Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Disinfection Byproducts In Wastewater, Swimming Pools, And Tea: Identification, Quantification, And Drivers Of Toxicity, Caroline O. Granger

Theses and Dissertations

Drinking water disinfection is considered one of the greatest scientific achievements of the 20th Century because it significantly reduced the number of deaths related to waterborne diseases. However, in 1974 J.J. Rook discovered that chlorine, a commonly used disinfectant, can react with natural organic matter to form disinfection byproducts (DBPs). Since then, more than 700 DBPs have been identified, with several epidemiological and toxicological studies linking DBPs to several adverse health effects such as bladder and colorectal cancer, adverse birth outcomes, and asthma. Due to their ubiquity in disinfected water and their adverse health effects, studying the formation and identifying …

Materials Discovery By Flux Crystal Growth: Synthesis, Structure Determination, Magnetic, And Optical Properties Of Complex Oxides, Oxychlorides, And Oxyfluorides, Darren Andrew Carone

Theses and Dissertations

Exploratory crystal growth has proven to be a successful technique in the synthesis of new compounds with desired properties. This method is very versatile and has various iterations, but results described herein were obtained through flux growth at high temperatures utilizing mixed alkali halide salts. The tunability of these reactions with respect to reactant ratios, reaction temperature, heating/cooling rates, metal precursors, and choice of flux allow for the exploration of phase spaces between a combination of elements and observation of significantly different products and/or structure types from minor tweaks.

Most of the research presented in this dissertation describes results that …

Cnn-Based Semantic Segmentation With Shape Prior Knowledge, Yuhang Lu

Theses and Dissertations

Semantic segmentation that aims at grouping discrete pixels into connected regions is a fundamental step in many high-level computer vision tasks. In recent years, Convolutional Neural Networks (CNNs) have made breakthrough progresses in public semantic segmentation benchmarks. The ability of learning from large-scale labeled datasets empowers them to generalize to unseen images better than traditional nonlearning-based methods. Nevertheless, the heavy dependency on labeled data also limits their applications in tasks where high-quality ground truth segmentation masks are scarce or difficult to acquire. In this dissertation, we study the problem of alleviating the data dependency for CNN-based segmentation with a focus …

Mechanisms And Impact Of Hypoxia Regulated Inhibins In Cancer, Ben Allen Horst

Theses and Dissertations

Inhibins are heterodimeric ligands within the TGFβ superfamily, comprised of an α-subunit (INHA) and a β-subunit (either INHBA or INHBB) with emergent roles in cancer. Inhibins are biomarkers of disease burden and prognosis in a subset of cancers and utilize the coreceptors betaglycan (TGFBR3) and endoglin (ENG) for physiological or pathological outcomes. Previously, we found inhibin promotes angiogenesis in ovarian cancer however no mechanism of regulation for inhibin expression in cancer has been established. Hypoxia, a driver of tumor growth and metastasis, regulates angiogenic pathways that are targets for vessel normalization and ovarian cancer management. …

An Assessment Of The Performance Of The Earthscope Automated Receiver Survey: A User’S Guide To Ears., Erin L. Taxon

Theses and Dissertations

An Assessment of the Performance of the EarthScope Automatic Receiver Survey: A User's Guide to EARS.

With the advent of digital seismic recording, the ability to process and interpret large quantities of seismic data has become increasingly vital. EarthScope Automated Receiver Survey, EARS, was launched in 2005 to estimate bulk crustal properties in real time, at all broadband seismograph stations, globally. EARS utilizes the receiver function HK stacking method to estimate a station’s crustal thickness (H) and ratio of P wave velocity (Vp) and S wave velocity (Vs), known as Vp/Vs (K). Receiver function analysis observes the arrival times …

