Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Sustainable Transportation: Transforming Utah Through Community Action, Isabella Erwin, Kendall Becker, Patrick A. Singleton, Scott Hotaling

All Current Publications

Transportation in the United States accounts for 4% of global greenhouse gas emissions. Over half of these emissions come from on-road vehicles. Nationwide, Utah has the third highest rate of car ownership, and the resulting air pollution from on-road vehicles has significant implications for the climate and public health. This fact sheet provides information on how Utah’s government and other entities are working to expand modes of transport that minimize harm to communities and the environment.

Malivhu: A Comprehensive Bioinformatics Resource For Filtering Sars And Mers Virus Proteins By Their Classification, Family And Species, And Prediction Of Their Interactions Against Human Proteins, David Guevara-Barrientos, Rakesh Kaundal

Computer Science Student Research

COVID 19 pandemic is still ongoing, having taken more than 6 million human lives with it, and it seems that the world will have to learn how to live with the virus around. In consequence, there is a need to develop different treatments against it, not only with vaccines, but also new medicines. To do this, human-virus protein-protein interactions (PPIs) play a key part in drug-target discovery, but finding them experimentally can be either costly or sometimes unreliable. Therefore, computational methods arose as a powerful alternative to predict these interactions, reducing costs and helping researchers confirm only certain interactions instead …

Assimilating Satellite-Derived Snow Cover And Albedo Data To Improve 3-D Weather And Photochemical Models, Colleen Jones, Huy Tran, Trang Tran, Seth Lyman

Chemistry and Biochemistry Faculty Publications

During wintertime temperature inversion episodes, ozone in the Uinta Basin sometimes exceeds the standard of 70 ppb set by the US Environmental Protection Agency. Since ozone formation depends on sunlight, and less sunlight is available during winter, wintertime ozone can only form if snow cover and albedo are high. Researchers have encountered difficulties replicating high albedo values in 3-D weather and photochemical transport model simulations for winter episodes. In this study, a process to assimilate MODIS satellite data into WRF and CAMx models was developed, streamlined, and tested to demonstrate the impacts of data assimilation on the models’ performance. Improvements …

Bootstrap Methods For Bias-Correcting Probability Distribution Parameters Characterizing Extreme Snow Accumulations, Kenneth Pomeyie, Brennan Bean

Mathematics and Statistics Student Research and Class Projects

Accurately quantifying the threat of collapse due to the weight of settled snow on the roof of a structure is crucial for ensuring structural safety. This quantification relies upon direct measurements of the snow water equivalent (SWE) of settled snow, though most weather stations in the United States only measure snow depth. The absence of direct load measurements necessitates the use of modeled estimates of SWE, which often results in the underestimation of the scale/variance parameter of the distribution of annual maximum SWE. This paper introduces a novel bias correction method that employs a bootstrap technique with regression-based models to …

A ‘Nuclear Bomb’ Or Just ‘A Joke’? Groundwater Models May Help Communicate Nuanced Risks To The Great Salt Lake, Matthew D. Laplante, Piyush Dahal, Shih-Yu Simon Wang, Kirsti Hakala, Avik Mukherjee

Plants, Soils, and Climate Faculty Publications

The Great Salt Lake entered the zeitgeist of environmental concern in 2022 when a coalition of scientists and activists warned in a highly publicized report that the lake might be just five years away from complete desiccation, a possibility one state official warned was tantamount to an “environmental nuclear bomb”. Shortly thereafter, an unpredicted and unprecedented pluvial winter resulted in an increase in inflow, temporarily halting the lake’s decline and prompting Utah’s governor to mock the dire prediction as “a joke”, an outcome that speaks to the tension between agenda-setting and trust-building that researchers face when sharing worst-case warnings, particularly …

Leveraging Generative Ai For Sustainable Farm Management Techniques Correspond To Optimization And Agricultural Efficiency Prediction, Samira Samrose

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Sustainable farm management practice is a multifaceted challenge. Uncovering the optimal state for production while reduction of environmental negative impacts and guaranteed inter-generational assets supervision needs balanced management. Also, considering lots of different factors (cost, profit, employment etc), the agricultural based management technique requires rigorous concentration. In this project machine learning models are applied to develop, achieve and improve the farm management techniques. This experiment ensures the resultant impacts being environment friendly and necessary resource availability and efficiency. Predicting the type of crop and rotational recommendations will disclose potentiality of productive agricultural based farming. Additionally, this project is designed to …

