Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Estimating Statistical Characteristics Under Interval Uncertainty And Constraints: Mean, Variance, Covariance, And Correlation, Ali Jalal-Kamali

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In many practical situations, we have a sample of objects of a given type. When we measure the values of a certain quantity x for these objects, we get a sequence of values x1, . . . , xn. When the sample is large enough, then the arithmetic mean E of the values xi is a good approximation for the average value of this quantity for all the objects from this class. Other expressions provide a good approximation to statistical characteristics such as variance, covariance, and correlation.

The values xi come from measurements, and measurement is never absolutely accurate.

Often, …

Evidence Of Ancient Rifts Beneath Texas, Keisuke Irie

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Continental rifts are defined as geological features where Earth's lithosphere is pulled away by surface expansion of the Earth. Their physiographic features include linear rift valleys associated with active volcanism. Many rifts fail to split a continent and ancient rifts that failed to split can be found by using seismic waves to image these ancient structures. Using seismic data collected by EarthScope USArray stations in Texas, teleseismic receiver functions was calculated and utilized surface wave dispersion curves to simultaneously invert for the 2D velocity structure beneath each seismic station. EarthScope is a scientific program funded by NSF that provides geophysical …

An Integrated Geographic Information Systems (Igis) Analysis And Definition Of The Tectonic Framework Of Northern Mexico, Carlos Manuel Martinez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Crustal rupture structures reactivated in the course of the tectonic history of northern Mexico are the surface expressions of planes of weakness, in the form of simple or composite rectilinear features or slightly curved, defined as lineaments. Unless otherwise defined as strike-slip faults, lineaments are part of parallel and sub-parallel oblique convergent or oblique divergent tectonic zones cross cutting the Sierra Madre Occidental and northern Mexico, in a NW trend. These shear zones are the response to the oblique subduction of the Farallon plate beneath North America.

Kinematic analysis of five selected sites in northern Mexico, three basins and two …

Principal Differential Analysis With Covariates : A Simulation Study On The Effect Of The Smoothing Parameters, Indika Varuna Mallawaarachchi

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Principal Differential Analysis deals with functional data. The word functional data refers to a collection of curves that are independent and measured on a dense grid of time points in an interval. These time points can be equally or unequally spaced. A differential equation is believed capable of capturing the features of these n curves.

Ramsay(1996) first introduced Principal Differential Analysis (PDA) as an alternative to the Principal Component Analysis(PCA). PDA finds a linear differential equation that captures features of a collection of curves, in order to have a low dimensional approximation for functional data. PDA is based on the …

Fold-Thrust System Overprinting Syn-Rift Structures On The Margin Of An Inverted Rift Basin: Indio Mountains, West Texas, Seth Joel Page

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Detailed mapping in the central Indio Mountains in west Texas, reveal a complex stacking of thrust sheets that record inversion of the Mesozoic Chihuahua Trough rift basin. Important newly recognized structural complexities include both folding of older thrust sheets and development of younger, out-of-sequence thrusts that cut across older folds; detachment fold horizons within thrust sheets; and a regional anticlinorium that exposes the Squaw thrust in a structural half-window bounded on the west by the Neogene Indio normal fault. The Chihuahua trough originated as part of the late Mesozoic border rift system and was inverted during Laramide thrusting. Remnants of …

Supramolecular Organization Of Nanoparticles, Brenda M. Porta Linnell

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The study of supramolecular structures with nano-architectures has become an active area of research in recent years. They have the potential to generate functional materials with applications in medicine and emerging technologies. In this dissertation, the supramolecular organization of gold nanoparticles (AuNP) and other nano-scale structures such as discrete styrene-based polymers was investigated. The synthesis and characterization of metal-mediated AuNPs systems using pendant ligands on the AuNP such as 11-diethylenetriamine-undecane-1-thiol, 11-Mercapto-undecanoic acid [2-(2-amino-ethylamino)-ethyl]-amide, Bis(11-oxo-nicotinic acid, undecine)disulfide, and 11-mercaptoundecanoic acid, and using Cu(II) to mediate the formation of supramolecular AuNP systems with sizes of 200 nm ¡V 3 fÃ?m, are …

