Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Use Of Semi-Structured Interviews For The Characterisation Of Farmer Irrigation Practices, Jimmy O’Keeffe, Wouter Buytaert, Ana Mijic, N. Brozovic, Rajiv Sinha

Daugherty Water for Food Global Institute: Faculty Publications

For the development of sustainable and realistic water security, generating information on the behaviours, characteristics, and drivers of users, as well as on the resource itself, is essential. In this paper we present a methodology for collecting qualitative and quantitative data on water use practices through semi-structured interviews. This approach facilitates the collection of detailed information on actors’ decisions in a convenient and cost-effective manner. Semi-structured interviews are organised around a topic guide, which helps lead the conversation in a standardised way while allowing sufficient opportunity for relevant issues to emerge. In addition, they can be used to obtain certain …

2016-01-A3dsrinp-Csc-Sta-Cmb-522-Bps-542, Raymond Pulver, Neal Buxton, Xiaodong Wang, John Lucci, Jean Yves Hervé, Lenore Martin

Bioinformatics Software Design Projects

Cholesterol is carried and transported through bloodstream by lipoproteins. There are two types of lipoproteins: low density lipoprotein, or LDL, and high density lipoprotein, or HDL. LDL cholesterol is considered “bad” cholesterol because it can form plaque and hard deposit leading to arteries clog and make them less flexible. Heart attack or stroke will happen if the hard deposit blocks a narrowed artery. HDL cholesterol helps to remove LDL from the artery back to the liver.

Traditionally, particle counts of LDL and HDL plays an important role to understanding and prediction of heart disease risk. But recently research suggested that …

Quantum Field Theory And Jet Phenomena, David Elofson

Honors Program Theses and Projects

This honors thesis studies graduate-level quantum field theory including Feynman diagrams and Feynman calculus in order to connect experimental results with the theoretical background. It discusses results of a research experience for undergraduates through Duke University's high energy physics program regarding jet phenomena and explains the inadequacy of quantum mechanics in predicting particle interactions. It follows the canonical method of building a relativistic quantum field theory and describes the process for building one from Langrangians. It addresses the non-interacting part of the theory using the canonical quantization and uses the Feynman propagator and Wick's theorem to address the interacting part …

Size Effect On The Magnetic Phase In Sr4Ru3O10, Yan Liu, Jiyong Yang, Weike Wang, Haifeng Du, Wei Ning, Langsheng Ling, Wei Tong, Zhe Qu, Zhaorong Yang, Minling Tian, Gang Cao, Yuheng Zhang

Center for Advanced Materials Faculty Publications

High quality Sr₄Ru₃O₁₀ nanoflakes are obtained by the scotch tape-based micro-mechanical exfoliation method. The metamagnetic transition temperature T_m^flake is found to decrease in line with the decrease of thickness, while the ferromagnetic (FM) phase, the ordinary, and anomalous Hall effects (OHE and AHE) are independent on the thickness of the flake. Analysis of the data demonstrates that the AHE reflects the FM nature of Sr₄Ru₃O₁₀, and the decrease of thickness favors the Ru moments aligned in the ab-plane, which induces a decrease of the metamagnetic transition …

Accommodation Space In A High-Wave-Energy Inner-Shelf During The Holocene Marine Transgression: Correlation Of Onshore And Offshore Inner-Shelf Deposits (0–12 Ka) In The Columbia River Littoral Cell System, Washington And Oregon, Usa, Curt D. Peterson, Dave C. Twichell, Michael C. Roberts, Sandy Vanderburgh, Steve W. Hostetler

Geology Faculty Publications and Presentations

The Columbia River Littoral Cell (CRLC), a high-wave-energy littoral system, extends 160 km alongshore, generally north of the large Columbia River, and 10–15 km in across-shelf distance from paleo-beach backshores to about 50 m present water depths. Onshore drill holes (19 in number and 5–35 m in subsurface depth) and offshore vibracores (33 in number and 1–5 m in subsurface depth) constrain inner-shelf sand grain sizes (sample means 0.13–0.25 mm) and heavy mineral source indicators (> 90% Holocene Columbia River sand) of the inner-shelf facies (≥ 90% fine sand). Stratigraphic correlation of the transgressive ravinement surface in onshore drill holes …

