Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Oleanolic Acid Inhibits High Salt-Induced Exaggeration Of Warburg-Like Metabolism In Breast Cancer Cells, Suneetha Amara, Mu Zheng, Venkataswarup Tiriveedhi

Chemistry Faculty Research

Cancer cells have a proliferative advantage by utilizing intermediates of aerobic glycolysis (Warburg effect) for their macromolecule synthesis. Although the exact causes of this Warburg effect are unclear, high osmotic stress in solid tumor microenvironment is considered one of the important factors. Oleanolic acid (OA) is known to exert anti-inflammatory and anti-cancer effect. In our current studies, using breast cancer cell lines, we determined the protective role of OA in high salt-mediated osmotic stress-induced cancer growth. Hypertonic (0.16 M NaCl) culture conditions enhanced the cancer cell growth (26 %, p < 0.05) and aerobic glycolysis as marked by increased glucose consumption (34 %, p < 0.05) and lactate production (25 %, p < 0.05) over untreated cells. This effect was associated with increased expression and activity of key rate-limiting enzymes of aerobic glycolysis, namely hexokinase, pyruvate kinase type M2, and lactate dehydrogenase A. Interestingly, this high salt-mediated enhanced expression of aerobic glycolytic enzymes was efficiently reversed by OA along with the decreased cancer cell proliferation. In cancer cells, enhanced aerobic glycolysis is associated with the decreased mitochondrial activity and mitochondrial-associated caspase activity. As expected, high salt further inhibited the mitochondrial related cytochrome oxidase and caspase-3 activity. However, OA efficiently reversed the high salt-mediated inhibition of cytochrome oxidase, caspase activity, and pro-apoptotic Bax expression, thus suggesting that OA induced mitochondrial activity and enhanced apoptosis. Taken together, our data indicate that OA efficiently reverses the enhanced Warburg-like metabolism induced by high salt-mediated osmotic stress along with potential application of OA in anti-cancer therapy.

On Solutions For Linear And Nonlinear Schrödinger Equations With Variable Coefficients: A Computational Approach, Gabriel Amador, Kiara Colon, Nathalie Luna, Gerardo Mercado, Enrique Pereira, Erwin Suazo

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

In this work, after reviewing two different ways to solve Riccati systems, we are able to present an extensive list of families of integrable nonlinear Schrödinger (NLS) equations with variable coefficients. Using Riccati equations and similarity transformations, we are able to reduce them to the standard NLS models. Consequently, we can construct bright-, dark- and Peregrine-type soliton solutions for NLS with variable coefficients. As an important application of solutions for the Riccati equation with parameters, by means of computer algebra systems, it is shown that the parameters change the dynamics of the solutions. Finally, we test numerical approximations for the …

The Contributions Of Anatol Rapoport To Game Theory, Erika Simpson

Political Science Publications

Game theory is used to rationally and dispassionately examine the strategic behaviour of nations, especially superpower behaviour. This article explains how basic game theory - at its simplest level - was used by Anatol Rapoport to generate ideas about how to enhance world peace. Rapoport was at the forefront of the game theoreticians who sought to conceptualize strategies that could promote international cooperation. Accordingly, the basic logic of game theory is explained using the game models of ‘Chicken’ and ‘Prisoner’s Dilemma’. These models were used by Rapoport in his books and lectures in simple and complex ways. Then Rapoport’s revolutionary …

Surface Dynamics Of Crude And Weathered Oil In The Presence Of Dispersants: Laboratory Experiment And Numerical Simulation, Alexander Soloviev, Brian K. Haus, Michael G. Mcgauley, Cayla Whitney Dean, David G. Ortiz-Suslow, Nathan J. M. Laxague, Tamay M. Ozgokmen

Marine & Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles

Marine oil spills can have dire consequences for the environment. Research on their dynamics is important for the well-being of coastal communities and their economies. Propagation of oil spills is a very complex physical-chemical process. As seen during the Deepwater Horizon event in the Gulf of Mexico during 2010, one of the critical problems remaining for prediction of oil transport and dispersion in the marine environment is the small-scale structure and dynamics of surface oil spills. The laboratory experiments conducted in this work were focused on understanding the differences between the dynamics of crude and weathered oil spills and the …

