Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Post-Harvest Eucalyptus Residue Removal Reduces Soil Aggregation And Biological Activities In Central-West Brazil, Karla Nascimento Sena, Thaís Soto Boni, Kátia Luciene Maltoni, Ana Maria Rodrigues Cassiolato, Engil Isadora Pujol Pereira

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Tree residue removal from Eucalyptus plantations after timber harvest can reduce soil functioning by reducing the organic matter input. To assess the effects of residue management systems (RMS) on soil aggregation, carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) content, and biological activities, a field trial was conducted in a commercial Eucalyptus plantation (loamy sand soil) in Mato Grosso do Sul, Brazil. The study assessed three RMS: cut-to-length (CTL), tree-length (TL), and bare litter (BL), respectively. After 21 months, undisturbed soil samples were collected and physically isolated into three aggregate-size fractions: large macroaggregates (LM), medium macroaggregates (SM), and microaggregates (MI). Results showed that …

Significance Of Storage Conditions On The Flow Properties Of Wheat Flours, Jared Lou Rivera, Jikai Zhao, Aminu Owonikoko, Kaliramesh Siliveru

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Flow properties of wheat flours are influenced by their intrinsic properties and environmental conditions during handling. This study evaluated the effects of environmental conditions (temperature and relative humidity- %RH) and flour properties (particle size and wheat class) on the flow properties of wheat flours. Size fractions from hard red winter (HRW) and soft red winter (SRW) wheat were produced through sieving. Flour fractions were then exposed to various temperature (25 and 35 oC) and relative humidity (50, 60, and 70%RH) combinations (t = 3 h) to evaluate the effects of environmental conditions. Flow indicators (Hausner ratio – HR and compressibility …

Titanium Dioxide Functionalized Multi-Walled Carbon Nanotubes And Silver Nanoparticles Reinforced Polyurethane Nanofibers As A Novel Scaffold For Tissue Engineering Applications, Taha Umair Wani, Anjum Hamid Rather, Rumysa Saleem Khan, Javier Macossay-Torres, Arvind H. Jadhav, Puneethkumar M. Srinivasappa, Abdalla Abdal-Hay, Sami-Ullah Rather, Faheem A. Sheikh

School of Integrative Biological & Chemical Sciences (Formerly Dept. of Chemistry)

Polyurethane is a synthetic polymer that can be fabricated into nanofibers to mimic extracellular matrix properties facilitating cell attachment and growth on the fibrous network. However, enhanced hydrophilicity and high mechanical properties may improve their use in tissue engineering, suggesting additional modifications are needed. The current work presents the fabrication of polyurethane-based bone regenerative nanofibers reinforced with TiO2-MWCNT composites and harboring Ag NPs for bacterial inhibition. The fibers possessed smooth morphology with an average size ranging from 800 to 1200nm. Techniques like SEM, FTIR, XPS, XRD, EDAX, and UV-vis spectroscopy confirmed the presence of nanofiber components like TiO2-MWCNT and Ag …

Multimessenger Observations Of Double Neutron Stars In The Galactic Disk With Gravitational And Radio Waves, Wen-Fan Feng, Jie-Wen Chen, Yan Wang, Soumya D. Mohanty, Yong Shao

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We evaluate the prospects for radio follow-up of the double neutron stars (DNSs) in the Galactic disk that could be detected through future space-borne gravitational wave (GW) detectors. We first simulate the DNS population in the Galactic disk that is accessible to space-borne GW detectors according to the merger rate from recent LIGO results. Using the inspiraling waveform for the eccentric binary, the average number of the DNSs detectable by TianQin (TQ), LISA, and TQ+LISA are 217, 368, and 429, respectively. For the joint GW detection of TQ+LISA, the forecasted parameter estimation accuracies, based on the Fisher information matrix, for …

A Stochastic Search For Intermittent Gravitational-Wave Backgrounds, Jessica Lawrence, Kevin Turbang, Andrew Matas, Arianna I. Renzini, Nick Van Remortel, Joseph D. Romano

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

A likely source of a gravitational-wave background (GWB) in the frequency band of the Advanced LIGO, Virgo, and KAGRA detectors is the superposition of signals from the population of unresolvable stellar-mass binary-black-hole (BBH) mergers throughout the Universe. Since the duration of a BBH merger in band (similar to 1 s) is much shorter than the expected separation between neighboring mergers (similar to 103 s), the observed signal will be "popcornlike" or intermittent with duty cycles of order 10-3. However, the standard cross-correlation search for stochastic GWBs currently performed by the LIGO-Virgo-KAGRA Collaboration is based on a continuous-Gaussian signal model, which …