Characterizations Of Four Interval Wavelet Sets And Algorithms, Christopher Mcdonald

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Wavelets are mathematical tools used to represent signals such as audio files, pictures, videos, and various other types of data. The theory of wavelets has recently attracted attention in Mathematics because of potential in applications. At this point, the field of wavelet theory is fairly mature, and the literature contains a body of techniques which are exploited to design wavelets. One of these techniques relies on the construction of wavelet sets. A wavelet set is a set whose successive translations and dilations partition a line. In practice, wavelet sets are tricky to construct. In fact, there is no known classification …

Record Of Paleofluid Circulation In Faults Revealed By Hematite (U-Th)/He And Apatite Fission-Track Dating: An Example From Gower Peninsula Fault Fissures, Wales, Alexis K. Ault, Max Frenzel, Peter W. Reiners, Nigel H. Woodcock, Stuart N. Thomson

Geosciences Faculty Publications

Fault rock low-temperature thermochronometry can inform the timing, temperature, and significance of hydrothermal fluid circulation in fault systems. We demonstrate this with combined hematite (U-Th)/He (He) dating, and sandstone apatite fission-track (AFT) and apatite and zircon (U-Th)/He (He) thermochronometry from fault-related fissures on the Gower Peninsula, Wales. Hematite He dates from 141 ± 5.1 Ma to 120 ± 5.0 Ma overlap with a 131 ± 20 Ma sandstone infill AFT date. Individual zircon He dates are 402–260 Ma, reflecting source material erosion, and imply a maximum Late Permian infill depositional age. Burial history reconstruction reveals modern exposures were not buried …

Compressively Characterizing High-Dimensional Entangled States With Complementary, Random Filtering, Gregory A. Howland, Samuel H. Knarr, James Schneeloch, Daniel J. Lum, John C. Howell

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The resources needed to conventionally characterize a quantum system are overwhelmingly large for high-dimensional systems. This obstacle may be overcome by abandoning traditional cornerstones of quantum measurement, such as general quantum states, strong projective measurement, and assumption-free characterization. Following this reasoning, we demonstrate an efficient technique for characterizing high-dimensional, spatial entanglement with one set of measurements. We recover sharp distributions with local, random filtering of the same ensemble in momentum followed by position—something the uncertainty principle forbids for projective measurements. Exploiting the expectation that entangled signals are highly correlated, we use fewer than 5000 measurements to characterize a 65,536-dimensional state. …

A New 2,1,3-Benzothiadiazole-Fused N-Heterocyclic Carbene And Its Metal Complexes, Ossie J. Buckner

Master of Science in Chemical Sciences Theses

In the last few decades, N-heterocyclic carbenes (NHCs) have emerged as a powerful class of carbon-based ligands. Owing to their unique electronic and steric properties, they have been incorporated in a large variety of catalytically active metal complexes. One of the strategies that have been used to modify the ligand properties of NHCs is annulation with different carbo- and heterocyclic groups. It has been shown that annulation in the 4-5 position of the imidazole ring significantly influences the stability and the σ-donor/π- acceptor properties of the carbene species, and this may be used as a versatile tool for the fine-tuning …

Fundamental Awareness: A Framework For Integrating Science, Philosophy And Metaphysics, Neil D. Theise, Menas Kafatos

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

The ontologic framework of Fundamental Awareness proposed here assumes that non-dual Awareness is foundational to the universe, not arising from the interactions or structures of higher level phenomena. The framework allows comparison and integration of views from the three investigative domains concerned with understanding the nature of consciousness: science, philosophy, and metaphysics. In this framework, Awareness is the underlying reality, not reducible to anything else. Awareness and existence are the same. As such, the universe is non-material, self-organizing throughout, a holarchy of complementary, process driven, recursive interactions. The universe is both its own first observer and subject. Considering the world …

Search For An Artificially Buried Karst Cave Entrance Using Ground Penetrating Radar: A Successful Case Of Locating The S-19 Cave In The Mt. Kanin Massif (Nw Slovenia), Andrej Gosar, Teja Čeru

