Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Cultivating Resilience In The Anthropocene: Evaluating A Gssw Ecological Justice Curriculum, Windy Selig

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This Dissertation in Practice evaluated the University of Denver’s Graduate School of Social Work (GSSW) Ecological Justice Pathway to examine how resilience is conceptualized and cultivated within the curriculum. Grounded in a constructivist paradigm and guided by an ecological justice framework, this evaluation explored the pedagogical and curricular strategies designed to prepare social work students for the emotional, ethical, and professional demands of practicing in the Anthropocene—a time marked by ecological degradation, climate crisis, and compounding social inequities.

Through qualitative methods, including faculty interviews and curriculum document analysis, the evaluation identified both explicit and implicit components that foster student resilience. …

Roles Of Organic Agriculture For Water Optimization In Arid And Semi-Arid Regions, Shikha Sharma, Matt A. Yost, Jennifer R. Reeve

Plants, Soils and Climate Student Research

Water scarcity is a critical challenge in arid and semi-arid regions, where agricultural water consumption accounts for a significant portion of freshwater use. Conventional agriculture (CA) methods with high reliance on chemical and mechanical inputs often exacerbate this issue through soil degradation and water loss. This review aims to examine how different organic practices, such as mulching, cover cropping, composting, crop rotation, and no-till (NT) in combination with precision technologies, can contribute to water optimization, and it discusses the opportunities and challenges for the adoption and implementation of those practices. Previous findings show that organic agriculture (OA) may outperform CA …

Shrinkage Study In Photopolymerisable Hybrid Sol-Gel Through Holographic Patterning, Jamshed Aftab, Izabela Naydenova, Tatsiana Mikulchyk

Articles

Photopolymerisation induced shrinkage of holographic materials is one of the main factors which needs to be considered for designing holographic optical elements (HOEs) with high accuracy in light redirection with maximum efficiency. This work studies the shrinkage in photopolymerisable hybrid sol-gel (PHSG) by examining the properties of volume transmission gratings recorded in PHSG layers. It explores both the dependence of shrinkage on the holographic grating parameters (thickness, spatial frequency, slant angle) and the effect of material aging. By using the fringe-plane rotation model, shrinkage is found to have the maximum value of 1.37 % at 765 lines/mm (19.36° slant angle) …

Advancing The Functional Diversity Of Hydrazone Photoswithces, Daniil Sosnin

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Photochromic materials have drawn increasing interest for their ability to control functional systems and biological processes using light. Molecular switches enable precise, reversible regulation of the systems in which they are embedded. To achieve robust and versatile switching, careful tuning of molecular structure and activation conditions is essential. Hydrazones represent a promising class of photoswitches, offering synthetic accessibility, strong thermal and photochemical stability, and a modular framework that supports further development for materials and biological applications. This work begins by examining a family of heterocyclic hydrazones to determine how structural variations affect photoswitching efficiency and thermal half-lives. Comparisons with phenyl-based …

Photometric And Spectroscopic Properties Of Hydrogen-Rich Supernovae, Chaitrika B. M

University Departments

No abstract provided.

Theoretical Investigation On The Magnetic And Spintronic Behaviour Of 2d Mxenes, Abhinav Prashant Gotmare

University Departments

No abstract provided.

Composite Magnetic Monopoles, Moreshwar Pathak

University Departments

No abstract provided.

Advancing Academic Advising With Knowledge Graphs: Integrating Machine Learning And Llms For Personalized Course Planning, Sara Alshamsi

Thesis/ Dissertation Defenses

Academic advising plays a critical role in helping students make informed decisions, improve academic performance, and successfully navigate their university journey. However, with increasing university enrollment, traditional advising methods often struggle to scale, leading to student frustration and overburdened advisors. Additionally, designing course offerings that match student demand is a complex and error-prone process involving multiple stakeholders. To address these challenges, this thesis proposes an automated, data-driven system for generating personalized academic plans for students. The primary aim of this thesis is to develop a system that reduces students' dependency on advisors while simultaneously providing accurate estimates of course demand …

A Comparative Study Of Neural Networks And Xgboost Models For Flight Time Prediction, Ioannis Paraschos, Taryn E. Trimble, Eshna Bhargava, Jake Klingler, Benjamin R. Nicolai

Beyond: Undergraduate Research Journal

Flight time prediction plays a crucial role in modern air travel, benefiting airlines and passengers alike. Accurate predictions enable airlines to optimize schedules, allocate resources effectively, and ensure passenger safety and satisfaction. In recent years, machine learning models, such as neural networks and XGBoost, have gained popularity for predicting flight times. This study aims to compare the performance of neural network and XGBoost models in predicting flight times, considering factors such as weather conditions, air traffic control, and aircraft performance. The results indicate that both models are effective, with XGBoost achieving slightly higher accuracy. However, neural networks offer advantages in …

