Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Mother Nature, Lady Justice: Ecofeminism And Judicial Decision-Making, Jonathan Alexis Picado

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Ecofeminism offers a feminist perspective that links gender to how humans relate to the natural world. As such, this framework explores the connections between the oppression of nature and the oppression of women, such as widespread views that both women and nature are property, are to be dominated, and are most valuable when cultivated and curated by men. I apply this philosophical and sociological framework to judicial decision-making, where women judges should view environmental issues as women's issues and thus be more likely to vote in favor of the environmental protections relative to her male peers. I evaluate this theory …

Utilizing Zircon (U-Th)/He And 40ar/39ar Thermochronology To Refine The Thermal History Of The Great Unconformity Within New Mexico And Colorado, Jacoup Roiz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Great Unconformity beneath Paleozoic strata represents 100-1000 m.y. of missing rock record that formed through extensive weathering and erosion. Despite its global extent, the timing of Precambrian crystalline rock exhumation prior to Phanerozoic sediment deposition remains relatively unresolved in many locations. I utilized zircon (U-Th)/He (ZHe) thermochronology in order to constrain the long-term thermal history of Precambrian rocks in Colorado and New Mexico, and test my hypoThesis that these units below the Great Unconformity experienced multiple cooling and reheating episodes resulting in a compound surface representing multiple unconformities. In addition to a synThesis of previously reported data in the …

Investigation Of Iron Doped Gallium Oxide (Ga-Fe-O) System: Structure Property Relationship And Performance Evaluation For Optical And Catalytic Applications, Swadipta Roy

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

From September 2012 to May 2015, a phenocam monitored the seaward edge of a protected mangrove forest. Calculated GCC revealed seasonal greening patterns of a mangrove species, Rhizophoa apiculata, and an overall increase in the GCC, suggesting mangrove expansion. In comparing temperature and precipitation effects, it was found that this particular mangrove species had a greening optima at temperatures between 28°C and 28.5°C, and greening and canopy development response lag time of 10 weeks in response to precipitation. Tree saplings were monitored and showed to grow by 50%, mostly during a three month period during the rainy season. The establishment …

Partitioning Variation In Vegetation And Landscape Functionality In Arid Land Piosphere, Eahsan Shahriary

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A piosphere is an interaction between vegetation community, watering point, and grazing livestock/wildlife. In this Dissertation, I begin by reviewing the concept of the piosphere, and the progress, knowledge gaps and common statistical approaches and errors in piosphere research. Landscape functionality, plant community distribution and their influencing factors on a piosphere in Iran are then investigated.

A total 862 piosphere publications of multiple types from 68 countries and 10 different languages during the period of 1915 â?? 2018 were reviewed. Australia was the most productive country followed by South Africa, the USA, Botswana and Argentina. Ivan Thrash is the most …

Supra-Salt Syndepositional Folding Within The Jurassic Morrison Formation, Big Gypsum Valley, Colorado, Alondra Soltero

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Paradox Basin, along the Utah and Colorado border, exposes salt diapirs that form elongate "salt walls". Most exposures of sediments that were deposited during salt movement are hundreds of meters from the contacts. However, in the southeastern part of the Gypsum Valley diapir, a set of tight folds within the Jurassic Morrison Formation are preserved along the diapir margins where they overlie salt. These are best exposed at the southeastern end of Big Gypsum Valley. Previous interpretations suggested that the Morrison Formation folding and faulting occurred during dissolution of the diapir. However, field mapping reported here reveals that the …

Density Functional Calculations On Single Molecular (1d) And Van Der Waals Bi -Layered (2d) Magnets., Md Shamsul Alam

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Low-dimensional magnetic materials show novel properties that is not seen in bulk magnets. The weak interactions such as spin-orbit interactions, electron correlation, van der Waals interaction in case magnetic bi-layers, play an important role in determining the properties of the system. Using density functional theory, we computationally investigated two categories of magnetic material- 1: Single Molecular Magnets (SMM) 2: Van der Waals layered Cr-Halide magnets. We used different classes of density functionals to examine the spin ordering and magnetic anisotropy barriers in several single molecule magnets - Mn12, Co4, Ni4, V15. We find that the magnetic anisotropy barrier significantly depends …

Robust Estimation And Inference For Multivariate Financial Data, Afua Kwakyewaa Amoako Dadey