International Journal of Speleology

The S-19 Cave was with its explored depth of 177 m one of the most important caves of the Mt. Kanin massif, but after its discovery in 1974, a huge snow avalanche protection dyke was constructed across the cave entrance. To excavate the buried cave, the accurate location of the cave had to be determined first. Since the entrance coordinates were incorrect and no markers were available, application of geophysical techniques was necessary to do this. A Ground Penetrating Radar (GPR) with special 50 MHz rough terrain antennas was selected as the single suitable geophysical method for the given conditions …

Focusing On Selection For Fixation, John K. Tsotsos, Calden Wloka, Yulia Kotseruba

MODVIS Workshop

Building on our presentation at MODVIS 2015, we continue in our quest to discover a functional, computational, explanation of the relationship among visual attention, interpretation of visual stimuli, and eye movements, and how these produce visual behavior. Here, we focus on one component, how selection is accomplished for the next fixation. The popularity of saliency map models drives the inference that this is solved; we suggested otherwise at MODVIS 2015. Here, we provide additional empirical and theoretical arguments. We then develop arguments that a cluster of complementary, conspicuity representations drive selection, modulated by task goals and history, leading to a …

Investigating How Calcium Diffusion Affects Metabolic Oscillations And Synchronization Of Pancreatic Beta Cells, George Eskandar, Jennifer Houser, Ellen Prochaska, Jessica Wojtkiewicz, Teresa Lebair, Bradford E. Peercy, Margaret Watts, Arthur Sherman

Spora: A Journal of Biomathematics

Diabetes is a disease characterized by improper concentrations of blood glucose due to irregular insulin production or sensitivity. Coupled in islets of Langerhans within the pancreas, β-cells are responsible for the production and regulation of insulin based on changes in glucose levels. Using the Dual Oscillator Model (DOM), we will examine how calcium handling between individual pancreatic β-cells affects the synchronization of metabolic oscillations within electrically coupled islets. Calcium permeability was implemented into the DOM, and numerical solutions of the system were obtained via MATLAB using a modified ordinary differential equation solver for stiff systems and the Automatic Differentiation for …

Interpretable High-Dimensional Inference Via Score Maximization With An Application In Neuroimaging, Simon N. Vandekar, Philip T. Reiss, Russell T. Shinohara

UPenn Biostatistics Working Papers

In the fields of neuroimaging and genetics a key goal is testing the association of a single outcome with a very high-dimensional imaging or genetic variable. Oftentimes summary measures of the high-dimensional variable are created to sequentially test and localize the association with the outcome. In some cases, the results for summary measures are significant, but subsequent tests used to localize differences are underpowered and do not identify regions associated with the outcome. We propose a generalization of Rao's score test based on maximizing the score statistic in a linear subspace of the parameter space. If the test rejects the …

Tunable Depletion Potentials Driven By Shape Variation Of Surfactant Micelles, M. D. Gratale, T. Still, C. Matyas, Z. S. Davidson, S. Lobel, Peter J. Collings, A. G. Yodh

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

Depletion interaction potentials between micron-sized colloidal particles are induced by nanometer-scale surfactant micelles composed of hexaethylene glycol monododecyl ether (C12E6), and they are measured by video microscopy. The strength and range of the depletion interaction is revealed to arise from variations in shape anisotropy of the surfactant micelles. This shape anisotropy increases with increasing sample temperature. By fitting the colloidal interaction potentials to theoretical models, we extract micelle length and shape anisotropy as a function of temperature. This work introduces shape anisotropy tuning as a means to control interparticle interactions in colloidal suspensions, and it shows how the interparticle depletion …

Kelt-14b And Kelt-15b: An Independent Discovery Of Wasp-122b And A New Hot Jupiter, J. E. Rodriguez, K. D. Colón, K. G. Stassun, D. Wright, P. A. Cargile, D. Bayliss, J. Pepper, K. A. Collins, R. B. Kuhn, M. B. Lund, R. J. Siverd, G. Zhou, B. S. Gaudi, C. G. Tinney, K. Penev, T. G. Tan, C. Stockdale, I. A. Curtis, D. James, S. Udry, D. Segransan, A. Bieryla, D. W. Latham, T. G. Beatty, J. D. Eastman, G. Myers, J. Bartz, J. Bento, Eric L.N. Jensen, T. E. Oberst, D. J. Stevens

