Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Sustainability Hub Newsletter - November 2022, Jacqueline Jergensen, Neyda Gilman, Jennifer Embree

Library Sustainability Resources

This issue of our newsletter includes new resources for recycling and environmental justice, information about an environmental proposal you will see on election day, and tips to have a sustainable Thanksgiving! Even read about how you can minimize your impacts on Black Friday and Cyber Monday!

Modifications Of Cellulose-Based Biomaterials For Biomedical Applications, Nour Fatema, Ruben Michael Ceballos, Chenguang Fan

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Cellulose is one of the most abundant organic compounds in nature and is available from diverse sources. Cellulose features tunable properties, making it a promising substrate for biomaterial development. In this review, we highlight advances in the physical processes and chemical modifications of cellulose that enhance its properties for use as a biomaterial. Three cellulosic products are discussed, including nanofibrillated, nanocrystalline, and bacterial cellulose, with a focus on how each may serve as a platform for the development of advanced cellulose-based biomaterials for Biomedical applications. In addition to associating mechanical and chemical properties of cellulosic materials to specific applications, a …

Ambient-Pressure Ozone Treatment Enables Tuning Of Oxygen Vacancy Concentration In The La1−Xsrxfeo3−Δ (0 ≤ X ≤ 1) Perovskite Oxide, Geletu Qing, David Thompson, Mourad Benamara, Clemes Heske, Lauren Greenlee, Jingyi Chen

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Oxygen vacancies in metal oxides can determine their properties. However, it is difficult to reduce the oxygen vacancy concentration in metal oxides without annealing them under high pressure. In this work, we develop a facile approach to control oxygen vacancy content via an ozone treatment under ambient pressure during cooling. This approach is demonstrated for the synthesis of La1−xSrxFeO3−δ (0 ≤ x ≤ 1, 0 ≤ δ ≤ 0.5x) perovskite oxides – an important class of energy-related materials due to their wide range of non-stoichiometry, mixed ionic and electronic conductivity, and the presence …

Front Matter

The Synapse: Intercollegiate science magazine

No abstract provided.

The Synapse: Issue 2022

The Synapse: Intercollegiate science magazine

No abstract provided.

Acing Coping Fromw Ace: How Individuals And Communities Can Alleviate The Effects Of Childhood Trauma, Kathy Nguyen

The Synapse: Intercollegiate science magazine

No abstract provided.

The Self-Disorder Model Of Schizophrenia, Sophie Nelson

The Synapse: Intercollegiate science magazine

No abstract provided.

The Hidden Sadness Of Pregnancy: Postpartum Depression And The Effects Of Preventative Medicine, Daniel Etcheberrigaray

The Synapse: Intercollegiate science magazine

No abstract provided.

Featured Artist, Claire Wong

The Synapse: Intercollegiate science magazine

No abstract provided.

Diseases Hidden In Ice: Ancient Bacteria In Permafrost Could Spread Ancient Diseases, Jessica John

The Synapse: Intercollegiate science magazine

No abstract provided.

A Wonderful Fusion: A Mother, A Son, Gravitational Waves, And Our Native People, Abby Tejera

The Synapse: Intercollegiate science magazine

No abstract provided.

Hydrological Drought Forecasting Using A Deep Transformer Model, Amobichukwu C. Amanambu, Joann Mossa, Yin-Hsuen Chen

University Administration Publications

Hydrological drought forecasting is essential for effective water resource management planning. Innovations in computer science and artificial intelligence (AI) have been incorporated into Earth science research domains to improve predictive performance for water resource planning and disaster management. Forecasting of future hydrological drought can assist with mitigation strategies for various stakeholders. This study uses the transformer deep learning model to forecast hydrological drought, with a benchmark comparison with the long short-term memory (LSTM) model. These models were applied to the Apalachicola River, Florida, with two gauging stations located at Chattahoochee and Blountstown. Daily stage-height data from the period 1928–2022 were …

