Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Utahns' Perceptions Of Climate Change And Disaster Vulnerabilities, Mufti Nadimul Quamar Ahmed, Jennifer E. Givens, Peter D. Howe, Jessica D. Ulrich-Schad

Utah People and Environment Poll (UPEP)

Climate change increases the frequency and severity of extreme weather events, making people more vulnerable in a variety of ways^1-2. It is essential to determine if individuals believe they are susceptible to the effects of climate change in order to develop effective adaptation strategies.

Climate change has contributed to extreme weather occurrences in Utah in recent years. For instance, in the summer of 2022, there was a severe or extreme drought in all of Utah's counties³. Health effects of drought vary with intensity⁴ and can cause climate related deaths directly and indirectly, such as by …

Materials Characterization: Can Artificial Intelligence Be Used To Address Reproducibility Challenges?, Miu Lun Lau, Abraham Burleigh, Jeff Terry, Min Long

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Material characterization techniques are widely used to characterize the physical and chemical properties of materials at the nanoscale and, thus, play central roles in material scientific discoveries. However, the large and complex datasets generated by these techniques often require significant human effort to interpret and extract meaningful physicochemical insights. Artificial intelligence (AI) techniques such as machine learning (ML) have the potential to improve the efficiency and accuracy of surface analysis by automating data analysis and interpretation. In this perspective paper, we review the current role of AI in surface analysis and discuss its future potential to accelerate discoveries in surface …

Understanding The Contribution Of Recommendation Algorithms On Misinformation Recommendation And Misinformation Dissemination On Social Networks, Royal Pathak, Francesca Spezzano, Maria Soledad Pera

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Social networks are a platform for individuals and organizations to connect with each other and inform, advertise, spread ideas, and ultimately influence opinions. These platforms have been known to propel misinformation. We argue that this could be compounded by the recommender algorithms that these platforms use to suggest items potentially of interest to their users, given the known biases and filter bubbles issues affecting recommender systems. While much has been studied about misinformation on social networks, the potential exacerbation that could result from recommender algorithms in this environment is in its infancy. In this manuscript, we present the result of …

From Mindset To Action: Accountants As Stewards For Sustainability, Yvonne Chan

Asian Management Insights

They need to start preparing for this new role now.

Pursuing Profit And Sustainability In The Age Of Climate Change, Tracy Xie

Asian Management Insights

Building dual-agenda innovation capabilities is the way to go.

Building Urban Sustainability With Quality Elites, Havovi Joshi

Asian Management Insights

Do elites contribute to a society more than they extract from it? In many countries where populism has surged in tandem with declining trust in elites in the political and other spheres, the answer.

Openasap: An Affordable 3d Printed Atmospheric Solids Analysis Probe (Asap) Mass Spectrometry System For Direct Analysis Of Solid And Liquid Samples, Robert Samples, Rico Mukoyama, Jacob Shaffer, Jill Mikucki, Lesley Ann Giddings

Chemistry: Faculty Publications

Atmospheric Solids Analysis Probe (ASAP) mass spectrometry is a versatile technique allowing direct sampling of solid and liquid samples, but its adoption is limited due to the high cost of commercial ASAP systems. To address this, we present OpenASAP, an open-source ASAP system for mass spectrometers that can be fabricated for $20 or less using 3D-printing. Our design is readily adaptable to instruments from different manufacturers and can be produced with a variety of additive manufacturing techniques on consumer-grade 3D-printers. The probe allows for rapid sampling of solid and liquid samples without sample preparation, making it useful for high throughput …

Extended Planar Defects Of Oxygen Vacancies In Ferroelectric Batio3 And Impact On Ferroelectricity, Shaohui Qiu, Huaxiang Fu

Physics Faculty Publications and Presentations

Extended defects of vacancies in ferroelectrics (FE), where vacancies spread over an extended space, are of critical importance in terms of understanding the long-standing problems such as polarization fatigue and aging. However, extended defects in FEs are poorly understood. Here we investigate the extended planar oxygen vacancies in ferroelectric BaTiO₃ using density functional theory and the modern theory of polarization. Oxygen vacancies of different charge states, namely V ²⁺_O , V ¹⁺_O , and V ⁰_O , are studied. We obtain interesting results such as: (i) The formation energy of planar V ²⁺_O vacancies can …

Calorimetric Analysis Using Dna Thermal Stability To Determine Protein Concentration, Matthew W. Eskew, Patrick Reardon, Albert S. Benight

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

It was recently reported for two globular proteins and a short DNA hairpin in NaCl buffer that values of the transition heat capacities, Cp,DNA and Cp,PRO for equal concentrations (mg/mL) of DNA and proteins, are essentially equivalent (differ by less than 1%). Additional evidence for this equivalence is presented that reveals this phenomenon does not depend on DNA sequence, buffer salt, or Tm. Sequences of two DNA hairpins were designed to confer a near 20°C difference in their Tm’s. For the molecules, in NaCl and CsCl buffer the evaluated Cp,PRO and C …

The Impact Of Generative Ai In The Financial Sector [El Impacto De La Inteligencia Artificial Generativa En El Sector Financiero], Nydia Remolina Leon

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

No abstract provided.