Study Of Radiative Corrections In The Muon Scattering Experiment, Lin Li

Theses and Dissertations

The root-mean-square (rms) radius of the proton charge is a fundamental quantity. In 2010, the studies of muonic hydrogen with high precision found a notably smaller value than the one from earlier non-muonic measurements. This discrepancy has led to theoretical and experimental investigations. A missing measurement in determining the proton radius is muon scattering, a measurement that the MUon Scattering Experiment (MUSE) collaboration proposed at Paul Scherrer Institute (PSI). MUSE will measure elastic electron-proton and muon-proton scattering data with positively and negatively charged beams in a four-momentum-transfer square range from Q2 = 0.002 to 0.08 GeV² . Each of …

Image-Based Crack Detection By Extracting Depth Of The Crack Using Machine Learning, Nishat Tabassum

Theses and Dissertations

Concrete structures have been a major aspect of social infrastructure since the ancient Roman times, so they have been used for many centuries. Concrete is used for the durability and support it provides to buildings and bridges. Assessing the state of these structures is important in preserving the longevity of structures and the safety of the public. Detecting cracks in their early stage allows repairs to be made without the need to replace the whole structure, so it reduces the cost. Traditional methods are slowly falling behind as technology advances and an increase in demand for a practical method of …

Novel Synthetic Strategies Toward Polyolefin-Grafted Nanoparticles, Richard Tran Ly

Theses and Dissertations

Surface functionalization of nanoparticles has proven to be a powerful and versatile strategy in the development of various materials with advanced properties. Polymer brush composition can range from complex copolymers to more simplistic polyolefin, and by functionalizing nanoparticle surfaces, mobility of distinct particles can then be tuned and, therefore, control over dispersion in a polymer matrix can be achieved. Presented in this dissertation are new synthetic strategies for the preparation of polymer nanocomposites.

The first chapter covers a novel synthetic strategy for ethylene/propylene-like copolymers grafted to silica nanoparticles. This approach utilizes Reversible Addition-Fragmentation Chain Transfer (RAFT) polymerization to promote living …

On Incorporating The Stochasticity Of Quantum Machine Learning Into Classical Models, Joseph Lindsay

Theses and Dissertations

While many of the most exciting quantum computing algorithms are currently impossible to be implemented until fault-tolerant quantum error correction is achieved, noisy intermediate-scale quantum (NISQ) devices allow for smaller scale applications that leverage the paradigm for speed-ups to be researched and realized. A currently popular application for these devices is quantum machine learning (QML). Recent works over the past few years indicate that QML algorithms can function just as well as their classical counterparts, and even outperform them in some cases. Many current QML models take advantage of variational quantum algorithm (VQA) circuits, given that their scale is typically …

Mass Spectrometric Investigation Of Removal/Transformation Of Emerging Contaminants For Safer Potable Wastewater Reuse, Kristin Cochran

Theses and Dissertations

Water scarcity is of increasing global concern as rising demand depletes current sources, so other sources such as potable wastewater reuse are being utilized. Advanced wastewater reuse removes pathogens and many contaminants, but there are concerns about resistant contaminants and the transformation products that are generated during the treatment process. This research focuses on several different contaminant classes, how well they are removed via advanced treatment processes, what transformation products arise from both advanced treatment and chlorination disinfection, and how those treated waters may impact health via toxicity and estrogen activity.

Contaminant classes considered are illicit drugs, pharmaceuticals such as …

The Development Of A Monolithic Spatial Heterodyne Spectrometer For Extreme Environments, Arelis Michelle Colόn

Theses and Dissertations

This work describes improvements to a novel instrument, the monolithic spatial heterodyne Raman spectrometer (mSHRS), which has potential to be utilized in space exploration and deep-ocean marine sensing. In previous work, the spatial heterodyne Raman spectrometer (SHRS) was demonstrated, as a small, high resolution, wide field of view spectrometer, originally developed for space applications where small size and compactness is a key consideration or where a wide field of view is advantageous, such as in remote spectroscopy. The spatial heterodyne spectrometer (SHS) was then later utilized for remote Laser-Induced Breakdown Spectroscopy (LIBS). The high throughput, high spectral resolution, and large …

