Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Application And Usefulness Of Economic Analyses For Water Quality Management In Coastal Areas, Sheri L. Jewhurst, Kate K. Mulvaney, Marisa J. Mazzotta

Journal of Ocean and Coastal Economics

Economic studies are increasingly sought as tools to contribute to water quality management in estuaries and coastal communities, yet little is known about how the results from existing studies have been received and utilized by the organizations who solicited them. We interviewed managers from eight organizations who solicited economic studies over the past 15 years to understand how useful the studies were to their organizations and what economic research would be most helpful for their management needs. In terms of utility for coastal managers, there are a number of limitations in the studies. These include lack of site-specific data, the …

Encoding Lexicographical Ordering Constraints In Sat, Wenting Zhao

Honors Projects

Symmetry occurs in many constraint satisfaction problems, and it is important to deal with it efficiently and effectively, as it often leads to an exponential number of isomorphic assignments. Symmetric rows and columns in matrices are an important class of symmetries in constraint programming. In this work, we develop a new SAT encoding for partial lexicographical ordering constraints to break symmetries in such places. We also survey all the previous complete lex-leader encodings in literature and translate them into SAT encodings. We perform experimental analysis on how these lex-leader constraints impact the solving of Balanced Incomplete Block Design (BIBD) instances. …

Recycling Clean Energy, Amanda Vaughn

Op-Eds from ENSC230 Energy and the Environment: Economics and Policies

Nuclear energy is one of the cleanest sources of energy available. It does not produce carbon dioxide as the beta decay of Uranium is an exothermic spontaneous process that produces helium. Unfortunately, nuclear waste storage is a large problem in the United States, the cost of maintaining the waste storage facilities alone is 46.7 billion dollars. There is the constant threat of leaks and contaminated water leaking into drinking supplies. Then there is the danger of the current geological storage tanks lasting longer than humanity and spoiling the future environment as current nuclear waste takes millions of years to decompose …

The Effect Of Time, Roasting Temperature, And Grind Size On Caffeine And Chlorogenic Acid Concentrations In Cold Brew Coffee, Niny Z. Rao, Megan Fuller

College of Humanities and Sciences Faculty Papers

The extraction kinetics and equilibrium concentrations of caffeine and 3-chlorogenic acid (3-CGA) in cold brew coffee were investigated by brewing four coffee samples (dark roast/medium grind, dark roast/coarse grind, medium roast/medium grind, medium roast/coarse grind) using cold and hot methods. 3-CGA and caffeine were found at higher concentrations in cold brew coffee made with medium roast coffees, rather than dark roast. The grind size did not impact 3-CGA and caffeine concentrations of cold brew samples significantly, indicating that the rate determining step in extraction for these compounds did not depend on surface area. Caffeine concentrations in cold brew coarse grind …

Visual Odometry Using Convolutional Neural Networks, Alec Graves, Steffen Lim, Thomas Fagan, Kevin Mcfall Phd.

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

Visual odometry is the process of tracking an agent's motion over time using a visual sensor. The visual odometry problem has only been recently solved using traditional, non-machine learning techniques. Despite the success of neural networks at many related problems such as object recognition, feature detection, and optical flow, visual odometry still has not been solved with a deep learning technique. This paper attempts to implement several Convolutional Neural Networks to solve the visual odometry problem and compare slight variations in data preprocessing. The work presented is a step toward reaching a legitimate neural network solution.

Gamma-Ray Metallic Magnetic Calorimeters With Nbta Passive Persistent Switches And Electroformed Au Absorbers, Ruslan Hummatov

Physics & Astronomy ETDs

Metallic Magnetic Calorimeters (MMCs) are low temperature particle detectors which can be used for a wide range of applications including high-resolution γ -ray spectroscopy. High energy resolution in γ -ray spectroscopy is desired for Non Destructive Assay (NDA) of nuclear material and improved measurements of nuclear data. Our group has been developing γ -ray MMCs that should ultimately provide energy resolution more than an order of magnitude better than the benchmark detector technology, high purity germanium detectors (HPGe). Two components of these MMCs have been developed as a part of this dissertation: an on-chip passive superconducting persistent current switch and …

Use Of An Alternative Natural Weed Suppressant: Effects Of Parboiled Rice Hull Mulch On The Growth Of Container Weeds, Amy R. Fields-Taylor, Vanessa Slinger-Friedman

