Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Isolated And Dynamical Black Hole Mergers With B-Pop: The Role Of Star Formation And Dynamics, Star Cluster Evolution, Natal Kicks, Mass And Spins, And Hierarchical Mergers, Manuel Arca Sedda, Michaela Mapelli, Matthew Benacquista, Mario Spera

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

The current interpretation of LIGO–Virgo–KAGRA data suggests that the primary mass function of merging binary black holes (BBHs) at redshift z ≲ 1 contains multiple structures, while spins are relatively low. Theoretical models of BBH formation in different environments can provide a key to interpreting the population of observed mergers, but they require the simultaneous treatment of stellar evolution and dynamics, galaxy evolution, and general relativity. We present B-POP, a population synthesis tool to model BBH mergers formed in the field or via dynamical interactions in young, globular, and nuclear clusters. Using B-POP, we explore how black hole (BH) formation …

Irregular Domination In Graphs, Caryn Mays

Dissertations

Domination in graphs has been a popular area of study due in large degree to its applications to modern society as well as the mathematical beauty of the topic. While this area evidently began with the work of Claude Berge in 1958 and Oystein Ore in 1962, domination did not become an active area of research until 1977 with the appearance of a survey paper by Ernest Cockayne and Stephen Hedetniemi. Since then, a large number of variations of domination have surfaced and provided numerous applications to different areas of science and real-life problems. Among these variations are domination parameters …

Toward The Yeast Surface Display Of Microviridin B, Jillian Leigh Stafford

Chemistry and Chemical Biology ETDs

Humans have turned to natural products for medicinal therapeutics for millennia. In recent years, the ribosomally synthesized and post-translationally modified peptide (RiPP) class of natural products have garnered a lot of attention due to their ability for heterologous expression, relative ease of mutation, and vast biological activates. Microviridins are a family of RiPPs that contain a tricyclic cage-like structure through the formation of two lactone rings and one lactam ring catalyzed by two ATP-grasp ligase family enzymes. Microviridins are potent inhibitors of serine proteases and mutational studies of a small number of residues indicates the potential of peptide engineering protease …

K-8 Preservice Teachers’ Statistical Thinking When Determining Best Measure Of Center, Ha Nguyen, Eryn M. Stehr Maher, Gregory Chamblee, Sharon Taylor

Mathematical Sciences: Faculty Publications

The purpose of this study was to determine K-8 preservice teacher (PST) candidates’ statistical thinking when selecting the best center representation for the given data. Forty-four PSTs enrolled in a Statistics and Probability for K-8 Teachers course in a university located in the southeastern region of the United States were asked to complete a 2007 National Assessment of Educational Progress test item. All 44 PSTs’ data were qualitatively analyzed for correctness and statistical thinking strategies used. Findings were that most PSTs either incorrectly selected the mean, rather than median, as the best measure of center for the given data or …

Lax Integrability And Solution Methods For The Nonlinear Schrödinger Equation With External Potentials: Exact Solutions And Applications, Laila Yahya Al Sakkaf

Dissertations

The investigation of a nonlinear differential equation (NLDE) integrability is the foundation for understanding and predicting the behavior of systems that are governed by that NLDE. The existence of a Lax pair (LP) representation is a reliable indicator of the indicator of the integrability of an NLDE. If an NLDE admits an LP, it is considered integrable in the LP sense, and this has important implications for the behavior and solutions of the system. The LP plays a crucial role in many powerful analytical solution methods for solving NLDEs. One such method is the Darboux transformation (DT), which allows for …

Code Will Tell: Visual Identification Of Ponzi Schemes On Ethereum, Xiaolin Wen, Kim Siang Yeo, Yong Wang, Ling Cheng, Feida Zhu, Min Zhu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Ethereum has become a popular blockchain with smart contracts for investors nowadays. Due to the decentralization and anonymity of Ethereum, Ponzi schemes have been easily deployed and caused significant losses to investors. However, there are still no explainable and effective methods to help investors easily identify Ponzi schemes and validate whether a smart contract is actually a Ponzi scheme. To fill the research gap, we propose PonziLens, a novel visualization approach to help investors achieve early identification of Ponzi schemes by investigating the operation codes of smart contracts. Specifically, we conduct symbolic execution of opcode and extract the control flow …

