Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Improved Pipeline To Search For Gravitational Waves From Compact Binary Coalescence, Samantha Usman

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

We describe the search pipeline, called PyCBC , used to identify gravitational wave candidates in Advanced LIGO's O1 search. We give an overall summary of the pipeline including a general layout and the methods for calculating the signal-to-noise ratio and the chi-squared statistic. We then give detailed explanations of removing noise transient before processing, called gating ; the way to create a bank of template waveforms and the process of matched filtering these waveforms against the data; the chi-squared statistic's role in eliminating noise transients; the latest coincidence testing method, which requires candidates to be both nearly simultaneous and have …

Investigation Of The Tandem Alkylation-Cyclization Of Endocyclic Enol Ethers For The Preparation Of Unusual Oxygen Heterocycles, Sarah Mehdi

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

The purpose of this research is to study the alkylation and subsequent cyclization reaction of endocyclic enol ethers such as 2H-dihydropyran. This sequence is expected to yield oxygen heterocycles whose structures represent unique scaffolds with promising functionality.

A series of trichloroacetimidates were selected for the direct alkylation of 2H-dihydropyran. Following the alkylation, the addition of acid was expected to induce an intramolecular cyclization reaction that would yield the desired oxygen heterocycles. This stepwise scheme would then be converted into a tandem process in which the reaction would be expected to proceed in a single pot.

Studies showed that the alkylation …

Ruthenium Hydride Catalyzed Silylvinylation Of Terminal And Internal Alkynes And Synthesis Of Poly(Trimethylenecarbonate) And Poly(Dimethylacrylamide) Block Copolymer, Alec Beaton Jr.

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Various propargyl alcohols were synthesized via Grignard reactions. These alkynic alcohols are tethered with dimethyl and biphenyl silicon tethers. These terminal alkyne substrates are reacted with RuHCl(CO)(H₂IMes)(PPh₃) as a catalyst under high pressure (80 psi) ethylene atmosphere to afford the 5-exo-dig trans-silylvinylation product in poor yield. Internal alkyne substrates are found to be much more efficiently transformed into the silylvinylation product, favoring one cycloisomer product over the other.

Towards A Verified Complex Protocol Stack In A Production Kernel: Methodology And Demonstration, Peter C. Johnson

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Any useful computer system performs communication and any communication must be parsed before it is computed upon. Given their importance, one might expect parsers to receive a significant share of attention from the security community. This is, however, not the case: bugs in parsers continue to account for a surprising portion of reported and exploited vulnerabilities. In this thesis, I propose a methodology for supporting the development of software that depends on parsers---such as anything connected to the Internet---to safely support any reasonably designed protocol: data structures to describe protocol messages; validation routines that check that data received from the …

Teddi: Tamper Event Detection On Distributed Cyber-Physical Systems, Jason O. Reeves

Dartmouth College Ph.D Dissertations

Edge devices, or embedded devices installed along the periphery of a power grid SCADA network, pose a significant threat to the grid, as they give attackers a convenient entry point to access and cause damage to other essential equipment in substations and control centers. Grid defenders would like to protect these edge devices from being accessed and tampered with, but they are hindered by the grid defender's dilemma; more specifically, the range and nature of tamper events faced by the grid (particularly distributed events), the prioritization of grid availability, the high costs of improper responses, and the resource constraints of …

Comparing The Quantitation Of Opiates From Possible Drug Overdose Cases Using Results Of Blood Analysis And Liver Analysis, Lee Ann Garozzo

Forensic Science Theses

Currently the quantitation of opiates at the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office Toxicology Laboratory is conducted through whole blood analysis. The objective of this thesis project was to determine if the analysis of opiates could be conducted through liver analysis, and if the analysis of opiates would provide a more accurate quantitation compared to the blood analysis. The quantitation of opiates was conducted from the livers of sixty-four possible overdose cases that were brought into the Erie County Medical Examiner’s Office between 2013 and 2015. Results showed that the opiate drugs could successfully be quantitated using the liver analysis. Generally …

11th New World Luminescence Dating Workshop Scientific Program And Abstracts And Field Trip Guide Book, P.R. Hanson, James B. Swinehart, Joseph Mason

Conservation and Survey Division: Faculty and Staff Publications

No abstract provided.

