Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Tests Of Lorentz Symmetry In The Gravitational Sector, Aurélien Hees, Quentin G. Bailey, Adrien Bourgoin, Hélène Pihan-Le Bars, Christine Guerlin, Christophe Le Poncin-Lafitte

Publications

Lorentz symmetry is one of the pillars of both General Relativity and the Standard Model of particle physics. Motivated by ideas about quantum gravity, unification theories and violations of CPT symmetry, a significant effort has been put the last decades into testing Lorentz symmetry. This review focuses on Lorentz symmetry tests performed in the gravitational sector. We briefly review the basics of the pure gravitational sector of the Standard-Model Extension (SME) framework, a formalism developed in order to systematically parametrize hypothetical violations of the Lorentz invariance. Furthermore, we discuss the latest constraints obtained within this formalism including analyses of the …

Supplement: The Rate Of Binary Black Hole Mergers Inferred From Advanced Ligo Observations Surrounding Gw150914, B. P. Abbott, K. Gill, B. Hughey, M. J. Szczepańczyk, M. Zanolin, Et Al.

Publications

This article provides supplemental information for a Letter reporting the rate of (BBH) coalescences inferred from 16 days of coincident Advanced LIGO observations surrounding the transient (GW) signal GW150914. In that work we reported various rate estimates whose 90% confidence intervals fell in the range 2–600 Gpc−3 yr−1. Here we give details on our method and computations, including information about our search pipelines, a derivation of our likelihood function for the analysis, a description of the astrophysical search trigger distribution expected from merging BBHs, details on our computational methods, a description of the effects and our model for calibration uncertainty, …

Development Of A Pluto Chamber For Surface Simulations, Zachary Michael Mcmahon

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In light of the exciting new discoveries being made by the New Horizons team, more data on Pluto is available than ever before. However, with the increase in recovered data, there is now a need for laboratory data to interpret it. Laboratory simulation of these conditions and subsequent testing of materials and samples therein is now possible and necessary to understand what has been observed. To do these simulations, a vessel that can achieve low temperatures and high vacuum is required. The scope of this work presented here was to design, build, and test a chamber that could perform these …

Direct Attachment Of 4-Hydroxybenzoic Acid Polymers And Capture Agents To Flat Sheet And Microdialysis Membranes For Improved Mass Transport, Sarah Jane Phillips

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Microdialysis (MD) sampling is a diffusion-based separation method which has the ability to sample any analyte that can diffuse across the semi-permeable membrane. However one challenge for MD is that for soluble proteins greater than 10 kDa, the relative recovery (RR) using a 100 kDa MD probe is between 1-5%.1 There are two major barriers that lead to these low recovery values - nonspecific adsorption (NSA) and poor solute mass transport. To overcome these two barriers, the modification of PES-based MD membranes has been initiated by laccase. Previous researchers have used laccase to modify PES flat sheet and hollow fiber …

Passively Estimating Index Of Refraction For Specular Reflectors Using Polarimetric Hyperspectral Imaging, Jacob A. Martin

Theses and Dissertations

As off-nadir viewing platforms becoming increasingly prevalent in remote sensing, material classification and ID techniques robust to changing viewing geometries must be developed. Traditionally, either reflectivity or emissivity are used for classification, but these quantities vary with viewing angle. Instead, estimating index of refraction may be advantageous as it is invariant with respect to viewing geometry. This work focuses on estimating index of refraction from LWIR (875-1250 wavenumbers) polarimetric hyperspectral radiance measurements.

Algorithms For Learning The Structure Of Monotone And Nonmonotone Sum-Product Networks, Aaron W. Dennis

Theses and Dissertations

The sum-product network (SPN) is a recently-proposed generative, probabilistic model that is guaranteed to compute any joint or any marginal probability in time linear in the size of the model. An SPN is represented as a directed, acyclic graph (DAG) of sum and product nodes, with univariate probability distributions at the leaves. It is important to learn the structure of this DAG since the set of distributions representable by an SPN is constrained by it. We present the first batch structure learning algorithm for SPNs and show its advantage over learning the parameters of an SPN with fixed architecture. We …