The Kennesaw Journal of Undergraduate Research

The Chattahoochee Nature Center (CNC) is one of the leading educational centers in Georgia about the ecology of the Chattahoochee River. Due to lack of man power, keeping down the weeds in the CNC plant nursery is one of those tasks that often gets left undone. The nursery becomes overgrown with invasive weed species. Understandably, they must sometimes resort to the use of herbicides, such as Roundup®, to keep the hundreds of native and endangered species of plants housed at CNC from being choked out by invasive weeds. This study tests the ability to suppress weed growth by use of …

Atomistic Simulations And Network-Based Modeling Of The Hsp90-Cdc37 Chaperone Binding With Cdk4 Client Protein: A Mechanism Of Chaperoning Kinase Clients By Exploiting Weak Spots Of Intrinsically Dynamic Kinase Domains, John Czemeres, Kurt Buse, Gennady M. Verkhivker

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

A fundamental role of the Hsp90 and Cdc37 chaperones in mediating conformational development and activation of diverse protein kinase clients is essential in signal transduction. There has been increasing evidence that the Hsp90-Cdc37 system executes its chaperoning duties by recognizing conformational instability of kinase clients and modulating their folding landscapes. The recent cryo-electron microscopy structure of the Hsp90-Cdc37- Cdk4 kinase complex has provided a framework for dissecting regulatory principles underlying differentiation and recruitment of protein kinase clients to the chaperone machinery. In this work, we have combined atomistic simulations with protein stability and network-based rigidity decomposition analyses to characterize dynamic …

Reconstructing Results From Voting Theory Using Linear Algebra, Brian Camara

Honors Program Theses and Projects

For many undergraduate students, achieving an understanding of upper-level mathematics can be extremely challenging. For us, it helps to connect these new concepts with material we are familiar with. This will be the central theme of this thesis. We will introduce some basic components of algebraic voting theory, along with briey discussing how (Daugherty, Eustis, Minton, & Orrison, 2009) used representation theory to achieve their results. We will then provide an alternative proof to the main result of the (Daugherty et al., 2009) article using linear algebra, which should be much more familiar to my peers. We will carry out …

A Framework For Linking Population Model Development With Ecological Risk Assessment Objectives, Sandy Raimondo, Matthew Etterson, Nathan Pollesch, Kristina Garber, Andrew Kanarek, Wade Lehmann, Jill Awkerman

United States Environmental Protection Agency: Staff Publications

The value of models that link organism-level impacts to the responses of a population in ecological risk assessments (ERAs) has been demonstrated extensively over the past few decades. There is little debate about the utility of these models to translate multiple organism-level endpoints into a holistic interpretation of effect to the population; however, there continues to be a struggle for actual application of these models as a common practice in ERA. Although general frameworks for developing models for ERA have been proposed, there is limited guidance on when models should be used, in what form, and how to interpret model …

On The Extended Hensel Construction And Its Application To The Computation Of Real Limit Points, Masoud Ataei Jaliseh

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

The Extended Hensel Construction (EHC) is a procedure which, for an input bivariate polyno- mial with complex coefficients, can serve the same purpose as the Newton-Puiseux algorithm. We show that the EHC requires only linear algebra and univariate polynomial arithmetic. We deduce complexity estimates and report on a software implementation together with experimental results. This work is motivated and illustrated by two applications. The first one is the computation of real branches of space curves. The second one is the computation of limits of real multivariate rational function. For the latter, we present an algorithm for determining the existence of …

Weighted Inequalities For Dyadic Operators Over Spaces Of Homogeneous Type, David Edward Weirich

Mathematics & Statistics ETDs

A so-called space of homogeneous type is a set equipped with a quasi-metric and a doubling measure. We give a survey of results spanning the last few decades concerning the geometric properties of such spaces, culminating in the description of a system of dyadic cubes in this setting whose properties mirror the more familiar dyadic lattices in R^n . We then use these cubes to prove a result pertaining to weighted inequality theory over such spaces. We develop a general method for extending Bellman function type arguments from the real line to spaces of homogeneous type. Finally, we uses this …

Remote Sensing Of Forests Using Discrete Return Airborne Lidar, Hamid Hamraz, Marco A. Contreras

Forestry and Natural Resources Faculty Publications

Airborne discrete return light detection and ranging (LiDAR) point clouds covering forested areas can be processed to segment individual trees and retrieve their morphological attributes. Segmenting individual trees in natural deciduous forests, however, remained a challenge because of the complex and multi-layered canopy. In this chapter, we present (i) a robust segmentation method that avoids a priori assumptions about the canopy structure, (ii) a vertical canopy stratification procedure that improves segmentation of understory trees, (iii) an occlusion model for estimating the point density of each canopy stratum, and (iv) a distributed computing approach for efficient processing at the forest level. …

An Application Of M-Matrices To Preserve Bounded Positive Solutions To The Evolution Equations Of Biofilm Models, Richard S. Landry Jr.

