace applications has been performed using either direct or indirect methods. Indirect methods produce highly accurate solutions but suer from a small convergence region, requiring initial guesses close to the optimal solution. In past two decades, a new series of analytical approximation methods have been used for solving systems of dierential equations and boundary value problems.

The Homotopy Analysis Method (HAM) is one such method which has been used to solve typical boundary value problems in nance, science, and engineering. In this investigation, a methodology is created to solve indirect trajectory optimization problems using the Homotopy …

Hardware Accelerated Authentication System For Dynamic Time-Critical Networks, Ankush Singla

Open Access Theses

The secure and efficient operation of time-critical networks, such as vehicular networks, smart-grid and other smart-infrastructures, is of primary importance in today’s society. It is crucial to minimize the impact of security mechanisms over such networks so that the safe and reliable operations of time-critical systems are not being interfered.

Even though there are several security mechanisms, their application to smart-infrastructure and Internet of Things (IoT) deployments may not meet the ubiquitous and time-sensitive needs of these systems. That is, existing security mechanisms either introduce a significant computation and communication overhead, or they are not scalable for a large number …

Using Ubiquitous Data To Improve Smartwatches' Context Awareness, Yuankun Song

Open Access Theses

Nowadays, more and more data is being generated by various software applications, services and smart devices every second. The data contains abundant information about people’s daily lives. This research explored the possibility of improving smartwatches’ context awareness by using common ubiquitous data. The researcher developed a prototype system consisting of an Android application and a web application, and conducted an experiment where 10 participants performed several tasks with the help of a smartwatch. The result showed a significant improvement of the smartwatch’s context awareness running the prototype application, which used ubiquitous data to automatically execute proper actions according to contexts. …

Metal-Promoted Self-Assembly Of Collagen Mimetic Peptides Into Biofunctional Scaffolds For Stem Cell Delivery With The Aim Of Tissue Regeneration, Kevin Strauss

Open Access Theses

Collagen is a strong, sturdy, but malleable, protein found abundantly in the extracellular matrix. Consequently, it has become an invaluable biomaterial for use in regenerative medicine. However, natural collagen poses difficulties when it comes to customization and structural control, as well as the risk of infectious prions from animal sources. Our approach utilizes shorter, synthetic collagen mimetic peptide sequences. These peptides retain the incredible triple helical stability of natural collagen but can be modified with versatile metal-binding ligands. In the presence of an appropriate metal ion, the peptides self-assemble into diverse, three-dimensional morphologies. The peptide NCoH, functionalized with N-terminal NTA …