Pyridyl Bis-Urea Macrocycles As Supramolecular Synthons And The Design And Synthesis Of Small Molecule Pharmaceuticals Targeting Ly6k, Devan D. Buchanan

Theses and Dissertations

Assembled pyridyl bis-urea macrocycles have been utilized as 1D supramolecular synthons to construct hierarchical assemblies. These macrocycles have both urea and pyridyl functional groups and can form non-covalent interactions with hydrogen or halogen bond donors through symmetric, ditopic acceptor motifs. Bis-urea macrocycles offer interesting capabilities as synthons to organize donors into well-defined crystal structures. In part, this is due to the urea motifs’ propensity to assemble through hydrogen bonding. New, asymmetric pyridyl macrocycles were synthesized, crystallized, and experimentally probed to determine how symmetry affects their assembly and utility as supramolecular synthons.

The Uphadhyay group identified small molecules, including NSC11150, …

Complex Functional Joint Models For Longitudinal Electronic Health Record, Siyuan Guo

Theses and Dissertations

Longitudinal measurements are important components in electronic health record (EHR) data. In practice, using longitudinal EHR history is expected to improve the estimation or prediction performance when studying some outcomes of interest, such as binary outcome or time to event outcome. However, the longitudinal observations in EHR data is complex due to irregular and sparse EHR visits. Therefore, modelling longitudinal data and further incorporating them with different types of outcomes is challenge. In this dissertation, we aim to develop methodology to first, describe the pattern of the longitudinal predictors with continuous or binary observations, and second, model the longitudinal predictors …

Crystal Growth Of Inorganic Halides And Oxide-Halides For Scintillation Applications And Radiation Detection, Gyanendra B. Ayer

Theses and Dissertations

Scintillators, materials which emit light when struck by high energy X-rays and y- rays, are extensively used in various fields including medical imaging, computed tomography, high-energy physics, and more recently in homeland security for the prevention of nuclear and radiological terrorism. While comparing with the traditional scintillators, which have long-term instability, high synthetic cost, toxicity, and hygroscopicity issues, metal halides have been reported to exhibit effective excitonic radioluminescence and greatly contribute in the field of scintillating applications and radiation detection. Currently, the mixed-anion oxide-fluorides have emerged as a prospective new class of scintillators, in which the mixed oxide-fluoride environment …

Table Of Contents

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

No abstract provided.

Nuclear Fuel Cycle: Safe Management Of Spent Nuclear Fuel, Robert L. Sindelar

Journal of the South Carolina Academy of Science

The aim for storage of spent nuclear fuel (SNF) either in wet or in dry storage systems is to ensure general safety objectives are met throughout a desired storage period. Staff at the Savannah River National Laboratory (SRNL), in collaborations with partners at other national laboratories, industry research organizations, and the University of South Carolina (UofSC), have performed materials aging testing and analyses, and have established nuclear materials aging management programs to support extended periods of safe storage of research reactor (RR) SNF and of commercial power reactor (PR) SNF pending ultimate disposal. Several example challenges include susceptibility of aluminum …

Allure: A Multi-Modal Guided Environment For Helping Children Learn To Solve A Rubik's Cube With Automatic Solving And Interactive Explanations, Kausik Lakkaraju, Thahimum Hassan, Vedant Khandelwal, Prathamjeet Singh, Cassidy Bradley, Ronak Shah, Forest Agostinelli, Biplav Srivastava, Dezhi Wu

Faculty Publications

Modern artificial intelligence (AI) methods have been used to solve problems that many humans struggle to solve. This opens up new opportunities for knowledge discovery and education. We demonstrate ALLURE, a collaborative educational AI system for learning to solve the Rubik's cube that is designed to help students improve their problem solving skills. ALLURE can both find its own strategies for solving the Rubik's cube and explain those strategies to humans. In the future, ALLURE will also be able to collaborate with humans by building on user-provided strategies for solving the Rubik's cube and as well as generalize to other …