A Spatial Modeling Framework For Identifying Multidimensional Risk Factors Of Colorectal Cancer, Johnna K. Berryhill

Student Theses and Dissertations

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is one of the most common and preventable cancers, yet significant disparities in screening, incidence, and late-stage diagnosis persist across different geographic and socioeconomic contexts. This thesis presents a spatial modeling framework for identifying multidimensional risk factors associated with CRC outcomes across various geographic scales. Using county- and census-tract-level data from national and state sources, the study integrates demographic, socioeconomic, environmental, built environment, and behavioral predictors to analyze geographic variability in CRC risk factors. Advanced spatial modeling techniques, including Geographically Weighted Regression (GWR) and Geographically Weighted Random Forest (GW-RF), are employed to capture spatial heterogeneity in these …

Spatiotemporal Analysis Of Available Freshwater Resources In Watersheds Across Northern New Jersey, Toritseju Oyen, Duke Ophori

Department of Earth and Environmental Studies Faculty Scholarship and Creative Works

Groundwater is a critical freshwater resource, yet its quality is increasingly threatened by anthropogenic activities, particularly in urbanized regions. This study employs geospatial analysis to evaluate the spatiotemporal variability of groundwater quality across 11 Watershed Management Areas (WMAs) in northern New Jersey, from 1999 to 2016. Using specific conductance (SC) as a proxy for salinity, we applied Ordinary Kriging interpolation to estimate SC values in unmonitored locations, leveraging data from 295 shallow wells within the New Jersey Ambient Groundwater Quality Monitoring Network. The results reveal significant spatial heterogeneity in groundwater quality, strongly associated with land use and road density. The …

2025 June 12 - Tennessee Weekly Drought Summary, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Weekly Drought Summaries

No abstract provided.

Enzymatic Characterization Of Bacterial Enzymes And Inhibitors As Potential Antibiotics With New Mechanisms Of Action, Emma Helene Kelley

Dissertations

Bacteria have become increasingly resistant to antibiotics, therefore there is an urgent need for new drug classes of antibiotics to help fight antibiotic infections. To this end, our research is focused on inhibitors of dizinc metalloenzymes N-succinyl-L,L-diaminopimelic acid desuccinylase (DapE), an enzyme in the lysine biosynthesis pathway, N-acetyl-L-ornithine deacetylase enzyme (ArgE), an enzyme in the arginine biosynthesis pathway, and sodium-dependent NADH: ubiquinone oxidoreductase (Na+-NQR) enzyme, a respiratory complex enzyme as promising drug targets. DapE, ArgE, and Na+-NQR and are only present in bacteria, including ESKAPE pathogens that can cause potentially deadly infections, thus inhibitors of DapE, ArgE, and Na+-NQR offer …

Principles For Physics Lab Reports Using Google Sheets, Vasiliy Znamenskiy

Open Educational Resources

This instructional guide provides detailed standards and best practices for students preparing physics lab reports using Google Sheets. It emphasizes the importance of precise data entry, formula-based calculations, and clearly labeled units. The document outlines rigorous conventions for mathematical formatting, error analysis (including percent error and percent difference), and data presentation in tables and graphs. It instructs students to maintain a structured single-page format for each report, include proper labeling and trendline analysis in graphs, and ensure automated and verifiable calculations. Submission and feedback procedures are clearly defined, highlighting the importance of collaborative revision and instructor comments. The guide also …

A New Model For Educational Program Assessments Using Automated Collective Concept Maps, Andrew R. Paullin

Master's Theses (2009 -)

This paper presents: Epistemological principles; the origins and theoretical foundations of concept maps; the current state of related works; the contributions, methods, results, and future road map of this research; and A New Model for Educational Program Assessments. An understanding that knowledge results from an evolution of cognitive structures enables a scientific approach to enhance the efficiency of learning. Building on prior works, this research provides a novel algorithm and tool to automatically create Collective Concept Maps from Individual Concept Maps by utilizing a dictionary, thesaurus, Natural Language Processing, Machine Learning / Artificial Intelligence, and domain expertise. Abstraction Filters enable …

Development Of Novel Force Fields For Metal Ions, Madelyn Smith

Dissertations

Many biological proteins require the presence of a metal ion in order to properly function. However, metal ions’ complex nature charge poses several challenges to accurately and efficiently simulate computationally. For example, metal ions can exhibit multiple oxidation states, electronic state degeneracy, flexible coordination numbers, and significant polarization effects. To address these problems, this dissertation aims to enhance force fields for modeling metal ions in molecular dynamics simulations. First, a comprehensive set of van der Waals radii for metal ions is derived, demonstrating the importance of using physically meaningful parameters in force fields. Second, a comprehensive set of atomic and …

