Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Planet, 2019, Fall, Emily Dietzel, Huxley College Of The Environment, Western Washington University

The Planet

No abstract provided.

Before College Math, Roxane Elena Ronca

A Collection of Open Access Books and Monographs

Most math books for college students start out reviewing “rules” in an introductory chapter. The review usually goes like this: here are the “rules”, here are some examples of using those “rules” and here are 10 to 100 exercises where you will practice using those “rules” and then you’ll be tested on them.

The problem with that approach, even if it seems familiar and comfortable to you, is that people learn, in part, by connecting new ideas and perspectives to what they already understand, and correcting any previous misunderstandings. This process takes time and effort. Memorizing rules to quickly retrieve …

Floodplains Provide Important Amphibian Habitat Despite Facing Multiple Ecological Threats, Meredith A. Holgerson, Adam Duarte, Marc P. Hayes, Michael J. Adams, Julie A. Tyson, Keith A. Douville, Angela Strecker

Environmental Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Floodplain ponds and wetlands are productive and biodiverse ecosystems, yet they face multiple threats including altered hydrology, land use change, and non-native species. Protecting and restoring important floodplain ecosystems requires understanding how organisms use these habitats and respond to altered environmental conditions. We developed Bayesian models to evaluate occupancy of six amphibian species across 103 off-channel aquatic habitats in the Chehalis River floodplain, Washington State, USA. The basin has been altered by changes in land use, reduced river–wetland connections, and the establishment of non-native American bullfrogs (Rana catesbeiana = Lithobates catesbeianus) and centrarchid fishes, all of which we …

Dataset For The Environmental Risk Assessment Of Chlorpyrifos To Chinook Salmon In Four Rivers Of Washington State, United States, Wayne G. Landis, Valerie R. Chu, Scarlett Graham, Meagan J. Harris, April J. Markiewicz, Chelsea J. Mitchell, Katherine E. Stackelberg, John Stark

Environmental Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications

Data files available below.

This data set is in support of Landis et al (in press) The integration of chlorpyrifos acetylcholinesterase inhibition, water temperature and dissolved oxygen concentration into a regional scale multiple stressor risk assessment estimating risk to Chinook salmon in four rivers in Washington State, USA. DOI: 10.1002/ieam.4199. In this research We estimated the risk to populations of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) due to chlorpyrifos (CH), water temperature (WT) and dissolved oxygen concentrations (DO) in four watersheds in Washington State, USA. The watersheds included the Nooksack and Skagit Rivers in the Northern Puget Sound, the Cedar …

Integration Of Chlorpyrifos Acetylcholinesterase Inhibition, Water Temperature, And Dissolved Oxygen Concentration Into A Regional Scale Multiple Stressor Risk Assessment Estimating Risk To Chinook Salmon, Wayne G. Landis, Valerie R. Chu, Scarlett E. Graham, Meagan J. Harris, April J. Markiewicz, Chelsea J. Mitchell, Katherine E. Von Stackelberg, John D. Stark

IETC Publications

We estimated the risk to populations of Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) due to chlorpyrifos (CH), water temperature (WT), and dissolved oxygen concentration (DO) in 4 watersheds in Washington State, USA. The watersheds included the Nooksack and Skagit Rivers in the Northern Puget Sound, the Cedar River in the Seattle–Tacoma corridor, and the Yakima River, a tributary of the Columbia River. The Bayesian network relative risk model (BN‐RRM) was used to conduct this ecological risk assessment and was modified to contain an acetylcholinesterase (AChE) inhibition pathway parameterized using data from CH toxicity data sets. The completed BN‐RRM estimated risk at a …

Building Arc Crust: Plutonic To Volcanic Connections In An Extensional Oceanic Arc, The Southern Alisitos Arc, Baja California, Rebecca A. Morris, Susan M. Debari, Cathy Busby, Sarah Medynski, Brian R. Jicha

Geology Faculty Publications

The ~50 km long Rosario segment of the Cretaceous Alisitos oceanic arc terrane provides undeformed three-dimensional exposures of the upper 7 km of an oceanic extensional arc, where crustal generation processes are recorded in both the volcanic and underlying plutonic rocks. These exceptional exposures allow for the study of the physical and chemical links between the rock units and help constrain the differentiation processes active during the growth and evolution of arc crust. This study focuses on the southern third of the Rosario segment, previously referred to as the southern volcano-bounded basin, and its plutonic underpinnings. Upper crustal rocks in …

Modeling Distances Between Various Attractions And Nearest City Parks Using Exponential Distribution, Ashley Hall