Bubbleu: Exploring Augmented Reality Game Design With Uncertain Ai-Based Interaction, Minji Kim, Kyungjin Lee, Rajesh Krishna Balan, Youngki Lee

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Object detection, while being an attractive interaction method for Augmented Reality (AR), is fundamentally error-prone due to the probabilistic nature of the underlying AI models, resulting in sub-optimal user experiences. In this paper, we explore the effect of three game design concepts, Ambiguity, Transparency, and Controllability, to provide better gameplay experiences in AR games that use error-prone object detection-based interaction modalities. First, we developed a base AR pet breeding game, called Bubbleu that uses object detection as a key interaction method. We then implemented three different variants, each according to the three concepts, to investigate the impact of each design …

Graphsearchnet: Enhancing Gnns Via Capturing Global Dependencies For Semantic Code Search, Shangqing Liu, Xiaofei Xie, Jjingkai Siow, Lei Ma, Guozhu Meng, Yang Liu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Code search aims to retrieve accurate code snippets based on a natural language query to improve software productivity and quality. With the massive amount of available programs such as (on GitHub or Stack Overflow), identifying and localizing the precise code is critical for the software developers. In addition, Deep learning has recently been widely applied to different code-related scenarios, ., vulnerability detection, source code summarization. However, automated deep code search is still challenging since it requires a high-level semantic mapping between code and natural language queries. Most existing deep learning-based approaches for code search rely on the sequential text ., …

Design, Development, And Evaluation Of An Interactive Personalized Social Robot To Monitor And Coach Post-Stroke Rehabilitation Exercises, Min Hun Lee, Daniel P. Siewiorek, Asim Smailagic, Alexandre Bernardino, Sergi Bermudez I Badia

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Socially assistive robots are increasingly being explored to improve the engagement of older adults and people with disability in health and well-being-related exercises. However, even if people have various physical conditions, most prior work on social robot exercise coaching systems has utilized generic, predefined feedback. The deployment of these systems still remains a challenge. In this paper, we present our work of iteratively engaging therapists and post-stroke survivors to design, develop, and evaluate a social robot exercise coaching system for personalized rehabilitation. Through interviews with therapists, we designed how this system interacts with the user and then developed an interactive …

Investigating Collaborative Problem Solving Temporal Dynamics Using Interactions Within A Digital Whiteboard, Hua Leong Fwa

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Collaborative Problem Solving, the resolution of complex problems with the collaboration of multiple peoplepooling their knowledge, skills and effort is postulated as an essential 21st century skills for the futureworkforce. Collaborative Problem Solving has been embraced in schools where both online and face-to-face collaboration are afforded through the proliferation of educational technology tools. Assessing the amount of collaboration that has taken place among the students has however been challenging. In this research, we seek to identify the collaboration patterns of our students by mining the temporal sequence of their actions logs captured within a digital whiteboard tool. With the use …

Mimusa: Mimicking Human Language Understanding For Fine-Grained Multi-Class Sentiment Analysis, Zhaoxia Wang, Zhenda Hu, Seng-Beng Ho, Erik Cambria, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Sentiment analysis is an important natural language processing (NLP) task due to a wide range of applications. Most existing sentiment analysis techniques are limited to the analysis carried out at the aggregate level, merely providing negative, neutral and positive sentiments. The latest deep learning-based methods have been leveraged to provide more than three sentiment classes. However, such learning-based methods are still black-box-based methods rather than explainable language processing methods. To address this gap, this paper proposes a new explainable fine-grained multi-class sentiment analysis method, namely MiMuSA, which mimics the human language understanding processes. The proposed method involves a multi-level modular …

Rntrajrec: Road Network Enhanced Trajectory Recovery With Spatial-Temporal Trans-Former, Yuqi Chen, Hanyuan Zhang, Weiwei Sun, Baihua Zheng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

GPS trajectories are the essential foundations for many trajectory-based applications. Most applications require a large number of high sample rate trajectories to achieve a good performance. However, many real-life trajectories are collected with low sample rate due to energy concern or other constraints. We study the task of trajectory recovery in this paper as a means to increase the sample rate of low sample trajectories. Most existing works on trajectory recovery follow a sequence-to-sequence diagram, with an encoder to encode a trajectory and a decoder to recover real GPS points in the trajectory. However, these works ignore the topology of …