Association Between The Dietary Inflammatory Index And Gastric Disease Risk: Findings From A Korean Population-Based Cohort Study, Sundara Raj Sreeja, Trong-Dat Le, Bang Wool Eom, Seung Hyun Oh, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., James R. Hébert Scd, Mi Kyung Kim

Faculty Publications

Evidence suggests that diets with high pro-inflammatory potential may play a substantial role in the origin of gastric inflammation. This study aimed to examine the association between the energy-adjusted dietary inflammatory index (E-DIITM) and gastric diseases at baseline and after a mean follow-up of 7.4 years in a Korean population. A total of 144,196 participants from the Korean Genome and Epidemiology Study_Health Examination (KoGES_HEXA) cohort were included. E-DII scores were computed using a validated semi-quantitative food frequency questionnaire. Multivariate logistic regression and Cox proportional hazards regression were used to assess the association between the E-DII and gastric disease risk. In …

Adolescent Health Risk Behaviors, Adverse Experiences, And Self-Reported Hunger: Analysis Of 10 States From The 2019 Youth Risk Behavior Surveys, Kathryn L. Krupsky, Sarah Silwa, Hilary Seligman, Andrea D. Brown, Angela D. Liese Ph.D., Zewditu Demissie, Ellen Barnidge

Faculty Publications

We examined associations between adolescent self-reported hunger, health risk behaviors, and adverse experiences during the 2018–2019 school year. Youth Risk Behavior Survey data were pooled from 10 states. Prevalence ratios were calculated, and we assessed effect measure modification by sex. The prevalence of self-reported hunger was 13%. Self-reported hunger was associated with a higher prevalence of every health risk behavior/adverse experience analyzed, even after adjusting for sex, grade, and race/ethnicity. Sex did not modify associations. Findings underscore needs for longitudinal research with more robust measures of adolescent food insecurity to clarify the temporality of relationships.

Search For Multimessenger Signals In Nova Coincident With Ligo/Virgo Detections, M. A. Acero, P. Adamson, L. Aliaga, T. Alion, V. Alakhberdian, N. Anfimov, A. Antoshkin, L. Asquith, A. Aurisano, A. Back, C. Backhouse, M. Biard, N. Balashov, P. Baldi, B. A. Bambah, S. Bashar, K. Bays, S. Bending, R. Bernstein, V. Bhatnagar, Roberto Petti, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

Using the NOvA neutrino detectors, a broad search has been performed for any signal coincident with 28 gravitational wave events detected by the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration between September 2015 and July 2019. For all of these events, NOvA is sensitive to possible arrival of neutrinos and cosmic rays of GeV and higher energies. For five (seven) events in the NOvA Far (Near) Detector, timely public alerts from the LIGO/Virgo Collaboration allowed recording of MeV-scale events. No signal candidates were found.

Ocean-Atmosphere Variability In The Northwest Atlantic Ocean During Active Marine Heatwave Years, Lydia D. Sims, Bulusu Subrahmanyam, Corinne B. Trott

Faculty Publications

The Northwest (NW) Atlantic has experienced extreme ecological impacts from Marine Heatwaves (MHWs) within the past decade. This paper focuses on four MHW active years (2012, 2016, 2017, and 2020) and the relationship between Sea Surface Temperature anomalies (SSTA), Sea Surface Salinity anomalies (SSSA), North Atlantic Oscillation (NAO), Geopotential Height anomalies (ZA), and anomalous Jet Stream positions (JSPA). Multichannel singular spectrum analysis (MSSA) reveals the strongest temporal covariances between SSSA and SSTA, and JSPA and SSTA for all years, particularly for 2020 (SSSA–SSTA: 50%, JSPA–SSTA: 51%) indicating that this active MHW year was more atmospherically driven, followed by 2012, which …