Scholars Week

We examine the park data in Twin Cities Metropolitan Area (TCMA) to understand the distances between various attractions (water features, transit stops, bike paths, sport fields, etc.) and nearest city parks. We verify our research hypothesis that these distance variables are exponentially distributed using histograms and chi-squared goodness-of-fit test. Our findings suggest that most of the distance variables are indeed exponentially distributed except the one that measures the distance between the metropolitan area and the nearest city parks. Based on that, we further hypothesize that the locations of the various attractions relative to the nearest city parks follow the spatial …

Polycarbodiimides And Polyguanidines : Their Reactivity And Applications In Covalent Adaptable Networks, Alberto Melchor Bañales

Scholars Week

We have recently discovered a new chemical transformation in which N,N’,N’’ tri-substituted guanidines undergo a thermal exchange reaction. Kinetic investigations indicate that the transformation is first order with respect to the guanidine, indicating a dissociative mechanism in which a carbodiimide and amine are formed as intermediates. This new reaction has been applied to polymer systems. Polycarbodiimides were shown to undergo postpolymerization modification with amines to form polyguanidines at room temperature under an hour. Polyguanidines undergo the newly found chemical transformation to form different substituted polyguanidines. This exchange reaction will be applied to the preparation of a covalent adaptable network by …

Smart Home Simulation In The Virtual World, Thomas Jones-Moore, David Son

Scholars Week

The goal of this project is to produce a 'smart home' by using IoT and RFID like things in the virtual world to help solve problems. Some of these problems can be CPR training, etc. Used as an evaluation platform of suggested hardware to get a desired (or best fit) set of smart objects, or combinations with computer vision. Cost model to determine best fit based on: accuracy, lowest cost, easiest deployment, etc.

Vibrations On Networks, Zachary Pontrantolfi

Scholars Week

Studying vibrations on networks helps inform our understanding of random processes on other networks with similar geometry. We discuss two physical models to build up intuition about their eigenvectors. We conclude with a hidden connection between the rate of convergence of random walks, and the ground state energies of molecules.

Performance Annotation Framework, Quentin Jensen, Chloe Dawson

Scholars Week

Large scale applications developers have many tools at their disposal to optimize and verify their software. One of which is Caliper, an annotation-based performance measurement tool. Caliper is very powerful and versatile, however, can be cumbersome to apply to complex applications. To solve this problem, we have created a framework to automatically prepare an application for performance measurement. This framework provides a layer of abstraction between the user and the source-code annotations and library linking. As a result, the process of measuring the performance of an application can be fully automated away – a huge step towards automatic software optimization.

Resources For Interdisciplinary Understanding Of Energy, Alessandra Hughes, Jessica Trottier

Scholars Week

In most undergraduate curricula, students are expected to have the ability to apply, or transfer, a learned concept to new coursework. In the sciences, students are often introduced to energy ideas with discipline-specific vocabulary and tasks which encourage compartmentalized, surface-level understandings of energy concepts. Our research investigates student transfer of energy ideas within a coherent science course series, where physics is the foundational course. Similar modeling tools and vocabulary are used in the classes to help students see energy as a unifying framework. We seek to identify and describe what transfer “looks like” in this idealized context by interviewing students …

Spectral Analysis Of Stratigraphy At Eberswalde Crater, Mars, Cory Hughes

Scholars Week

We will analyze spectral characteristics of stratigraphy in the catchment and deposit at Eberswalde Crater, Mars. This crater is a frequent contender for the preferred destination of future Mars rover and human science missions in the search for evidence of life on the Red Planet.

Strategy Flexibility: Choosing Different Systems To Apply The Work Energy Principle, Grace Baker, Thanh Le

Scholars Week

An important goal of physics instruction is to help students become adaptive problem solvers so that they can approach a wide range of situations. One aspect of adaptive problem solving is strategy flexibility — knowing multiple ways to approach a problem and choosing the most appropriate approach. In this study, we examine the role of meta strategic judgements in students’ application of strategy flexibility. Specifically, we study students’ meta-strategic judgements when choosing a system with which to apply the work-energy principle to various scenarios. College students enrolled in an introductory mechanics course were interviewed about their rationales for their system …

Engineering Sortase; Activity And Selectivity Of New Hybrid And Ancestral Variants Of Sortase A, Sarah Struyvenberg

Scholars Week

Bacterial sortase enzymes are a beneficial tool in innovative mechanisms of protein engineering. However, important limitations to utilization of sortases for engineered purposes exist; namely, that sortase A (SrtA) is a relatively poor enzyme and very specific for the substrate containing LPATXG motif. Exciting previous work from our collaborators reveals that sortases from different species recognize different sequences and that activity can vary. Therefore, we wanted to create and investigate hybrid sortase enzymes between SrtA from S. aureus and Streptococcus pneumoniae, wherein we swapped a substrate-interacting loop between the beta-E and beta-F strands. Our hypothesis is that these residues are …

