Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Lidar Object Detection Utilizing Existing Cnns For Smart Cities, Vinay Ponnaganti

Master's Projects

As governments and private companies alike race to achieve the vision of a smart city — where artificial intelligence (AI) technology is used to enable self-driving cars, cashier-less shopping experiences and connected home devices from thermostats to robot vacuum cleaners — advancements are being made in both software and hardware to enable increasingly real-time, accurate inference at the edge. One hardware solution adopted for this purpose is the LiDAR sensor, which utilizes infrared lasers to accurately detect and map its surroundings in 3D. On the software side, developers have turned to artificial neural networks to make predictions and recommendations with …

End-To-End Learning Utilizing Temporal Information For Vision- Based Autonomous Driving, Dapeng Guo

Master's Projects

End-to-End learning models trained with conditional imitation learning (CIL) have demonstrated their capabilities in driving autonomously in dynamic environments. The performance of such models however is limited as most of them fail to utilize the temporal information, which resides in a sequence of observations. In this work, we explore the use of temporal information with a recurrent network to improve driving performance. We propose a model that combines a pre-trained, deeper convolutional neural network to better capture image features with a long short-term memory network to better explore temporal information. Experimental results indicate that the proposed model achieves performance gain …

Multi-Agent Deep Reinforcement Learning For Walkers, Inhee Park

Master's Projects

This project was motivated by seeking an AI method towards Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), that is, more similar to learning behavior of human-beings. As of today, Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) is the most closer to the AGI compared to other machine learning methods. To better understand the DRL, we compares and contrasts to other related methods: Deep Learning, Dynamic Programming and Game Theory.

We apply one of state-of-art DRL algorithms, called Proximal Policy Op- timization (PPO) to the robot walkers locomotion, as a simple yet challenging environment, inherently continuous and high-dimensional state/action space.

The end goal of this project is …

The Occurrence Of Rocky Habitable-Zone Planets Around Solar-Like Stars From Kepler Data, Steve Bryson, Michelle Kunimoto, Ravi K. Kopparapu, Jeffrey L. Coughlin, William J. Borucki, David Koch, Victor Silva Aguirre, Christopher Allen, Geert Barentsen, Natalie M. Batalha, Travis Berger, Alan Boss, Lars A. Buchhave, Christopher J. Burke, Douglas A. Caldwell, Jennifer R. Campbell, Joseph Catanzarite, Hema Chandrasekaran, William J. Chaplin, Jessie L. Christiansen, Jørgen Christensen-Dalsgaard, David R. Ciardi, Bruce D. Clarke, William D. Cochran, Jessie L. Dotson, Laurance R. Doyle, Eduardo Seperuelo Duarte, Edward W. Dunham, Andrea K. Dupree, Michael Endl, James L. Fanson

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

We present the occurrence rates for rocky planets in the habitable zones (HZs) of main-sequence dwarf stars based on the Kepler DR25 planet candidate catalog and Gaia-based stellar properties. We provide the first analysis in terms of star-dependent instellation flux, which allows us to track HZ planets. We define η⊕ as the HZ occurrence of planets with radii between 0.5 and 1.5 R⊕ orbiting stars with effective temperatures between 4800 and 6300 K. We find that η⊕ for the conservative HZ is between... (See article for full abstract).

Modeling Intra-Annual Variation In Coral Extension Rate Using Multiproxy Geochemical Records From Pacific Corals, Jessie Mccraw

Theses - ALL

The relationship between coral growth and environmental parameters is not straightforward, and few studies have explored intra-annual changes in extension rate. Variations in the magnitude and timing of intra-annual extension could be influenced by various environmental parameters such as sea surface temperature (SST), light and nutrient availability, turbidity or salinity stress, as well as by inter-annual climate variations such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO). In this study we use SST proxy data from Porites spp. corals to model intra-annual growth using an iterative numerical model comparing growth and temperature sine functions to measured Sr/Ca data to find the best …