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Predicting and forecasting are routine day-to-day activities that guide us in making the best possible choices. They play an integral role in financial analysis. A lot of work has been done on one dimensional geometric Brownian motion (GBM) in stock price prediction. In this line of work, we focus mainly on how to use the one dimensional geometric Brownian motion and the multidimensional geometric Brownian motion in predicting future stock prices. There are several stock prices in the financial market and the multidimensional geometric Brownian motion gives a more realistic prediction compared to the one dimensional GBM. The reason being …

General Penalized Logistic Regression For Gene Selection In High-Dimensional Microarray Data Classification, Derrick Kwesi Bonney

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

High-dimensional data has become a major research area in the field of genetics, bioinformatics and bio-statistics due to advancement of technologies. Some common issues of modeling high-dimensional gene expression data are that many of the genes may not be relevant. Also, reducing the dimensions of the data using penalized logistic regression is one of the major challenges when there exists a high correlation among genes. High-dimension data correspond to the situation where the number of variables is greater or larger than the number of observations. Gene selection proved to be an effective way to improve the results of many classification …

Comparing Predictive Performance Of Statistical Learning Models On Medical Data, Francis Biney

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This work investigates the predictive performance of 10 Machine learning models on three medical data including Breast cancer, Heart disease and Prostate cancer. Furthermore, we use the models to identify risk factors that contribute significantly to these diseases.

The models considered include; Logistic regression with L1 and L_2 penalties, Principal component logistic regression(PCR-LR), Partial least squares logistic regression(PLS-LR), Multivariate adaptive regression splines(MARS), Support vector machine with Radial Basis Kernel (SVM-RBK), Random Forest(RF), Gradient Boosting Machines(GBM), Elastic Net (Enet) and Feedforward Neural Network(FFNN). The models were grouped according to their similarities and learning style; i) Linear regularized models: LR-Lasso, LR-Ridge and …

Nonlinear Optics For Nanoparticle Tracking And Materials Characterization, Angela Christina Aguilar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A high-speed 3D imaging method is developed by integrating ultrafast laser pulse shaping, temporal focusing microscopy and defocused imaging. This system does not require mechanical movement of either the stage or laser beam. Axial scanning is achieved by manipulation of group velocity dispersions on the femtosecond laser spectrum via pulse shaping method by applying modulation functions on an acoustic optical modulator which diffracts the laser spectrum. The scanning depth becomes only dependent on electronic signals which can be tuned to kHz speeds. The volumetric high-speed scanning capability was demonstrated on fluorescent microspheres suspended in a volume of 100 x100 x …

Decision Making Under Uncertainty With Applications To Geosciences And Finance, Laxman Bokati

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In many practical situations, we need to make a decision. In engineering, we need to decide on the best design of a system, and, for existing systems â?? on the best control strategy. In financial applications, we need to decide what is the best way to invest money. In geosciences, we need to decide whether we should explore a possible mineral deposit â?? or whether we should perform more experiments and measurements (and what exactly). In some cases, we can compute the exact consequences of each decision - e.g., if we are controlling a satellite. However, in many other cases, …

Cmas/Volcanic Ash Infiltration Performance Of Yttria Rich-Zirconia Thermal Barrier Coatings Produced By Electron Beam Physical Vapor Deposition, Juan Jose Gomez Chavez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

For many years the use of thermal barrier coatings (TBC) in gas turbine engines has allowed a significant increase in engine operating temperatures which are above the Ni-based super alloys' melting point. The base material for TBCs is the state of the art 7 wt % yttria stabilized zirconia (YSZ) which provides the thermal protection. Current industry demands for increased engine efficiency has pushed TBCs to the limits where significant technological constrains have been identified. One of the main ones represents the high temperature corrosion of the TBC material due to the ingestion of silicate based airborne particles commonly referred …