An Experimental Study On The Effect Of Particle Geometry On Drag And Flow Behaviors In A Packed Fluidized Bed, Md Mahamudur Rahman

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Gasification offers a promising solution to producing fuels effectively in the coming years by providing a low-cost energy system, clean environmental performance, and reliability. Feedstock is prepared and fed to a gasifier in either a dry form or as slurry (mixed with water). One application of this technology uses heat, pressure, and steam to convert feedstock into a gaseous mixture, composed primarily of carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen (H2), named as syngas. Several technical and commercial issues were identified by the Nation Energy Technology Laboratory (NETL) in 2006 Multiphase workshop. US Department of Energy (DOE) is now focusing on attaining …

Digital Image Processing Based On Sparse Representation And Convex Programming, Carlos Andres Ramirez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Sparse representation models have been of central interest in recent years due to important achievements in computational harmonic analysis, such as wavelet transformations, and the most recent sampling theory, compressed sensing. Numerous applications based on sparse models have been studied in the last decade leading to promising results. These applications include areas in seismology, image processing, wireless sensor networks, computed tomography and magnetic resonance imaging just to mention a few.

In this work, we propose to extend such applications in the area of image processing, particularly for the image segmentation problem, and examine algorithms involved in sparse modeling from both …

Gemini Metallo-Surfactants: Chemical And Physical Properties, Erich Ivan Valenzuela

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Gemini surfactants are amphiphilic molecules that consist of two surfactant molecules chemically joined together by a spacer group. These molecules tend to self‐assemble into vesicles at much lower concentrations than traditional surfactants and have found many applications in catalysis, adsorption applications, drug‐delivery, nanoscale technology, and biotechnology. In this thesis, the synthesis, characterization and physical properties of a new type of Gemini surfactant derived from dinuclear Cu(II) metal complexes is presented. We call these molecules Gemini Metal‐Organic Surfactants (GMOs).

Three newly developed new GMOs (compounds 1‐3) are composed of Cu(II) ions ligated to a lipid‐functionalized triamine group and the metals are …

X-Ray Diffraction Studies Of Room And Intermediate Tempertaure Phases Of Phosphate Based Solid Acids, Kiran Vajrapu

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In this work, the MH2PO4-type solid acids (where M= Cs, K, Rb) structure and properties are studied and their contribution towards fuel cell industry is understood. Some research groups have shown that, CsH2PO4 (CDP) and RbH2PO4 (RDP) shows sudden, several order of magnitude jumps in their proton conductivity at certain high temperatures.(31, 32) This so called superprotonic behavior of these compounds makes them a fuel cell electrolyte at elevated temperatures. (33) Most of the research groups working on two possible causes to get the reliable information for the high proton conductivity: polymorphic phase transition (Botez et al.,) and thermal dehydration …

Evaluating Suspended Dust Particulate Matter From Anthropogenically - Altered Lands, Roberto Velarde

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Substantial dust loads are transported from drylands including the Saharan, Asian, and Chihuahuan Desert deposits by localized to planetary-scale processes to nearby and distal sites. These dusts may carry harmful constituents. To evaluate dust movement patterns and characteristics relative to carried constituents, three studies are presented comprising (A) Localized displacement of uranium and progeny radionuclides from high-grade uranium ore storage piles at Peña Blanca, Chihuahua, Mexico; (B) Long-distance transport of plutonium via Saharan and Asian aeolian pathways; and (C) Dust movement patterns in military maneuvering and non-maneuvering areas at White Sands Missile Range (WSMR), New Mexico. Study (A) evaluated surface …

Distributional Properties Of Inversions And Segmentation Algorithms For Rna Sequences, Sameera Dhananjaya Viswakula

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Ribonucleic acid (RNA) is a long single stranded molecule made up of four types of nucleotide bases: Adenine (A), Cytosine(C), Guanine (G) and Uracil (U). It folds back on itself and forms C-G and A-U complementary base pairs. The set of such hydrogen-bonded pairs in an RNA molecule is called its secondary structure. Knowing the secondary structure of RNA is useful for understanding its biological function. Prediction of RNA secondary structure from the nucleotide sequence has been an important bioinformatics problem for over two decades.