Natural And Synthetic Ligand-Binding Induce Different Pilin Assemblies In Vitro And Control P. Aeruginosa Bioactivities In Vivo, And Development Of Bacterial-Motility Enabled Binding Assays, Arizza Chiara Siwa Ibañez

Dissertations - ALL

Proteins found on bacterial cells surfaces are capable of sensing and transducing signals from the environment to elicit a biological response. Fibrous appendages formed by assembly of pilin proteins on P. aeruginosa are surface proteins that are necessary for host colonization, adhesion on abiotic surfaces, controlling motilities, formation of biofilm, horizontal gene transfer and virulence production of the bacterium. Upon contact with stimuli, pili appendages extend and retract on the cell surface, driven by the assembly and disassembly of pili at inner membrane of the bacteria cells. The dynamic response of this protein assembly is likely caused by a conformational …

Atmospheric Chemistry Of Outdoor And Indoor Environments: Physical And Chemical Characterization Of Urban Grime And Measurements Of Oxidants In Vehicle Cabins, Corey Richard Kroptavich

Dissertations - ALL

This work investigates chemistry in two distinct environments in urban atmospheres. The first is the coatings found on urban surfaces often referred to as urban grime. Urban grime may serve as an important medium for photochemical and heterogeneous reactions in cities. This study characterized the composition and physical state of urban grime collected from two American cities. Wavelength-resolved extinction spectra of urban grime samples were also analyzed to improve our understanding of urban grime’s role in photochemistry. The research showed that the grime from the American cities was similar in composition to previous studies conducted in Europe and Canada, but …

Spectroscopic Study Of Ices With Astrophysical Interest, Shahnewaz M. Emtiaz

Dissertations - ALL

In this thesis, I investigate the physical and chemical processes of simulated cosmic dust grainsand planetary surface analogues in laboratory experiments performed at the Syracuse University Astrophysics and Surface Science Laboratory. I have studied the mid-infrared (Mid-IR) bands of thin films of pure CH4 ices and of CH4 ices mixed with N2 and H2O in order to characterize the thermal evolution of ices in confined geometry and to improve the understanding of observations of ices present in interstellar space and in outer solar system bodies. Furthermore, I studied the self-diffusion of CO2 isotopes in different thin-film arrangements. Mid-IR laboratory data …

Characterization Of Crystalline Pigments With Low-Frequency Vibrational Spectroscopy And Solid-State Density Functional Theory, Elyse M. Kleist

Dissertations - ALL

Although historical pigments are seldom found in the modern artist’s palette, their characterization is a critical aspect of designing effective conservation and restoration protocols, establishing provenance, and detecting forgeries. Ideal characterization methods are nondestructive, noninvasive, and able to distinguish between pure and mixed pigment samples. Spectroscopic techniques are commonly used to identify pigment composition because of their non-ionizing nature, rapid acquisition times, and safety. Unfortunately, the majority of these methods have difficulty distinguishing between pigments with similar chemical and physical properties. Recent advancements in instrument technology have increased the broader availability of terahertz time-domain spectroscopy (THz-TDS) and low-frequency Raman spectroscopy …

Gravity Waves, Na Lidar, Yafang Guo, Alan Z. Liu

Publications

Vertical energy transports due to dissipating gravity waves in the mesopause region (85–100 km) are analyzed using over 400 h of observational data obtained from a narrow-band sodium wind-temperature lidar located at Andes Lidar Observatory (ALO), Cerro Pachón (30.25°S, 70.73°W), Chile. Sensible heat flux is directly estimated using measured temperature and vertical wind; energy flux is estimated from the vertical wavenumber and frequency spectra of temperature perturbations; and enthalpy flux is derived based on its relationship with sensible heat and energy fluxes. Sensible heat flux is mostly downward throughout the region. Enthalpy flux exhibits an annual oscillation with maximum downward …

Detecting Deepfakes With Deep Learning, Eric C. Tjon

Master's Projects

Advances in generative models and manipulation techniques have given rise to digitally altered videos known as deepfakes. These videos are difficult to identify for both humans and machines. Typical detection methods exploit various imperfections in deepfake videos, such as inconsistent posing and visual artifacts. In this paper, we propose a pipeline with two distinct pathways for examining individual frames and video clips. The image pathway contains a novel architecture called Eff-YNet capable of both segmenting and detecting frames from deepfake videos. It consists of a U-Net with a classification branch and an EfficientNet B4 encoder. The video pathway implements a …

Multi‐Functionality Of Mediterranean Herbaceous Rangelands In Israel: A Comprehensive Pastoral/Grazing System Approach, Zalmen Henkin, S. Y. Landau, Eugene D. Ungar, Avi Perevolotsky, Marcelo Sternberg

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

No abstract provided.