Facies Analysis And Depositional Environments Of The Saints & Sinners Quarry In The Nugget Sandstone Of Northeastern Utah, Jesse Dean Shumway

Theses and Dissertations

The Saints & Sinners Quarry preserves the only known vertebrate body fossils in the Nugget Sandstone and the most diverse fauna known from the Nugget-Navajo-Aztec erg system. The fauna includes eight genera and >18,000 bone and bone fragments assignable to >76 individuals, including theropods, sphenosuchians, sphenodontians, drepanosaurs, procolophonids, and a dimorphodontid pterosaur. Cycadeoid fronds are the only plant fossils. There are two depositional environments at the site – dune and interdune, each consisting of two or more faces. The dune facies are (1) Trough Cross-Stratified Sandstone (TCS) representing dry dunes, and (2) Massive and Bioturbated Dunes (MBD) representing bioturbated, damp …

Small-Scale Catchment Analysis Of Water Stress In Wet Regions Of The U.S.: An Example From Louisiana, Hisham Eldardiry, Emad H. Habib, David M. Borrok

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Groundwater is increasingly being overdrafted in the Southeastern U.S., despite abundant rainfall and the apparent availability of surface water. Using the state of Louisiana as an example, the current study quantifies the stresses on water resources and investigates the potential for opportunities to use surface water in lieu of groundwater pumping. The assessment is based on a fine watershed scale (12-digit Hydrological Unit Code [HUC] boundaries) water balance between the availability of surface and groundwater and surface water and groundwater demand. Water demand includes environmental flows, as well as public supply, rural domestic, industrial, power generation, agricultural, and aquaculture sectors. …

An Assessment Of Concrete Over Asphalt Pavement Using Both The Ultrasonic Surface Wave And Impact Echo Techniques, Mengxing Li, Neil Lennart Anderson, Lesley Sneed, Xin Kang

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A portable seismic property analyzer (PSPA) was used to simultaneously acquire both ultrasonic surface wave (PSPA-USW) and impact-echo (PSPA-IE) data at predetermined locations along a section of multi-layered pavement. The pavement consisted of a basal concrete layer (~220 mm), an intervening layer of hot-mix asphalt (~60 mm), and a concrete overlay (~220 mm). The section of multi-layered pavement was cored at multiple PSPA test locations for verification purposes. The conditions of the extracted cores were assessed visually, and the static elastic modulus, as well as the compressional wave velocity of each concrete overlay core, were measured in the laboratory. Results …

Determining The Effects Of The Think Risk Initiative As Implemented By The Southern Nevada Health District, Karalin Nichole Cronkhite

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In the United States, someone becomes infected with a foodborne illness every 2 seconds, is hospitalized by a foodborne illness every 4 minutes and dies due to a foodborne illness every 3 hours. Foodborne illness is preventable, yet each year, 1 in 6 Americans is affected by it from contaminated foods or beverages. There are over 250 different foodborne diseases, and in 2015, there were 73 confirmed cases of Salmonella infection in Southern Nevada alone. Since the emergence of public health, food establishment inspections have been an important part of the regulation of food safety. Risk-based inspections were developed by …

Structuring A Risk-Based Bioassay Program For Uranium Usage In University Laboratories, Johnne' Talia Dawson

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Bioassay programs are integral in a radiation safety program. They are used as a method of determining whether individuals working with radioactive material have been exposed and have received a resulting dose. For radionuclides that are not found in nature, determining an exposure is straightforward. However, for a naturally occurring radionuclide like uranium, it is not as straightforward to determine whether a dose is the result of an occupational exposure. The purpose of this project is to address this issue within the University of Nevada, Las Vegas’s (UNLV) bioassay program. This project consisted of two components that studied the effectiveness …

Estimation And Comparison Of Thermoelectric And Pv Solar Water Usage In The Colorado River Basin States, Yuzhen Feng

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

With the continual expansion of populations in the arid Southwest, energy demands will continue to rise. On the other hand, depleting water levels in reservoirs of the Colorado River Basin is expected to continue as more intense and frequent drought events persist in addition to the rapid development in the region. Currently, the three largest water-use categories in the United States are thermoelectric energy, irrigation, and municipal water, which cumulatively account for 90 percent of the national water use. In the Southwest, most of the total electricity generated is still through thermoelectric means. That is, massive amounts of water are …