Ultrafine Black Carbon: A Cumulative Assessment On The Physiology Of Lung - Derived Cells, M Esther Salinas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Combustion-derived nanomaterials are noxious ultrafine (<100 nm) aerosolized by-products generated by human activity. They pose threats to pulmonary health due to their small size, allowing them to penetrate deep into the alveolar regions causing detrimental responses downstream. Indeed, an examination between nanocarbon particle exposure and poor pulmonary health via cellular behavior was needed. I hypothesized that low-dose and long-term administrations of carbonaceous nanoparticles contribute to respiratory conditions by irritating lung-derived cells. Responses to ultrafine black carbon (UBC), a key component of airborne pollutants, by human lung A549 and murine lung LA4 epithelial cells, human peripheral-blood monocytes THP1, and murine macrophages RAW264.7 were investigated. These lines were chosen because epithelial cells and mononuclear cells (monocytes and macrophages) are the first to come in contact with inhaled particulate matter (PM) and contribute to stress and inflammation of pulmonary tissues. The cells were first plated on day zero and fed fresh UBC suspended in culture media on days one, four, and seven. The exposure regimen included three different low-level concentrations of UBC. On day ten, all cells were prepared for subsequent assays. Effects on cellular viability revealed that UBC was modestly cytotoxic while ATPase and esterase activity (termed enzyme vitality for the purpose of this study) were significantly diminished in a dose-dependent manner. Additionally, beta-galactosidase proportionally increased with UBC concentration compared to untreated cells, indicating that cellular senescence was promoted across all cell types. Multiple markers of oxidative stress were subsequently measured, showing non-uniform trends and displaying moderate accumulation of oxidative damage, contingent upon cell line and UBC treatment. However, a significant induction of inner mitochondrial membrane depolarization of human UBC-treated cells was observed; an aberrant cell-cycle progression was found across all cells. The implemented regimen of UBC exposure elicited an imbalance of free (reduced) glutathione, altered mitochondrial potential, and abnormal cell-cycle activity. This method demonstrated that modifications across both species induced changes to cellular fitness overall. The data supported that compounding nanosized black carbon exposure could negatively affect overall pulmonary cell health by distinctively modifying intracellular activity. Additionally, we further surmised that sustained exposure to nanocarbon could impair innate immunity. Therefore, reactive oxygen species (ROS), reactive nitrogen species (RNS), and cytokine levels upon continuous administrations to 3.0 μg/mL UBC after brief challenges to microbial proxies were assessed; on day 9, the cells were succumbed to three different microbial insults (LPS, Poly I:C, and Zymosan). On day 10, measurements demonstrated a moderate accumulation of oxidative stress, conditional to each cell type. Thus, UBC plus microbe approach triggered pro-oxidant levels and cytokine production across different cell types and diminished phagocytic response by murine macrophages. Based on the results, ultrafine-PM exposure may impair inflammatory function in response to pathogenic infections. In summation, our findings indicated that additive nanosized UBC in combination with microbe-like challenges may compromise cellular behavior, suggesting potential ways by which inhalation of ultrafine-PM may contribute to or exacerbate poor pulmonary health.

Forecasting Crashes, Credit Card Default, And Imputation Analysis On Missing Values By The Use Of Neural Networks, Jazmin Quezada

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

A neural network is a system of hardware and/or software patterned after the operation of neurons in the human brain. Neural networks,- also called Artificial Neural Networks - are a variety of deep learning technology, which also falls under the umbrella of artificial intelligence, or AI. Recent studies shows that Artificial Neural Network has the highest coefficient of determination (i.e. measure to assess how well a model explains and predicts future outcomes.) in comparison to the K-nearest neighbor classifiers, logistic regression, discriminant analysis, naive Bayesian classifier, and classification trees. In this work, the theoretical description of the neural network methodology …

Low-Valent Synthons Of Titanium : Investigations On Structure-Reactivity Relationships, Rolando Aguilar

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Strategies for the functionalization of abundant, small molecules into products with added value provide a powerful approach to address environmental sustainability issues. Dinitrogen (N2), and carbon oxides (CO, CO2), are examples of the ample, yet, underutilized atmospheric feedstock of nitrogen and carbon building blocks to produce a variety of chemicals. Although, potentially valuable, small molecules are inert under most conditions, and as such, their industrial activation often requires heterogeneous catalysts operated under high pressures (200 atm) and temperatures (450-600 ºC).

To this end, great efforts in synthetic inorganic chemistry have been devoted to the generation of well-defined and highly reactive …

A Coupled Modeling Framework For Allocation Design In Land-Use And Land-Cover Changes To Optimize Biofuel Feedstock Production, Ana C. Cram

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Environmental awareness has increased the demand for renewable energy. Notably, the production of biofuels from feedstock is gaining interest as a viable measure to reduce fossil fuels consumption. Nevertheless, it is crucial to identify the trade-offs between bioenergy crop cultivation and the environmental impact on land, water, and atmosphere.