Morphologically-Aware Vocabulary Reduction Of Word Embeddings, Chong Cher Chia, Maksim Tkachenko, Hady Wirawan Lauw

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We propose SubText, a compression mechanism via vocabulary reduction. The crux is to judiciously select a subset of word embeddings which support the reconstruction of the remaining word embeddings based on their form alone. The proposed algorithm considers the preservation of the original embeddings, as well as a word’s relationship to other words that are morphologically or semantically similar. Comprehensive evaluation of the compressed vocabulary reveals SubText’s efficacy on diverse tasks over traditional vocabulary reduction techniques, as validated on English, as well as a collection of inflected languages.

Interconnectedness And Financial Stability In The Era Of Artificial Intelligence, Nydia Remolina Leon

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

This chapter explains AI use cases may amplify some threats to the stability of the financial system. It argues that lack of a consistent approach to AI Governance by financial regulators and limited oversight on some AI models in terms of systemic risks need to be addressed to preserve the stability of the financial system. To illustrate the problem and propose specific policy recommendations, the chapter first explains how the widespread use AI in finance impacts systemic risk in the financial sector. Then, it explains why trustworthiness of AI encompasses not only the typical ethical principles about transparency, explainability, fairness, …

C-Wall: Conflict-Resistance In Privacy-Preserving Cloud Storage, Xiaoguo Li, Tao Xiang, Yi Mu, Fuchun Guo, Zhongyuan Yao

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Following the success of cloud computing, it has been shown its importance to realize various access control models in the cloud storage setting. Chinese Wall is a traditional access control model in business for solving the conflict of interest (CoI) problem, and it would be very interesting to achieve conflict-resistant in cloud storage system. However, the access control model does not ensure the privacy of users, and it may reveal the user's interest, investment tendency, etc. Therefore, it raises a big challenge to implement the Chinese Wall without compromising the user's privacy. In this paper, we focus on the Chinese …

Para Cima Y Pa’ Abajo: Building Bridges Between Hci Research In Latin America And In The Global North, Pedro Reynolds-Cuéllar, Marisol Wong-Villacres, Karla A. Badillo-Urquiola, Mayra Donaji Barrera-Machuca, Franceli L. Cibrian, Marianela Ciolfi Felice, Carolina Fuentes, Laura Sanely Gaytán-Lugo, Vivian Genaro Motti, Monica Perusquía-Hernández, Oscar A. Lemus

Engineering Faculty Articles and Research

The Human-computer Interaction (HCI) community has the opportunity to foster the integration of research practices across the Global South and North to begin overcoming colonial relationships. In this paper, we focus on the case of Latin America (LATAM), where initiatives to increase the representation of HCI practitioners lack a consolidated understanding of the practices they employ, the factors that influence them, and the challenges that practitioners face. To address this knowledge gap, we employ a mixed-methods approach, comprising a survey (66 respondents) and in-depth interviews (19 interviewees). Our analyses characterize a set of research perspectives on how HCI is practiced …

Number Theoretic Arithmetic Functions And Dirichlet Series, Ivan V. Morozov

Publications and Research

In this study, we will study number theoretic functions and their associated Dirichlet series. This study lay the foundation for deep research that has applications in cryptography and theoretical studies. Our work will expand known results and venture into the complex plane.

Evaluating Species-Specific Replenishment Solution Effects On Plant Growth And Root Zone Nutrients With Hydroponic Arugula (Eruca Sativa L.) And Basil (Ocimum Basilicum L.), Lauren L. Houston, Ryan W. Dickson, Matthew B. Bertucci, Trenton L. Roberts

Horticulture Faculty Publications and Presentations

Managing nutrients in recirculating solutions can be challenging in hydroponic production, and poor management practices can rapidly result in root zone nutrient imbalances in reduced yield. Using mass balance principles to formulate hydroponic replenishment solutions is a proposed strategy to reduce nutrient imbalances and the need to periodically replace the hydroponic solution. Objectives were to (1) formulate species-specific nutrient replenishment solutions for arugula (Eruca sativa L.) and basil (Ocimum basilicum L.) using mass balance principles and (2) evaluate the effects of using these replenishment solutions on plant growth and root zone nutrients over time. In the first experiment, …