Characterizing Crystal Populations For The Petrogenesis Of The Post-Collapse Rhyolites In The Long Valley Caldera, California, William Joseph

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Post-collapse rhyolites of the Long Valley in eastern California are the product of remelting of crystal mush bodies via mafic rejuvenation following the eruption of the Bishop Tuff. This is supported by mineral textures and major element geochemistry from the Resurgent Dome rhyolite, the Moat rhyolite, the Hot Creek Flow, and the Deer Mountain rhyolite. New 40Ar/39Ar eruptive ages are reported for the Moat rhyolites (525 ka, 333 ka, 118 – 94 ka), Hot Creek Flow (312 – 295 ka), and the Deer Mountain rhyolite (65 ka). The initial post-collapse eruptions, resulting in the Resurgent Dome rhyolite, appear to be …

Acoustic Detection, Source Separation, And Classification Algorithms For Unmanned Aerial Vehicles In Wildlife Monitoring And Poaching, Carlo Lopez-Tello

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This work focuses on the problem of acoustic detection, source separation, and classification under noisy conditions. The goal of this work is to develop a system that is able to detect poachers and animals in the wild by using microphones mounted on unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs). The classes of signals used to detect wildlife and poachers include: mammals, birds, vehicles and firearms. The noise signals under consideration include: colored noises, UAV propeller and wind noises.

The system consists of three sub-systems: source separation (SS), signal detection, and signal classification. Non-negative Matrix Factorization (NMF) is used for source separation, and random …

Interference Effects Of Urban Rubble On The Radioanalytical Analysis Of Strontium, Derek Roger Mclain

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Most current radioanalytical protocols have been developed for the analysis of air, water, soil and bioassay samples. While these protocols build the foundation of operational environmental monitoring, they are not necessarily suitable for the analysis of samples that will be encountered in the aftermath of a nuclear incident. In such a situation, it will be important to characterize the isotopes of interest present in the affected area to obtain signatures for nuclear forensics and ensure the appropriate response. Specifically, this research is aimed at the determination of strontium-90 and its separation from zirconium-90 in a post-detonation situation.

Strontium-90’s relatively long …

From Access To Excess: Agribusiness, Federal Water Programs, And The Historical Roots Of The California Water Crisis, Tracy Marie Neblina

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The purpose of this paper is to show the link between water use, land consolidation, agribusinesses, and the water crisis that California began to experience in 2011. In order to better understand the relationship between the growth of agribusiness in the state and the evolution of water policy, this paper explores the historical context of land policy, the growth of farming in the San Joaquin Valley, and the development of federally funded water projects in the Central Valley. Years of expanding farmland and use of surface and underground water with limited regulation played an important role in exacerbating California’s water …

Novel Non-Blocking Approach For A Concurrent Heap, Rashmi Niyolia

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

We present a non-blocking algorithm for a concurrent heap in asynchronous shared memory multiprocessors. Processors in these machines often execute instructions at varying speeds and are subject to arbitrarily long delays. Our implementation supports Non-blocking Insert, Delete, and Find-Min operations on a heap. Non-blocking techniques avoid the drawbacks associated with mutual exclusion and also admit improved parallelism. Insert and DeleteMin operations in heap take more than one atomic instruction to complete, thus, it is possible that a new operation may be started before the previous one completes, leaving heap inconsistent between operations. We have represented heap as an array of …

Canovas Canyon Rhyolites, Jemez Volcanic Field, New Mexico: Discrete Source Magmas, Or A Potential Caldera Forming Magma System?, Penelope Marie Padmore

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Jemez volcanic field (JVF), New Mexico, is a caldera-forming volcanic field located at the junction of the Rio Grande Rift and the Jemez Lineament. The JVF is one of three large North American caldera-forming systems, including Long Valley, California and Yellowstone Plateau volcanic field, Wyoming, which have been active during the Quaternary. Because portions of the JVF are unusually well preserved, it offers a rare opportunity to study how such systems develop. Insight into the history of caldera-forming systems will contribute to the understanding of their potential future behavior. In the case of Yellowstone and Long Valley, that insight …

