Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Spatiotemporal Mountain Pine Beetle Outbreak Model Predicting Severity, Cycle Period, And Invasion Speed, Jacob P. Duncan

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The mountain pine beetle (MPB, Dendroctonus ponderosae), a tree-killing bark beetle, has historically been part of the normal disturbance regime in lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) forests. In recent years, warm winters and summers have allowed MPB populations to achieve synchronous emergence and successful attacks, resulting in widespread population outbreaks and resultant tree mortality across western North America. We develop an age-structured forest demographic model that incorporates temperature-dependent MPB infestations: the Susceptible-Infested-Juvenile (SIJ) model. Stability of equilibria is analyzed as a function of population growth rates, and indicates the existence of periodic outbreaks that intensify as growth rates …

Motionscan: Towards Brain Concussion Detection With A Mobile Tablet Device, Shantanu Saxena

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis reports on a study to determine the viability of using a mobile tablet device as a brain concussion detection tool. The research builds upon the results of a prior method of collecting data for measuring motion sensitivity, where a user presses and releases a force sensor to balance a rising and falling line on a computer display. The motion sensitivity data collected using this force sensor device was shown to have less irregularity in persons with concussion. The MotionScan application, developed for this research, uses the accelerometer of a tablet device to record motor movement of a user …

Intraspecific Variation In The Response Of Elymus Elymoides To Competition From Bromus Tectorum, Rebecca K. Mann

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

In the western United States, thousands of acres of degraded rangelands are dominated by aggressive invasive species such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), and are seeded by managers with native plants in an attempt to restore species diversity, wildlife habitat, and ecosystem services. There are many options for obtaining seeds of native plants; for instance, they can be collected from the region where restoration is to occur, or they may be purchased through commercial producers. For a given plant species, managers may also select seeds from unique subspecies, cultivars, and populations. Genetic differentiation among these within-species groups can not only affect …

The Influence Of Small Displacement Faults On Seal Integrity And Lateral Movement Of Fluids, Eric A. Rasmusson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As groundwater, liquid and gas hydrocarbons, or CO₂ fluids move through the subsurface, faults can act as pathways or barriers to flow. Recent studies also show that when a fault juxtaposes high permeability sandstone against a low permeability shale, the corner at the sandstone-shale interface and the fault can become a site of high pressure that may fracture the seal and allow fluids to escape. This can have negative implications for industries dependent on the quality of that seal, for example, petroleum, CO₂ sequestration, waste fluid injection, and nuclear waste storage industries.

We examined five small-scale faults in …

Vision Based Extraction Of Nutrition Information From Skewed Nutrition Labels, Tanwir Zaman

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Vision-based extraction of nutritional information from nutrition labels (NLs) available on most product packages is critical to proactive nutrition management, because it improves the user’s ability to engage in continuous nutritional data collection and analysis. However, even users who are health conscious find it difficult to keep track of their nutrition intake due to lack of time, motivation, or training. In order to make nutrition management more proactive we present a Proactive NUTrition Management System (PNUTS), which aims to make nutrition management more user friendly and proactive using computer vision techniques running on smartphones which are ubiquitous and powerful computers …

Structural Insights Into The Regulation Of Electron Transfer In Nitrogenase, And Modulating The Reactivity Of The Isolated Iron Molybdenum Cofactor, Andrew J. Rasmussen

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

One of the most important scientific advances in the last century was the Haber-Bosch process, the industrial process of fixing nitrogen from the atmosphere to ammonia. This allowed for the commercial production and sale of nitrogen for important uses such as fertilizer for farming. The Haber-Bosch process is partially credited with the population boom that has been seen in the last century and has greatly increased the standard of living in the developed world today. While this was a great scientific breakthrough, the cost of producing the required ammonia is high, and roughly 2% of worldwide energy is used annually …

Exploiting Self-Organization In Bioengineered Systems: A Computational Approach, Delin Davis

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Bio-reactors, also known as microbial factories are used extensively to produce various industrially valuable products. However, scalability and stability of these factories are limited as it is difficult to deliver nutrients and extract product and waste from a large system. Current solution approaches explore changes in the physical configuration of the bio-reactors. Inspired from the nutrient delivery mechanisms of large organisms in nature, this work studies the possibilities of exploiting self-organizing bio-engineered cells which are capable of organizing into a vessel network to support the producer cells in the factory.

Primary goal of this dissertation is to design a proof-of-concept …

Synthesis, Structure-Activity Relationship Study, And Mode Of Action Study Of 1,4-Naphthoquinone Based Anticancer And Antimicrobial Agents, Jaya P. Shrestha

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The first three projects involve the synthesis and the mode of action study of 1,4-naphthoquinone based anticancer agents. These anticancer agents are highly potent against a wide range of cancer cell lines. These compounds showed ~8-fold selectivity towards the lung cancer cell line than the normal cell line. We also studied the mode of action and observed that generation of reactive oxygen species is the primary mode of action.