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

We report the discovery of KELT-14b and KELT-15b, two hot Jupiters from the KELT-South survey. KELT-14b, an independent discovery of the recently announced WASP-122b, is an inflated Jupiter mass planet that orbits a $\sim {5.0}_{-0.7}^{+0.3}$ Gyr, V = 11.0, G2 star that is near the main sequence turnoff. The host star, KELT-14 (TYC 7638-981-1), has an inferred mass ${M}_{*}$ = ${1.18}_{-0.07}^{+0.05}$ M⊙ and radius ${R}_{*}$ = $1.37\pm -0.08$ R⊙, and has ${T}_{{\rm{eff}}}$ = ${5802}_{-92}^{+95}$ K, $\mathrm{log}{g}_{*}$ = ${4.23}_{-0.04}^{+0.05}$ and $[{\rm{Fe}}/{\rm{H}}]$ = 0.33 ± −0.09. The planet orbits with a period of 1.7100588 ± 0.0000025 days (T0 = 2457091.02863 ± 0.00047) …

A Pilot Study Analyzing Solvents In Electronic Cigarette “E-Liquid” Using High Performance Liquid Chromatography, Austin Matranga, Olivia Sellers, Matthew Gartner

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Introduction: Electronic cigarettes, also known as an e-cigarette, are battery-powered devices that use a heating element to convert a liquid (“e-liquid”) into an inhalable aerosol. Their advertised use is as a nicotine delivery system minus the harmful chemicals. Since “e-liquids” and the electronic cigarettes are not regulated by the Food and Drug Administration, it is not well known under what conditions, if any, carcinogenic compounds are produced. There has been little research on the toxicity of electronic cigarettes. The aim of this study was to determine if formaldehyde or acetaldehyde are formed from the e-liquid by the high heat of …

Comparison Of Combustion Efficiency To In-Situ Atmospheric Ammonia Measurements From A Miniature Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer In The La Basin, Taylor Krause, Barry L. Lefer, Timothy H. Betram, Steven R. Schill

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Atmospheric ammonia (NH₃) has been shown to impact the environment and threaten both human and animal health, especially in heavily populated urban areas, yet to date there remains a paucity of direct measurements. Recent studies have suggested that ammonia may be generated as a byproduct of fossil fuel emissions due to highly active catalytic converters in light-duty gasoline vehicles. To investigate this relationship, an airborne miniature Chemical Ionization Mass Spectrometer (miniCIMS) was used to directly measure atmospheric ammonia and combustion reaction products in the Southern California LA Basin, during the 2015 NASA Student Airborne Research Program (SARP). The …

Kings And Heirs: A Characterization Of The (2,2)-Domination Graphs Of Tournaments, Kim A. S. Factor, Larry J. Langley

Mathematics, Statistics and Computer Science Faculty Research and Publications

In 1980, Maurer coined the phrase king when describing any vertex of a tournament that could reach every other vertex in two or fewer steps. A (2,2)-domination graph of a digraph D, dom_2,2(D), has vertex set V(D), the vertices of D, and edge uv whenever u and v each reach all other vertices of D in two or fewer steps. In this special case of the (i,j)-domination graph, we see that Maurer’s theorem plays an important role in establishing which vertices form the kings that create some of the edges in dom_2,2(D). But of even more …

Stellar Mass–Gas-Phase Metallicity Relation At 0.5 ≤ Z ≤ 0.7: A Power Law With Increasing Scatter Toward The Low-Mass Regime, Yicheng Guo, David C. Koo, Yu Lu, John C. Forbes, Marc Rafelski, Jonathan R. Trump, Ricardo Amorín, Guillermo Barro, Romeel Davé, S. M. Faber, Nimish P. Hathi, Hassen Yesuf, Michael C. Cooper, Avishai Dekel, Puragra Guhathakurta, Evan N. Kirby, Anton M. Koekemoer, Pablo G. Pérez-González, Lihwai Lin, Jeffery A. Newman, Joel R. Primack, David J. Rosario, Christopher N. A. Willmer, Renbin Yan