P-Adic Statistical Field Theory And Convolutional Deep Boltzmann Machines, Wilson A. Zuniga-Galindo, Cuiyu He, B. A. Zambrano-Luna

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Understanding how deep learning architectures work is a central scientific problem. Recently, a correspondence between neural networks (NNs) and Euclidean quantum field theories has been proposed. This work investigates this correspondence in the framework of p-adic statistical field theories (SFTs) and neural networks. In this case, the fields are real-valued functions defined on an infinite regular rooted tree with valence p, a fixed prime number. This infinite tree provides the topology for a continuous deep Boltzmann machine (DBM), which is identified with a statistical field theory on this infinite tree. In the p-adic framework, there is a …

Glitch Subtraction From Gravitational Wave Data Using Adaptive Spline Fitting, Soumya D. Mohanty, Mohammad A. T. Chowdhury

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

Transient signals of instrumental and environmental origins ("glitches") in gravitational wave data elevate the false alarm rate of searches for astrophysical signals and reduce their sensitivity. Glitches that directly overlap astrophysical signals hinder their detection and worsen parameter estimation errors. As the fraction of data occupied by detectable astrophysical signals will be higher in next generation detectors, such problematic overlaps could become more frequent. These adverse effects of glitches can be mitigated by estimating and subtracting them out from the data, but their unpredictable waveforms and large morphological diversity pose a challenge. Subtraction of glitches using data from auxiliary sensors …

Rapidly Changing Range Limits In A Warming World: Critical Data Limitations And Knowledge Gaps For Advancing Understanding Of Mangrove Range Dynamics In The Southeastern Usa, Rémi Bardou, Michael J. Osland, Steven Scyphers, Christine Shepard, Karen E. Aerni, Jahson B. Alemu I, Robert Crimian, Richard H. Day, Nicholas M. Enwright, Christopher A. Gabler

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Climate change is altering species’ range limits and transforming ecosystems. For example, warming temperatures are leading to the range expansion of tropical, cold-sensitive species at the expense of their cold-tolerant counterparts. In some temperate and subtropical coastal wetlands, warming winters are enabling mangrove forest encroachment into salt marsh, which is a major regime shift that has significant ecological and societal ramifications. Here, we synthesized existing data and expert knowledge to assess the distribution of mangroves near rapidly changing range limits in the southeastern USA. We used expert elicitation to identify data limitations and highlight knowledge gaps for advancing understanding of …

Book Review Of Inside Mathforum.Org: Analysis Of An Internet Based Education Community., Jose Ponce

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Inside Mathforum.org: Analysis of an Internet-Based Education Community, Wesley Shumar, Cambridge University Press, September 7, 2017, 1st Edition, 204 pages, ISBN: 9781108518345 (e-book).

Determination Of Effective Index Of Refraction Of Structured Materials (Photonic Crystals), Md Arafat Hossain

Theses and Dissertations

Photonic crystals have been widely studied by researchers due to their ability to control light propagation in all spatial directions. For example, 2D photonic crystals can be made of dielectric rods arranged in a square lattice. When light propagates through 2D photonic crystals, it experiences multiple scatterings by the crystal centers. The superposition of all scattered waves forms the transmitted field largely dependent upon the effective index of refraction of the structured material. We propose a method to determine the effective index of refraction through such materials with the Finite-Difference Time-Domain (FDTD) model. We set up the interface of two …

Differences In Intracellular Protein Levels In Monocytes And Cd4+ Lymphocytes Between Bipolar Depressed Patients And Healthy Controls: A Pilot Study With Tyramine-Based Signal-Amplified Flow Cytometry, Keming Gao, Marzieh Ayati, Nicholas M. Kaye, Mehmet Koyutürk, Joseph R. Calabrese, Stephen J. Ganocy, Hillard M. Lazarus, Eric Christian, David Kaplan

Computer Science Faculty Publications

Highlights

• To measure 18 intracellular proteins in blood cells of bipolar depressed patients and healthy controls;

• TFour proteins in monocytes and 2 proteins in CD4+ T Cells were significantly lower in patients than in healthy controls;

• The studied proteins are involved in prolactin, leptin, BDNF, and interleukin-3 signal pathways;

• Studying intracellular proteins with enhanced flow cytometry may find biomarkers differentiating bipolar disorder from healthy controls.