Mechatronics Bachelor Curriculum Development In Light Of Industry 4.0 Technology Needs: Contrasting Us And German University Curricula, Paniz Hazaveh, Aleksandr Sergeyev, Nathir Rawashdeh

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

This study compares Mechatronics bachelor curricula at universities in the United States of America and German universities. Mechatronics education is relatively new in the United States, but has been common in Germany for over a decade. With the multidisciplinary nature of technologies required by the 4’th industrial revolution, a.k.a. Industry 4.0, composing an appropriate Mechatronics curriculum becomes a challenge and an opportunity. This paper studies how Mechatronics education can address the future needs of industry, while building on a specific university’s strengths and industry links. We have also analyzed the new undergraduate Mechatronics program at Michigan Technological University (MTU) and …

Study Of Flow Of Buongiorno Nanofluid In A Conical Gap Between A Cone And A Disk, Mahanthesh Basavarajappa, Dambaru Bhatta

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

The cone–disk apparatus consists of a cone that touches the disk at its apex and is used in medical evices, viscosimeters, conical diffusers, etc. Theoretically, a three-dimensional flow of a nanofluid in a conical gap of a cone–disk apparatus is studied for four different physical configurations. Buongiorno nanofluid model, consisting of thermophoresis and Brownian diffusion mechanisms, is used to describe the convective heat transport of the nanofluid. The continuity equation, the Navier–Stokes momentum equation, the heat equation, and the conservation of nanoparticle volume fraction equation constitute the governing system for the flow of nanofluids. The Lie group approach is used …

Validation Of Standardized Data Formats And Tools For Ground-Level Particle-Based Gamma-Ray Observatories, A. Albert, R. Alfaro, J. C. Arteaga-Velázquez, H. A. Ayala Solares, R. Babu, E. Belmont-Moreno, C. Brisbois, K. S. Caballero-Mora, T. Capistrán, A. Carramiñana, S. Casanova, O. Chaparro-Amaro, U. Cotti, J. Cotzomi, S. Coutiño De León, E. De La Fuente, R. Diaz Hernandez, M. A. Duvernois, M. Durocher, C. Espinoza, K. L. Fan, M. Fernandez Alonso, N. Fraija, J. A. Garcia-Gonzalez, H. Goksu, M. M. Gonzalez, J. A. Goodman, J. P. Harding, J. Hinton, D. Huang, F. Hueyotl-Zahuantitla, P. Huntemeyer, A. Jardin-Blicq, V. Joshi, J. T. Linnemann, A. L. Longinotti, G. Luis-Raya, K. Malone, V. Marandon, O. Martinez, J. Martinez-Castro, J. A. Matthews, P. Miranda-Romagnoli, J. A. Morales-Soto, E. Moreno, M. Mostafa, A. Nayerhoda, L. Nellen, M. U. Nisa, R. Noriega-Papaqui, L. Olivera-Nieto, E. G. Perez-Perez, C. D. Rho, D. Rosa-Gonzalez, E. Ruiz-Velasco, D. Salazar-Gallegos, F. Salesa Greus, A. Sandoval, H. Schoorlemmer, J. Serna-Franco, A. J. Smith, Y. Son, R. W. Springer, K. Tollefson, I. Torres, R. Torres-Escobedo, R. Turner, F. Urena-Mena, L. Villasenor, Xiaojie Wang, I. J. Watson, E. Willox, H. Zhou, C. De Leon, A. Zepeda, A. Donath, S. Funk

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

Context. Ground-based γ-ray astronomy is still a rather young field of research, with strong historical connections to particle physics. This is why most observations are conducted by experiments with proprietary data and analysis software, as is usual in the particle physics field. However, in recent years, this paradigm has been slowly shifting toward the development and use of open-source data formats and tools, driven by upcoming observatories such as the Cherenkov Telescope Array (CTA). In this context, a community-driven, shared data format (the gamma-Astro-data-format, or GADF) and analysis tools such as Gammapy and ctools have been developed. So far, these …