Forage‐Based Beef Cattle Production In Red Soils Region Of Southern China, Y. Y. He, Guoqing Xie, Q. H. Shi, S. L. Wen, J. R. Liu, Z. Y. Wu, M. G. Xu, W. J. Zhang, H. X. Li

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

No abstract provided.

Effect Of Potato Pulp Silage On Urea Nitrogen Content In Serum And Fecal Nitrogen Excretion By Lactating Cows Grazed On Artificial Temperate Pasture, Masaaki Hanada, Hiroyuki Sasada, Kazutaka Hamabe, Masahito Kawai, Meiji Okamoto

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

No abstract provided.

Goat Products, Breeding Objectives And Flock Structure On The Tibetan Plateau, Xusheng Guo, Ruijun Long, Luming Ding, Wolfgang Bayer

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

No abstract provided.

Multipoint Observations Of Compressional Pc5 Pulsations In The Dayside Magnetosphere And Corresponding Particle Signatures, Galina Korotova, David Sibeck, Mark Engebretson, Michael Balikhin, Scott Thaller, Craig Kletzing, Harlan Spence, Robert Redmon

Faculty Authored Articles

We use Van Allen Probes (Radiation Belt Storm Probes A and B, henceforth RBSP-A and RBSP-B) and GOES-13 and GOES-15 (henceforth G-13 and G-15) multipoint magnetic field, electric field, plasma, and energetic particle observations to study the spatial, temporal, and spectral characteristics of compressional Pc5 pulsations observed during the recovery phase of a strong geomagnetic storm on 1 January 2016. From ∼ 19:00 to 23:02 UT, successive magnetospheric compressions enhanced the peak-to-peak amplitudes of Pc5 waves with 4.5'6.0 mHz frequencies from 0' 2 to 10'15 nT at both RBSP-A and RBSP-B, particularly in the prenoon magnetosphere. Poloidal Pc4 pulsations with …

Image Spam Classification With Deep Neural Networks, Ajay Pal Singh, Katerina Potika

Faculty Publications, Computer Science

Image classification is a fundamental problem of computer vision and pattern recognition. We focus on images that contain spam. Spam is unwanted bulk content, and image spam is unwanted content embedded inside the images. Image spam potentially creates a threat to the credibility of any email-based communication system. While a lot of machine learning techniques are successful in detecting textual based spam, this is not the case for image spams, which can easily evade these textual-spam detection systems. In our work, we explore and evaluate four deep learning techniques that detect image spams. First, we train deep neural networks using …

Meteoritic Evidence For A Ceres-Sized Water-Rich Carbonaceous Chondrite Parent Asteroid, V E. Hamilton, C A. Goodrich, A H. Treiman, Harold Connolly Jr., M E. Zolensky, M H. Shaddad

School of Earth & Environment Departmental Research

Carbonaceous chondrite meteorites record the earliest stages of Solar System geo-logical activities and provide insight into their parent bodies' histories. Some carbonaceous chondrites are volumetrically dominated by hydrated minerals, providing evidence for low temperature and pressure aqueous alteration1. Others are dominated by anhydrous minerals and textures that indicate high temperature metamorphism in the absence of aqueous fluids1. Evidence of hydrous metamorphism at intermediate pressures and temperatures in carbonaceous chondrite parent bodies has been virtually absent. Here we show that an ungrouped, aqueously altered carbonaceous chondrite fragment (numbered 202) from the Almahata Sitta (AhS) meteorite contains an assemblage of minerals, including …