Abstract

Background

Molecular biomarkers for bipolar disorder (BD) that distinguish it from other manifestations of depressive symptoms remain unknown. The aim of this study was to determine if a very sensitive tyramine-based signal-amplification technology for …

Analysis Of Post-Translational Modifications (Ptm) Crosstalk, Amit Das

Theses and Dissertations

Mass spectrometry-based proteomics is a powerful tool for identifying post-translational modifications (PTMs) across the proteome. O-GlcNAcylation and phosphorylation are two PTMs that play crucial roles in regulating cellular processes, including cardiac contractile function. Dysregulation of these PTMs has been implicated in the development and progression of diabetic cardiomyopathy. In this study, we aimed to investigate the interplay between O-GlcNAcylation and phosphorylation in healthy and type 2 diabetic hearts, with a specific focus on the functional relationships between these PTMs and their potential therapeutic implications.

Utilizing mass spectrometry data, we identified and quantified specific PTMs on myofilament proteins, uncovering 1354 O-GlcNAcylated …

Creation Of A College Math Club For High School Students, Lilian N. Chavez

Theses and Dissertations

This study aimed to investigate the variables that contribute to high school students' desire to join a math club, specifically the FMiM VIP Club, which is an extension of UTRGV's Follow Me into Math research project. The research utilized multiple questionnaire s to examine the combination of factors that contribute to the students' attitudes toward the math club. The participants were high school Algebra 2 students from two different schools, and the study was conducted in two stages. The first stage was conducted in the Spring of 2022, focusing on girls' math identity and their interactions with the FMiM VIP …

Self-Supervised Representation Learning For Motion Time Series: A Case Study In Activity Recognition, Luis Carlos Garza Perez

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis we will learn about what contrastive learning and time series are and understand the differences between supervised and self-supervised frameworks in machine learning. In addition, we will describe how the newest and most efficient self-supervised learning framework for visual representations to this date works, called SimCLR, which was originally developed to obtain useful vector representations from static images. We will also explain what TS2Vec is, and how a combination of both approaches can be applied to the concept of a time series, and still be able to extract a vector representation of the subject described by the …

Microwave-Assisted Depolymerization Of Poly (Ethylene Terephthalate) Via Ethanolysis, Mayra Alejandra Gomez Cortez

Theses and Dissertations

In the search of providing an alternative form of combating the complex environmental concerns rising from the rapid growth of poly (ethylene terephthalate) waste in the world, this research focused on investigating the chemical recycling of PET via ethanolysis. Parameters such as temperature, reaction time, catalyst usage and concentration were investigated to promote depolymerization.

In this work, ethanolysis of waste PET under microwave irradiation was investigated using organocatalysts 1,5,7-Triazabicyclo [4.4.0] dec5-ene (TBD) and 1,8-Diazabicyclo [5.4.0] underc-7-ene (DBU). We evaluated the effectiveness of reaction conditions through a series of experiments and determined the optimum conditions as follows: 0.5 g of PET, …

Data Science For Hospital Antibiotic Stewardship, Saikou Jawla

Theses and Dissertations

Antibiotics are widely used to treat bacterial infections, but their misuse leads to antibiotic resistance. Antibiotic resistance is one of the biggest threats to global health, food security, and development today. Antibiotic resistance leads to higher medical costs, prolonged hospital stays, and increased mortality. Antimicrobial stewardship is an approach to measure and improve the appropriate use of antibiotics in healthcare settings. Data science has the potential to support these programs by providing insights into antibiotic prescribing patterns, identifying areas for improvement, and predicting patient outcomes. We explored the role of data science in hospital antibiotic stewardship programs, including statistical methods …

An Analysis Of Antichimeral Ramanujan Type Congruences For Quotients Of The Rogers-Ramanujan Functions, Ryan A. Mowers

Theses and Dissertations

This paper proves the existence of antichimeral Ramanujan type congruences for certain modular forms These modular forms can be represented in terms of Klein forms and the Dedekind eta function. The main focus of this thesis is to introduce the necessary theory to characterize these specific Ramanujan type congruences and prove their antichimerality.

An Investigation Into Optimal Descent Trajectories For Multipurpose Long Range Space Vehicles Under Advanced Conditions, John M. Levis

Theses and Dissertations

In this work, we investigate the problem of fuel-optimal control of space vehicle descent trajectories. The main tool we use to establish optimality is Pontryagin’s Maximum Principle. We present a variety of scenarios with increasing complexities, including drag, wind, and moving landing platforms in the context of differing atmospheric and gravitational conditions. Throughout the paper, we use a balance of analytical and numerical techniques. Finally, observations and conclusions drawn from the investigation form the basis for suggestions into additional areas of analysis.