Intensifying biofuel cultivation trigger effects associated with Land Use and Land-use-change, which are complex to assess. While hydrological models had been used to investigate the environmental impacts of land-use changes on water and soil quality, their quantitative assessment is often incomplete. Changes in land use and agricultural activities also contribute to …

Study Of Blinking Statistics In Silver Coated Cobalt Ferrite Single Nanoprticle Using Two-Photon Fluorescence Microscopy, Rajen Kumar Goutam

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Two-photon fluorescence microscopy is a powerful tool to study the molecular and cellular interactions. This technology is a non-invasive approach with the advantage of three-dimensional imaging up to submicron resolution. Two-photon excitation process is the result of simultaneous absorption of two photons that has special features of reduced photodamaged and elongated penetration depth on samples. In this work, blinking statistics of silver-coated Cobalt ferrite (CoFe2O4) single nanocrystal is studied using two-photon fluorescence microscopy. By defining the intensity threshold, the observed fluorescence is divided into two distinct stages: OFF and ON states. Both of these states followed the inverse power law. …

Code Smells Quantification: A Case Study On Large Open Source Research Codebase, Swapnil Singh Chauhan

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Research software has opened up new pathways of discovery in many and diverse disciplines. The research software is developed under unique budgetary and schedule constraints. The developers are often untrained transient workforce of graduate students and postdocs. As a result, the software quality hinders its sustainability beyond the immediate research goals. More importantly, the prevalent reward structures favor contributions in terms of research articles and systematically undervalues research code contributions. As a result, researchers and funding agencies do not allocate appropriate efforts or resources to the development, sustenance, and dissemination of research codebases. At the same time, there are no …

Synthesis, Characterization And Antibacterial Properties Of Silver(I) N-(4-Pyridyl) Benzamide Complexes With Varying Conterions, Mauro J. Ruiz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Organic semiconductor materials composed of - stacking aromatic compounds have been under intense investigation for their potential uses in flexible electronics and other advanced technologies. Herein we report a new family of seven - stacking compounds of Silver(I) N-(4-pyridyl) Benzamide with varying counterions, namely [Ag(NPBA)2]X, where NPBA is N-(4-pyridyl) Benzamine, X = NO3- (1), ClO4- (2), CF3SO3- (3), PF6- (4), BF4- (5), CH3PhSO3- (6), and PhSO3- (7), which form extended - stacking networks in one-dimensional (1D), 2D and 3D directions in the crystalline solid-state via the phenyl moiety, with average inter-ring distances of 3.823 Å. Interestingly, the counterions that contain …

Amplification Vs The Natural Ear: A Test On The Effectiveness Of The Natural Ear On Adults Ability To Match Pitch In Song, Celeste Orozco

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Background: Singing is a natural enjoyment of life; however, individuals tend to isolate themselves from this enjoyment due to their inability to match pitch accurately. A new technology, the Natural Ear provides altered auditory feedback to the user while singing. It is hypothesized that this feedback may aid in the userâ??s ability to match pitch.

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to compare the effects of the Natural Ear to amplification and no amplification conditions on pitch matching accuracy in song.

Study Design: This study used a complex counterbalance within-subjects design.

Methods: 50 adults from the El Paso Metropolitan …

Inverse Gaussian Ornstein-Uhlenbeck Applied To Modeling High Frequency Data, Emmanuel Kofi Kusi

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

With about 226050 estimated deaths worldwide in 2010, earthquake is considered as one of the disasters that record a great number of deaths. This Thesis develops a model for the estimation of magnitude of future seismic events.

We propose a stochastic differential equation arising on the Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes driven by Inverse Gaussian (a,b) process. Inverse Gaussian (a,b) Ornstein-Uhlenbeck processes offer analytic flexibility and provides a class of continuous time processes capable of exhibiting long memory behavior. The stochastic differential equation is applied to geophysics and financial stock market by fitting the superposed Inverse Gaussian (a,b) Ornstein-Uhlenbeck model to earthquake and …

Geophysical Studies Of The Three Sisters Andesite, West El Paso, Texas, Alexander D'Marco Garcia

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The Three Sisters andesite intrusion is part of series of three small igneous bodies that crop out in western El Paso to the north of the more extensive intrusions found on the University of Texas at El Paso campus and at Mount Cristo Rey. These Oligocene age intrusions are believed to form part of a deeper, more extensive igneous body that may lie beneath much of western El Paso and the southern Mesilla Valley. I used several geophysical techniques to determine the size and shape of the Three Sisters intrusion to better understand its connection to other andesite outcrops and …

Manfreda Maculosa Leaf Extracts And Their Effects On Whole And Selected Myotoxic Components In Crotalid Venom, Charles Steven Gilbert

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Manfreda spp have been used for the treatment of snakebite by several cultures in North and Central America (Austin & Honychurch, 2004, Johnson, 1999, Moerman, 2008, Verhoek, 1978a). There has been no systematic study of the genus Manfreda for its usefulness in the treatment of snakebite.