A Case Study On Enterprise Content Management Using Agile Methodology, Rohit Raj

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Every organization has the need to create, classify, manage and archive information so that it is accessible when they need it. The amount of data or information needed for an organization to build their business and for them to be more positive in today’s business world is increasing exponentially, which also includes unstructured data or unstructured content. It is not appropriate only to “manage” content, but whether the correct version of the data or document or record can be accessed. Enterprise Content Management is an efficient collection and planning of information that is to be used by a very particular …

Analyses Of Streamflow Change Patterns And Correlation Of These Changes With Sea-Surface Temperature Fluctuations, Kazi Ali Tamaddun

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This thesis presents a comprehensive statistical analysis that determines the direction, rate, and interval of significant streamflow change patterns in the continental U.S. and correlates these changes with sea-surface temperature fluctuations. First, by using two non-parametric tests, namely, the Mann-Kendall trend test and the Pettitt’s test, the presence of long-term trends and abrupt shifts were determined at 10% significance level over continuously adjustable periods that stretched from 1903 to 2012. Modified versions of the tests were applied to account for the presence of persistence (autocorrelation) in data. Theil-Sen slope was determined to evaluate the rate of change across multiple temporal …

Enhancing The Draft Assembly With Minhash, Saju Varghese

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

In this thesis, we report on the use of minhash techniques to improve the draft assembly of a genome mapping. More specifically, we use minhash to compare the scaffolds of sea urchin and sea cucumber genomes.

One of the main contributions of this thesis is the implementation of minhash with the Message Passing Interface (MPI) utilizing Intel Phi co-processors. It is shown that our implementation significantly reduces the processing time for identification of k-mer similarities.

Statistical Inference Of Genetic Forces Using A Poisson Random Field Model With Non-Constant Population Size, Jianbo Xu

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The fidelity of DNA sequence data makes it a perfect platform for quantitatively analyzing and interpreting evolutionary progress. By comparing the information between intraspecific polymorphism with interspecific divergence in two sibling species, the well established Poisson Random Field theory offers a statistical framework with which various genetic parameters such as natural selection intensity, mutation rate and speciation time can be effectively estimated. A recently developed time-inhomogeneous PRF model has reinforced the original method by removing the assumption of stationary site frequency, but it preserves the condition that the two sibling species share same effective population size with their ancestral species. …

Radiative Transfer Using Path Integrals For Multiple Scattering In Participating Media, Paul Michael Kilgo

All Dissertations

The theory of light transport forms the basis by which many computer graphic renderers are implemented. The more general theory of radiative transfer has applications in the wider scientific community, including ocean and atmospheric science, medicine, and even geophysics. Accurately capturing multiple scattering physics of light transport is an issue of great concern. Multiple scattering is responsible for indirect lighting, which is desired for images where high realism is the goal. Additionally, multiple scattering is quite important for scientific applications as it is a routine phenomenon. Computationally, it is a difficult process to model. Many have developed solutions for hard …

Characterization And Delineation Of Karst Geohazards Along Rm652 Using Electrical Resistivity Tomography, Culberson County, Texas, Adam F. Majzoub

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Delaware Basin of West Texas and southeastern New Mexico is the major western subdivision of the Permian Basin and a northern extension of the Chihuahuan Desert. The major evaporite unit within the Delaware Basin is the Castile Formation, which consists of gypsum/anhydrite and is highly susceptible to dissolution and karsting. Manifestations of karst within the Castile outcrop are abundant and include sinkholes, subsidence features and caves, both epigene and hypogene in origin.