Flow Monitoring And Tidal Exchange Ratio Estimation For The Bahia Grande After Widening Of The Carl Joe Gayman Pilot Channel: Bahia Grande, Cameron County, Tx, Sabas Lopez Iii

Theses and Dissertations

The Bahia Grande (BG) is an 8,500-acre set of coastal bays and wetlands located between Brownsville and Port Isabel, Tx, near the Gulf of Mexico (GOM) coastline. In 2005, the Carl Joe Gayman Pilot Channel was constructed to address hypersalinity concerns that resulted from natural and anthropogenically-caused tidal isolation since the early 1940’s. In 2022, the Texas General Land Office (GLO) increased the channel’s width and depth in anticipation of increasing tidal exchange ratios by a factor of two to three. Once the channel widening was complete, two SL-1500-3G side-looking acoustic doppler current profilers (ADCPs) were periodically deployed beneath the …

Long-Term Spatial And Temporal Assessment Of Criteria Air Pollutants Concentration Trends In The Lower Rio Grande Valley Region Of Texas, Usa, Md Salahuddin Majumder

Theses and Dissertations

Air pollution is a substantial environmental challenge all over the world. This study investigated the long-term air pollution levels in the Lower Rio Grande Valley region, by utilizing data collected from five continuous ambient monitoring stations in two counties over 23 years, from January 2000 to December 2022, to analyze daily, monthly, and seasonal variations of different pollutants, including ground-level ozone, particulate matter, and carbon monoxide. This study also identified distinct daily and seasonal patterns for O3, PM2.5, PM10, and CO at each monitoring site, influenced by factors such as traffic emissions, temperature, solar radiation, indoor heating, and weather conditions. …

The Effect Of Cybersecurity Training On Government Employee’S Knowledge Of Cybersecurity Issues And Practices, Juan Jaime Saldana Ii

Theses and Dissertations

There is an ever-pressing need for cybersecurity awareness and implementation of learning strategies in the workplace to mitigate the increased threat posed by cyber-attacks and exacerbated by an untrained workforce. The lack of cybersecurity knowledge amongst government employees has increased to critical levels due to the amount of sensitive information their agencies are responsible for. The digital compromise of a government entity often leads to a compromise of constituent data along with the disruption of public services (Axelrod, 2019; Yazdanpanahi, 2021). The need for awareness is further complicated by agencies looking to cater to a digital culture looking for a …

A Machine Learning Approach To Obese-Inflammatory Phenotyping, Tania Mayleth Vargas

Theses and Dissertations

Obesity is the accumulation of an abnormal, or excessive, amount of fat in the body, which can have negative effects on overall health. This excess accumulation of macronutrients in adipose tissue can cause the release of inflammatory mediators, leading to a proinflammatory state. Inflammation is a known risk factor for various health conditions, including cardiovascular diseases, metabolic syndrome, and diabetes. This study sought to examine the use of data mining methods, particularly clustering algorithms, to identify inflammatory biomarker phenotypes and their association with obesity in a local adolescent population. The algorithms evaluated in this study included: k-means, Ward's hierarchical …

Predictive Ecology And Management Of Phyllosphere Microbial Communities Through Cross-Scale Synthesis, David W. Armitage, Morgan E. Carter, Robin A. Choudhury, Mitja Remus-Emsermann, Cindy E. Morris, Johan H. Leveau, Linda L. Kinkel, José Pablo Dundore-Arias

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Here we summarize the main takeaways from a symposium and hybrid virtual and in-person participatory discussion focused on the challenges of scale in understanding the ecology and management of phyllosphere microbial communities. We provide an overview of the confounding effects of spatial scale on inference in microbial ecology, the spatial organization of microbial interactions in the phyllosphere, advances and remaining gaps in measuring phyllosphere colonization across scales, and the epidemiology in the phyllosphere. We hope to motivate further discussion and the development and adoption of creative approaches to solving the challenges of scale to enhance fundamental understanding and practical management …

A Machine Learning Approach To Evaluate The Effect Of Sodium-Glucose Cotransporter-2 Inhibitors On Chronic Kidney Disease In Diabetes Patients, Solomon Eshun

