Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Vlp-Based Vaccine Displaying Hbha And Mtp Antigens Of Mycobacterium Tuberculosis Induces Potentially Protective Immune Responses In M Tuberculosis H37ra Infected Mice, Juan Wang, Tao Xie, Inayat Ullah, Youjun Mi, Xiaoping Li, Yang Gong, Pu He, Yuqi Liu, Fei Li, Jixi Li, Zengjun Lu, Bingdong Zhu

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Heparin-binding hemagglutinin (HBHA) and M. tuberculosis pili (MTP) are important antigens on the surface of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. To display these antigens effectively, the fusion protein HBHA-MTP with a molecular weight of 20 kD (L20) was inserted into the receptor-binding hemagglutinin (HA) fragment of influenza virus and was expressed along with matrix protein M1 in Sf9 insect cells to generate influenza virus-like particles (LV20 in short). The results showed that the insertion of L20 into the envelope of the influenza virus did not affect the self-assembly and morphology of LV20 VLPs. The expression of L20 was successfully verified by transmission …

Augmented & Virtual Reality: Advancement Of Technology And Its Impacts On Medicine, Education, And Other Industries, Yassine Chahid

Publications and Research

Throughout the early 2000s, the ways in which the World Wide Web was used would undergo major changes. The introduction of these changes around this time period would be collectively known as Web 2.0. With Web 2.0, accessibility and distribution of applications became more simplified. During the 2000s, much has evolved from hard capabilities to the internet and its widespread usage amongst companies and general consumers. In contemporary times, multiple technologies, both hardware and digital are becoming more advanced, with general consumers either rejecting or accepting these gradual shifts in what may become everyday technology. Web 3.0, the theoretical advancement …

Machine Learning In Finances, Elma Kastrat, Akinyemi Apampa, Satyanand Singh

Publications and Research

In our study we work on an optimization of an appropriate stock portfolio base on available information. Our work takes into consideration the average return and any associated risk. We produce an investment strategy that predictively allows a portfolio to grow with high yields.

Seasonal And Diurnal Variations Of Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability At Terrestrial Magnetopause, S. Kavosi, J. Raeder, Jay R. Johnson, K. Nykyri, C. J. Farrugia

Faculty Publications

Kelvin-Helmholtz Instability is ubiquitous at Earth’s magnetopause and plays an important role in plasma entry into the magnetosphere during northward interplanetary magnetic fields. Here, using one solar cycle of data from NASA THEMIS (Time History of Events and Macro scale Interactions during Substorms) and MMS (Magnetospheric Multiscale) missions, we found that KHI occurrence rates show seasonal and diurnal variations with the rate being high near the equinoxes and low near the solstices. The instability depends directly on the Earth’s dipole tilt angle. The tilt toward or away from the Sun explains most of the seasonal and diurnal variations, while the …

Integrating Art And Design With Environmental Science, Laura D. Hinson

The Confluence

This article demonstrates how combining art and design and environmental sciences would benefit both fields by analyzing how utilizing art and design in environmental sciences can help enhance aspects of the teaching process and environmental studies, specifically those dealing with climatology and pollution. Additionally, by taking an ecocritical approach to analyzing art and its creation, this article will detail how artists can become more conscious of the impacts creating certain types of art has on the environment while also noting environmental changes documented through art.

Hymenachne Amplexicaluis [(Rudge) Nees] Genetic Resources Collection In México, A Suitable Grass For Flood Plains In Tropical Areas, J. F. Enriquez-Quiroz, A. R. Quero-Carrillo, J. Perez-Perez, A. Hernandez-Garay, E. Garcia-Moya

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Hymenachne amplexicaluis [( Rudge ) Nees; 2n= 2x= 24; Azuche, West Indian marsh grass] is a native Central and South America C₃ grass that grows well under intermittent flooding conditions. It produces good seed set and stolons to thrive on new areas assuring its survival, combined with an efficient N metabolism to promote vigorous new growing leaves and tillers (Antel et al., 1998). Azuche is a dual attribute species when introduced to new areas; it has valuable forage attributes but also is a potential weed (Hill, 2000). As Azuche is a native species, one must deal with in …

Critical Analysis Of Tropical Forage Breeding In Brazil, J. A. Usberti Jr., P. B. Alcantara