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

In this work, we design a linear, two step implicit finite difference method to approximate the solutions of a biological system that describes the interaction between a microbial colony and a surrounding substrate. Three separate models are analyzed, all of which can be described as systems of partial differential equations (PDE)s with nonlinear diffusion and reaction, where the biological colony grows and decays based on the substrate bioavailability. The systems under investigation are all complex models describing the dynamics of biological films. In view of the difficulties to calculate analytical solutions of the models, we design here a numerical technique …

Underwater Acoustic Signal Analysis Toolkit, Kirk Bienvenu Jr

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

This project started early in the summer of 2016 when it became evident there was a need for an effective and efficient signal analysis toolkit for the Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center Gulf Ecological Monitoring and Modeling (LADC-GEMM) Research Consortium. LADC-GEMM collected underwater acoustic data in the northern Gulf of Mexico during the summer of 2015 using Environmental Acoustic Recording Systems (EARS) buoys. Much of the visualization of data was handled through short scripts and executed through terminal commands, each time requiring the data to be loaded into memory and parameters to be fed through arguments. The vision was to develop …

Gw170608: Observation Of A 19 Solar-Mass Binary Black Hole Coalescence, B. P. Abbott, R. Abbott, T. D. Abbott, F. Acernese, K. Ackley, C. Adams, T. Adams, Marc Favata, Shaon Ghosh, Rodica Martin

Department of Physics and Astronomy Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

On 2017 June 8 at 02:01:16.49 UTC, a gravitational-wave (GW) signal from the merger of two stellar-mass blackholes was observed by the two Advanced Laser Interferometer Gravitational-Wave Observatory detectors with anetwork signal-to-noise ratio of 13. This system is the lightest black hole binary so far observed, with componentmasses of 12+7-2M⊙7+2-2 (90% credible intervals). These lie in the range of measured black hole masses inlow-mass X-ray binaries, thus allowing us to compare black holes detected through GWs with electromagneticobservations. The source's luminosity distance is 340+140-140corresponding to redshift -0.07+0.03003. We verify thatthe signal waveform is consistent with the predictions of general relativity.

The Architecture Of The Gw Ori Young Triple-Star System And Its Disk: Dynamical Masses, Mutual Inclinations, And Recurrent Eclipses, I. Czekala, S. M. Andrews, G. Torres, J. E. Rodriguez, Eric L.N. Jensen, K. G. Stassun, D. W. Latham, D. J. Wilner, M. A. Gully-Santiago, K. N. Grankin, M. B. Lund, R. B. Kuhn, D. J. Stevens, R. J. Siverd, D. James, B. S. Gaudi, B. J. Shappee, T. W.-S. Holoien

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

We present spatially and spectrally resolved Atacama Large Millimeter/submillimeter Array (ALMA) observations of gas and dust orbiting the pre-main-sequence hierarchical triple-star system GW Ori. A forward modeling of the ¹³CO and C¹⁸O J = 2–1 transitions permits a measurement of the total stellar mass in this system, 5.29 ± 0.09 M_⊙, and the circumtriple disk inclination, 137 fdg 6 ± 2 fdg 0. Optical spectra spanning a 35 yr period were used to derive new radial velocities and, coupled with a spectroscopic disentangling technique, revealed that the A and B components of GW Ori form a …

Gis Data: 2016 Chesapeake Bay Sav Coverage, Virginia Institute Of Marine Science, Sav Data Administrator

Data

Abstract: The 2015 Chesapeake Bay SAV Coverage was mapped from digital multispectral imagery with a 25cm GSD to assess water quality in the Bay. Each area of SAV was interpreted from the rectified imagry and classified into one of four density classes by the percentage of cover. The SAV beds were entered into an SDE GIS fetaure class using the quality control procedures documented below. The dataset contains all SAV areas that were identified from the areas flown. Some areas that are presumed to contain no SAV were not flown. Some small beds, particularly along narrow tributaries may not have …

Fossil Fuel Subsidies In America, Jackson Cutsor

Op-Eds from ENSC230 Energy and the Environment: Economics and Policies

Two of the most controversial topics in American politics today are climate change and the federal budget. Subsidies for energy generation fit into both categories.

Subsidies given to the energy industry artificially decrease the price of energy and electricity. Low energy prices help stimulate the market, however, the negative externalities like the social cost of carbon and political corruption are not taken into consideration.