The work in this thesis is motivated by the need to improve the secondary structure …

Principles Of Thomas Pynchon's Literary Realities, Ira Anthony Walker

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Thomas Pynchon's literature is unique in subject and style. Postmodern by definition, Pynchon illustrates physics as a societal metaphor; Guy Debord's text The Society of the Spectacle suggests that these societal, literary, metaphors constitute and/or lead to a Spectacle. Through the analysis of an unpublished text: Minstrel Island, an early written short story: "Entropy," and a short novel: The Crying of Lot 49 the reader is capable of seeing a developing theme of physics as metaphor constituting multiple Spectacles. The narrative devices offered by Thomas Pynchon become Spectacular in nature and reflect the characteristics and environment of the tumultuous 1960s …

Development Of An Expert System To Aid In The Selection Of Sustainability Design Engineering Methods, Pedro Renato Acosta

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The objective of this thesis is to present the development of an expert system to aid designers in the selection of design methods, in particular for sustainability methods. When practicing engineers need help in their design process, they look for design methods and tools; this is a challenge especially for inexperienced engineers in the sustainability area. Engineers, due to time constrains, will only utilize one or few methods during their professional life. The origin of this situation can be traced to engineering education, where it is typical that an instructor prefers one or few methods in particular, and even when …

Magnetic-Field Induced Stability In Two-Flavor Color Superconductivity, Churna B. Bhandari

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

It has long been understood that the ground state of a superdense quark system, a Fermi liquid of weakly interacting quarks, is unstable with respect to the formation of diquark condensates. This nonperturbative phenomenon is essentially equivalent to the Cooper instability of conventional BCS superconductivity. As the quark pairs have nonzero color charge, this kind of superconductivity breaks the SU(3) color gauge symmetry, thus it is called color superconductivity. A peculiar feature of spin-zero color superconductivity is the lack of Meissner effect for a combination of the regular electromagnetic field and one of the gluon fields. This combination behaves as …

Development And Testing Of An Unmanned Aircraft System For Environmental Science, Jerald James Brady

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

For some environmental science applications, Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UASs) are increasingly recognized for their capacity to collect remotely sensed data in a safer, more efficient and effective manner than is permitted with manned aircraft and satellite remote sensing platforms. To date, however, technological, human, and other challenges have constrained adoption of UASs in the environmental sciences. This study developed and tested a new UAS for an archetypical environmental science research group (stakeholder) composed of non-UAS experts. Specifically, this thesis: 1) Assessed the research and operational needs of the stakeholder to determine the optimum UAS platform; 2) Developed an Unmanned Aerial …

Decentralized Fault Tolerant Caching With Memcached, Bivas Das

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Recent changes in web trends not only have increased popularity of web services, but also have vastly increased usage. Popular techniques, such as web-caching, used by content and service providers to provide faster content delivery at user end, is not enough to keep up, due to diversity and dynamic nature of web-contents.

Emerging ideas to cache on the server side, for faster content generation and delivery, is currently in use by popular web-service providers. One example of such caching system is Memcached. However, memcached, a distributed high performance caching system, is ineective in dynamic organization of itself and scaling when …

Analysis Of Endocrine Disrupting Compounds In Wastewater Treatment Plants: A Perspective Of Trans-Boundary Waterborne Pollution, Roberto De La Torre