An Examination Of The Effects Of Prey Density, Mortality, Nutrients, And Foraging Tradeoffs On A System With Inducible Defenses: An Empirical And Theoretical Approach, Benjamin C. Ralston Daniel

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

To grasp the functioning and stability of ecosystems, it is important to understand species interactions. With many ecosystems becoming more imperiled from urbanization and anthropogenic influences it is important to understand ways in which species can adapt to rapid changes in their environment. Phenotypic plasticity is one such tool at nature’s disposal to initiate rapid change, where species with the same genetic makeup can have different expressed traits depending on their environment. Inducible defenses are one such form of phenotypic plasticity in which prey can express different levels and forms of defense depending on the threat of predation present in …

Implementing General Moment Equations For Parallel Closures In Nimrod, Hankyu Lee

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Understanding how magnetic fields impact plasma transport is essential for improving the efficiency of thermonuclear fusion power plants. To address the transport problem, both plasma fluid equations and Maxwell’s equations must be solved. To solve these equations, it is necessary to derive closure relations that allow the system to be closed. Previous closure models are useful for describing the behavior of high-collisionality plasma but are not effective at low collisionality. To obtain closure relations valid for low collisionality, the first-order drift kinetic equation must be solved.

This study presents methods for numerically obtaining parallel closures for NIMROD code by deriving …

Enhancing Monthly Streamflow Prediction Using Meteorological Factors And Machine Learning Models In The Upper Colorado River Basin, Saichand Thota

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Understanding and predicting streamflow along river basins is vital for planning future developments and ensuring safety, especially with climate change challenges. Our study focused on forecasting streamflow at Lees Ferry, a key location along the Colorado River in the Upper Colorado River Basin. We employed four machine learning models - Random Forest Regression, Long short-term memory, Gated Recurrent Unit, and Seasonal Auto-Regressive Integrated Moving Average; and combined historical streamflow data with meteorological factors such as snow water equivalent, temperature, and precipitation. Our analysis spanned 30 years of data from 1991 to 2020.

Our findings revealed that the Random Forest Regression …

Silica Fault Mirror Development Along The Cordillera Blanca Detachment Fault, Peru, Kayla Michelle Chaudoir

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Earthquakes occur along planes of geologic weakness called faults. Thin, light-reflective surfaces on faults are called fault mirrors and often considered signatures of previous earthquakes along these faults. The Cordillera Blanca mountain range in the Peruvian Andes provides a natural laboratory to explore meter scale exposures of fault mirrors. Three naturally formed fault mirror samples were collected from the Cordillera Blanca detachment fault which runs along the edge of the Cordillera Blanca mountain range. Prior work on this fault reveals that it is capable of destructive earthquakes every few thousand years and is a significant earthquake hazard to the surrounding …

Shaking Off The Rust: Unraveling The Depositional And Diagenetic History Of Enigmatic Ferroan Dolostones In The Cambrian Bright Angel Formation, Tonto Group, Grand Canyon, Joseph J. Clevenger

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Within the siliciclastic-sediment-dominated Bright Angel Formation (BAF) of the iconic Cambrian sedimentary strata (Tonto Group) in Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona, workers have identified and named prominent reddish-brown cliffs breaking up the generally slope-forming unit near, but separated from, its upper contact with the limestone-dominated Muav Formation, the "Rusty Brown Dolostones" (RBDs). Previous hypotheses suggest that the RBDs are chemically and physically altered tongues of the Muav Formation intercalated with the BAF at increasingly higher stratigraphic positions from west to east within the Canyon. A genetic association between the Muav Formation and the RBDs, as well as between the RBDs …

Using Digitized Building And Weather Records To Improve The Accuracy Of Ground To Roof Snow Load Ratio Estimations, Gideon Parry