An Uncountable Ergodic Roth Theorem And Applications, Polona Durcik, Rachel Greenfeld, Annina Iseli, Asgar Jamneshan, José Madrid

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

We establish an uncountable amenable ergodic Roth theorem, in which the acting group is not assumed to be countable and the space need not be separable. This generalizes a previous result of Bergelson, McCutcheon and Zhang, and complements a result of Zorin- Kranich. We establish the following two additional results: First, a combinatorial application about triangular patterns in certain subsets of the Cartesian square of arbitrary amenable groups, extending a result of Bergelson, McCutcheon and Zhang for countable amenable groups. Second, a uniformity aspect in the double recurrence theorem for Γ-systems for arbitrary uniformly amenable groups Γ. Our uncountable Roth …

Logic, Co-Ordination And The Envelope Of Our Beliefs, Rohit J. Parikh

Publications and Research

Each of us has a story which we can think of as a set of beliefs, hopefully consistent. We make our decisions in view of our beliefs which may be probabilistic, in the general case, but simple yes or no as in this paper. Our beliefs are our envelope just as the shell of a tortoise is its envelope.

Decision theory - or single agent game theory tells us when to make the best choice in a game of us against nature. But nature has no desire to further or frustrate our efforts. Nature is mysterious but not malign.

Things …

The Road To A Human-Centred Digital Society: Opportunities, Challenges And Responsibilities For Humans In The Age Of Machines, David De Cremer, Devesh Narayanan, Andreas Deppeler, Mahak Nagpal, Jack Mcguire

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

The growing adoption of intelligent technologies has brought us to a crossroad. The creators of intelligent technologies are acquiring the power to influence a wide variety of outcomes that are important to human end-users. In doing so, those same intelligent technologies are being used to undermine and even actively harm the interests of those same end-users. In the absence of a recalibration, we are almost certainly headed down a path wherein intelligent technologies will primarily serve the interests of developers and owners of technology rather than humankind at large. In an attempt to push for such a recalibration, we present …

Transcriptional Regulatory Network Topology With Applications To Bio-Inspired Networking: A Survey, Satyaki Roy, Preetam Ghosh, Nirnay Ghosh, Sajal K. Das

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The advent of the edge computing network paradigm places the computational and storage resources away from the data centers and closer to the edge of the network largely comprising the heterogeneous IoT devices collecting huge volumes of data. This paradigm has led to considerable improvement in network latency and bandwidth usage over the traditional cloud-centric paradigm. However, the next generation networks continue to be stymied by their inability to achieve adaptive, energy-efficient, timely data transfer in a dynamic and failure-prone environment - the very optimization challenges that are dealt with by biological networks as a consequence of millions of years …

Towards Effective And Efficient Online Exam Systems Using Deep Learning-Based Cheating Detection Approach, Sanaa Kaddoura, Abdu Gumaei

All Works

With the high growth of digitization and globalization, online exam systems continue to gain popularity and stretch, especially in the case of spreading infections like a pandemic. Cheating detection in online exam systems is a significant and necessary task to maintain the integrity of the exam and give unbiased, fair results. Currently, online exam systems use vision-based traditional machine learning (ML) methods and provide examiners with tools to detect cheating throughout the exam. However, conventional ML methods depend on handcrafted features and cannot learn the hierarchical representations of objects from data itself, affecting the efficiency and effectiveness of such systems. …

Hill Climbing-Based Efficient Model For Link Prediction In Undirected Graphs, Haji Gul, Feras Al-Obeidat, Adnan Amin, Fernando Moreira, Kaizhu Huang