Factors Driving The Concentration Of Ephemeral Flow, Gretchen Anne Guyer

Dissertations and Theses

In spite of decades of related research, stream channel initiation is still not well understood. Current theories of channel initiation are grounded in research conducted by Montgomery and Dietrich, largely in the transport limited, temperate, humid climate of the Pacific Northwest, USA. This field data driven work concluded that the drainage area required for channel initiation is directly correlated to the slope of the contributing area. However, there are a host of related variables that have yet to be examined in the field. This study revisits the slope-area relationship focusing on ephemeral overland flow in headwaters of both the Pacific …

Relationships That Extend Beyond The Fence-Line: Private Landowner Attitudes And Interest In Conservation Easements, Ashley Lyn Vizek

Dissertations and Theses

Private land conservation provides an opportunity to address problems of habitat fragmentation and biodiversity loss caused by an increase in the development and parcelization of private land. Conservation easements (CEs) are an innovative tool used by land trusts to protect significant natural qualities of private land in perpetuity, while also allowing the land to remain in private ownership. Traditionally, property represents an individualistic relationship, however, CEs redefine this relationship by seeking to maximize the overlap in private and public goods in property. In this study, I explore the relationship between the common good and private property through an analysis of …

Nano-Photonic Waveguides For Chemical And Biomedical Sensing, Surya Venkatasekhar Cheemalapati

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, advances in the fields of Photonics, and Plasmonics, and specifically, single cell analysis and waveguide sensing will be addressed. The first part of the dissertation is on Finite Difference Time Domain (FDTD) optimization and experimental demonstration of a nano-scale instrument that allows sensing at the cellular and subcellular levels. A new design of plasmonic coupler into a nanoscale waveguide is proposed and optimized using FDTD simulations. Following this, a subcellular nanoendoscope that can locally excite fluorescence in labelled cell organelles and collect the emitted fluorescent light for detailed spectrum analysis is fabricated and tested. The nanoendoscope has …

Weak-Value Amplification Of The Fast-Light Effect In Rubidium Vapor, Mohammad Mirhosseini, Gerardo I. Viza, Omar S. Magaña-Loaiza, Mehul Malik, John C. Howell, Robert W. Boyd

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We use weak-value amplification to enhance the polarization-sensitive fast-light effect from induced Raman absorption in hot rubidium vapor. We experimentally demonstrate that projecting the output signal into an appropriate polarization state enables a pulse advancement of 4.2μs, which is more than 15 times larger than that naturally caused by dispersion. More significantly, we show that combining weak-value amplification with the dispersive response of an atomic system provides a clear advantage in terms of the maximum pulse advance achievable for a given value of loss. This technique has potential applications for designing novel quantum-information-processing gates and optical buffers for telecommunication systems.

Partitions Of Finite Frames, James Michael Rosado

Theses and Dissertations

An open question stated by Marcus, Spielman, and Srivastava [10] asks "whether one can design an efficient algorithm to find the partitions guaranteed by Corollary 1.5." This corollary states that given a set of vectors in C whose outer products sum to the identity there exists a partition of these vectors such that norms of the outer-product sums of each subset satisfy an inequality bound. Here particular types of vector sets called finite frames are analyzed and constructed to satisfy the inequality described in Corollary 1.5. In this thesis, rigorous proofs and formulations of outer-product norms are utilized to find …

Sim Card Forensics: Digital Evidence, Nada Ibrahim, Nuha Al Naqbi, Farkhund Iqbal, Omar Alfandi

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

With the rapid evolution of the smartphone industry, mobile device forensics has become essential in cybercrime investigation. Currently, evidence forensically-retrieved from a mobile device is in the form of call logs, contacts, and SMSs; a mobile forensic investigator should also be aware of the vast amount of user data and network information that are stored in the mobile SIM card such as ICCID, IMSI, and ADN. The aim of this study is to test various forensic tools to effectively gather critical evidence stored on the SIM card. In the first set of experiments, we compare the selected forensic tools in …

Assessing The Gap: Measure The Impact Of Phishing On An Organization, Brad Wardman

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Phishing has become one of the most recognized words associated with cybercrime. As more organizations are being targeted by phishing campaigns, there are more options within the industry to deter such attacks. However, there is little research into how much damage these campaigns are causing organizations. This paper will show how financial organizations can be impacted by phishing and present a method for accurately quantifying resultant monetary losses. The methodology presented in this paper can be adapted to other organizations in order to quantify phishing losses across industries.