General Existence Results For Abstract Mckean-Vlasov Stochastic Equations With Variable Delay, Mark A. Mckibben

Mathematics Faculty Publications

Results concerning the global existence and uniqueness of mild solutions for a class of first-order abstract stochastic integro-differential equations with variable delay in a real separable Hilbert space in which we allow the nonlinearities at a given time t to depend not only on the state of the solution at time t, but also on the corresponding probability distribution at time t are established. The classical Lipschitz is replaced by a weaker so-called Caratheodory condition under which we still maintain uniqueness. The time-dependent case is discussed, as well as an extension of the theory to the case of a nonlocal …

Geomechanical Analysis Of Rock Brittleness With Comparisons To The Mineralogical Brittleness Index, Derek Bammel

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses - Archive

A significant area of research within the Oil and Gas industry centers around the understanding of rock brittleness and fracture mechanics related to inducing and extending hydraulic fractures. This study defines rock brittleness as the fracture density, or the fracture surface area per unit volume (m-1), at a particular strain state. The first goal of this research was to test whether or not the strain conditions of various rock layers were constant using a geomechanically derived equation, ����������24��2(1+��)=����1−2��+��, where Fd is fracture density, Kic is fracture toughness, u is the shear modulus, v is Poisson’s Ratio, and A and B …

A Game Theoretic Framework For Temporal And Agent Abstractions In Multiagent Learning, Danielle Clement

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations - Archive

A major challenge in the area of multiagent reinforcement learning is addressing the issue of scale as systems get more and more complex. Systems with multiple agents attempting to explore and learn about the world they inhabit concurrently require more time and resources to learn optimal responses. Increasing the number of agents within a system dramatically increases the cost to represent the problem and calculate the solution. Single agent systems address part of the scaling problem through the use of temporal abstractions, or mechanisms to consider a sequence of many actions as a single temporal “step”. This concept has been …

Renewable Energy Matters: Small Hydel Power And Sustainability In India, Madhu N. Rao

Bridgewater Review

No abstract provided.

Strain Analysis Across The Margins Of The Elkahatchee And Coley Creek Plutons, Alabama Eastern Blue Ridge: Implications For The Alexander City Fault, Kenneth Joel Roop-Eckart

Theses and Dissertations

The Ashland-Wedowee-Emuckfaw belt of the eastern Blue Ridge of Alabama and Georgia consists of metamorphosed Neoproterozoic-Ordovician continental margin and Ordovician back-arc sedimentary/volcanic sequences intruded by Ordovician-Mississippian granitic plutons. Two of these plutons, the Elkahatchee Quartz Diorite and Coley Creek orthogneiss exhibit zones of high strain, evidenced by mylonitic fabrics, ductile deformation of feldspar grains, grain size reduction, and changes in mica content at their margins. Geologic mapping in the vicinity of the Coley Creek pluton shows no evidence for a ductile shear zone beyond its margins and thus, is unlikely to be associated with a major fault. More likely, this …

Vortices And Quasiparticles In Superconducting Microwave Resonators, Ibrahim Nsanzineza

Dissertations - ALL

Superconducting resonators with high quality factors are of great interest in many areas. However, the quality factor of the resonator can be weakened by many dissipation channels including trapped magnetic flux vortices and nonequilibrium quasiparticles which can significantly impact the performance of superconducting microwave resonant circuits and qubits at millikelvin temperatures. Quasiparticles result in excess loss, reducing resonator quality factors and qubit lifetimes. Vortices trapped near regions of large microwave currents also contribute excess loss. However, vortices located in current-free areas in the resonator or in the ground plane of a device can actually trap quasiparticles and lead to a …

Development And Implementation Of Efficient Noise Suppression Methods For Emission Computed Tomography, Jiahan Zhang

Dissertations - ALL

In PET and SPECT imaging, iterative reconstruction is now widely used due to its capability of incorporating into the reconstruction process a physics model and Bayesian statistics involved in photon detection. Iterative reconstruction methods rely on regularization terms to suppress image noise and render radiotracer distribution with good image quality. The choice of regularization method substantially affects the appearances of reconstructed images, and is thus a critical aspect of the reconstruction process. Major contributions of this work include implementation and evaluation of various new regularization methods. Previously, our group developed a preconditioned alternating projection algorithm (PAPA) to optimize the emission …

Early Growth And Development Impairments In Patients With Ganglioside Gm3 Synthase Deficiency, H. Wang, A. Wang, Dan Wang, A. Bright, V. Sency, Aimin Zhou, B. Xin

Chemistry Faculty Publications

Ganglioside GM3 synthase is a key enzyme involved in the biosynthesis of gangliosides. GM3 synthase deficiency (GSD) causes a complete absence of GM3 and all downstream biosynthetic derivatives. The individuals affected by this disorder manifest severe irritability, intractable seizures and profound intellectual disability. However, we have found that most newborns seem symptom-free for a period of time after birth. In order to further understand the onset of the disease, we investigated the early growth and development of patients with this condition through this study. We compared 37 affected individuals with their normal siblings and revealed that all children with GSD …

Characterization Of Plethodontid Timp-Like Protein (Ptp) And Its Role In Tissue Remodeling During Pheromone Gland Development., Andrew Knight