Subsidies can come in many forms including: failure to impose external costs, tax breaks, and low interest loans. Even without imposing the social cost of carbon a removal of fossil fuel energy subsidies can have a …

Hydrodynamic Controls On The Morphodynamic Evolution Of Subaqueous Landforms, Timothy L. Nelson

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The southern Chandeleur Islands are an ideal setting to study shoal evolution given their history of submergence and re-emergence. Here, numerical models shed light on the attendant processes contributing to shoal recovery/reemergence following a destructive storm event. Simulations of a synthetic winter storm along a cross-shore profile using Xbeach shows that convergence of wave-induced sediment transport associated with repeated passage of cold-fronts initiates aggradation, but does not lead to reemergence. A Delft3d model of the entire island chain shows that as these landforms aggrade alongshore processes driven by incident wave refraction on the shoal platform, backbarrier circulation and resulting transport …

Three-Dimensional Nanomaterials For Supercapacitor Applications: From Metal Oxides To Metal Phosphides, Zhi Zheng

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Over the past few years, energy storage devices have received tremendous interest due to the increasing demand for sustainable and renewable energy in modern society. Supercapacitors are considered as one of the most promising energy storage devices because of their high power density and long cycle life. However, low energy density remains as the main shortcoming for supercapacitors. The overall performance of supercapacitors is predominantly determined by the characteristics of the electrodes. Specifically, constructing nanostructured electrode material has been proven as an efficient way to improve the performance by providing large surface area and short ionic and electronic diffusion paths. …

Mitigating Projected Impacts Of Climate Change And Building Resiliency Through Permaculture: A Community ‘Bee Inspired Gardens’ Movement In The Desert Southwest, Usa, Roslynn Brain, Jeffrey Adams, Jeremy Lynch

Environment and Society Faculty Publications

Permaculture, an integrative design process creating resilient and productive landscapes and communities, can serve as a useful mitigation tool for projected climate change impacts. In the United States, the desert southwest town of Moab, Utah, has employed permaculture design in a community initiative called ‘Bee Inspired Gardens.’ This initiative has harnessed social capital to create resilient landscapes demonstrating pollinator health, water conservation, and perennial food and forage systems. Bee Inspired Gardens have been designed at a University, middle school, charter school, Bureau of Land Management property, hotel, public park, environmental education non-profit, and more. Community members are now harvesting fruit …

Pulsar J1411+2551: A Low-Mass Double Neutron Star System, J. G. Martinez, K. Stovall, P. C.C. Freire, J. S. Deneva, T. M. Tauris, A. Ridolfi, N. Wex, F. A. Jenet, M. A. Mclaughlin, M. Bagchi

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

In this work, we report the discovery and characterization of PSR J1411+2551, a new binary pulsar discovered in the Arecibo 327 MHz Drift Pulsar Survey. Our timing observations of the radio pulsar in the system span a period of about 2.5 years. This timing campaign allowed a precise measurement of its spin period (62.4 ms) and its derivative (9.6 ±0.7) ×10 -20 s s -1 ; from these, we derive a characteristic age of >9.1 Gyr and a surface magnetic field strength of <2.6 ×10 9 G. These numbers indicate that this pulsar was mildly recycled by accretion of matter from the progenitor of the companion star. The system has an eccentric (e =0.17) 2.61 day orbit. This eccentricity allows a highly significant measurement of the rate of advance of periastron, . Assuming general relativity accurately describes the orbital motion, this implies a total system mass M =2.538 ±0.022 M o . The minimum companion mass is 0.92 M o and the maximum pulsar mass is 1.62 M o . The large companion mass and the orbital eccentricity suggest that PSR J1411+2551 is a double neutron star system; the lightest known to date including the DNS merger GW170817. Furthermore, the relatively low orbital eccentricity and small proper motion limits suggest that the second supernova had a relatively small associated kick; this and the low system mass suggest that it was an ultra-stripped supernova.

Fabrication And Characterization Of Intricate Nanostructures, Treva T. Brown

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Encapsulation of nanoparticles within hexaniobate nanoscrolls presents interesting advances in the formation of nanocomposites exhibiting unique multi-dimensional properties. Building upon previous successes, facile yet versatile wet-chemical and microwave-irradiation synthetic protocols for the fabrication of a series of hexaniobate composites are presented herein. Solvothermal and, more recently, microwave-assisted methods have been developed that allow for the fabrication of peapod-like structures. During solvothermal treatment, exfoliated hexaniobate nanosheets scroll around highly ordered chains of preformed nanoparticles (NPs) to produce nanopeapods (NPPs). This approach offers versatility and high yields, in addition to the potential for advanced functional device fabrication.