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter, November 2023, University Of Northern Iowa. Iowa Waste Reduction Center.

Iowa Waste Reduction Center Newsletter

Contents:

--- Unwrapping EPA's New Wasted Food Scale
--- Big Grove Brewery is Awarded for Their Sustainability and Innovation
--- The New Fashion Police: Conversations Continued . . .
--- IWRC Keeping Tabs on PFAS
--- Industry News

Modeling Overdraft-Driven Nitrate Transport In Shallow Wells For Mitigation And Scenario Planning, Jonathan Cronk

Department of Agricultural and Biological Systems Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

In Nebraska, average nitrate concentrations in groundwater have doubled since 1974, making water quality management more important than ever. As droughts, heat waves, and floods become more common climate events, understanding their impacts will be necessary to make informed management decisions. Emerging literature describes that drought correlates to an increase in the concentration of nitrate-N at domestic and irrigation wells, however the relative contributions of the mechanisms thought to be responsible is currently unknown.

This research assessed the impact of recharge and pumping rate changes as two mechanisms affecting nitrate-N concentration during drought, assessed the relationship between well depth and …

Delivering Healthcare To The Underserved, Edward Booty

Asian Management Insights

Non-profits, governments, and businesses need to come together and use a data-driven approach to improve local basic healthcare access.

Experimental Studies On The Operation Of Agricultural Crops Mowing Unit With Simultaneous Chopping And Incorporation Of Stubble Into The Soil, Volodymyr Nadykto, Sergey Kiurchev, Tatiana Chorna, Taras Hutsol, Szymon Głowacki, Anatoliy Rud, Alona Shevtsova, Igor Ryabov, Katarzyna Szwedziak

Sociology Faculty Publications

For harvesting crops, one-phase and two-phase methods are most often used. When implementing the second one, mounted and trailed units are used. The latter is becoming less and less used due to the problems with movement stability in the horizontal plane because of the asymmetric layout. A stubble background, which is susceptible to solar and wind influences, is formed as a consequence of application of the mounted harvesting unit, As a result, the field’s soil in the inter-swath space intensively loses moisture. A harvesting unit based on a tractor with rear steerable wheels has been designed to eliminate this shortcoming. …

Quantumeyes: Towards Better Interpretability Of Quantum Circuits, Shaolun Ruan, Qiang Guan, Paul Griffin, Ying Mao, Yong Wang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Quantum computing offers significant speedup compared to classical computing, which has led to a growing interest among users in learning and applying quantum computing across various applications. However, quantum circuits, which are fundamental for implementing quantum algorithms, can be challenging for users to understand due to their underlying logic, such as the temporal evolution of quantum states and the effect of quantum amplitudes on the probability of basis quantum states. To fill this research gap, we propose QuantumEyes, an interactive visual analytics system to enhance the interpretability of quantum circuits through both global and local levels. For the global-level analysis, …

Typesqueezer: When Static Recovery Of Function Signatures For Binary Executables Meets Dynamic Analysis, Ziyi Lin, Jinku Li, Bowen Li, Haoyu Ma, Debin Gao, Jianfeng Ma

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Control-Flow Integrity (CFI) is considered a promising solutionin thwarting advanced code-reuse attacks. While the problem ofbackward-edge protection in CFI is nearly closed, effective forward-edge protection is still a major challenge. The keystone of protecting the forward edge is to resolve indirect call targets, which although can be done quite accurately using type-based solutionsgiven the program source code, it faces difficulties when carriedout at the binary level. Since the actual type information is unavailable in COTS binaries, type-based indirect call target matching typically resorts to approximate function signatures inferredusing the arity and argument width of indirect callsites and calltargets. Doing so …

Joint Location And Cost Planning In Maximum Capture Facility Location Under Random Utilities, Ngan H. Duong, Tien Thanh Dam, Thuy Anh Ta, Tien Mai

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We study a joint facility location and cost planning problem in a competitive market under random utility maximization (RUM) models. The objective is to locate new facilities and make decisions on the costs (or budgets) to spend on the new facilities, aiming to maximize an expected captured customer demand, assuming that customers choose a facility among all available facilities according to a RUM model. We examine two RUM frameworks in the discrete choice literature, namely, the additive and multiplicative RUM. While the former has been widely used in facility location problems, we are the first to explore the latter in …