College of Arts & Sciences Senior Theses

Plethodon shermani is a species of lungless salamander that has a complex courtship ritual during which the female straddles the male’s tail. The male then uses a submandibular mental gland to secrete nonvolatile proteinaceous pheromones to increase females’ receptivity to mating. Investigation of the pheromone extract indicated the presence of a protein, termed Plethodontid TIMP-like protein (PTP), with no pheromonelike activity that bears sequence similarity to a group of proteins known as Tissue Inhibitors of Matrix Metalloproteinases (TIMPs). PTP was functionally characterized by measuring its ability to inhibit a range of mouse and human Matrix Metalloproteinases (MMPs). The results of …

Low Dimensional Semiconducting Nanostructures: Stability, Trends And Promises, Prabath Wanaguru

Physics Dissertations - Archive

Systematic studies of low dimensional semiconducting nanostructures have been performed. In particular, silicon-germanium (SiGe) armchair type nanotubes, and both zigzag and armchair type nanoribbons were used to represent the bottom-up approach while hematite nanoribbons were used to represent the top down approach. Four high symmetric nanostructure atomic arrangements were identified. All the SiGe nanotubes and SiGe nanoribbons show definite semiconducting character and the band gaps span over large range. Zigzag SiGe nanoribbons show direct band gap nature indicating potential applications in opto-electronic devices. Standalone SiGe nanoribbons may roll into nanotubes depending on the atomic arrangement. Li adsorption on SiGe nanotubes …

Cfd Model For Ventilation In Broiler Holding Sheds, Christian Heymsfield

Biological and Agricultural Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Broiler production in Arkansas was valued at over $3.6 billion in 2013 (University of Arkansas Extension of Agriculture). Consequently, improvement in any phase of the production process can have significant economic impact and animal welfare implications. From the time poultry leave the farm and until they are slaughtered, they can be exposed to harsh environmental conditions, both in winter and in summer. After road transportation, birds are left to wait in holding sheds once they arrive at the processing plant, for periods of approximately 30 minutes to two hours. This project was interested in this holding shed waiting time during …

Development Of Solar Experiments With Remote Laboratory Capability For Engineering Education Of The Future, Otto Kyle Neidert

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Educating future engineers will be handled differently as this modern society has various methods of doing so and a plethora of knowledge to pursue. The availability of computers and internet has changed many things. A subject that is relevant in today’s world but not common to most people and some engineers is solar energy. As part of a grant from the National Science Foundation that was awarded to Louisiana State University (LSU), Florida State University (FSU), and the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV), the UNLV Center for Energy Research partnered with them to create solar application based learning modules. …

A Web Based User Interface For Machine Learning Analysis Of Health And Education Data, Chandani Shrestha

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The objective of this thesis is to develop a user friendly web application that will be used to analyse data sets using various machine learning algorithms. The application design follows human computer interaction design guidelines and principles to make a user friendly interface [Shn03]. It uses Linear Regression, Logistic Regression, Backpropagation machine learning algorithms for prediction. This application is built using Java, Play framework, Bootstrap and IntelliJ IDE. Java is used in the backend to create a model that maps the input and output data based on any of the above given learning algorithms while Play Framework and Bootstrap are …

An Empirical Study On The Impact Of C++ Lambdas And Programmer Experience, Phillip Merlin Uesbeck

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Lambda functions have become prevalent in mainstream programming languages, as they are increasingly introduced to widely used object oriented programming languages such as Java and C++. Some in the scientific literature argue that this feature increases programmer productivity, ease of reading, and makes parallel programming easier. Others are less convinced, citing concerns that the use of lambdas makes debugging harder. This thesis describes the design, execution and results of an experiment to test the impact of using lambda functions compared to the iterator design pattern for iteration tasks, as a first step

in evaluating these claims. The approach is a …

(U-Th)/He Studies Of The Southern Snake Range Metamorphic Core Complex, Nv And Gypsum Valley Salt Wall, Paradox Basin, Co, Usa, Sarah Lynn Evans

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

This dissertation presents three studies that investigate extension in the Southern Snake Range (SSR) metamorphic core complex (MCC) of east-central Nevada and a thermal anomaly associated with the Gypsum Valley salt wall (GVSW) of southwestern Colorado. Low temperature thermochronologic studies using the (U-Th)/He system have been applied in numerous geologic settings to understand erosional and tectonic denudation processes. Two of the studies presented use (U-Th)/He thermochronology, combined with other techniques, to investigate the extensional history of the SSR and the extent of the GVSW thermal anomaly. Both of these studies present novel methods for understanding the thermal histories of the …

Towards Understanding The Compression Of Sound Information, Kathleen Marie Fisher

Computer Science Honors Theses

The purpose of this thesis is to explore data compression, specifically as it relates to sound information. Data transfer is an important part of the current technology driven lifestyle and compressed data means faster transmission. This thesis will explore how compression can be applied to sound while considering often overlooked factors, such as the way the sense of human hearing works to interpret sounds. An example of Huffman compression follows the general discussion of the compression of sound information.