Developing Young Science And Technology Parks: Recent Findings From Industrial Nations Using The Data-Driven Approach, Charles Mondal, Mousa Al-Kfairy, Robert B. Mellor

All Works

Science and technology parks (STPs) are curated locations where new technology-based firms (NTBFs) and other SMEs and firms can conglomerate and promote a culture of innovation. Overall, the aim is to construct a sustainable high-value tech entrepreneurship ecosystem, and to this end we present here some recent and novel concepts derived from approaches using a data-driven statistical foundation. This paper considers studies on the organic growth of young start-up science and technology parks by authors who have used big data, econometric analyses, panel data and computer simulations. The results and concepts are derived from industrialized countries, notably Sweden and the …

Accurately Valuing Blue Carbon Sequestration And Storage To Foster Coastal Conservation Via Evidence-Based Policymaking And Model Environmental Services Statute Methodologies, John Shelton Penton Jr

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Blue carbon ecosystems, especially mangrove forests, provide one of nature’s most effective means for sequestering carbon from the atmosphere and storing it in subsurface soils. The six nearshore coastal morphologies found in tropical and subtropical regions each possess a conspicuous environmental signature that can be employed to accurately estimate and predict mangrove forests’ carbon storage in above-ground biomass, below-ground biomass, and the soils by system type. The consistent geomorphology and geophysical processes within each of these coastal environmental settings, that is, the wave and tidal forcings, the rate of coastal sediment accretions, nutrient load and limitations (e.g., nitrogen-to-phosphorus …

Wernicke's Encephalopathy: Mapping The Risk Factors Throughout The State Of South Carolina, Shannon M. Rychener

Senior Theses

Wernicke’s Encephalopathy is a consistently underrecognized neurodegenerative brain disorder resulting from prolonged thiamine deficiency. Clinical presentation of the disease results from brain lesions attributable to thiamine deficiency. Because these lesions occur in various locations in the cerebral cortex, symptoms can vary significantly. Varied presentation of symptoms, in addition to the lack of a widely accepted biomarker for the disorder cause challenges to clinicians when identifying and diagnosing the disorder. Due to these challenges, healthcare providers must heavily rely on patient history and risk factor prevalence when multiple symptoms of the disorder are present. By mapping the prevalence of the four …

Moral Injury To Inform Analysis Of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Amanda Julia Manea

Senior Theses

Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is a mental health condition that almost one out of ten veterans struggle with. Although the National Center for PTSD has made extensive progress in characterizing and developing new treatments for PTSD, most veterans still experience symptoms of PTSD following treatment. Novel avenues of investigation, such as developing algorithms to review electronic health record (EHR) data and better understanding moral injury, are being pursued to address the gap that still exists when it comes to treating veterans. Moral injury is the individual evaluation of exposure to a potentially morally injurious event (PMIE) and can lead to …

Structure Of Extremal Unit Distance Graphs, Kaylee Weatherspoon

Senior Theses

This thesis begins with a selective overview of problems in geometric graph theory, a rapidly evolving subfield of discrete mathematics. We then narrow our focus to the study of unit-distance graphs, Euclidean coloring problems, rigidity theory and the interplay among these topics. After expounding on the limitations we face when attempting to characterize finite, separable edge-maximal unit-distance graphs, we engage an interesting Diophantine problem arising in this endeavor. Finally, we present a novel subclass of finite, separable edge-maximal unit distance graphs obtained as part of the author's undergraduate research experience.

Making Music Social: Creating A Spotify-Based Social Media Platform, Dalton J. Craven

Senior Theses

DKMS is a new type of social media platform for music lovers and groups of friends. It integrates tightly with Spotify, one of the largest music streaming services in the world. Users of DKMS can see what their friends are listening to, receive recommendations of new songs to listen to, and analyze their several key numerical metrics (happiness, danceability, loudness, and energy) of their top songs.

DKMS was built as part of the year-long Capstone senior design course at the University of South Carolina. A deployed app is visible at https://dkms.vercel.app, and the open-source code is visible at https://github.com/SCCapstone/DKMS.