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications

We present the stellar mass (M_*)–gas-phase metallicity relation (MZR) and its scatter at intermediate redshifts (0.5 ≤ z ≤ 0.7) for for 1381 field galaxies collected from deep spectroscopic surveys. The star formation rate (SFR) and color at a given M_* of this magnitude-limited (R ≲ 24 AB) sample are representative of normal star-forming galaxies. For masses below 10⁹ M_☉ our sample of 237 galaxies is ~10 times larger than those in previous studies beyond the local universe. This huge gain in sample size enables superior constraints on the MZR and its scatter …

The First Hominin From The Early Pleistocene Paleocave Of Haasgat, South Africa, Ab Leece, Anthony D T Kegley, Rodrigo S. Lacruz, Andy I R Herries, Jason Hemingway, Lazarus Kgasi, Stephany Potze, Justin W. Adams

Peer Reviewed Articles

Haasgat is a primate-rich fossil locality in the northeastern part of the Fossil Hominid Sites of South Africa UNESCO World Heritage Site. Here we report the first hominin identified from Haasgat, a partial maxillary molar (HGT 500), that was recovered from an ex situ calcified sediment block sampled from the locality. The in situ fossil bearing deposits of the Haasgat paleokarstic deposits are estimated to date to slightly older than 1.95 Ma based on magnetobiostratigraphy. This places the hominin specimen at a critical time period in South Africa that marks the last occurrence of Australopithecus around 1.98 Ma and the …

Tau And Aβ Imaging, Csf Measures, And Cognition In Alzheimer's Disease, Matthew R. Brier, Brian Gordon, Karl Friedrichsen, John E. Mccarthy, Ari Stern, Jon Christensen, Christopher Owen, Patricia Aldea, Yi Su, Jason Hassenstab, Nigel J. Cairns, David M. Holtzman, Anne M. Fagan, John C. Morris, Tammie L.S. Benzinger, Beau M. Ances

Mathematics Faculty Research

Alzheimer’s disease (AD) is characterized by two molecular pathologies: cerebral β-amyloidosis in the form of β-amyloid (Aβ) plaques and tauopathy in the form of neurofibrillary tangles, neuritic plaques, and neuropil threads. Until recently, only Aβ could be studied in humans using positron emission tomography (PET) imaging owing to a lack of tau PET imaging agents. Clinical pathological studies have linked tau pathology closely to the onset and progression of cognitive symptoms in patients with AD. We report PET imaging of tau and Aβ in a cohort of cognitively normal older adults and those with mild AD. Multivariate analyses identified unique …

Chapman University 2016 Environmental Audit: Residence Life Dining Services Equipment, Alexandra Fw Sidun, Devon T. Bloss

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Chapman University accommodates over 1700 student meal plans per day through the on-campus dining services provided by Sodexo Restaurant Services. The commercial-grade kitchens found in the Randall Dining Commons (RDC) of Sandhu Conference Center are frequently used to prepare food for students for every meal, seven days a week. The RDC kitchen facility has staff working around the clock and high consumption electrical, water, and gas appliances constantly running to parallel the high demand. The frequent use of commercial kitchen appliances results in an enormous consumption of energy and water resources leading to comparably high utility bills. Measuring the energy …

The Millikan Oil Drop Experiment: A Simulation Suitable For Classroom Use, Benjamin Hogan, Javier E. Hasbun

Georgia Journal of Science

Due to advancements in computing techniques it has become possible to extend the accessibility of physics experiments across the physics curriculum by means of computational simulations. The widespread availability of computers in modern classrooms provides virtual access to hands-on physics, chemistry, and biology experiments, among others. Here, specifically, we consider Robert Millikan’s famous oil drop experiment. This experiment requires equipment that can be dangerous and expensive. A more practical approach is achieved via a computer simulation, a useful and a universally available alternative. The goal is to encourage scientific thinking, literacy, and innovation while promoting a free network of academic …