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Forage grasses account for 90% of the Brazilian forage seed market while the genera Brachiaria, Panicum and others are responsible for 85, 10 and 5% of the traded grass seeds, respectively. Most of the forage grass and legume cultivars available for sowing in Brazil were selected in germplasm banks during the last 20 years, while few of them were derived from artificial crossings, followed by selection for desirable forage traits. The selection of new genetic materials in germplasm banks (exploitation of naturally-occurring genetic variability) is still feasible but the chances of success are decreasing through time. From now on, …

Radon In Utah Homes, Madison Mackay

Physics Capstone Projects

Radon gas can be found nearly everywhere. It is formed by the decay of radium, which is found in rocks, soil, plants, and animals. Radon gas can become trapped in buildings and is dangerous at high levels. It is particularly known to be high in many areas of the state of Utah. It is important for the average citizen in Utah to understand more about radon and what levels they may be exposed to. An experiment was done to try an alternate, faster method of testing for radon gas. This experiment was performed in several different locations in Utah. While …

Optimizing Greenhouses: A Comparative Analysis Of Csb+Sju Greenhouses, Jervon Sands

CSB and SJU Distinguished Thesis

This research aims to determine the optimal design of modern greenhouses through a comparative analysis of three on campus greenhouses. Temperature and humidity measurements as well as physical observations for each site were compared to standard measurements and ideal greenhouse design components. The results of a comparative analysis allowed for the three on-campus greenhouses to be ranked against this section. The trends found in the data confirmed the findings of previous research. Recommendations for operating an optimal greenhouse derived from the analysis and observations along with suggestions for experimental improvements based on a previous study are also included.

Studying Competing Reaction Pathways In Methanol Decomposition On Platinum Catalysts Under Ultra-High Vacuum (Uhv) Conditions Using Tpd And Sfg Spectroscopy, Quy Loi, Kevin Alvorado Jimenez, Sarah Lelea, Lauren Villegas, Jerry Larue

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

Catalysts are important in manufacturing processes, as they make them more efficient and useful. To develop better catalysts, we need to know how they work by studying how methanol breaks down on platinum. TPD and TD-SFG spectroscopy are used to study by providing the vibrational spectra of methanol on the platinum surface as temperature changes.

Formula 101 Using 2022 Formula One Season Data To Understand The Race Results, Christopher Garcia, Oliver Lopez

Student Scholar Symposium Abstracts and Posters

The reason why I am interested in Formula One is that my friend showed me what Formula One was all about. It became interesting to see the action of the sport, including the battles the drivers have during the race and how fast they go through a corner. Also, when qualifying comes around, they push their car to the absolute limit to gain a few seconds off their opponents. The drivers only in the top 10 receive points from the winner getting 25 points, the last driver in the top 10 getting 1 point, and those below the top ten …

What Are The Impacts Of Deer Browsing And Japanese Stiltgrass (Microstegium Vinenium) On Native Sapling Growth In A Residential Wetland In Southeastern Georgia?, Josie Richards

Honors College Theses

Wetlands promote biodiversity, act as climate stabilizers, and regulate water flow, yet are vulnerable to invaders. An invasive species can affect the biodiversity, abiotic conditions, and increase vulnerability of an ecosystem over time and deer browsing can actively affect new growth by removing the apical buds of young woody vegetation. Japanese stiltgrass (Microstegium vimineum), a wetland specific invader, has been shown to compete against native species for limited resources and actively crowd them out. Growth of native saplings can be further complicated by the presence of white tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus), which browse woody vegetation and limit recruitment of trees. …

Photodynamic Therapy Agents: The Power Of Mjöllnir To Eradicate Cancer, Sidney M. Hopper

Honors College Theses

After its discovery back in the 1900s, photosensitizers became a critical study for potential treatments and cures for medical issues, including cancer. It was discovered that porphyrins appeared to target and accumulate in proliferating cells, and to reach the cells, a certain wavelength of light with maximum absorbance associated with the porphyrin was necessary to achieve cell death. Photodynamic therapy involves making use of porphyrins or metalloporphyrins as activators when exposed to such light. When activated, these compounds generate reactive oxygen species (ROS), such as HO- or O2-, which can react with nucleic acids found in DNA and RNA. In …

Producer Long-Term Marketing Opportunities With Ethanol Plants, Austin Harthoorn, Logan Lloyd, Cory Walters, Kate Brooks

Cornhusker Economics

Commodity marketing operates in a complex decision environment with constant information flow, which can conceal long-run financially profitable marketing opportunities for producers. In the corn marketing space, the competitive role of ethanol plants throughout the state may provide producers with long-run financial gains by strategically approaching marketing decisions. In this article, we characterize whether producers can gain financially from strategically marketing corn to ethanol plants. For example, do ethanol plants provide a better long-run return from pre-harvest hedging, spring sale, or harvest sale?