Multiple Constraints Cause Positive And Negative Feedbacks Limiting Grassland Soil Co2 Efflux Under Co2 Enrichment, Philip A. Fay, Dafeng Hui, Robert B. Jackson, Harold P. Collins, Lara G. Reichmann, Michael J. Aspinwall, Virginia L. Jin, Albina R. Khasanova, Robert W. Heckman, H. Wayne Polley

Biology Faculty Research

Understanding ecosystem carbon-cycling responses to atmospheric CO₂ enrichment is critical to preserve biodiversity and maintain vital ecosystem services in grasslands impacted by global change. We conducted an 8-y experiment enriching CO₂ concentrations from preindustrial to midtwenty-first century levels on grassland plant communities on upland, lowland, and alluvial soils. CO₂ enrichment increased the CO₂ efflux from soils to atmosphere in amounts depending on whether the dominant limitation was CO₂ or feedbacks (net positive or negative) from soil moisture and plant species turnover. These findings highlight how multiple concurrent limitations, not single limitations in sequence, regulate the …

Variation In Personality Among Semi-Wild Myanmar Timber Elephants, Sateesh Venkatesh

Theses and Dissertations

This study examines two personality traits: exploration and neophobia, which could influence human-elephant conflicts. Thirty-one semi-wild elephants were tested over two trials using a custom novel puzzle tube containing three tasks and three rewards. Our studies show that elephants do vary significantly between individuals in both exploration and neophobia.

The Supercam Instrument Suite On The Nasa Mars 2020 Rover: Body Unit And Combined System Tests, Roger C. Wiens, Sylvestre Maurice, Scott H. Robinson, Anthony E. Nelson, Philippe Cais, Pernelle Bernardi, Raymond T. Newell, Sam Clegg, Shiv K. Sharma, Steven Storms, Jonathan Deming, Darrel Beckman, Ann M. Ollila, Olivier Gasnault, Ryan B. Anderson, Yves André, Stanley M. Angel, Gorka Arana, Elizabeth Auden, Pierre Beck, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

The SuperCam instrument suite provides the Mars 2020 rover, Perseverance, with a number of versatile remote-sensing techniques that can be used at long distance as well as within the robotic-arm workspace. These include laser-induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS), remote time-resolved Raman and luminescence spectroscopies, and visible and infrared (VISIR; separately referred to as VIS and IR) reflectance spectroscopy. A remote micro-imager (RMI) provides high-resolution color context imaging, and a microphone can be used as a stand-alone tool for environmental studies or to determine physical properties of rocks and soils from shock waves of laser-produced plasmas. SuperCam is built in three parts: …

The Nanograv 12.5 Yr Data Set: Observations And Narrowband Timing Of 47 Millisecond Pulsars, Md F. Alam, Zaven Arzoumanian, Paul T. Baker, Harsha Blumer, Keith E. Bohler, Keeisi Caballero, Richard S. Camuccio, Yhamil Garcia

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present time-of-arrival (TOA) measurements and timing models of 47 millisecond pulsars observed from 2004 to 2017 at the Arecibo Observatory and the Green Bank Telescope by the North American Nanohertz Observatory for Gravitational Waves (NANOGrav). The observing cadence was three to four weeks for most pulsars over most of this time span, with weekly observations of six sources. These data were collected for use in low-frequency gravitational wave searches and for other astrophysical purposes. We detail our observational methods and present a set of TOA measurements, based on "narrowband" analysis, in which many TOAs are calculated within narrow radio-frequency …

Cf⁺ Excitation In The Interstellar Medium, Benjamin Desrousseaux, François Lique, Javier R. Goicoechea, Ernesto Quintas-Sánchez, Richard Dawes

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

The detection of CF⁺ in interstellar clouds potentially allows astronomers to infer the elemental fluorine abundance and the ionization fraction in ultraviolet-illuminated molecular gas. Because local thermodynamic equilibrium (LTE) conditions are hardly fulfilled in the interstellar medium (ISM), the accurate determination of the CF⁺ abundance requires one to model its non-LTE excitation via both radiative and collisional processes. Here, we report quantum calculations of rate coefficients for the rotational excitation of CF⁺ in collisions with para- and ortho-H₂ (for temperatures up to 150 K). As an application, we present non-LTE excitation models that reveal population inversion …