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Reliability target loads refer to the amount of accumulated snow a roof needs to be able to support to ensure that the probability of collapse is sufficiently low. Since ground snow weight, or load, is much easier to measure than roof snow load, models for roof snow loads rely on ground snow load measurements along with a statistical model that estimates roof snow retention as a ratio of the measured ground snow load. This thesis focuses on improving the roof snow retention model using data from Canadian case studies that include information about building geometry and local wind speeds. This …

A Comprehensive And Interactive Visualization Tool To Support Equitable Adoption Of Electrified Transportation, Aashay Maheshwarkar

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

As urban areas continue to grow, the deployment of electric vehicle (EV) charging infrastructure becomes crucial for sustainable development. This study is focused on the development of a data visualization tool that integrates diverse datasets, including traffic patterns, Points of Interest (POI), pollution levels, and socioeconomic indicators, to analyze the current state and potential expansion of EV charging stations. Our visualization tool highlights the significant impact of EV infrastructure on reducing urban pollution and improving socioeconomic outcomes. Areas with a higher density of charging stations show significantly lower levels of unemployment and pollution, emphasizing the dual benefits of EV adoption. …

Hydrogen Stable Isotope Constraints On Hydration Of Colorado Plateau Lower Crust From Oligocene-Miocene Navajo Volcanic Field Xenoliths, Shelby Dianne Litton

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Understanding flat-slab subduction is crucial as it involves the horizontal movement of an oceanic plate beneath a continental margin over a long distance. This tectonic process is widespread yet not fully understood, particularly regarding how it influences the chemical makeup of the continental plate and recycling in the hydrosphere. By analyzing isotopes, which are variations of certain elements found in minerals and water, we can gain insights into the sources of chemicals and geological processes at play. Our study area included six locations within the Navajo volcanic field (NVF), a region in the Colorado Plateau. We analyzed 23 lower crustal …

Developing Educational Tools For Sustainable Stormwater Management, Lauren Houskeeper

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Rapid population growth and development in Western states are exerting strain on the region’s limited water resources. Urbanization exacerbates this issue by increasing impervious surfaces, limiting infiltration of precipitation during storm events and snowmelt, which results in changes to hydrologic conditions with higher runoff volumes and higher peak flows. Stormwater transports pollutants as it flows across impervious surfaces, discharging high volumes of runoff and elevated loads of urban contaminants into receiving waters. The amount of pollution entering waterways continually increases as urban areas expand. Utah is currently experiencing a rapid transition from undeveloped to developed landscapes, necessitating the implementation of …

Tales In The Teeth: Using Isotopic Analysis To Understand The Paleoecology And Social Behavior Of Brontotheres Of The Intermountain Basins During The Middle Eocene, John Michael Michalski

All Graduate Reports and Creative Projects, Fall 2023 to Present

Isotopic analysis has been a common practice used in paleontology to study ancient ecosystems, and the lives of animals therein. Oxygen isotopic analysis is of particular importance not only because of its use in studying paleoecology, diet, and migration, but also its use in studying mountain elevation, and its impact on ancient ecosystems. I use stable oxygen isotopic analysis to study the habits and ecology of brontotheres from intermountain basins surrounding the Uinta Mountains of Utah and Wyoming, USA. I studied the oxygen isotopes from 16 fossil specimens of teeth, most of which belonged to brontotheres, including the genera Palaeosyops …

Metal Assisted O2-Dependent Carbon-Carbon Bond Cleavage Of Β-Diketones And Flavonols, Stephen N. Anderson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Almost everything we interact with on a daily basis has been synthesized by chemists ranging from plastics, food preservatives, and medications. The diversity of synthetic molecules are achieved by the formation of new bonds between existing molecules and/or through the cleaving of bonds found in a molecule. There are uncountable amount of conditions reported to facilitate chemical reactions which all depend on the nature of molecules being used and the environment it is used in.

In recent years, more attention has been paid to identify chemical reactions that can use more environmentally favorable conditions and reduce the use of limited …

Functional Electrolytes Designing And Studying For Lithium Metal And Non-Aqueous Zinc Metal Batteries, Liping Zhang

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Our current energy policy relies heavily on burning fossil fuels, raising serious concerns due to CO₂-related global warming. Consequently, significant progress is being made in pursuing renewable and green energy sources, such as solar, wind, and geothermal energy. These renewable energies require rechargeable batteries as energy storage systems to compensate for their intermittent nature.