We investigate three important contracting times--forward contract for harvest delivery (called pre-harvest hereafter), harvest delivery, and spring …

Occurrence Of Radionuclides And Hazardous Elements In The Transboundary River Basin Kyrgyzstan–Kazakhstan, Mariya A. Severinenko, Vladimir P. Solodukhin, Bekmamat M. Djenbaev, The National Academy Of Science Of The Kyrgyz Republic G. Lennik, Baktiyar T. Zholboldiev, Daniel D. Snow

Nebraska Water Center: Faculty Publications

Important for irrigation, the transboundary river basin between Kyrgyzstan and Kazakhstan is vulnerable to geochemical and anthropogenic sources of pollution. The use of water use indices, together with measurements of the elemental and radionuclide composition of the water and bottom sediments, provides a means for evaluating the continued use of the water from this region. Recent monitoring shows the highest concentrations of hazardous contaminants include lead and thorium contained in the bottom and banks of the Kichi-Kemin River. These contaminants are likely remnants of an accidental spill at the Aktyuz tailing dump in 1964. The specific activity of the Th-232 …

Search For B Mesogenesis At Babar, J. P. Lees, V. Poireau, E. Grauges, A. Palano, G. Eigen, D. N. Brown, Yu. G. Kolomensky, M. Fritsch, H. Koch, R. Cheaib, C. Hearty, T. S. Mattison, J. A. Mckenna, R. Y. So, V. E. Blinov, A. R. Buzykaev, V. P. Druzhinin, E. A. Kozyrev, Milind Purohit, Et. Al.

Faculty Publications

A new mechanism has been proposed to simultaneously explain the presence of dark matter and the matter-antimatter asymmetry in the Universe. This scenario predicts exotic B-meson decays into a baryon and a dark-sector antibaryon (ψD) with branching fractions accessible at B factories. We present a search for B→Λψ_D decays using data collected by the BABAR experiment at SLAC. This reaction is identified by fully reconstructing the accompanying B meson and requiring the presence of a single Λ baryon in the remaining particles. No significant signal is observed, and bounds on the B→Λψ …

Application Of Screening In Rangeland Monitoring: Quantifying Early-Warning Signals Of State Transitions In Nebraska, Daniel S. Bauloye

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Woody encroachment, desertification, and exotic annual grass invasion are regime shifts (i.e., state-transitions) with detrimental effects on ecosystem health and services in grasslands of the North American Great Plains. Traditional approaches to rangeland monitoring are capable of detecting regime shifts after they have already occurred (i.e., diagnosing them); however, proactive management requires earlier warning. Regime shift screening is a new approach to rangeland monitoring capable of providing earlier warning of regime shifts. Regime shift screening proposes assessing the presence, persistence, and non-stationarity of regime shift signals; however, no studies have systematically evaluated these characteristics in real-world landscapes. In this thesis, …

New Insights Into The Paleovegetation Of The Ancient Underwater Forest Located In The Northern Gulf Of Mexico, Karla Lizarraga Garcia

Master's Theses

A well-preserved remnant of an ancient bald cypress forest (hereafter, Underwater Forest) constitutes the only known archive of a glacial refuge on the once exposed continental shelf of the Northern Gulf of Mexico. This forest existed around 41-72 yBP (MIS 3-5) according to the existing dating methods applied on previous studies. As the climate conditions and sea levels changed, the vegetation of this glacial refuge shifted from bald cypress forests to open marshes, altering the vegetation dynamics. The present research analyzed four new cores (21DF-5A, 21DF-5B, 15DF-6, and 16DF-3A), which provided additional insights into the vegetation that once existed in …

A Probabilistic Exploration Of Food Supplementation And Assistance, Logan Mattingly