Keywords: phishing, cybercrime, economics

Wban Security Management In Healthcare Enterprise Environments, Karina Bahena, Manghui Tu

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

As healthcare data are pushed online, consumers have raised big concerns on the breach of their personal information. Law and regulations have placed businesses and public organizations under obligations to take actions to prevent such data breaches. Various vulnerabilities have been identified in healthcare enterprise environments, in which the Wireless Body Area Networks (WBAN) remains to be a major vulnerability, which can be easily taken advantage of by determined adversaries. Thus, vulnerabilities of WBAN systems and the effective countermeasure mechanisms to secure WBAN are urgently needed. In this research, first, the architecture of WBAN system has been explored, and the …

Rotational And Hyperfine Analysis Of Aus, Ian A. Wyse

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

Gas phase diatomic gold sulfide, AuS, was analyzed using optical spectroscopy. High-resolution spectra were collected and characterized and a global fit of the A²∑⁺-X²∏_3/2 (0,0), B²∑^–-X²∏_3/2 (0,0), and C²Δ_3/2-X²∏_1/2 (0,0) transitions at 15570 cm^-1, 16290 cm^-1, and 17670 cm^-1 was compiled and resulted in rotational constant determinations for the A²∑⁺((2σ)¹(4π)⁴), B²∑^–((2σ)²(4π)²(2σ*)¹), and C²Δ_{3/2 …}

Power And Langmuir Probe Measurements Of H2 Rf Plasma, Alexander A. Stowell

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

Methane based gases are often used to produce thin films of biomaterials, such as diamond-like carbon, through Plasma Enhanced Chemical Vapor Deposition. The characterization of the H₂ plasma will give a deeper understanding of the physical processes occurring. Understanding these processes could lead to the optimization of the production of these thin films in the future. In this paper, we examine the H₂ plasma using a Langmuir probe to gain information on the electron temperature and density of the plasma discharge. We measured electron temperatures of 6eV. Our Langmuir probe data indicates the electron temperature remains constant as …

The Effects Of Hydrazine Monohydrate Surface Doping On Graphene, Christian M. Stewart

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

In this project we investigate how the carrier concentration and scattering time of chemical vapor deposition (CVD) graphene samples are affected by the exposure of these samples to hydrazine monohydrate. We used both immersion techniques and vapor deposition techniques to surface dope our graphene samples. We use both Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and Hall effect measurements to investigate these effects.We find that after surface doping CVD graphene samples, the electron concentration greatly increases while the scattering time is nearly unaffected. We also find that this doping process with hydrazine monohydrate is reversible.

Increasing The Acceptance Rate Of H-> 4e- Run 1 Events By Relaxing The Applied Cuts, Beni J. Pazar

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

The Decay mode of Higgs into four leptons allows for accurate parameter reconstruction and is thus a useful channel to research. The study attempted to increase the number of four electron events that pass selection cuts, without greatly increasing the amount of background noise, by varying the transverse momentum, invariant mass of the subleading electrons, and electron identification. With the application of a boosted decision tree targeting the ZZ* noise, the study found that the optimal configuration was a loose electron identification with the invariant mass greater than 10 GeV and the transverse momentum greater than 7 GeV.

Contributing To Astropy: A Community Python Library For Astronomers, Asra Nizami

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

This paper discusses the author’s contributions to two packages affiliated with Astropy, a community Python library for astronomers. The packages the author contributed to were modeling, a sub-package within the core Astropy package, and WCSAxes, an Astropy affiliated package, outside the core package.