Over the decades, lithium-ion batteries (LIBs) have become the dominant power sources for portable electronic devices. Current LIBs rely on graphite anodes with a limited theoretical capacity (372 mAh g^-1), which restricts their advanced applications. Li metal (Li⁰) anodes, with …

Advancing Thermal Property Measurements And Water Management For Controlled Environment Agriculture On Earth And Beyond, Chihiro Dixon

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Space exploration stands as one of humanity's most profound endeavors, and plant growth in space is essential for sustaining astronauts during long-duration missions. However, operating plant growth systems under reduced gravity conditions presents challenges, particularly in ensuring uniform water distribution in the root zone. Non-uniform water distribution such as excess water and/or insufficient water in the root zone can significantly impact plant yield, necessitating the need to accurately estimate water status in the root zone and understand the dynamics of water flow in plant growth media under reduced gravity conditions. The objectives of this research were to enhance the accuracy …

Interactions Between Nano/Micro-Sized Particles And Microbes For Agricultural And Environmental Applications, Li-Ting Yen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Among the challenges posed by a growing global population, diminishing arable land and water resources affected by climate change are critical for enhancing crop yields, ensuring food security, and maintaining water quality and environmental health.

Iron (Fe), an essential micronutrient, is vital to plant growth. The partially oxidized form of vivianite, metavivianite (metaVT), is reported to be a promising alternative Fe fertilizer. Previous studies have shown the effectiveness of bulk metaVT on plants grown on calcareous soil for mitigating Fe efficiency and the extremely low solubility of bulk metaVT (Ksp=10^-36) in electrolyte solutions, such as CaCl₂. …

Invasion Potential Of Nonnative Fishes Through A Large Western Dam Into A Prized And Vulnerable Ecosystem, Barrett T. Friesen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Native river fish face threats from habitat fragmentation, water overallocation, invasive species establishment, and powerful synergies amongst these factors. In the Colorado River Basin, USA, these threats coalesce at Glen Canyon Dam (GCD), which impounds the Colorado River to create Lake Powell, a reservoir inhabited by nonnative fish species. There is widespread concern low water level in Lake Powell may allow nonnative fish to escape through the dam, adversely affecting native fish species downstream in the Grand Canyon. In this study we characterized the seasonal distribution of nonnative fishes in the vicinity of GCD and identified environmental conditions that may …

Soil Additives And Alternative Crops For Drought Defense In The Intermountain West, Tina M. Sullivan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The Western U.S. looks for water optimization and conservation as agriculture is the largest water diverter, and resources are pressured by urban growth, winter snowpack instability, and drought persistence. Agricultural producers have several potential options to optimize water use with different investments associated with them. Options with varying levels of risks and known management practices include alternative crops, soil wetting agents, and crop biologicals.

An alternative crop that grew incredibly fast in popularity was industrial hemp (Cannabis sativa) despite limited agronomic knowledge for best management practices. Field trials occurred (2020-2022) near Logan, UT to test a total of …

Creating A Virtual Hierarchy From A Relational Database, Yucong Mo

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

In data management and modeling, the value of the hierarchical model is that it does not require expensive JOIN operations at runtime; once the hierarchy is built, the relationships among data are embedded in the tree-like hierarchical structure, and thus querying data could be much faster than using a relational database. Today most data is stored in relational databases, but if the data were stored in hierarchies, what would these hierarchies look like? And more importantly, would this transition lead to a more efficient database? This thesis explores these questions by introducing a set of algorithms to convert a relational …

Dynamics Of Climate And Tectonics On Surface Processes And Their Sedimentary Archives In The Colorado Plateau And Basin And Range, Usa And The Calabrian Forearc, Sicily, Natalie M. Tanski

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Landscapes change over time in response to movements of the Earth’s crust and the effects of climate. This dissertation examines how these factors shape different landscapes, focusing on erosion of river canyons in elevated plateaus, how the transport history in quartz sand may be encoded in its properties, and how a paleo-delta has formed in response to sea-level change and fault displacement. I use dating techniques, field methods, and topographic analyses to offer insight into erosional patterns and rates in different landscapes.