All Works

Link prediction is a key problem in the field of undirected graph, and it can be used in a variety of contexts, including information retrieval and market analysis. By “undirected graphs”, we mean undirected complex networks in this study. The ability to predict new links in complex networks has a significant impact on society. Many complex systems can be modelled using networks. For example, links represent relationships (such as friendships, etc.) in social networks, whereas nodes represent users. Embedding methods, which produce the feature vector of each node in a graph and identify unknown links, are one of the newest …

Autonomous Vehicle Innovation And Implications On Adoption, Liability And Policy, Using Quantum Technologies And Artificial Wisdom, Chia Jie Jun Jeremy

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

This paper will explore the use of two new innovations for the issues facing autonomous vehicles (AV), those of quantum technologies and artificial wisdom. The issue of delayed at-scale commercialization and adoption of autonomous vehicles due to the extensive dynamic capability required to derive an optimal process solution for any complex, dynamic and adaptive autonomous vehicle ecosystem is shown to be resolved by the use of these innovations, will be shown to be more widely applicable for other issues for AV and for any scenario where automated decision making is required.

QC might open up the door for the application …

Continual Learning With Neural Networks, Pham Hong Quang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Recent years have witnessed tremendous successes of artificial neural networks in many applications, ranging from visual perception to language understanding. However, such achievements have been mostly demonstrated on a large amount of labeled data that is static throughout learning. In contrast, real-world environments are always evolving, where new patterns emerge and the older ones become inactive before reappearing in the future. In this respect, continual learning aims to achieve a higher level of intelligence by learning online on a data stream of several tasks. As it turns out, neural networks are not equipped to learn continually: they lack the ability …

Mining Product Textual Data For Recommendation Explanations, Le Trung Hoang

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

Recommendation explanations help to make sense of recommendations, increasing the likelihood of adoption. Here, we are interested in mining product textual data, an unstructured data type, coming from manufacturers, sellers, or consumers, appearing in many places including title, summary, description, review, question and answers, etc., can be a rich source of information to explain the recommendation. As the explanation task could be decoupled from that of recommendation objective, we can categorize recommendation explanation into integrated approach, that uses a single interpretable model to produce both recommendation and explanation, or pipeline approach, that uses a post-hoc explanation model to produce explanation …

Optimizing Switching Of Non-Linear Properties With Hyperbolic Metamaterials, James A. Ethridge, John G. Jones, Manuel R. Ferdinandus, Michael J. Havrilla, Michael A. Marciniak

Faculty Publications

Hyperbolic metamaterials have been demonstrated to have special potential in their linear response, but the extent of their non-linear response has not been extensively modeled or measured. In this work, novel non-linear behavior of an ITO/SiO₂ layered hyperbolic metamaterial is modeled and experimentally confirmed, specifically a change in the sign of the non-linear absorption with intensity. This behavior is tunable and can be achieved with a simple one-dimensional layered design. Fabrication was performed with physical vapor deposition, and measurements were conducted using the Z-scan technique. Potential applications include tunable optical switches, optical limiters, and tunable components of laser sources.

Research Strategies To Catalyze Agroecological Transitions In Low- And Middle-Income Countries, Sarah K. Jones, Nadia Bergamini, Francesca Beggi, Didier Lesueur, Barbara Vinceti, Arwen Bailey, Fabrice A. Declerck, Natalia Estrada-Carmona, Carlo Fadda, Etienne M. Hainzelin, Danny Hunter, Chris Kettle, Job Kihara, Abdel Kader Naino Jika, Mirjam Pulleman, Roseline Remans, Celine Termote, Tobias Fremout, Evert Thomas, Louis Verchot, Marcela Quintero

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Governments are updating national strategies to meet global goals on biodiversity, climate change and food systems proposed in the Convention on Biological Diversity post-2020 framework and agreed at the United Nation’s Climate Change Conference (COP26) and Food Systems Summit (UNFSS). This represents a unique and crucial opportunity to integrate and accelerate food system actions to tackle interconnected global challenges. In this context, agroecology is a game-changing approach that can provide the world’s growing population with nutritious, healthy affordable food, ensure fair incomes to farmers and halt and reverse the degradation of the natural environment. Here, we explore agroecological transition pathways …