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Recent decades have brought an increasing concern of potential adverse human and ecological health effects resulting from Endocrine Disruptor Compounds (EDCs). In particular from new emerging compounds such as natural estrogens (e.g., 17©¬-estradiol, estrone), synthetic estrogens (e.g., 17Â¥á-ethynylestradiol), bisphenol A (BPA), nonylphenol ethoxylates (NPEOS), and nonylphenol (NP). These chemicals which are also known as organic wastewater contaminants are released directly to the environment after passing through wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs), which often are not designed to remove them from the effluent. The occurrence of the aforementioned compounds in surface water is becoming of increasing concern worldwide, and has led to …

Incorporating Sustainability Into Urban Infrastructures: The Tension Between Bio-Cultural Aspects And Environmental Considerations, Shane Epting

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The following arguments focus on how to think about sustainability as it relates to technology and the non-human world within an anthropocentric framework. We end up with a picture showing that humankind needs to change the ways in which we look at anthropocentric concerns. Secondly, the discussion that leads up to the final picture details the urgency that guides the thinking behind the implementation of sustainability. Because, as the West learns to live in an entirely new sense that is consistent with holding humankind's desire for existence as a permanent situation, one finds that this notion must be paramount for …

A Third-Order Non-Oscillatory Finite-Volume Transport Scheme For Atmospheric Modeling, Kiran Kumar Katta

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Atmospheric numerical modeling has been going through drastic changes over the past decade, mainly to utilize the massive computing capability of the petascale systems. This obliges the modelers to develop grid systems and numerical algorithms that facilitate exceptional level of scalability on these systems. The numerical algorithms that can address these challenges should have the local properties such as the high on-processor operation count and minimum parallel communication i.e. high parallel efficiency, it should also satisfy the following properties such as inherent local and global conservation, high-order accuracy, geometric flexibility, non-oscillatory advection, positivity preservation.

In the present work, A Third-order …

Assessment Of Intra-Urban Traffic-Related Air Pollution On Asthmatic Children's Exposure At Schools In The Paso Del Norte Region, Amit Ugamraj Raysoni

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Traffic-related air pollution can be a major public health concern in any urban area. This problem is compounded in the Paso del Norte region that has experienced rapid economic growth, and a substantial number of people living in close vicinity of major roadways. The desert surroundings, arid weather, frequent temperature inversions, heavy border traffic at the international ports of entry between El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, and poorly maintained vehicle fleet further exacerbates this problem. A growing body of air quality and epidemiologic research has discerned the linkage between traffic emissions and respiratory disorders.

Initial health investigations in the Paso …

The Exploratory Value Of Agent-Based Models In Social Science, Ricardo Andress Rivera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

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A Sparse Representation Technique For Classification Problems, Reinaldo Sanchez Arias

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

In pattern recognition and machine learning, a classification problem refers to finding an algorithm for assigning a given input data into one of several categories. Many natural signals are sparse or compressible in the sense that they have short representations when expressed in a suitable basis. Motivated by the recent successful development of algorithms for sparse signal recovery, we apply the selective nature of sparse representation to perform classification. In order to find such sparse linear representation, we implement an l₁-minimization algorithm. This methodology overcomes the lack of robustness with respect to outliers. In contrast to other classification …

Algorithms For Training Large-Scale Linear Programming Support Vector Regression And Classification, Pablo Rivas Perea

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The main contribution of this dissertation is the development of a method to train a Support Vector Regression (SVR) model for the large-scale case where the number of training samples supersedes the computational resources. The proposed scheme consists of posing the SVR problem entirely as a Linear Programming (LP) problem and on the development of a sequential optimization method based on variables decomposition, constraints decomposition, and the use of primal-dual interior point methods. Experimental results demonstrate that the proposed approach has comparable performance with other SV-based classifiers. Particularly, experiments demonstrate that as the problem size increases, the sparser the solution …

Landscapes And Soils Of The Lake Grace District, D N. Sawkins

Bulletins 4000 -

The publication aims to provide readers with the principles underlying the formation of local landscapes and soils, and the ability to identify landscapes and their associated soils.