The final project involves the synthesis of multi-cationic antimicrobial agents. These compounds are active against both bacteria and fungi. These compounds are very easy to synthesize and can be scaled up …

Computational Studies Of Microscopic Superfluidity In 4he Clusters, Angeline R. Wairegi

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The onset of microscopic superfluidity has been reported in ultracold droplets of bosons (⁴He atoms or para-H₂ molecules) containing a variety of molecular dopants. The physics of these droplets involve both Bose-Einstein condensation (BEC) and superfluidity. The two phenomena, while closely related, are not exactly the same. Superfluidity is fundamentally a microscopic effect and thermodynamic limit is necessary; it is still remarkable, though, that the signature of superfluidity has been reported in doped droplets consisting of as few as 4 ⁴He atoms. The studies presented here adopt a molecular vantage point to investigate the quantum mechanics …

Hidden History: A Mobile Application For Discovering Surrounding Landscapes, Sri Ram Ramineni

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis work describes the design, development and evaluation of a mobile application called Hidden History. This application lets users discover and explore three types of landscapes (Historic, Scenic and Cultural) using three different modes of discovery (Route, Explore and Tour).

Before designing Hidden History, the feature set of other applications that help users explore surrounding landscapes were identified and analyzed. Hidden History was then designed to implement the best features of these applications and offer several functionality improvements. Design began with iterative paper prototyping, following which a high fidelity, digital prototype was created. The high fidelity prototype was tested …

Fake Likers Detection On Facebook, Prudhvi Ratna Badri Satya

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As billions of users have used online social networks such as Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, many online services have begun adapting signals of the popularity. For example, search engines rank popular users posts in the top results. A post of a popular user is automatically delivered to the followers or likers. Popular companies in online social networks also get good reputation from people. The popularity on Facebook is measured based on the number of likes in a page. Unfortunately, some crowdsourcing websites (e.g.Microworkers.com) or supply-driven marketplaces (e.g.Fiverr.com) began offering fake liking services in which these crowd workers sent fake likes …

Confirmation Of A New Geometric And Kinematic Model Of The San Andreas Fault At Its Southern Tip, Durmid Hill, Southern California, Daniel K. Markowski

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study explains the origin of the deforming structures between the San Andreas fault and the Salton Sea within the Salton Trough in Southern California. ShakeOut simulations and other studies model shaking resulting from a large rupture on the San Andreas fault. These models simulate a start at the southern fault tip of the San Andreas fault that propagates to the northwest. A secondary strand of the San Andreas fault called the East Shoreline fault is located at the southern tip of the San Andreas fault near the shoreline of the Salton Sea. Between the East Shoreline fault zone and …

Interference Mitigation In Multi-Hop Wireless Networks With Advanced Physical-Layer Techniques, Yantian Hou

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

With the ever-growing number of wireless systems, the problem of spectrum scarcity is becoming more important than ever. Many devices coexist in the same frequency band, e.g., IEEE 802.11 (WiFi), 802.15.4 (ZigBee), 802.16 (WiMax), and Bluetooth in the ISM bands. Coexisting in the crowded spectrum bands inevitably leads to mutual interferences. For a wireless network, the interference could be from external sources such as microwave oven and cordless phone, or from internal nodes within multi-flow and multi-hop wireless networks. All these interferences can be detrimental to the performance of co-locating networks if they are not properly mitigated. In my dissertation, …

Fluorescent Probes To Investigate Homologous Recombination Dynamics, Eric Parker Davenport

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

As the average cell’s DNA undergoes roughly 1 million molecular lesions per day, learning about one of the repair mechanisms which fixes damaged DNA is a worthwhile endeavor. Such work may provide insights into how to treat or prevent diseases such as cancers and associated genetic disorders. Homologous recombination (HR) is one pathway which is used by cells to repair a specific type of DNA damage, double-strand breaks. While HR is a complex process involving over 25 different proteins, exactly how HR works, including its regulation, is largely unknown. One protein in particular, Rad51, forms a filament on the damaged …

Structural And Lithological Influences On The Tony Grove Alpine Karst System, Bear River Range, North-Central Utah, Kirsten Bahr

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Caves are access points into the subsurface for humans, water, and, in many cases, contaminants. Many caves are connected via a series of conduits that carry water from one cave to another and, eventually, to a spring. However, because most of these conduits are inaccessible, it is difficult to determine the pathway groundwater takes on its way to the spring. The primary objective of this study was to examine the effects of folds, fractures, and rock type upon the formation and orientation of cave passages as well as groundwater flow patterns in the Tony Grove alpine karst system.