Rivers can take a long time to adjust to changes in boundary conditions, even after those changes have …

Informed Intervention Design, Deployment, And Analysis For The Computer Science Classroom, Jaxton J. Winder

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Improving the teaching of computer science is a challenging task. Educators and computing education researchers devote large amounts of time, energy, and resources towards doing so effectively. One of the ways this is done is through research-informed design, deployment, and analysis of targeted interventions to the classroom. This thesis will detail research conducted at Utah State University targeting classroom interventions: centered around their design, deployment, and analysis.

One of these interventions aims to tackle student procrastination through the offering of “grace points”–forgiving a small amount of mistakes on a student’s assignment–for analyzing a homework assignment early. Through studying this intervention, …

Fishing Vessel Detection In Exclusive Economic Zones From Low Earth Orbit Satellites With Power And Computational Constraints, Kyler E. Nelson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Illegal fishing activities pose a significant threat to the sustainability of marine ecosystems and the economies and societies which rely on them. Detection of fishing vessels engaging in illegal activity is difficult, as many ships engaging in such activity actively avoid detection through radio systems used for maritime traffic monitoring. Satellite imagery provides a promising means for detecting fishing vessels, though designing an effective system is difficult due to limited availability of labeled image datasets of fishing vessels. This research proposes a system to detect illegal fishing activity through the use of a low-power ship detection satellite and proposes a …

Md Simulations Of Collision Effects For A Strongly Coupled Plasma, Jawon Jo

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

Studying strongly coupled plasmas can be effectively accomplished using molecular dynamics (MD) simulations. We have developed an advanced MD simulation code that can analyze plasmas with various coupling parameters. This code employs a spherically symmetric cut-off Coulomb force verified through convergence tests by modulating the cut-off and minimum force ranges. Additionally, it incorporates a new algorithm for optimizing the initial positions of particles at a given temperature. This method maintains the temperature constant and the velocity distribution unchanged. As a result, we eliminate the unphysical initial rises and oscillations in temperature that a random distribution of positions causes. The code …

Shedding Light On Past Ice-Free Intervals In Northwest Greenland: Luminescence Dating Of The Base Of The Camp Century Ice Core, Hawke Woznick

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Fall 2023 to Present

The goal of this thesis is to provide greater resolution on the age and character of the subglacial sediment recovered from the base of the Camp Century ice core, northwestern Greenland. Geochemical analysis indicated that the upper sub-ice sediments were geochemically different and experienced greater weathering than the basal unit underlying a one-meter silty ice lens. Analysis of feldspars within the very fine sand fraction indicates they are dominated by potassium feldspar. Sediment was dated using luminescence, which provides an age for the last time sediment was exposed to light. Luminescence analysis returned ages around 420 thousand years old, which …

Cap-And-Trade Carbon Pricing In Utah: Challenges And Potential Impact, Katherine Michaels, Kendall Becker, Alexi Elizabeth Lamm, Scott Hotaling

All Current Publications

Cap-and-trade programs are a market-based form of carbon pricing that allows companies to trade with each other using carbon credits. Carbon credits function as permission slips to emit a certain amount of carbon. The “cap” establishes the number of carbon credits an industry or region has available for trading. Companies are incentivized to emit less because they can sell their excess carbon credits to other companies. Several cap-and-trade programs exist in the United States, and these programs are effectively reducing carbon emissions while creating net economic benefits for their regions. A cap-and-trade program could help Utah reduce carbon emissions in …

Ocean Temperatures Do Not Account For A Record-Setting Winter In The U.S. West, Matthew D. Laplante, Liping Deng, Luthiene Dalanhese, Shih-Yu Wang

Journalism and Communication Faculty Publications

The record-setting winter of 2022–2023 came as an answer to both figurative and literal prayers for political leaders, policy makers, and water managers reliant on snowpacks in the Upper Colorado River Basin, a vital source of water for tens of millions of people across the Western United States. But this “drought-busting” winter was not well-predicted, in part because while interannual patterns of tropical ocean temperatures have a well-known relationship to precipitation patterns across much of the American West, the Upper Colorado is part of a liminal region where these connections tend to be comparatively weak. Using historical sea surface temperature …