Multithreaded Collision Detection With Akka's Actor Library In Scala, Bryan Schrock

Computer Science Honors Theses

This project strives to determine the efficiency of pure actor computing to more conventional methods of parallelizing code. The research involved three algorithms, all of which perform two dimensional collision detection: a one thread, control method that is well documented in previous work, a multithreaded method using a novel technique to avoid race conditions, and an actor model, written using the Akka Actor library. The three algorithms were run at varying input size to get an accurate idea of efficiency.

Effects Of Hydraulic Connections On Unsaturated Flow In Dual-Permeability Media, Jeevan Jayakody

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

A geological medium that exhibits two distinct types of flow is known as dual-permeability medium. Unconsolidated deposits composed of coarse (> 2 mm diameter) clasts (gravel, talus, rockslide debris), engineered systems (heap leach piles, capillary barriers, rock fill), and mine/construction waste fall into this category. The large inter-clast pores that are characteristic of this type of media will drain at near zero matric potentials constraining flow to the interiors of porous clasts and/or the clast surfaces. In either case, water must pass through hydraulic bridges (porous contacts and/or pendular water) that form physical connections between neighboring clasts. Therefore, properties of …

Development Of Sulfur And Selenium Halogen Bonded Synthons And Mechanosynthesis Of Halogen Bonded Cocrystals, Adam Michael Siegfried

All Dissertations

The halogen bond, XB, has been known since the nineteenth century. A XB involves the donation of electron density from a donor such as N, O, S, or Se to an electropositive region on another atom typically iodine or bromine. XB acceptors are Lewis bases and XB donors are Lewis acids keeping terminology hydrogen bonding. The highly directional characteristic of the halogen bond paired with phenyl embrace interactions provide very useful supramolecular synthons allowing for the engineering of cocrystals with specific directional bonding motifs.

Nitrogen electron acceptors such as quinoxaline, phenazine, 4,4’-bipyridine, and 4,4’-dimethyl-2,2’-bipyridine are cocrystallized with 1,4-diiodotetrafluorobenzene (1,4-F4DIB), 1,4-difluorotetraiodobenzine …

Defect Assisted Growth Of Copper-Silicide Nanostructures On Si(100) And Si(111), Endu Sekhar Srinadhu

All Dissertations

As the dimensions of the smallest feature on the integrated circuit has minia-turized into the range of tens of nanometers, patterning of highly ordered nanos-tructures with tunable size and shape in large scale on the surface of substrate is highly demanding and increasingly challenges the limits of nanolithography. To over-come the conventional lithographic limitations, self assembled methods have been explored. While strain driven self assembly is widely viewed as a promising technique for patterning at the nanoscale, to follow this approach and create structures in a desired manner, a reliable means to engineer and characterize the shape and sizes of …

Multivariate Thinking In An Intro Stats Course – Is It Possible?, Beverly Wood

Publications

Many of our students have an intuitive sense that there is more to the story than univariate or bivariate data can tell us. We can acknowledge and encourage that habit of digging deeper by demonstrating some ways to look at additional variables. Simpson’s paradox and side-by-side scatter plots are ways to provide a glimpse of more complex analysis that are accessible to students in an introductory course with or without strong quantitative skills.

On The Number Of Distinct Cyclic Subgroups Of A Given Finite Group, Joseph Dillstrom

Graduate Theses/Dissertations

In the study of finite groups, it is a natural question to consider the number of distinct cyclic subgroups of a given finite group. Following an article by M. Tarnauceanu in the American Mathematical Monthly, we consider arithmetic relations between the order of a finite group and the number of its cyclic subgroups. We classify several infinite families of finite groups in this fashion and expand upon an open problem posed in the article.

Algal Growth Response To Nutrient Loading On The Lower Boise River, Idaho, Ian Penn

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Nitrate and phosphate concentrations in the Lower Boise River become increasingly elevated with distance downstream. While there is correlative evidence that there is algal growth from elevated nutrients, no one has formally evaluated the algal growth response from nutrient loading. We quantified algal biomass in response to increased nutrient concentrations by sampling benthic algal biomass from natural substrata (rocks) and artificial substrata that also assessed nutrient limitation along a 64 mile reach from near Diversion Dam to the city of Parma that exhibited an increase of nitrate (0.01 mg/L to 3.40 mg/L) and phosphate (below detection to 0.56 mg/L). Samples …