Honors College Theses

Food insecurity is a stark threat that grips our country and affects households throughout our country. Dietary insufficiency manifests itself in ways that affect health and public safety. According to researchers, individuals who suffer from food insecurity have a higher risk of aggression, anxiety, suicide ideation and depression. These problems tend to occur unequally distributed among those households with lower income. In this work, an exploratory analysis within these data sets will be performed to examine the socio-economic, biographical, nutritional, and geographical principal components of food insecurity among survey participants and how the US Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) effects …

Music On Canvas: A Quest To Generate Art That Evokes The Feeling Of Music, My Linh (Lucy) Tran

Mathematics, Statistics, and Computer Science Honors Projects

Although the idea of connecting music and art dates back to ancient Greece, recent advancements in computing have made automating this feasible. This project represents a quest to transform music into art, using three methodologies where each is an improvement towards generating images that convey our feelings and imaginations during music listening. The three methods respectively involve:

1. An element-wise mapping of sound and colors
2. Using song tags
3. Tuning an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model to generate pictorial text captions.

To create artistic images, methods two and three utilize an existing text-to-image generative AI.

Designing Programming Languages For Writing Maintainable Software, Aaron Friesen

Honors Program: Senior Projects (Public)

Maintainability is crucial to the long-term success of software projects. Among other factors, it is affected by the programming language in which the software is written. Programming language designers should be conscious of how their design decisions can influence software maintainability. Non-functional properties of a language can affect the readability of source code in ways beyond the control of programmers. Language features can cause or prevent certain classes of bugs, and runtime issues especially can require significant maintenance effort. Tools external to the language, especially those developed and distributed by language implementers, can aid in the creation of maintainable software. …

Use Of Social Media During The Covid-19 Pandemic Of 2020, Aliya Goncalves Almeida

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Nowadays billions of people use social media platforms as a way to keep in touch with family and friends, fill spare time, find content, find inspiration for things to do and buy, share, and discuss opinions with others, and the list goes on. This project focused and investigated on the use of social media during the years, in particular during quarantine/lockdown. Utilizing the public source data, I explored several research questions including how many hours people spent on social media, the popularity of social media apps, as well as what age group uses social media platforms (teenagers, young adults, adults). …

Understanding Quantum Field Theory And Standard Model To Explore Beyond Standard Model Physics, Alize Sucsuzer

Honors Program Theses and Projects

Motivated by the goal of participating in astroparticle physics research in graduate school, we aimed to understand the Standard Model of particle physics and the Feynman diagrams through which particle interactions are described, so that we could learn about the properties of certain astroparticles. The axiomatic principle that governs fundamental physics is manifest covariance, implying that the mathematical forms of the physical laws are the same to all observers. Maintaining covariance requires 4-vector representation using group theoretical techniques based on symmetries, as well as a transition from single-particle quantum physics to many-particle quantum field theory (QFT). The Standard Model of …

Preparation, Characterization And Electron Yield Analysis On Highly Insulating Granular Particles, Heather Allen

Physics Capstone Projects

This study focuses on obtaining reliable electron yield measurements of highly insulating granular particles of various shape, size, and composition. Measurements of this kind have long been considered too difficult to collect on granular samples due to experimental complexities leading to a critical knowledge gap in the fundamental electrostatic behaviors of dust. A significant portion of this study was spent on preparing and characterizing granular samples before any type of measurement took place. Particles of varying sizes ranging from ~1 μm to ~100 μm, shapes including cubical, spherical, and angular, and composition including NaCl, MgO, Al₂O₃ and …

Functionalized Nanoprobes For Multiplexed Surface Enhanced Raman Spectroscopic Detection Of Cancer Biomarkers, Sydney D. Hakimi

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Cancer has a huge impact on people across the world. In 2020, there were about 19.3 million cancer cases and approximately 10 million deaths globally. Early detection and diagnosis of cancer results in a higher rate of survival of the disease. A key challenge is the need for a highly sensitive technique for early cancer detection. Surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy and scattering (SERS) is a technique that can address the challenge by detecting biomarkers such as Carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA) and Neuron-specific enolase (NSE), which provide diagnostic information for assessing cancer detection. This work focuses on the use of gold nanoprobes conjugated …