Elastic Block Modeling Of Fault Slip Rates Across Southern California, Liam P. Dizio

Macalester Journal of Physics and Astronomy

We present fault slip rate estimates for Southern California based on Global Positioning System (GPS) velocity data from the University NAVSTAR Consortium (UNAVCO), the Southern California Earthquake Center (SCEC), and new campaign GPS velocity data from the San Bernardino Mountains and vicinity. Fault slip-rates were calculated using Tdefnode, a program used to model elastic deformation within lithospheric blocks and slip on block bounding faults [2]. Our block model comprised most major faults within Southern California. Tdefnode produced similar slip rate values as other geodetic modeling techniques. The fastest slipping faults are the Imperial fault (37.4±0.1 mm/yr) and the Brawley seismic …

Possible Evolution Of Supermassive Black Holes From Fri Quasars, Matthew I. Kim, Damian J. Christian, David Garofalo, Jaclyn D'Avanzo

Faculty Articles

We explore the question of the rapid buildup of black hole mass in the early universe employing a growing black hole mass-based determination of both jet and disc powers predicted in recent theoretical work on black hole accretion and jet formation. Despite simplified, even artificial assumptions about accretion and mergers, we identify an interesting low probability channel for the growth of one billion solar mass black holes within hundreds of millions of years of the big bang without appealing to super Eddington accretion. This result is made more compelling by the recognition of a connection between this channel and an …

The Effects Of Phosphonic Acids In Dye-Sensitized Solar Cells, Keith Edward James

Dissertations and Theses

Novel methods for the construction of dye-sensitized solar cells (DSSCs) were developed. A thin dense underlayer of TiO₂ was applied on fluorine-doped tin oxide (FTO) glass using as a precursor Tyzor AA-105. Subsequently a mesoporous film of P-25 TiO₂ was applied by spreading a suspension uniformly over the surface of the underlayer and allowing the plate to slowly dry while resting on a level surface. After sintering at 500° C slides were treated with TCPP as a sensitizing dye and assembled into DSSCs. A novel method was used to seal the cells; strips of Parafilm® were used as …

Green Roofs And Urban Biodiversity: Their Role As Invertebrate Habitat And The Effect Of Design On Beetle Community, Sydney Marie Gonsalves

Dissertations and Theses

With over half the world's population now living in cities, urban areas represent one of earth's few ecosystems that are increasing in extent, and are sites of altered biogeochemical cycles, habitat fragmentation, and changes in biodiversity. However, urban green spaces, including green roofs, can also provide important pools of biodiversity and contribute to regional gamma diversity, while novel species assemblages can enhance some ecosystem services. Green roofs may also mitigate species loss in urban areas and have been shown to support a surprising diversity of invertebrates, including rare and endangered species. In the first part of this study I reviewed …

Efficient Pair-Wise Similarity Computation Using Apache Spark, Parineetha Gandhi Tirumali

Master's Projects

Entity matching is the process of identifying different manifestations of the same real world entity. These entities can be referred to as objects(string) or data instances. These entities are in turn split over several databases or clusters based on the signatures of the entities. When entity matching algorithms are performed on these databases or clusters, there is a high possibility that a particular entity pair is compared more than once. The number of comparison for any two entities depend on the number of common signatures or keys they possess. This effects the performance of any entity matching algorithm. This paper …

Hybrid Similarity Function For Big Data Entity Matching With R-Swoosh, Vimal Chandra Gorijala

Master's Projects

Entity Matching (EM) is the problem of determining if two entities in a data set refer to the same real-world object. For example, it decides if two given mentions in the data, such as “Helen Hunt” and “H. M. Hunt”, refer to the same real-world entity by using different similarity functions. This problem plays a key role in information integration, natural language understanding, information processing on the World-Wide Web, and on the emerging Semantic Web. This project deals with the similarity functions and thresholds utilized in them to determine the similarity of the entities. The work contains two major parts: …

Cosm News, Georgia Southern University

College of Science & Mathematics: News & Publications (2012-2022)