Quantifying Uncertainty In Urban Flooding Analysis Considering Hydro-Climatic Projection And Urban Development Effects, Il-Won Jung, Heejun Chang, Hamid Moradkhani

Geography Faculty Publications and Presentations

How will the combined impacts of land use change, climate change, and hydrologic modeling influence changes in urban flood frequency and what is the main uncertainty source of the results? Will such changes differ by catchment with different degrees of current and future urban development? We attempt to answer these questions in two catchments with different degrees of urbanization, the Fanno catchment with 84% urban land use and the Johnson catchment with 36% urban land use, both located in the Pacific Northwest of the US. Five uncertainty sources – general circulation model (GCM) structures, future greenhouse gas (GHG) emission scenarios, …

Nummulites Biofabrics As Tool For Quality Evaluation Of The Eocene Jdeir Formation Reservoirs Nw Offshore, Libya, Abdusalam Ali Agail

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The southern Tethys margin constitutes an important hydrocarbon reservoir. It is formed mainly of Nummulite rich facies of the Jdeir Formation deposited during the Eocene epoch (Late Ypresian age) in the giant El-Bouri oil field-Sabratah Basin-NW Libya. Deposits of the Jdeir Formation directly overlay the Jirani dolomite and Bilal Formation, and unconformably underlay the Tellil Group and Ghallil Formation.

Nummulite accumulations are good indicators for hydrocarbon studies and they have been targets for numerous studies around the world. Nummulite "Large foraminifera" tests are usually identified by two forms: A-form and B-form. Previous studies have highlighted many different aspects of foraminifers …

Pituophis Catenifer Deserticola (Great Basin Gophersnake) Predation, Steven J. Wamback, Richard M. Engeman

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

A variety of taxa have been observed to· prey upon Pituophis catenifer, including mammals, birds-of prey, and other snakes. Here, we describe an unusual two-day observation of predation on a mature Great Basin gophersnake by a brown trout (Salmo trutta).

The observation took place in Jones Canyon, Utah, USA, on the grounds of the Jones Hole National Fish Hatchery (JHNFH). Jones Creek' emanates from springs at the head of Jones Canyon on hatchery grounds, and flows north to south 6.4 km to the Green River, approximately paralleling the Utah-Colorado border. The stream runs for about 0.3 km …

Rodents And Other Vertebrate Invaders In The United States, Michael W. Fall, Michael L. Avery, Tyler A. Campbell, Peter J. Egan, Richard M. Engeman, David Pimentel, William C. Pitt, Stephanie A. Shwiff, Gary W. Witmer

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Contents

Introduction

Assessing impacts of rodents and other vertebrate invaders

Accounts of some important vertebrate invaders
Norway rat (Rattus norvegicus)
Roof rat (Rattus rattus)
Polynesian rat (Rattus exulans)
House mouse (Mus Musculus)
Nutria (Myocastor coypus)
Gambian giant pouched rat (Cricetomys gambianus)
Feral swine (Sus scofa)
Small Indian Mongoose (Herpestes javanicus)
Rock pigeon (Columba livia)
House sparrow (Passer domesticus)
European starling (Sturnus vulgaris)
Monk parakeet (Myiopsitta monachus)
Brown tree snake (Boiga irregularis)
Burmese python (Python …

Analysis Of Electrodeposited Nickel-Iron Alloy Film Composition Using Particle-Induced X-Ray Emission, Alyssa Frey, Nicholas Wozniak, Timothy Nagi, Matthew Keller, J. Mark Lunderberg, Graham F. Peaslee, Paul Deyoung, Jennifer R. Hampton

Faculty Publications

The elemental composition of electrodeposited NiFe thin films was analyzed with particle-induced X-ray emission (PIXE). The thin films were electrodeposited on polycrystalline Au substrates from a 100mM NiSO₄, 10 mM FeSO₄, 0.5M H₃BO₃, and 1M Na₂SO₄ solution. PIXE spectra of these films were analyzed to obtain relative amounts of Ni and Fe as a function of deposition potential and deposition time. The results show that PIXE can measure the total deposited metal in a sample over at least four orders of magnitude with similar fractional uncertainties. The technique is …