Land reconnaissance surveys conducted during the summer of 2015 documented abundant karst landforms in close proximity to a major thoroughfare, RM 652, in Culberson County, Texas. 2D …

Geotechnical Properties Of The Travis Peak (Hosston) Formation In East Texas: A Compressive And Tensile Strength Analysis Using Regression Analysis., Pawan Kakarla

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The estimation of rock mass strength is a key parameter in geotechnical engineering which is used in the design of geotechnical structures like tunnels, dams and slopes. Geotechnical engineering is the branch of civil engineering which works on the principles of soil and rock mechanics to evaluate subsurface conditions, stability of slopes, foundations of structures and construction of earthworks. The main focus of this study was to calculate the strength of Lower Cretaceous Travis Peak Formation rocks of East Texas and to check the accuracy by comparing it with Regression analysis. The parameters which were used were the Uniaxial Compression …

Georgia’S Rapid Expansion Of Mosquito Surveillance In Response To Zika Virus, R. Christopher Rustin, Deonte Martin, Rosmarie Kelly

Environmental Health Sciences: Faculty Presentations (2010-2017)

Objective: To describe the Georgia Department of Public Health’s (DPH) mosquito surveillance capacity before and after Zika virus was declared a public health emergency, review and compare mosquito surveillance results from 2015 to 2016, and evaluate the risk of autochthonous vector transmission of Zika virus based on 2016 surveillance data of Aedes aegypti and Aedes albopictus mosquitoes.

Introduction: Zika virus was declared an international public health emergency by the World Health Organization on February 1, 2016. With Georgia hosting the world’s busiest international airport and a sub-tropical climate that can support the primary Zika virus vector, Aedes aegypti, and secondary …

A Robust System For Local Reuse Detection Of Arabic Text On The Web, Leena Mahmoud Ahmed Lulu

Theses

We developed techniques for finding local text reuse on the Web, with an emphasis on the Arabic language. That is, our objective is to develop text reuse detection methods that can detect alternative versions of the same information and focus on exploring the feasibility of employing text reuse detection methods on the Web. The results of this research can be thought of as rich tools to information analysts for corporate and intelligence applications. Such tools will become essential parts in validating and assessing information coming from uncertain origins. These tools will prove useful for detecting reuse in scientific literature too. …

From Footprint To Evidence: An Exploratory Study Of Mining Social Data For Credit Scoring, Guangming Guo, Feida Zhu, Enhong Chen, Qi Liu, Le Wu, Chu Guan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

With the booming popularity of online social networks like Twitter and Weibo, online user footprints are accumulating rapidly on the social web. Simultaneously, the question of how to leverage the large-scale user-generated social media data for personal credit scoring comes into the sight of both researchers and practitioners. It has also become a topic of great importance and growing interest in the P2P lending industry. However, compared with traditional financial data, heterogeneous social data presents both opportunities and challenges for personal credit scoring. In this article, we seek a deep understanding of how to learn users’ credit labels from social …

Cloud-Enhanced Robotic System For Smart City Crowd Control, Akhlaqur Rahman, Jiong Jin, Antonio Cricenti, Ashfaqur Rahman, Marimuthu Palaniswami, Tony Tie Luo

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Cloud robotics in smart cities is an emerging paradigm that enables autonomous robotic agents to communicate and collaborate with a cloud computing infrastructure. It complements the Internet of Things (IoT) by creating an expanded network where robots offload data-intensive computation to the ubiquitous cloud to ensure quality of service (QoS). However, offloading for robots is significantly complex due to their unique characteristics of mobility, skill-learning, data collection, and decision-making capabilities. In this paper, a generic cloud robotics framework is proposed to realize smart city vision while taking into consideration its various complexities. Specifically, we present an integrated framework for a …

Genetic Variants In Kcnj11, Tcf7l2 And Hnf4a Are Associated With Type 2 Diabetes, Bmi And Dyslipidemia In Families Of Northeastern Mexico: A Pilot Study, Hugo Leonid Gallardo-Blanco, Jesus Zacarias Villarreal-Perez, Ricardo Martin Cerda-Flores, Andres Figueroa

Computer Science Faculty Publications

The aim of the present study was to investigate whether genetic markers considered risk factors for metabolic syndromes, including dyslipidemia, obesity and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM), can be applied to a Northeastern Mexican population. A total of 37 families were analyzed for 63 single nucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs), and the age, body mass index (BMI), glucose tolerance values and blood lipid levels, including those of cholesterol, low‑density lipoprotein (LDL), very LDL (VLDL), high‑density lipoprotein (HDL) and triglycerides were evaluated. Three genetic markers previously associated with metabolic syndromes were identified in the sample population, including KCNJ11, TCF7L2 and HNF4A. The KCNJ11 …