Re: Approval Letter For The Draft Final Butte Reduction Works (Brw) Air Monitoring For Interim Demolition Activities – Phase I Data Summary Report (Dated March 21, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Re: Comment Letter For The Final Butte Reduction Works (Brw) Smelter Area Waste Remediation And Contaminated Groundwater Hydraulic Control Site Air Monitoring Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) For Interim Demolition Activities (Dated May 19, 2025), Emma Rott

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

A Survey On Immersive Cyber Situational Awareness Systems, Hussain Ahmad, Faheem Ullah, Rehan Jafri

All Works

Cyber situational awareness systems are increasingly used for creating cyber common operating pictures for cybersecurity analysis and education. However, these systems face data occlusion and convolution issues due to the burgeoning complexity, dimensionality, and heterogeneity of cybersecurity data, which damages cyber situational awareness of end-users. Moreover, conventional forms of human–computer interactions, such as mouse and keyboard, increase the mental effort and cognitive load of cybersecurity practitioners when analyzing cyber situations of large-scale infrastructures. Therefore, immersive technologies, such as virtual reality, augmented reality, and mixed reality, are employed in the cybersecurity realm to create intuitive, engaging, and interactive cyber common operating …

Automated Grain-Matrix Segmentation In Photomicrographs Of Clastic Sedimentary Rocks Using Neuro-Visual Algorithms, Rajdeep Das

Doctoral Theses

Sediments and sedimentary rocks, covering almost sixty-five percent of exposed earth’s surface, contain features that allow us to interpret ancient depositional environments, and their role in the evolution of life on earth. Study of sedimentary rocks is also relevant to exploration of geo-economic resources including petroleum, ore minerals, and groundwater as well as research in environmental geology, anthropological studies, and the bi-directional relation of man and environment. One of the important and crucial steps in this study of the detrital sedimentary rocks like sandstone, is to know the size and shape of the grains/clasts (fragments of different minerals or rocks), …

Virtual Assistant For Pest Management, Viswanada Chakravarthy Karri

Master’s Dissertations

Effective pest identification and management are essential for ensuring agricultural productivity, especially in regions with limited expert access. This work proposes a virtual assistant based on a Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG) [1] framework to support pest management tasks. The system utilizes a multimodal dataset consisting of pest images and annotated textual interactions, adapted from the AgriLLaVA corpus [2]. The assistant combines retrieval mechanisms with generative language models to generate contextually grounded responses. It is designed for deployment on local hardware with limited computational resources, integrating open-source models for both retrieval and generation. Preliminary results suggest that this approach can provide accurate, …

The Rise Of Faint, Red Active Galactic Nuclei At Z > 4: A Sample Of Little Red Dots In The Jwst Extragalactic Legacy Fields, Dale D. Kocevski, Steven L. Finkelstein, Guillermo Barro, Anthony J. Taylor, Antonello Calabrò, Brivael Laloux, Johannes Buchner, Jonathan R. Trump, Gene C.K. Leung, Guang Yang, Mark Dickinson, Pablo G. Pérez-González, Fabio Pacucci, Kohei Inayoshi, Rachel S. Somerville, Elizabeth J. Mcgrath, Hollis B. Akins, Micaela B. Bagley, Rebecca A.A. Bowler, Laura Bisigello, Adam Carnall

Pacific Faculty Work

We present a sample of 341 “little red dots” (LRDs) spanning the redshift range z ∼ 2-11 using data from the CEERS, PRIMER, JADES, UNCOVER, and NGDEEP surveys. Unlike past use of color indices to identify LRDs, we employ continuum slope fitting using shifting bandpasses to sample the same rest-frame emission blueward and redward of the Balmer break. This enables the detection of LRDs over a wider redshift range and with less contamination from galaxies with strong breaks that otherwise lack a rising red continuum. The redshift distribution of our sample increases at z < 8 and then undergoes a rapid decline at z ∼ 4.5, which may tie the emergence of these sources to the inside-out growth that galaxies experience during this epoch. We find that LRDs are ∼1 dex more numerous than X-ray- and UV-selected active galactic nuclei (AGN) at z ∼ 5-7. Within our sample, we have identified the first two X-ray-detected LRDs. An X-ray spectral analysis confirms that these AGN are moderately obscured with log ( N H / cm 2 ) of 23 . 3 − 1.3 + 0.4 and 22.7 2 − 0.16 + 0.13 . Our analysis reveals that reddened AGN emission dominates their rest-optical light, while the rest-UV originates from their host galaxies. We also present NIRSpec observations from the RUBIES survey of 17 LRDs that show broad emission lines consistent with AGN activity. The confirmed AGN fraction of our sample is 71% for sources with F444W < 26.5. In addition, we find three LRDs with blueshifted Balmer absorption features in their spectra, suggesting an outflow of high-density, low-ionization gas from near the central engine of these faint, red AGN.