• Dr. Carroll Selected as a 2016 Governor’s Teaching Fellow

Search For Supersymmetry In Pp Collisions At Square Root Of S = 8 Tev In Final States With Boosted W Bosons And B Jets Using Razor Variables, V. Khachatryan, A. M. Sirunyan, Marc M. Baarmand, Vallary Bhopatkar, Stefano Colafranceschi, Marcus Hohlmann, H Kalakhety, Daniel Noonan, Tuhin S. Roy, Francisco X. Yumiceva

Aerospace, Physics, and Space Science Faculty Publications

A search for supersymmetry in hadronic final states with highly boosted W bosons and b jets is presented, focusing on compressed scenarios. The search is performed using proton-proton collision data at a center-of-mass energy of 8 TeV, collected by the CMS experiment at the LHC, corresponding to an integrated luminosity of 19.7 fb-1. Events containing candidates for hadronic decays of boosted W bosons are identified using jet substructure techniques, and are analyzed using the razor variables MR and R2, which characterize a possible signal as a peak on a smoothly falling background. The observed event yields in the signal regions …

Forensics Analysis Of Privacy Of Portable Web Browsers, Ahmad Ghafarian

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Web browser vendors offer a portable web browser option which is considered as one of the features that provides user privacy. Portable web browser is a browser that can be launched from a USB flash drive without the need for its installation on the host machine. Most popular web browsers have portable versions of their browsers as well. Portable web browsing poses a great challenge to computer forensic investigators who try to reconstruct the past browsing history, in case of any computer incidence. This research examines various sources in the host machine such as physical memory, temporary, recent, event files, …

Reverse Engineering A Nit That Unmasks Tor Users, Matthew Miller, Joshua Stroschein, Ashley Podhradsky

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

This paper is a case study of a forensic investigation of a Network Investigative Technique (NIT) used by the FBI to deanonymize users of a The Onion Router (Tor) Hidden Service. The forensic investigators were hired by the defense to determine how the NIT worked. The defendant was ac- cused of using a browser to access illegal information. The authors analyzed the source code, binary files and logs that were used by the NIT. The analysis was used to validate that the NIT collected only necessary and legally authorized information. This paper outlines the publicly available case details, how the …

Malware In The Mobile Device Android Environment, Diana Hintea, Robert Bird, Andrew Walker

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

exploit smartphone operating systems has exponentially expanded. Android has become the main target to exploit due to having the largest install base amongst the smartphone operating systems and owing to the open access nature in which application installations are permitted. Many Android users are unaware of the risks associated with a malware infection and to what level current malware scanners protect them. This paper tests how efficient the currently available malware scanners are. To achieve this, ten representative Android security products were selected and tested against a set of 5,560 known and categorized Android malware samples. The tests were carried …

Forensic Analysis Of Smartphone Applications For Privacy Leakage, Diana Hintea, Chrysanthi Taramonli, Robert Bird, Rezhna Yusuf

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Smartphone and tablets are personal devices that have diffused to near universal ubiquity in recent years. As Smartphone users become more privacy-aware and -conscious, research is needed to understand how “leakage” of private information (personally identifiable information – PII) occurs. This study explores how leakage studies in Droid devices should be adapted to Apple iOS devices. The OWASP Zed Attack Proxy (ZAP) is examined for 50 apps in various categories. This study confirms that: (1) most apps transmit unencrypted sensitive PII, (2) SSL is used by some recipient websites, but without corresponding app compliance with SSL, and (3) most apps …

Inferring Previously Uninstalled Applications From Residual Partial Artifacts, Jim Jones, Tahir Khan, Kathryn Laskey, Alex Nelson, Mary Laamanen, Douglas White

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

In this paper, we present an approach and experimental results to suggest the past presence of an application after the application has been uninstalled and the system has remained in use. Current techniques rely on the recovery of intact artifacts and traces, e.g., whole files, Windows Registry entries, or log file entries, while our approach requires no intact artifact recovery and leverages trace evidence in the form of residual partial files. In the case of recently uninstalled applications or an instrumented infrastructure, artifacts and traces may be intact and complete. In most cases, however, digital artifacts and traces are al- …