Striving To Be Resilient: The Role Of Crop-Poultry Integrated System As A Climate Change Adaptation Strategy In Semiarid Eastern Kenya, Kelvin Mulungu, Daniel Kangogo

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

Climate change continues to pose significant challenges to food security and livelihoods of smallholder farmers specifically in semi-arid regions. One approach that holds prospects for climate risk management is climate-smart agriculture (CSA). CSA has concentrated on crop practices with little attention to livestock especially indigenous (village) chickens as a potential practice that can be combined with crop agriculture. This study considers the adoption of three CSA practices: improved maize seeds (IS), soil management (SM), indigenous chicken (IC) enterprise and their various combinations. Using survey data collected from 300 farming households in semiarid Kenya, we estimate the impact of integrated crop-poultry …

Correction: Research Strategies To Catalyze Agroecological Transitions In Low- And Middle-Income Countries (Sustainability Science, (2022), 17, 6, (2557-2577), 10.1007/S11625-022-01163-6), Sarah K. Jones, Nadia Bergamini, Francesca Beggi, Didier Lesueur, Barbara Vinceti, Arwen Bailey, Fabrice A. Declerck, Natalia Estrada-Carmona, Carlo Fadda, Etienne M. Hainzelin, Danny Hunter, Chris Kettle, Job Kihara, Abdel Kader Naino Jika, Mirjam Pulleman, Roseline Remans, Celine Termote, Tobias Fremout, Evert Thomas, Louis Verchot, Marcela Quintero

All Peer-Reviewed Publications

In the original publication of the article, under the case study “Case study 3: Participatory guarantee system to stimulate agroecological transition in Cuba”, the reference “Fernández León 2016” should read “Fernández and León 2016”. Further, the correct reference should read as below, Díaz Fernández I, León DE (2016) Gestión Empresarial y Género: Oportunidades y Retos Para Cuba. Economía y Desarrollo 157:39–49. In addition, the caption of Table 2 was incomplete in the original version of the article. The complete caption of Table 2 should read as follows “Farming approaches that seek sustainable outcomes, in contrast to conventional agriculture. This list …

Proceedings Of The Tenth Annual Conference On Advances In Cognitive Systems, Jamie C. Macbeth, Leilani Gilpin, Michael T. Cox

Computer Science: Faculty Publications

We hope you will enjoy these proceedings of the Tenth Annual Conference on Advances in Cognitive Systems (ACS). The event was the first hybrid meeting of ACS in is history. It took place virtually via Zoom and physically at George Mason University in Arlington, Virginia, from Saturday, November 19, to Tuesday, November 22, 2022. We are so delighted to be part of continuing this important venue that focuses on the original long-standing goals and challenges of artificial intelligence research. The conference program consisted of 37 papers consisting of ten 30-minute long talks, fifteen 20-minute short talks, twelve posters, three invited …

A Comparative Analysis Of Anti-Vax Discourse On Twitter Before And After Covid-19 Onset, Tareq Nasralah, Ahmed El Noshokaty, Omar El-Gayar, Mohammad A. Al-Ramahi, Abdullah Wahbeh

Computer Information Systems Faculty Publications (Archived)

This study aimed to identify and assess the prevalence of vaccine-hesitancy-related topics on Twitter in the periods before and after the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) outbreak. Using a search query, 272,780 tweets associated with anti-vaccine topics and posted between 1 January 2011, and 15 January 2021, were collected. The tweets were classified into a list of 11 topics and analyzed for trends during the periods before and after the onset of COVID-19. Since the beginning of COVID-19, the percentage of anti-vaccine tweets has increased for two topics, “government and politics” and “conspiracy theories,” and decreased for “developmental disabilities.” Compared to …