Oxidative Stress In Health And Disease, V. Prakash Reddy

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

Oxidative stress, resulting from the excessive intracellular accumulation of reactive oxygen species (ROS), reactive nitrogen species (RNS), and other free radical species, contributes to the onset and progression of various diseases, including diabetes, obesity, diabetic nephropathy, diabetic neuropathy, and neurological diseases, such as Alzheimer's disease (AD), amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS), and Parkinson's disease (PD). Oxidative stress is also implicated in cardiovascular disease and cancer. Exacerbated oxidative stress leads to the accelerated formation of advanced glycation end products (AGEs), a complex mixture of crosslinked proteins and protein modifications. Relatively high levels of AGEs are generated in diabetes, obesity, AD, and other …

A Review Of Cyber Attacks On Sensors And Perception Systems In Autonomous Vehicle, Taminul Islam, Md. Alif Sheakh, Anjuman Naher Jui, Omar Sharif, Md Zobaer Hasan

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Vehicle automation has been in the works for a long time now. Automatic brakes, cruise control, GPS satellite navigation, etc. are all common features seen in today's automobiles. Automation and artificial intelligence breakthroughs are likely to lead to an increase in the usage of automation technologies in cars. Because of this, mankind will be more reliant on computer-controlled equipment and car systems in our daily lives. All major corporations have begun investing in the development of self-driving cars because of the rapid advancement of advanced driver support technologies. However, the level of safety and trustworthiness is still questionable. Imagine what …

Examining The Externalities Of Highway Capacity Expansions In California: An Analysis Of Land Use And Land Cover (Lulc) Using Remote Sensing Technology, Serena E. Alexander, Bo Yang, Owen Hussey, Derek Hicks

Mineta Transportation Institute

There are over 590,000 bridges dispersed across the roadway network that stretches across the United States alone. Each bridge with a length of 20 feet or greater must be inspected at least once every 24 months, according to the Federal Highway Act (FHWA) of 1968. This research developed an artificial intelligence (AI)-based framework for bridge and road inspection using drones with multiple sensors collecting capabilities. It is not sufficient to conduct inspections of bridges and roads using cameras alone, so the research team utilized an infrared (IR) camera along with a high-resolution optical camera. In many instances, the IR camera …

Cfa-Treated Mice Induce Hyperalgesia In Healthy Mice Via An Olfactory Mechanism, Yangmiao Zhang, Wentai Luo, Maryt M. Heinricher, Andrey E. Ryabinin

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background

Social interactions with subjects experiencing pain can increase nociceptive sensitivity in observers, even without direct physical contact. In previous experiments, extended indirect exposure to soiled bedding from mice with alcohol withdrawal-related hyperalgesia enhanced nociception in their conspecifics. This finding suggested that olfactory cues could be sufficient for nociceptive hypersensitivity in otherwise untreated animals (also known as “bystanders”).

Aim

The current study addressed this possibility using an inflammation-based hyperalgesia model and long- and short-term exposure paradigms in C57BL/6J mice.

Materials & Method

Adult male and female mice received intraplantar injection of complete Freund's adjuvant (CFA) and were used as stimulus …

Study On The Performance Of Solar Cells Cooled With Heatsink And Nanofluid Added With Aluminum Nanoparticle, Rouhollah Salehi, Ahmad Jahanbakhshi, Jong B. Ooi, Abbas Rohani, Mahmood R. Golzarian

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

The cooling of photovoltaic (PV) panels based on nanofluids is one of the emerging cooling methods to improve the efficiency of PV panels. In this study, the effects of aluminum nanoparticles on the cooling performance and conversion efficiency of PV panels were investigated experimentally. The surface temperature, output power, and efficiency of the PV panels were assessed in Mashhad, Iran on a sunny winter day in November 2020 under ambient temperatures between 10 and 17 °C. Experimental results indicated that the nanofluid with aluminum nanoparticle improved the solar panel efficiency and solar PV panel's output power by an average of …

Platinum Single Atoms Anchored On Ultra-Thin Carbon Nitride Nanosheets For Photoreforming Of Glucose, Jinqiang Zhang, Xinyuan Xu, Yazi Liu, Xiaoguang Duan, Shaobin Wang, Hongqi Sun

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Photoreforming of biomass is a fascinating process that harnesses renewable sunlight and biomass to produce hydrogen under ambient conditions, holding a significant promise for future energy sustainability. However, the main challenge lies in developing highly active and stable photocatalysts with high light harvesting efficiency. In this study, we adopted a simple yet effective approach that combines thermal exfoliation and photodeposition to anchor Pt single atoms onto ultra-thin g-C3N4 nanosheets (MCNN). The incorporation of Pt single atoms induced a distinct red-shift in the visible light region, augmenting the solar energy absorption capacity, while the enlarged surface area of g-C3N4 nanosheets improved …