Luminescence And Scintillation In The Niobium Doped Oxyfluoride Rb4Ge5O9F6:Nb, Darren Carone, Vladislav V. Klepov, Scott T. Misture, Joseph C. Schaeperkoetter, Luiz G. Jacobsohn, Mina Aziziha, Juliano Schorne-Pinto, Stuart A. J. Thomson, Adrian T. Hines, Theodore M. Besmann, Hans Conrad Zur Loye

Faculty Publications

A new niobium-doped inorganic scintillating oxyfluoride, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆:Nb, was synthesized in single crystal form by high-temperature flux growth. The host structure, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆, crystallizes in the orthorhombic space group Pbcn with lattice parameters a = 6.98430(10) Å, b = 11.7265(2) Å, and c = 19.2732(3) Å, consisting of germanium oxyfluoride layers made up of Ge₃O₉ units connected by GeO₃F₃ octahedra. In its pure form, Rb₄Ge₅O₉F₆ shows neither luminescence nor scintillation but when doped …

A Westerly Wind Dominated Puna Plateau During Deposition Of Upper Pleistocene Loessic Sediments In The Subtropical Andes, South America, Alex Pullen, David L. Barbeau Jr, Andrew Leier, Madison Ward, Austin Bruner, Mary Kate Fidler

Faculty Publications

The Tafí del Valle depression (~27° S) in the eastern Andes of Argentina provides a record of late Pleistocene dust deposition in the subtropics of South America. We present large-n U-Pb geochronology data for detrital zircons from upper Pleistocene loess-paleosol deposits. When compared to regional data, the age spectra from the Tafí del Valle samples are most like the southern Puna Plateau, supporting derivation largely from the west and northwest. This runs counter to hypotheses suggesting these loessic sediments were derived from the low elevation plains to the east or extra-Andean Patagonia. Mapping of linear wind erosion features on …

Factors Associated With Covid-19 Vaccine Intentions Among South Carolina Residents, Mufaro Kanyangarara, Lauren Mcabee, Virginie G. Daguise, Melissa Nolan Ph.D., Mph

Faculty Publications

Despite evidence of vaccine safety and efficacy, vaccine hesitancy remains a major global health threat. The COVID-19 vaccine has presented unique vaccine hesitancy concerns compared to parental vaccine hesitancy towards childhood vaccines. South Carolina (SC) is home to a largely conservative population and historically has some of the lowest vaccination coverage rates in the United States of America. The goal of the current study was to identify factors associated with COVID-19 vaccine intentions among SC residents. From November 2020 to September 2021, 300,000 invitations to participate in community testing and complete an online survey were mailed to randomly selected SC …

Expected Sensitivity To 128Te Neutrinoless Double Beta Decay With The Cuore Teo2 Cryogenic Bolometers, V. Dompé, D. Q. Adams, C. Alduino, K. Alfonso, Frank Avignone Iii

Faculty Publications

The CUORE experiment is a ton-scale array of TeO₂ cryogenic bolometers located at the underground Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso of Istituto Nazionale di Fisica Nucleare (INFN), in Italy. The CUORE detector consists of 988 crystals operated as source and detector at a base temperature of ∼ 10 mK. Such cryogenic temperature is reached and maintained by means of a custom built cryogen-free dilution cryostat, designed with the aim of minimizing the vibrational noise and the environmental radioactivity. The primary goal of CUORE is the search for neutrinoless double beta decay of ¹³⁰Te, but thanks to its …

Maternal Lineage And Habitat Use Patterns Explain Variation In The Fecundity Of A Critically Endangered Baleen Whale, Ana L. Bishop, Leah M. Crowe, Philip K. Hamilton, Erin L. Meyer-Gutbrod