A Quantitative Assessment Of The Diabetes Self-Management Education Program, Grace Mcfarlane

Scholars Week

A Diabetes Self-Management Education (DSME) program offered in an inner-city health center run by the Cincinnati Health Department, which started in 2014, was created to help those in an underserved population learn how to manage their diabetes. Two key measurements, A1C (glycated hemoglobin) and BMI (body mass index), were taken over time to monitor their progress. In this study, we analyzed quantitatively whether or not there was a significant improvement in their BMI and A1C values over the course of two years since they joined DSME program as any improvement would imply a potentially healthier lifestyle in regards to their …

A Simulation Platform For Generation Of Synthetic Videos For Human Activity Recognition, Gary Plunkett

Scholars Week

The field of human activity recognition from video data has recently made great strides. However, the large amount of labelled data needed to train activity recognition models remains a common bottleneck. We introduce a simulation platform to procedurally generate synthetic videos of household activities, which randomizes portions of the virtual scene like camera position, human model, and interaction motion to introduce video variation.

An Automated Spectrogoniometer System With Planetary Science Applications, Kathleen Hoza

Scholars Week

Reflectance spectroscopy is a major technique for characterizing the composition of planetary surfaces, and has led to key findings such as the characterization of alteration minerals indicative of an aqueous, neutral-pH environment in Mars’ past. When a reflectance spectrometer collects data, it does so at some viewing geometry, which is defined by the angular relationships between the light source illuminating the surface, the target material, and the detector. In the lab, this is usually at a standard viewing geometry (e.g. incidence=0, emission=30). In situ measurements taken by spacecraft, however, may be taken at a wide range of viewing geometries. This …

A Day In The Life Of A Supercomputer, William Clem, Sean Mcculloch

Scholars Week

We are developing an interactive dashboard for visualizing the statistics of how users interact with nodes of a supercomputer. The intended purpose of the dashboard is to periodically provide with the overview of the load and bandwidth utilization of the nodes of a large supercomputer and details of each node and job as selected by the user. The dashboard will be interactive which will enable users to zoom in on interesting parts of the visualizations to investigate in details.

Bottom-Up Shape Engineering Of Organic Molecular Single-Crystals, Griffin Reed

Scholars Week

The ability to fabricate complex submicron-scale components from inorganic crystalline semiconductor materials such as c-Si enables countless modern technologies, from microelectromechanical systems to integrated circuits. For single-crystal molecular materials on the other hand, comparable approaches to defining micron- and submicron-scale structure are much less well developed, in part because weak intermolecular binding forces make molecular crystals vulnerable to damage by conventional techniques such as reactive ion etching, wet etching, and energetic beam milling. Here we show how the same weak forces that are problematic for top-down patterning of molecular crystals can be exploited to enable controlled bottom-up growth, by leveraging …

Isolating And Quantifying The Role Of Developmental Noise In Generating Phenotypic Variation, Maria Kiskowski, Tilmann Glimm, Nickolas Moreno, Tony Gamble, Ylenia Chiari

Mathematics Faculty Publications

Genotypic variation, environmental variation, and their interaction may produce variation in the developmental process and cause phenotypic differences among individuals. Developmental noise, which arises during development from stochasticity in cellular and molecular processes when genotype and environment are fixed, also contributes to phenotypic variation. While evolutionary biology has long focused on teasing apart the relative contribution of genes and environment to phenotypic variation, our understanding of the role of developmental noise has lagged due to technical difficulties in directly measuring the contribution of developmental noise. The influence of developmental noise is likely underestimated in studies of phenotypic variation due to …

The Planet, 2019, Spring, Emily Dietzel, Huxley College Of The Environment, Western Washington University

The Planet

No abstract provided.

Quick Guide To Plant Families Of Western Washington, Maggie Hayward, John D. Tuxill, James M. Helfield

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

This guide is an expanded version of a booklet designed to help students identify native plants in western Washington. It has been expanded to include invasive and ruderal taxa commonly found in riparian areas. The purpose of this guide is to provide practical help for identifying plant families, and to facilitate a basic understanding of plant morphology. By observing morphological characteristics such as leaf arrangement and structure, the user can narrow an unidentified species down to the family level. Because this book does not go to the species level, it is meant to be used as a companion to other …