Cyberattacks And Security Of Cloud Computing: A Complete Guideline, Muhammad Dawood, Shanshan Tu, Chuangbai Xiao, Hisham Alasmary, Muhammad Waqas, Sadaqat Ur Rehman

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Cloud computing is an innovative technique that offers shared resources for stock cache and server management. Cloud computing saves time and monitoring costs for any organization and turns technological solutions for large-scale systems into server-to-service frameworks. However, just like any other technology, cloud computing opens up many forms of security threats and problems. In this work, we focus on discussing different cloud models and cloud services, respectively. Next, we discuss the security trends in the cloud models. Taking these security trends into account, we move to security problems, including data breaches, data confidentiality, data access controllability, authentication, inadequate diligence, phishing, …

Draft Final Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Unreclaimed (Ur) Sites Ur-35 Remedial Action Work Plan (Rawp), Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Optimized Uncertainty Estimation For Vision Transformers: Enhancing Adversarial Robustness And Performance Using Selective Classification, Erik Pautsch, John Li, Silvio Rizzi, George K. Thiruvathukal, Maria Pantoja

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Deep Learning models often exhibit undue confidence when encountering out-of-distribution (OOD) inputs, misclassifying with high confidence. The ideal outcome, in these cases, would be an "I do not know" verdict. We enhance the trustworthiness of our models through selective classification, allowing the model to abstain from making predictions when facing uncertainty. Rather than a singular prediction, the model offers a prediction distribution, enabling users to gauge the model’s trustworthiness and determine the need for human intervention. We assess uncertainty in two baseline models: a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) and a Vision Transformer (ViT). By leveraging these uncertainty values, we minimize …

Flexible And Sewable Electrode Based On Ni-Co@Pani-Salphen Composite-Coated On Textiles For Wearable Supercapacitor, Touba Rezaee Adriyani, Ali A. Ensafi, B. Rezaei

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Flexible electrodes with high deformability and energy density are critical for electronic textiles. The key factor for achieving high-performance supercapacitors with superior power and energy density is the evaluation of materials that exhibit exceptional capacitive performance. Herein, we have prepared Ni-Co nanoparticles at the surface of polyaniline-salphen (Ni-Co@PS). Then, followed by casting Ni-Co@PS on a conductive carbon cloth (CC) as a substrate through a facile in-situ polymerization strategy. The morphologies of Ni-Co@PS composite were characterized by different methods such as FE-SEM, XPS, XRD, BET, and electrochemical methods. This nanocomposite showed high tolerability and a large surface area with excellent behavior …

Optimizing Uncertainty Quantification Of Vision Transformers In Deep Learning On Novel Ai Architectures, Erik Pautsch, John Li, Silvio Rizzi, George K. Thiruvathukal, Maria Pantoja

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Deep Learning (DL) methods have shown substantial efficacy in computer vision (CV) and natural language processing (NLP). Despite their proficiency, the inconsistency in input data distributions can compromise prediction reliability. This study mitigates this issue by introducing uncertainty evaluations in DL models, thereby enhancing dependability through a distribution of predictions. Our focus lies on the Vision Transformer (ViT), a DL model that harmonizes both local and global behavior. We conduct extensive experiments on the ImageNet-1K dataset, a vast resource with over a million images across 1,000 categories. ViTs, while competitive, are vulnerable to adversarial attacks, making uncertainty estimation crucial for …

An Analysis Of Plant Response To Herbivory, Lawrence Gustavo Seminario-Romero

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Herbivory is often believed to always negatively affect the growth of plants, but there are plant species that can actually benefit from being consumed by herbivores. These plants have a phenotypic trait known as “compensatory growth.” A plant that exhibits compensatory growth is able to increase its intrinsic growth rate as a response to taking damage caused by herbivory, and as a result, produce more biomass. Very few mathematical models used to describe plant-herbivore interactions have accounted for plant compensatory growth. Moreover, these models tend to assume that herbivores follow a Holling type II functional response, which may not necessarily …

Towards Sustainable Nuclear Waste Management: A Study Of Philippine Geological Disposal Alternatives, King Harold A. Recto, Alyssa Inocencio, Kevin Lester Lobo

Electronics, Computer, and Communications Engineering Faculty Publications

The study delves into the complex area of nuclear waste disposal in the Philippine setting. It described the probable situations that were under consideration, exploring the fundamental motivating factors leading to these situations. These included the crucial aspects of categorizing radioactive waste, the range of management choices accessible, and the various disposal strategies developed for various waste tiers. Each alternative was considered in light of a variety of factors, including technological, environmental and practical. The also explored the landscape of implementation with emphasis on the inventory of radioactive waste and a roadmap outlining the course of action. In essence, the …