Faculty Publications

The critically endangered North Atlantic right whale population (Eubalaena glacialis) has experienced multiple periods of decreased reproduction within its observable history, which have played a role in the overall decline of the species. In addition to this synchronized variation in reproduction across the population, there exists considerable individual variation in fecundity. To determine the impacts of family history and habitat use behavior on these individual variations in fecundity, photo identification data collected during four decades of visual monitoring were used to create a calving index for sexually mature females that could be used to evaluate matrilineal influence on …

A Preliminary Study Of Proinflammatory Cytokines And Depression Following West Nile Virus Infection, Allison Lino, Timothy A. Erickson, Melissa Nolan Ph.D., Mph, Kristy O. Murray, Shannon E. Ronca

Faculty Publications

West Nile virus (WNV) is a neurotropic flavivirus that can cause acute febrile illness leading to neuroinvasive disease. Depression is a well-described outcome following infection, but the underlying pathogenic mechanisms are unknown. Proinflammatory cytokines play important roles in WNV infection, but their role in depression post-WNV remains unstudied. This research aimed to retrospectively evaluate associations between proinflammatory cytokines and new onset depression in a WNV cohort. Participants with asymptomatic WNV infection were significantly less likely to report new onset depression when compared to those with symptomatic disease. Participants with encephalitis and obesity were significantly more likely to report new onset …

Highly Swellable Hydrogels Prepared From Extensively Oxidized Lignin, Jihyeon Hwang, Daniella V. Martinez, Estevan J. Martinez, Gift Metavarayuth, Dustin Goodlett, Qi Wang, Mitra Ganewatta, Michael S. Kent, Chuanbing Tang

Faculty Publications

Biopolymers such as lignin are gaining renewed appeal due to the need for sustainable materials. Herein, we used chelator-mediated Fenton (CMF) chemistry to oxidize Kraft lignin to develop sustainable super absorbent materials. The CMF chemistry adds oxygen, opens aromatic rings and increases COOH content, producing hydrophilic lignin without depolymerization. UV absorption, molecular weight, elemental analysis, and titration were used to study the chemical compositions of CMF-processed lignin. Then the chemically modified hydrophilic lignin was used to produce lignin-based hydrogels utilizing an aqueous polymerization and cross-linking reaction that enabled tunable properties. The resulting lignin hydrogels absorbed water up to 96% and …

Understanding Rapid Intercalation Materials One Parameter At A Time, Wessel Van Den Bergh, Morgan Stefik

Faculty Publications

Demand for fast, energy-dense storage drives the research into nanoscale intercalation materials. Nanomaterials accelerate kinetics and can modify reaction path thermodynamics, intercalant solubility, and reversibility. The discovery of intercalation pseudocapacitance has opened questions about their fundamental operating principles. For example, are their capacitor-like current responses caused by storing energy in special near-surface regions or rather is this response due to normal intercalation limited by a slower faradaic surface-reaction? This review highlights emerging methods combining tailored nanomaterials with the process of elimination to disambiguate cause-and-effect at the nanoscale. This method is applied to multiple intercalation pseudocapacitive materials showing that the timescales …

Are Pregnant Women With Disability Prescribed Opioids More And At Higher Dosages Than Those Without Disability?: A Retrospective Cohort Study Of South Carolina Medicaid Beneficiaries, Chelsea L. Richard Phd, Msph, Bryan L. Love Pharm.D., Nansi Boghossian, James Hardin Ph.D., Suzanne Mcdermott

Faculty Publications

Background: Nationally, individuals with disability have higher rates of opioid use and misuse and are prescribed higher doses than those without disability. Opioid prescriptions during pregnancy are associated with adverse birth outcomes. Objective: To understand the difference in opioid prescribing during pregnancy over time by disability status among Medicaid beneficiaries who gave birth from 2008 to 2017 in South Carolina. Methods: Data from hospital discharges, vital records, and pharmacy were linked to determine the mother's disability status, opioid prescriptions filled during pregnancy, and other maternal characteristics. Disability status was characterized into physical disability, inflammatory conditions, intellectual and developmental disabilities (IDD), …