Crystal Chemistry, Optic And Magnetic Characterizations Of A New Copper Based Material Templated By Hexahydrodiazepine, Mansoura Bourwina, Rawia Msalmi, Sandra Walha, Mark M. Turnbull, Thierry Roisnel, Ahlem Guesmi, Ammar Houas, Naoufel Ben Hamadi, Houcine Naïli

Chemistry

Crystals of the new organic-inorganic material (DAP-H2)[CuBr₄] (1); (DAP = hexahydrodiazepine (C₅H₁₄N₂)) were successfully synthesized by slow evaporation and characterized by single-crystal X-ray diffraction, infrared spectroscopy, thermal analysis, UV-Vis-NIR diffuse reflectance spectroscopy, and magnetic measurements. X-ray investigation demonstrates that 1 crystallizes in the monoclinic space group C2/c. The supramolecular crystal structure of 1 is guided by several types of hydrogen bonding which connect anions and cations together into a three-dimensional network. The optical band gap was determined by diffuse reflectance spectroscopy to be 1.78 eV for a direct allowed transition, implying that …

Red Riding On Hood: Exploring How Galaxy Colour Depends On Environment, Pankaj C. Bhambhani, Ivan K. Baldry, Sarah Brough, Alexander D. Hill, M A. Lara-Lopez, J Loveday, Benne Holwerda

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

Galaxy populations are known to exhibit a strong colour bimodality, corresponding to blue star-forming and red quiescent subpopulations. The relative abundance of the two populations has been found to vary with stellar mass and environment. In this paper, we explore the effect of environment considering different types of measurements. We choose a sample of 49 911 galaxies with 0.05 < z < 0.18 from the Galaxy And Mass Assembly survey. We study the dependence of the fraction of red galaxies on different measures of the local environment as well as the large-scale `geometric’ environment defined by density gradients in the surrounding cosmic web. We find that the red galaxy fraction varies with the environment at fixed stellar mass. The red fraction depends more strongly on local environmental measures than on large-scale geometric environment measures. By comparing the different environmental densities, we show that no density measurement fully explains the observed environmental red fraction variation, suggesting the different measures of environmental density contain different information. We test whether the local environmental measures, when combined together, can explain all the observed environmental red fraction variation. The geometric environment has a small residual effect, and this effect is larger for voids than any other type of geometric environment. This could provide a test of the physics applied to cosmological-scale galaxy evolution simulations as it combines large-scale effects with local environmental impact.

Topic Modeling And Future Prediction Of Aid Data In Development Studies Using Lda And Bert, Uttamasha Anjally Oyshi

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents a study on topic modeling and future prediction of aid data in development studies using LDA and BERT. The goal of this study is to explore the aid data from four sectors: Government and civil society, Government and civil society general, Conflict prevention and resolution, peace and security, and Women, and to identify the latent topics that are present in the data. The LDA and BERT algorithms were used for the topic modeling, and coherence scores were computed to evaluate the quality of the models. The results of the study show that the LDA and BERT models …

Examining The Accuracy Of Two Commercially Available Global Positioning System Enabled Watches In Two Trail Conditions, Allison Tripure

Undergraduate Theses

The purpose of this investigation was to determine the accuracy of the GNSS (global navigation satellite system) in the Coros® Vertix 2 and Garmin® Fēnix 6 during two trail running conditions in a group of recreational trail runners. Six participants completed four self-paced, one-mile trail runs. Accuracy of the two watches in measuring distance were compared across two trail conditions, heavy and light tree coverage. Both watches were worn simultaneously and then switched to the opposite wrists for the next trial. Distance measured by the watches was reported every quarter mile. Mean and standard deviation of the distance measured by …

Impact Of Lithological Variation And Topology On The Connectivity And Intensity Of Fracture Networks In Carbonates, Fahad Qassim

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Assessing fracture network connectivity in reservoirs remains a challenging task because of the complex nature of fracture networks at various length scales, which significantly impacts fluid flow behavior. Outcrop studies are essential for understanding subsurface fracture networks because intersecting fracture sheets' length, orientation, height distribution, and, therefore, network connectivity and intensity are difficult to measure from wellbores and are typically below seismic resolution. Nevertheless, fracture network connectivity is a crucial parameter and a critical factor in understanding, evaluating, and predicting fluid flow behavior in hydrocarbon reservoirs, aquifers, hazardous waste and CO₂ storage systems, and geothermal energy exploitation. Moreover, fracture …