Do Men Matter? In Statistics, Probably, Michael Kelly

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

In statistical genetics, there are several parameters of a dataset which a researcher might, but which are difficult to estimate in practice. In this paper, we will be focusing on allele frequencies, null alleles, inbreeding coefficients and, to a certain extent, beta values. A common technique for obtaining these values, developed by Amy Anderson and her co-workers, is to jointly estimate all of them using an EM-algorithm and the method of maximum likelihood. Despite this technique being effective in general, it is currently unable to deal with males at X-linked markers. The purpose of this project is to modify the …

Preliminary Impacts Of Constructed Log Jams On Streambed Topography And Bed Temperature On The South Fork Nooksack River, Sam Kaiser

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

Salmon are an essential part of the culture, ecology and economy of the Pacific Northwest region of North America, but populations of some ecotypes are declining. One specific population, the Puget Sound chinook (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha), is listed as threatened under terms of the U.S. Endangered Species Act (ESA). The decline of this ecotype has implications not only for humans but also for all links of the ecosystem such as the populations of southern resident killer whales (Orcinus orca) which prey predominately on chinook salmon. Major threats to these fish include overharvest and habitat degradation due to …

Equity In Stem: Utilizing Student Experience To Better Inform Policy And Practice, Natasha Hessami

WWU Honors College Senior Projects

As women and people of color continue to pursue higher education and other advanced degrees, the STEM field consistently lags behind in diverse representation and leadership. There is a critical need to address the structural barriers marginalized groups face to accessing and succeeding in STEM and invest both time and money into innovative student-centered solutions. This project outlines the development of the CSE Student Ambassador program and implementation recommendations, the development and presentation of seminars focused on equity in the Biology and Chemistry departments, and general recommendations for faculty to make classroom and lab spaces more inclusive.

Lake Whatcom Monitoring Project 2017/2018 Report, Robin A. Matthews, Michael Hilles, Joan Pickens, Robert J. Mitchell, Geoffrey B. Matthews

Lake Whatcom Annual Reports

This report describes the results from the 2017/2018 Lake Whatcom monitoring program conducted by the Institute for Watershed Studies at Western Washington University (www.wwu.edu/iws). The major objectives in 2017/2018 were to continue long-term baseline water quality monitoring in Lake Whatcom and its major tributaries; collect storm runoff water quality data from representative streams in the watershed; and continue collection of hydrologic data from Austin and Smith Creeks.

Subduction Initiation And Early Evolution Of The Easton Metamorphic Suite, Northwest Cascades, Washington, Jeremy L. Cordova, Sean R. Mulcahy, Elizabeth R. Schermer, Laura E. Webb

Geology Faculty Publications

The Easton metamorphic suite, in the northwest Cascades of Washington State, preserves an inverted metamorphic sequence with ultramafic rocks underlain by amphibolite and high-temperature blueschist juxtaposed above low-temperature blueschists. The sequence is interpreted as a metamorphic sole and younger accreted rocks that formed during and after the initiation of Farallon plate subduction beneath North America in Jurassic time. Two high-temperature deformation events are recorded in the metamorphic sole at ∼10 kbar and ∼760 °C to 590 °C between >167 and 164 Ma. High-temperature blueschist partly overprints the amphibolite but may have accreted separately at ∼530 °C between ca. 165 and …

Particle Size Specific Magnetic Properties Across The Norwegian‐Greenland Seas: Insights Into The Influence Of Sediment Source And Texture On Bulk Magnetic Records, Robert G. Hatfield, Benjamin H. Wheeler, Brendan T. Reilly, Joseph S. Stoner, Bernard A. Housen

Geology Faculty Publications

We make fundamental observations of the particle size variability of magnetic properties from 71 core tops that span the southern Greenland and Norwegian Seas. These data provide the first detailed regional characterization of how bulk magnetic properties vary with sediment texture, sediment source, and sediment transport. Magnetic susceptibility (MS) and hysteresis parameters were measured on the bulk sediment and the five constituent sediment particle size fractions (clay, fine silt, medium silt, coarse silt, and sand). The median MS value of the medium silt size fraction is ~3–5 times higher than that of the sand and clay size fractions and results …

Moses Lake Algae Monitoring Project 2018 Final Report, Robin A. Matthews, Joan Pickens, Eric J. Lawrence

Moses Lake

Moses Lake is a shallow, hypereutrophic lake in Grant County, Washington (Carroll and Cusimano, 2001), with a surface area of 6,800 acres (27.5 km2 ), total volume of 130,000 acre-ft (160.4 × 106 m3), average depth of 19 ft. (5.8 m), and maximum depth of 38 ft. (11.6 m; Dion, et al., 1976). The lake is situated adjacent to the city of Moses Lake and drains into Crab Creek, a tributary of Columbia River. The lake is a popular recreational destination for fishing, boating, swimming, and camping.

Moses Lake develops nuisance blooms of cyanobacteria during the summer and fall. The …