A Water Budget And Solute Flux Budget For Waimea River Watershed, Kauai, Hi, U.S.A., Joseph Harold Tolworthy

Theses and Dissertations

Waimea Canyon is a deep V-shaped canyon on the island of Kauai, Hawaii in which the Waimea River and its tributaries flow. The shape and size of the canyon are noteworthy and unusual compared to its contemporary canyons on the Hawaiian Islands which are usually U-shaped or flat bottomed. This could be because there is significantly more physical erosion in Waimea Canyon compared to others. A water budget was created using ArcGIS Pro and data from the University of Hawaii’s rainfall and evapotranspiration atlases, as well as from the United States Geological Survey’s stream gage data. A mass flux was …

Estimating Posterior Quantity Of Interest Expectations In A Multilevel Scalable Framework, Hillary R. Fairbanks, Sarah Osborn, Panayot S. Vassilevski

Mathematics and Statistics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Scalable approaches for uncertainty quantification are necessary for characterizing prediction confidence in large‐scale subsurface flow simulations with uncertain permeability. To this end we explore a multilevel Monte Carlo approach for estimating posterior moments of a particular quantity of interest, where we employ an element‐agglomerated algebraic multigrid (AMG) technique to generate the hierarchy of coarse spaces with guaranteed approximation properties for both the generation of spatially correlated random fields and the forward simulation of Darcy's law to model subsurface flow. In both these components (sampling and forward solves), we exploit solvers that rely on state‐of‐the‐art scalable AMG. To showcase the applicability …

What Is Nonlocal In Counterfactual Quantum Communication?, Yakir Aharonov, Daniel Rohrlich

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We revisit the “counterfactual quantum communication” of Salih et al. [1], who claim that an observer “Bob” can send one bit of information to a second observer “Alice” without any physical particle traveling between them. We show that a locally conserved, massless current—specifically, a current of modular angular momentum, Lz mod 2ℏ—carries the one bit of information. We integrate the flux of Lz mod 2ℏ from Bob to Alice and show that it equals one of the two eigenvalues of Lz mod 2ℏ, either 0 or ℏ, thus precisely accounting for the one bit of information he sends her.We previously …

Findfur: A Tool For Predicting Furin Cleavage Sites Of Viral Envelope Substrates, Christine Gu

Master's Projects

Most biologically active proteins of eukaryotic cells are initially synthesized in the secretory pathway as inactive precursors and require proteolytic processing to become functionally active. This process is performed by a specialized family of endogenous enzymes known as proproteases convertases (PCs). Within this family of proteases, the most notorious and well-research is furin. Found ubiquitously throughout the human body, typical furin substrates are cleaved at sites composed of paired basic amino acids, specifically at the consensus sequence, R-X-[K/R]-R↓. Furin is often exploited by many pathogens, such as enveloped viruses, for proteolytic processing and maturation of their proteins. Glycoproteins of enveloped …

The Influence Of Breed And Maternal Education On Goat Kids' Intake Of A Tannin‐Rich Shrub, T. A. Glasser, S. Y. Landau, Avi Perevolotsky, H. Muklada, Eugene D. Ungar

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

No abstract provided.

Effect Of The Pasture, In Different Seasons, And Of The Ripening Time On The Caciocavallo Palermitano Cheese, C. Giosuè, M. Alabiso, M. L. Alicata, V. Ilardi, D. Giambalvo, G. Maniaci

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

No abstract provided.

Anthelmintic Property Of Fresh Cassava (Manihot Esculenta) Leaves Incorporated In The Diet Of West African Dwarf Goats, E. Tedonkeng Pamo, J. Awah-Ndukum, B. Boukila, F. Tendonkeng, F. Matumuini Ndzanie Essie

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

No abstract provided.