Western Kentucky University Stormwater Utility Survey 2025, Warren Campbell

SEAS Faculty Publications

This survey provides data on 2147 U.S. and 82 Canadian stormwater utilities. The data is intended to provide useful data to communities that wish to enact stormwater utilities. Different fee systems are examined with the goal of avoiding legal exposure. Recently, the major source of pre-disaster mitigation funds was eliminated. States should consider state-wide stormwater utilities to make up for this loss.

2.5d Dual-Encoder U-Net For Lesion Segmentation In Chest Ct Scans, Jagannath Mukkara

Master’s Dissertations

Accurate segmentation of lesions in chest CT scans plays a vital role in diagnosing and monitoring pulmonary diseases such as COVID-19. In this, we introduce a novel 2.5D[1] dual-encoder U-Net model[2] that utilizes both the central slice and its neighboring slices to improve segmentation accuracy while keeping computational demands manageable. Our model incorporates residual connections[3] and feature fusion[4] to effectively merge multi-slice contextual information, overcoming the limitations found in traditional 2D and 3D methods. To ensure a reliable evaluation and avoid data leakage, we used patient-level data splitting. We validate our approach on a carefully curated chest CT dataset, showing …

Influence Of Tropical Cyclones, Southwest Monsoon, And Tropical Cyclone-Enhanced Southwest Monsoon On Rainfall Variability Over The Western Coast Of The Philippines, Alwin Bathan, Lyndon Mark Olaguera, Faye Abigail T. Cruz, Jose Ramon T. Villarin, Joel T. Maquiling, Maria Obiminda L. Cambaliza, John A. Manalo, Jun Matsumoto

SOSE Affiliate: Manila Observatory

This study investigates the processes driving interannual variability of rainfall over the western coast of the Philippines during the peak southwest monsoon (SWM) months (July–September) from 1961 to 2022. Specifically, it describes how tropical cyclones (TC), SWM, and TC-enhanced SWM influence SWM rainfall variability. Rainfall measurements from 11 stations along the western coast of the Philippines were classified into three types: direct TC rainfall (PD), indirect TC rainfall (PI), and SWM rainfall (PSM). The yearly contributions of PD, PI, and PSM to SWM rainfall were estimated to be 15.4 %, 33.1 %, and 51.5 %, respectively. Furthermore, four rainfall variability …

Understanding Batch-Normalization In Deep Neural Networks, Pendyala Sai Srujan

Master’s Dissertations

Batch Normalization (BN) is a commonly used technique in various deep learning architectures for tasks such as image classification and object detection. It stabilizes and accelerates training by normalizing the activations of intermediate layers using mean and variance of the batch, allowing the use of higher learning rates and often improving generalization through implicit regularization. During inference, BN uses running estimates of batch statistics accumulated during training. However, if individual batches are not representative of the overall data distribution, these accumulated statistics may not accurately approximate the population statistics. This discrepancy can lead to a phenomenon known as **estimation shift**, …

A Study On Planar 2-Center Problem, Shince K. Baby

Master’s Dissertations

The Planar-k-Centre problem is an important problem in the class of Optimal Facility Location problems, where given n points in the planar, the objective is finding the smallest k congruent discs such that their union encompasses all points. This dissertation examines a variant of this problem in which the L1 metric is used to determine the distances rather than the standard Euclidean metric, which we call L1P2C and a closely related problem which we call Undirected k Square Coverage where there is no directional constraint for the k squares which contain the given set of points. We have found two …

Morphology Based Galaxy Classification, Ayan Mukherjee

Master’s Dissertations

Galaxy evolution is an area of vital importance in current research as it is believed to hold vital clues of the past as well as the future of the universe. The structure or morphology of a galaxy acts as an indicator of its stage of evolution and may also shed light on the course of its future evolution. The deployment of high-resolution telescopes like James Webb Telescope has made available large amount of high-resolution images, thereby, facilitating the deployment of high-performance Machine Learning and Deep Learning techniques. In the proposed work, two different methods have been assessed to achieve better …

Multi-Modal Large Language Model For Visual Question Answering On Medical Domain, Srimanta Singha

Master’s Dissertations

Artificial intelligence (AI) strategies such as Multimodal learning, which can integrate inputs of multiple modes, e.g., image and text, have shown significant promise in medical applications. In this dissertation, we present our related study of a Multimodal Large Language Model (MLLM) designed for Visual Question Answering (VQA) in the medical domain, based on both image and text input modalities to improve diagnostic reasoning and decision support. Our model processes medical images (e.g., chest Xrays, CT scans, and ultrasound images) along with clinical text to answer complex, domain-specific questions. We employ a cross-modal fusion mechanism to align visual features with textual …

Draft Final 2025 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) Annual Update (Non-Residential Parcels And Residential Daycares), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.