While the annual incidence of snakebite in the United States is relatively low (approximately 8,000 - 10,000), with a low mortality rate of 5 - 6 cases per year, there is still significant morbidity associated with snakebite (CDC - NIOSH, 2018, Springhouse Corp (eds), 2005). Worldwide numbers of the cases of snakebite can only …

Phase Diagram Of Nuclear Matter, Adrian Gaytan Terrazas

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Nowadays it is well known that nuclear matter has a liquid and a gas phase, as well as a coexistence of phases region. Symmetric nuclear matter (same number of protons and neutrons) exhibit phase transitions from the gas phase to a liquid-gas mixture. A useful tool to represent such phases and transitions is through diagrams that show the necessary conditions of density and temperature to be in either of the phases.

Now the question is, what if we extend the traditional phase diagram for symmetric matter to the asymmetric

cases (different number of protons and neutrons)?

This study uses classical …

Modeling Correlated Data Via Copulas, Panfeng Liang

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Copulas are widely used to model the dependency structure among components of multi- variate data sets. Elliptical copulas, such as Gaussian copula, are most popular copulas being used since many data sets follow elliptical distributions or meta-elliptical distribu- tions (Fang et al. (2002)). However, today's approaches and software packages require us to assume the specific category, such as Gaussian or Student's T, of the elliptical cop- ula before estimating it. In this Thesis, we will propose a Bayesian method using Markov chain Monte Carlo (MCMC) methods to estimate the density function of elliptical copulas without specifying it is the copula …

Bayesian Analysis Of Variable-Stress Accelerated Life Testing, Richard Okine

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Several authors have over the years studied the art of modeling data from accelerated life testing and making inferences from such data. In this study, we consider a continuously varying stress accelerated life testing procedure which is the limiting case of the multiple stress-level discussed by Doksum and H´oyland [1]. We derive the likelihood function for the life distribution of the continuously increasing stress accelerated life testing model and consequently the Fisher's Information Matrix. We propose a Bayesian analysis for this distribution using the Gibbs Sampling Procedure. We conduct simulation studies and real data analysis to demonstrate the efficiency of …

Robust Statistical Inference For The Gaussian Distribution, Andrews Tawiah Anum

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The aim of robust statistics is to develop statistical procedures which are not unduly influenced by outliers or observations that are not representative of the underlying "true" data generating process. This thesis focuses on an estimator with this characteristic. The divergence function is introduced in Chapter 2 with the sole aim of taking the function f to be the univariate normal distribution and α - [0, 1]. The estimator fails when we rely on the classic Newton's method to converge to the minimum of the density power divergence (MDPD) function. There is a tendency of such estimator never to approach …

A Quantitative Assessment Of Trace Metals In Subsurface Soils And Groundwater In Agricultural Fields Of El Paso, Texas, Emmanuel Sosa

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Intensive agricultural practices such as irrigation, application of pesticides and the use of fertilizers, as well as contamination from urban settings and industrial activities contribute to the input of trace metals onto soils and groundwater. Consequentially, biological uptake and accumulation concentrate these toxic metals in fruits, vegetables, and grains that will be used for human consumption. In southern New Mexico and western Texas, cropland is developed along the Rio Grande valley. These farmers are concerned about the quality of their irrigation water and soils in order to produce adequate crops and maintain healthy soils to maximize revenue. To evaluate loading …

Confidence Intervals For The Expected P-Value, Emmanuel Kofi Abrefa

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The p-value is widely used in many application fields. In common practice, a scientific finding is deemed statistically significant if its resultant p-value is less than a pre-specified significance level, for example α = 0.05, albeit many statistically significant results are not reproducible in new studies. Mixed reasons including misuses, abuses, misunderstanding and misinterpretation arouse intensive debates and conservatives around the p-value from time to time over the years. Yet no reasonable solutions have been proposed. In this research, we make efforts to close the gap by advocating the use of confidence level for the expected p-value p0. This allows …

Exploring Paths For Water Services And Human Capabilities In U.S.-Mexico Border Colonias, Chilton Tippin

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This Thesis examines causes and consequences of water insecurity in colonias on the U.S.-Mexico border and explores potential pathways for improving situations wherein low-income households lack reliable access to water and sewer services. Colonias are low-income, rural and/or semi-rural communities that lack basic services, such as paved streets, water, and sewer. Through in-depth interviews, surveys, and ethnographic observations, the research presented here describes needs, desires, and capabilities of residents in two high-needs Texas colonias. First, findings elucidate the lived experiences of water insecurity in colonias households, leading to an argument that lacking water access constitutes a nexus, wherein water insecurity …