Although water …

To Dot Product Graphs And Beyond, Sean Bailey

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

We will introduce three new vector representations of graphs. These representations are based on relationships between the vectors that are used. Specifically, we will examine scenarios where we ignore specific relationships, where we consider if information is missing, and where we look for when the information in common is not of a specified amount.

Quantum Mechanical Studies Of Charge Assisted Hydrogen And Halogen Bonds, Binod Nepal

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Like cement bridges one brick to another, noncovalent forces also bridge two or more molecules together to form a molecular crystal or molecular cluster. Although weaker than the covalent bond, the existence of noncovalent forces can be seen everywhere from liquid water to construction of complex biomolecules like DNA, RNA, proteins etc. An introduction of suitable charge; positive or negative, on the binding units can increase the strength of noncovalent interaction by several orders of magnitude. The primary aim of this dissertation is to explore some fundamental properties of such charge assisted noncovalent interactions which will be helpful for the …

Investigation Into Regional Climate Variability Using Tree-Ring Reconstruction, Climate Diagnostics And Prediction, Daniel A. Barandiaran

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This document summarizes research conducted to develop and apply climate analysis tools toward a better understanding of the past and future of climate variability in the state of Utah. Two pilot studies developed analysis tools through the investigation of natural variability in precipitation systems in Africa, and research into long-term changes and trends in spring rainfall over the U.S. Great Plains. Our third study used tree-ring data to estimate snowpack in the state of Utah to 1850, doubling the length of record and offering a better understanding of the history of snowpack in the state. Our final study looked at …

Face Recognition Under Varying Illuminations, Mohammadreza Faraji

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Face recognition under illumination is really challenging. This dissertation proposes four effective methods to produce illumination-invariant features for images with various levels of illuminations. The proposed methods are called logarithmic fractal dimension (LFD), eight local directional patterns (ELDP), adaptive homomorphic eight local directional pat- terns (AH-ELDP), and complete eight local directional patterns (CELDP), respectively.

LFD, employing the log function and the fractal analysis (FA), produces a logarithmic fractal dimension (LFD) image that is illumination-invariant. The proposed FA feature-based method is an effective edge enhancer technique to extract and enhance facial features such as eyes, eyebrows, nose, and mouth.

The proposed …

Improving The Scalability And Usability Of The Public Information Officer Monitoring Application, Rohan D. Shah

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This thesis work addresses the limitations of a web application called the Public Information Officer Monitoring Application (PMA). This application helps Public Information Officers (PIOs) to gather, monitor, sort, store, and report social media data during a crisis event. Before this work, PMA was unable to handle large data sets and as a result, it had not been adequately tested with potential users of the application.

This thesis describes changes made to PMA to improve its ability to handle large data sets. After these changes were made, the application was then tested with target users. All test participants found the …

Detecting Experts On Quora: By Their Activity, Quality Of Answers, Linguistic Characteristics And Temporal Behaviors, Sumanth Kumar Reddy Nagarur Patil

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Question and answering sites are useful in sharing the knowledge by answering questions. It is a medium of sharing knowledge. Quora is the fastest emerging effective Q&A site, which is the best source of knowledge. Here you can ask a question, and get help in getting answers from people with firsthand experience, and blog about what you know. In this paper, we are investigating and identifying potential experts who are providing the best solutions to the questioner needs. We have considered several techniques in identifying user as an expert or non-expert. We have targeted the most followed topics in Quora …

Image Blur Detection With Two-Dimensional Haar Wavelet Transform, Sarat Kiran Andhavarapu

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Efficient detection of image blur and its extent is an open research problem in computer vision. Image blur has a negative impact on image quality. Blur is introduced into images due to various factors including limited contrast, improper exposure time or unstable device handling. Toward this end, an algorithm is presented for image blur detection with the use of Two-Dimensional Haar Wavelet transform (2D HWT). The algorithm is experimentally compared with two other image blur detection algorithms frequently cited in the literature. When evaluated over a sample of images, the algorithm performed on par or better than the two other …

The Colorado Plateau As A Virtual Laboratory For Mobile Games For Geoscience Education And Relations Between Rock Strength And River Metrics, Natalie Bursztyn

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This dissertation encompasses two studies: one developing virtual field trips for mobile devices for an innovative approach to lower-division geoscience education, and the other examining the role of rock strength in river erosion and landscape evolution.