Mapping Per- And Polyfluoroalkyl Substances (Pfas) In South Carolina Surface Waters: Are There Hotspots?, Thomas C. Geiger

Senior Theses

Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are synthetic chemicals used in consumer products for their unique chemical properties. PFAS compounds are resistant to water, oil, heat, and grease, making them useful for a wide variety of everyday items such as non-stick cooking pans, food packaging, electronics, carpets, upholstery, paints, adhesives, and personal care products.¹ The resilient nature of PFAS has made these compounds immensely popular with consumers but has since been considered a potential environmental and public health hazard for their ability to bioaccumulate and for their stability in the environment. More than 6000 PFAS have been discovered in the …

Discovering Dune: Essays On Frank Herbert’S Epic Saga., Edited By Dominic J. Nardi And N. Trevor Brierly, G. Connor Salter

Mythlore: A Journal of J.R.R. Tolkien, C.S. Lewis, Charles Williams, and Mythopoeic Literature

G. Connor Salter reviews Discovering Dune: Essays on Frank Herbert’s Epic Saga, edited by Dominic J. Nardi and N. Trevor Brierly, considering its new contributions to studies of Frank Herbert's work. Essays included fit into four categories (Politics and Power, History and Religion, Biology and Ecology, and Philosophy, Choice and Ethics) and range from Herbert's use of ecology in Dune to how game theory may help explain certain characters' apparent ability to see the future. Discovering Dune also includes an appendix which contains the only up-to-date bibliography of Herbert's work (primary and secondary sources).

Development Of Innovative Multi-Drug Approaches To Counteract Illicit Drug Abuse In The Uae Population, Manal Ali Alhefeiti

Dissertations

The abuse of addictive substances is on the rise in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) population. Consequently, the UAE government spends about Dhs 5.5 billion annually on the rehabilitation of drug addicts. Blood, urine, and hair tests can reveal signs of sporadic or chronic drug use. Given the list of banned chemicals in the UAE, our main objective in this work was to develop a novel analytical method to identify and measure banned substances, especially prescription and over-the-counter drugs in the UAE. We developed and validated a rapid, sensitive and reliable liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry/mass spectrometry (LC-MS/MS) approach for the targeted …

Impact Of Teaching Mathematics With Four Teaching Strategies On Fifth Grade Students’ Learning Of Fractions Addition And Subtraction, Nabil Riziq Al Farra

Dissertations

There are different tools, resources, and materials that mathematics teachers may use to enhance the teaching and learning processes under many types of teaching strategies such as technology (e.g., videos and virtual manipulatives), real objects (e.g., concrete manipulatives), and other teaching strategies are traditional (e.g., lectures). Some of the most important things that a teacher has to consider is the students’ learning needs and how to reach to their minds by different teaching strategies with a variety of resources and assess which are more effective in students’ learning anddevelopment in mathematics.

The purpose of this study is to investigate the …

Community Participation And Perspectives Of Ambondrolava Mangrove Restoration Project, Nadine Shannon

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Madagascar’s mangrove forests are intertidal ecosystems that provide numerous valuable ecosystem services but are nonetheless under pressure from large amounts of deforestation. On the southwestern coast of Madagascar, the village of Ambondrolava practices community led management of the mangrove and its resources. This research project studied the evolution of the mangrove area using GIS data, and investigated, through interviews, the relationship between the local community of Ambondrolava and the organizations that manage the mangrove ecosystem. From 2000 to 2018, the zone of the mangrove has experienced a net loss in area every year, despite reforestation efforts. Most community members interviewed …

Consumo Verde ¿Para Quién?: Las Tierras, Cosmovisiones, Y Personas Escondidas Detrás De La Fiebre Del Oro Blanco / Green Consumption, For Who?: The Lands, World Views, And People Hidden Behind The White Gold Rush., Gabriel Gómez

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

La “Transición energética” a consumo verde ha sido reconocida globalmente como el camino necesario para evitar lo peor de la crisis climática, pero es una solución que depende en un aumento del litio. La manera más usada para extraer el litio genera impactos destructivos en los ambientes que contienen el recurso, y en Sudamérica, donde los habitantes son mayormente indígena. Usando las comunidades de Salinas Grandes y Laguna de Guayatayoc en Jujuy, Argentina como un caso práctico, este proyecto propone analizar cómo el discurso hegemónico del consumo verde invisibiliza a gente indígena, y cómo estas comunidades resisten entendimientos occidentales y …