Bioswales For Stormwater Remediation And Infiltration: Assessing Regulatory Climate And Quantifying Filtration Capacity Of A Claremont Bioswale, Skyler Lewis, Boyu Liu, Paul Picciano, Liana Solis, Char Miller

Environmental Analysis Program Senior Projects

Watershed management is critical in ensuring a sustainable water supply. This project is designed to assess the impact of bioswales in the context of Southern California’s climate. The patterns of droughts and floods make these green infrastructure appealing as they offer potential to boost water quality and regenerate local aquifers, while reducing the area of impermeable surfaces in our urban landscape. As bioswales have not been commonly incorporated into infrastructure development, our project focuses on a relatively new bioswale, added in 2012 and located on Pomona College’s campus, to serve as our case study in determining the viability of bioswales …

Phd Student, Ayman Alafifi, Receives First Place In 2016 J. Paul Riley Awra Utah Section Student Paper Competition, Utah Water Research Laboratory

News

CEE and UWRL PhD student Ayman AlAfifi won first place in the recent American Water Resources Association Utah Chapter student paper competition for this presentation titled: "Systems Modeling to Improve River and Riparian Habitat Quality." This research investigates the use of systems models to better manage river and riparian areas. Ayman developed an optimization model that shows the implications of management decisions on the quality of a river’s ecological habitat. The model attempts to improve habitat quality for priority species by allocating water to the sites and at the seasons that will best serve the needs of the desired species …

Submerged Area Of Typical Torrential Flood And Debris-Flow Disasters In Mengzong Gully, China, Ai-Di Huo, Wen-Ke Guan, Jian Dang, Tian-Zhong Wu, Hainiken Shantai, Wei Wang, Michael W. Van Liew

School of Natural Resources: Faculty Publications

The torrential flooding and debris flow disasters associated with global climate change pose not only serious threat to individual lives and property, but also impact economic development. Accurately simulating flood scenarios can help to reduce the losses caused by torrential flooding and debris flow by making early warning, evacuation planning, and risk analysis possible. In this study, HEC-RAS software and HEC-GeoRAS module were employed in GIS (geographic information system) to simulate the flood overtopping in the Mengzong Gully of Batang River in flood scenarios occurring once in 20, 50, and 100 years, respectively. The simulated floods provided valuable information including …

U.S. Drought Monitor, May 10, 2016, Brian Fuchs

United States Agricultural Commodities in Drought Archive

Drought map of U.S. for May 10, 2016 (5/10/16) plus: U.S. crop areas experiencing drought (map), Approximate percentage of crop located in drought, by state (bar graph), Percent of crop area located in drought, past 52 weeks (line graph) for: Corn, Soybeans, Hay, Cattle, Winter wheat.

Discrete Stability Of Dpg Methods, Ammar Harb

Dissertations and Theses

This dissertation presents a duality theorem of the Aubin-Nitsche type for discontinuous Petrov Galerkin (DPG) methods. This explains the numerically observed higher convergence rates in weaker norms. Considering the specific example of the mild-weak (or primal) DPG method for the Laplace equation, two further results are obtained. First, for triangular meshes, the DPG method continues to be solvable even when the test space degree is reduced, provided it is odd. Second, a non-conforming method of analysis is developed to explain the numerically observed convergence rates for a test space of reduced degree. Finally, for rectangular meshes, the test space is …

The Foundations Of Network Dynamics In An Rna Recombinase System, Jessica Anne Mellor Yeates

Dissertations and Theses

How life originated from physical and chemical processes is one of the great questions still unanswered today. Studies towards this effort have transitioned from the notion of a single self-replicating entity to the idea that a network of interacting molecules made this initial biological leap. In order to understand the chemical kinetic and thermodynamic mechanisms that could engender pre-life type networks we present an empirical characterization of a network of RNA recombinase molecules. We begin with 1-, 2-, and 3-molecular ensembles and provide a game theoretic analysis to describe the frequency dependent dynamics of competing and cooperating RNA genotypes. This …