Theses and Dissertations

Chronic kidney disease (CKD) is a significant complication that contributes to diabetes-related mortality in the United States, and there is growing evidence that sodium-glucose cotransporter 2 inhibitors (SGLT2i) can slow its progression. However, observational studies may suffer from confounding by indication, where patient characteristics and disease severity influence the decision to prescribe SGLT2i. This study utilized electronic health records of individuals with diabetes (from TriNetX) to investigate the effectiveness of SGLT2i on CKD progression. The database provided detailed information on patients’ CKD status, demographics, diagnosis, procedures, and medications, along with corresponding dates of diagnosis and prescription. The study comprised of …

Results And Simulation Of Active Self-Assembly, Robert M. Alaniz

Theses and Dissertations

Self-assembly is the process by which simple elements in a system organize themselves into more complex structures based on a set of rules that govern their interactions. With many ways to create self-assembling systems, new models of abstraction have also arisen to handle specific mechanisms and procedures. We explore several open problems in the seeded model of Active Self-Assembly, Chemical Reaction Networks, and Surface Chemical Reaction Networks, proving new results while developing a robust simulation environment, AutoTile, to help build and test these results.

Evaluation Of Black Holes In An Evolving Universe, John P. Naan

Theses and Dissertations

There are various solutions to the Einstein field equations that represent different physical assumptions, but how to represent multiple black holes within an expanding universe remains an area of open interest. The first step to resolving this question involves evaluating spacetime models that contain a single black hole in an expanding universe. Here, we are primarily interested in understanding the energy distribution of black hole models by solving Einstein's equations using the associated spacetime metric and comparing the propagation of waves within the model against other known spacetime models. Specifically, we will evaluate the combined Schwarschild-de Sitter solution under a …

Storm Surge Risk Assessment In Coastal Communities In The Rio Grande Valley: An Application Of Gis-Based Spatial Multicriteria Decision Analysis With Analytical Hierarchy Process, Dean Kyne

Sociology Faculty Publications

Cameron County, which is located in the Rio Grande Valley, maintains records of storm surges associated with noticeable property damage, fatalities, and injuries. This study investigates storm surge inundation risk in Cameron County using storm surge hazard datasets from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, along with American Community Survey 2019 block group datasets. Using a GIS-based spatial multicriteria decision analysis with an analytical hierarchy process method, the study estimates that storm surge water levels could be above 6.1 m (20 ft) in category 4 and 5 hurricane events, whereas about 37% of the county’s population (159,659 people) could be …

The Development Of Sociomathematical Norms In The Transition To Tertiary Exam-Oriented Individualistic Mathematics Education In An East Asian Context, Woong Lim, Hyunkyoung Yoon, Younggon Bae, Oh Nam Kwon

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

This study investigates social, mathematical, and sociomathematical norms perceived by college students in an engineering mathematics course and examines the students’ sense of mathematics as signals of individual merit. Data sources include a survey and one-on-one interviews with 38 students. The findings help illustrate student perceptions of academic social norms in a large-lecture course represented by the acquisition model of learning in college, detached from communal and collaborative disciplinary practices. Findings provide insights into the local educational context of an East Asian country as a case study when exam-oriented mathematics is institutionalized as normalcy.

Problems In Algorithmic Self-Assembly And A Genetic Approach To Patterns, Andrew Rodriguez

Theses and Dissertations

As it becomes increasingly harder to make transistors smaller, replacements for traditional silicon computers become sought after. To study the computing power of these potential computers, various theoretical models have been proposed, such as the abstract Tile Assembly Model (aTAM) and chemical reaction networks (CRNs). This thesis compiles research in various models such as the aTAM, Tile Automata, and CRNs. This work shows an investigation of covert computation in the aTAM and an evolutionary algorithm to approximate solutions to the pattern self-assembly tile set synthesis (PATS) problem. Next, optimal state complexity for building squares in Tile Automata is shown along …

Congruences For Quotients Of Rogers-Ramanujan Functions, Maria Del Rosario Valencia Arevalo

Theses and Dissertations

In 1919 the mathematician Srinivasa Ramanujan conjectured congruences for the partition function p(n) modulo powers of the primes 5,7,11. In this work, we study Ramanujan type congruences modulo powers of primes p = 7,11,13,17,19,23 satisfied by the Fourier coefficients of quotients the Rogers-Ramanujan Functions G(τ) and H(τ) and the Dedekind eta function η(5τ). In addition to deriving new congruences, we develop the foundational theory of modular forms to motivate and prove the results. The work includes proofs of congruences facilitated by Python/SageMath code.