The education study involves the development of three virtual field trip modules (Geologic Time, Geologic Structures, and Hydrologic Processes, all free on iTunes and Google Play) that lead students down a virtual Colorado River through Grand Canyon by physically moving around their campus quad, football field or other location, using their GPS-equipped smart phone or tablet. As students reach each location in the scaled …

Long-Term Study Of Crowdfunding Platform: Predicting Project Success And Fundraising Amount, Jinwook Chung

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Crowdfunding that is the combination word of crowdsourcing and funding makes people can start a business easily. Legislating JOBS act in US played a major role in removing restricted barriers of crowdfunding on public offerings of fence and private funds for small business. The growth speed of crowdfunding takes some beating. Through Kickstarter that is a popular crowdfunding platform and being considered the typical case of crowdfunding, 480 million dollars and more than half a billion dollars were invested in about 19 thousand and 22 projects for 2013 and 2014 respectively. But in spite of the rapid growth, the successful …

Computational Modeling To Study Disease Development: Applications To Breast Cancer And An In Vitro Model Of Macular Degeneration, Qanita Bani Baker

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

There have been several techniques developed in recent years to develop computer models of a variety of disease behaviors. Agent-based modeling is a discrete-based modeling approach used agents to represent individual cells that mechanically interact and secrete, consume or react to soluble products. It has become a powerful modeling approach, widely used by computational researchers. In this research, we utilized agent-based modeling to study and explore disease development, particularly in two applications, breast cancer and bioengineering experiments. We further proposed an error-minimization search approach and used it to estimate cellular parameters from multicellular in vitro data.

In this dissertation, in …

Analytical Comparison Of Bovine Parentage Single Nucleotide Polymorphisms, Joshua Jeffrey Dallin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Often on cattle operations and dairy farms, where multiple bulls are exposed to cows either by live cover or artificial insemination, error can be present in parentage record keeping for breed registries or production use. Research has evolved to the integration of using single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) to answer questions where cases of unknown parentage may exist. With the evolution of the research, differentiated panels have been created specifically for parentage analysis. Our objective was to complete an analytical comparison between two specific panels, a proven 88 parentage SNP panel and a recently developed 25 SNP panel. A smaller panel …

The Onion Name System: Tor-Powered Distributed Dns For Tor Hidden Services, Jesse Victors

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Tor network is a third-generation onion router that aims to provide private and anonymous Internet access to its users. In recent years its userbase, network, and community have grown significantly in response to revelations of national and global electronic surveillance, and it remains one of the most popular anonymity networks in use today. Tor also provides access to anonymous servers known as hidden services – servers of unknown location and ownership that may provide websites, chat services, or an electronic dead drop. These hidden services can be accessed through any Tor-powered web browser but they suffer from usability challenges …

Algorithmic Information Theory Applications In Bright Field Microscopy And Epithelial Pattern Formation, Hamid Mohamadlou

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The incredible patterns of multicellular organisms emerge as a result of the operation of Gene Regulatory Networks (GRN) that work during development. Understanding how GRNs produce these complex multicellular patterns is a significant challenge in biology. The primary goal of this dissertation is to employ Algorithmic Information Theory (AIT), also known as Kolmogorov complexity, to unravel the information complexity of GRNs and the resultant multicellular patterns. To obtain a better understanding of Kolmogorov complexity performance, first we study an application in cell image segmentation.

There are an estimated 20,000-25,000 protein-coding genes in the human genome. The sheer size of the …

Annotation Tools For Multivariate Gene Set Testing Of Non-Model Organisms, Russell K. Banks

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Microarray chip technology enables researchers to obtain measures of gene activity for essentially all genes in an organism. After grouping genes into biologically meaningful sets, researchers employ certain statistical tests to identify which gene sets (biological processes) show different levels of activity across different treatment groups. The idea is to identify which biological processes are significantly affected by a certain treatment/condition in a given organism.

Non-model organisms (such as sheep) are not widely studied so gene set membership information is not always readily accessible. This thesis work utilizes two microarray studies involving sheep to provide researchers with working examples of …

Geochemical Characterization Of The Mountain Home Geothermal System, Trevor Alex Atkinson

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Mountain Home (MH) geothermal system of the western Snake River Plain (SRP) magmatic province was discovered in 2012 by the Snake River Geothermal Drilling Project. Artesian flowing water with a temperature of 150°C was encountered at a depth of 1745 m below ground surface (mbgs) and extensive mineralized fracture networks of pectolite-prehnite, calcite, and laumontite were discovered in the recovered core. The objectives of this study are to: 1) describe the thermal and compositional history of past geothermal fluids, and 2) compare these fluids to modern fluids in order to characterize the evolution of the MH geothermal system and …