For the characterization of these …

Automated Species Classification Methods For Passive Acoustic Monitoring Of Beaked Whales, John Lebien

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

The Littoral Acoustic Demonstration Center has collected passive acoustic monitoring data in the northern Gulf of Mexico since 2001. Recordings were made in 2007 near the Deepwater Horizon oil spill that provide a baseline for an extensive study of regional marine mammal populations in response to the disaster. Animal density estimates can be derived from detections of echolocation signals in the acoustic data. Beaked whales are of particular interest as they remain one of the least understood groups of marine mammals, and relatively few abundance estimates exist. Efficient methods for classifying detected echolocation transients are essential for mining long-term passive …

Mathematical Formulation Of Fusion Energy Magnetohydrodynamics, Nikolaos I. Xiros

University of New Orleans Theses and Dissertations

Chapter 1 presents the basic principles of Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion, and the approaches to achieve nuclear fusion on Earth. Furthermore, the basic components of the Tokamak, the reactor which will house the fusion reaction, are analyzed. Finally, the chapter ends with a discussion on how the present thesis is related to the Controlled Thermonuclear Fusion. Chapter 2 introduces briefly the basic concepts of the Electromagnetic and Magnetohydrodynamic theories as well as MHD turbulence. Chapter 3 presents a first glance in OpenFOAM CFD library. Chapter 4 introduces the Orszag-Tang vortex flow, which is a benchmark test case for MHD numerical models. …

Virtual Reality As A Training Tool To Treat Physical Inactivity In Children, Adam W. Kiefer, David Pincus, Michael J. Richardson, Gregory D. Myer

Psychology Faculty Articles and Research

Lack of adequate physical activity in children is an epidemic that can result in obesity and other poor health outcomes across the lifespan. Physical activity interventions focused on motor skill competence continue to be developed, but some interventions, such as neuromuscular training (NMT), may be limited in how early they can be implemented due to dependence on the child’s level of cognitive and perceptual-motor development. Early implementation of motor-rich activities that support motor skill development in children is critical for the development of healthy levels of physical activity that carry through into adulthood. Virtual reality (VR) training may be beneficial …

Mitigating Non-Linearity In Full Waveform Inversion Using Scaled-Sobolev Norms, Mohammad Akbar Hosain Zuberi

Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Repository

Seismic full waveform inversion (FWI) is a non-linear problem. The Born approximation provides a way to linearize FWI and obtain a gradient in a computationally efficient manner. However, this linearization is only valid if the background velocity is sufficiently known, which often is not possible in practice. There have been various attempts at solving problems associated with the non-linearity of FWI by separating the problems of background and scatterer inversion. Most of the methods, however either depend on the availability of low frequencies and large offsets in the data, or separate the spatial scales completely, which removes the scattered information …

Industrial-Age Doubling Of Snow Accumulation In The Alaska Range Linked To Tropical Ocean Warming, Dominic Winski, Erich Osterberg, David Ferris, Karl Kreutz, Cameron Wake, Seth Campbell, Robert Hawley, Samuel Roy, Sean Birkel, Douglas Introne, Michael Handley

Dartmouth Scholarship

Future precipitation changes in a warming climate depend regionally upon the response of natural climate modes to anthropogenic forcing. North Pacific hydroclimate is dominated by the Aleutian Low, a semi-permanent wintertime feature characterized by frequent low-pressure conditions that is influenced by tropical Pacific Ocean temperatures through the Pacific-North American (PNA) teleconnection pattern. Instrumental records show a recent increase in coastal Alaskan precipitation and Aleutian Low intensification, but are of insufficient length to accurately assess low frequency trends and forcing mechanisms. Here we present a 1200-year seasonally- to annually-resolved ice core record of snow accumulation from Mt. Hunter in the Alaska …

Redesign Of The Bridgewater State University Website, Jordan Rossetti

Honors Program Theses and Projects

In this thesis, I studied human-computer interaction (HCI), analyzed the usability of the Bridgewater State University website, and redesigned it guided by HCI principles and user experiments. A goal of the project is to apply suggestions from HCI research to the usability analysis of an existing website. I redesigned the website based on this analysis and by conducting user experiments compare the redesign against the existing BSU website. With this project, I redesigned a website that demonstrably improves users’ success at information seeking and navigation while reducing frustration and hassle compared to the current Bridgewater State University (BSU) website. This …