Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Participatory Assessment Of Nitrified Urine Fertilizer Use In Swayimane, South Africa: Crop Production Potential, Farmer Attitudes And Smallholder Challenges, Benjamin C. Wilde, Eva Lieberherr, Engil Isadora Pujol Pereira, Alfred Odindo, Johan Siz

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Long-term nutrient mining of soil hampers agricultural production across Africa. However, emerging sanitation technologies afford a hygienically safe and ecologically sustainable solution to this development challenge by providing fertilizers derived from human excreta that could facilitate a socio-technical transition toward a more sustainable food system. To evaluate one such technology, nitrified urine fertilizer (NUF), we conducted participatory action research to assess the potential, from both a biophysical and social perspective, of NUF to serve as a soil fertilizer to support smallholder agricultural production in Swayimane, South Africa. To achieve this objective, we formed a stakeholder group comprised of a cooperative …

New Developments In Statistical Optimal Designs For Physical And Computer Experiments, Damola M. Akinlana

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Statistical design of experiments allows for multiple factors influencing a process to be systematically manipulated in an experiment, and their effects on the output of the process to be studied via statistical modeling and analysis. Classical designs offer general nice performance but have limited applications due to restricted design size, region, and randomization structure. Computer generated optimal designs become more popular in recent decades due to the rapid growth in computing power. Most existing work in optimal design of experiments involves designing experiments with optimal performance on a single chosen objective or a single response. However, with the increasing limitation …

Pilot Development: An Empirical Mixed-Method Analysis, Jonathan Slottje, Jason Anderson, John M. Dickens, Adam D. Reiman

Faculty Publications

Purpose — Pilot upgrade training is critical to aircraft and passenger safety. This study aims to identify variances in the US Air Force C-130J pilot upgrade training based on geographic location and provide a model to enhance policy that will impact future pilot training efforts that lower cost and increase operator quality and proficiency.
Design/methodology/approach — This research employed a mixed-method approach. First, the authors collected data and analyzed 90 C-130J pilots' aviation records and then contextualized this analysis with interviews of experts. Finally, the authors present a modified version of Six Sigma's define–measure–analyze–improve–control (DMAIC) that identifies and reduces the …

Design And Commissioning Of An E-Beam Irradiation Beamline At The Upgraded Injector Test Facility At Jefferson Lab, Xi Li, Helmut Baumgart, Charles Bott, Gianluigi Ciovati, Shaun Gregory, Fay Hannon, Mike Mccaughan, Robert Pearce, Matthew Poelker, Hannes Vennekate, Shaoheng Wang

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Publications

The Upgraded Injector Test Facility (UITF) at Jefferson Lab is a continuous-wave superconducting linear accelerator capable of providing an electron beam with energy up to 10 MeV. A beamline for electron-beam irradiation has been designed, installed and successfully commissioned at this facility, aimed at the degradation study of 1,4-dioxane and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) in wastewater treatment. A solenoid with a peak axial magnetic field of up to 0.28 T and a set of raster coils were used to obtain a Gaussian beam profile with a transverse standard deviation of ∼15.0 mm at the target location. Monte-Carlo simulations using …

The 30x30 Program: A Federal Land Grab?, J. David Aiken

Cornhusker Economics

In January 2021, the Biden Administration issued a climate policy executive order.[2] [or EO].[3] Section 216 of the Biden climate EO, Conserving & Protecting our Nation’s Lands & Waters, directed the U.S. Department of the Interior, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the U.S. Department of Commerce (which includes NOAA, the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) to prepare a report “recommending steps that the United States should take, working with state, local, tribal and territorial governments, agricultural and forest landowners, fishermen and other key stakeholders to achieve the goal of conserving at least 30% of our lands and waters …

Gene-Based Association Tests Using New Polygenic Risk Scores And Incorporating Gene Expression Data, Shijia Yan, Qiuying Sha, Shuanglin Zhang

Michigan Tech Publications, Part 1

Recently, gene-based association studies have shown that integrating genome-wide association studies (GWAS) with expression quantitative trait locus (eQTL) data can boost statistical power and that the genetic liability of traits can be captured by polygenic risk scores (PRSs). In this paper, we propose a new gene-based statistical method that leverages gene-expression measure-ments and new PRSs to identify genes that are associated with phenotypes of interest. We used a generalized linear model to associate phenotypes with gene expression and PRSs and used a score-test statistic to test the association between phenotypes and genes. Our simulation studies show that the newly developed …

Observational Constraints On The 520 Km Mantle Discontinuity, Mantle Transition Zone Anisotropy, And Local Seismicity At Mount St. Helens, Han Zhang

Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs

Seismology provides valuable observational constraints to thermal and compositional states at inaccessible depths via understanding how elastic wave propagating through them. While many of fundament questions regarding solid Earth structures have been addressed during its more than 100 years history, some details remain unfilled and carefully designed approaches are needed to complete the pictures. This dissertation contributes observational constraints on three topics with newly developed methods. 1) We detected a controversial mantle discontinuity at about 520 km and concluded a mean mantle composition close to the Pyrolite model based on its seismic properties. 2) We isolated anisotropic effects in mantle …

Transportation Service Level Impact On Aircraft Availability, Vincent Mclean, Adam D. Reiman

Faculty Publications

Purpose — Aircraft fail to meet mission capable rate goals due to a lack of supply of aircraft parts in inventory where the aircraft breaks. This triggers an order at the repair location. To maximize mission capable rate, the time from order to delivery needs to be minimized. The purpose of this research is to examine the case of three airfields for the order to delivery time of mission critical aircraft parts for a specific aircraft type. Design/methodology/approach — This research captured data from three information systems to assess the order fulfillment process. The data were analyzed to determine the …

Forecasting Country Conflict Using Statistical Learning Methods, Sarah Neumann, Darryl K. Ahner, Raymond R. Hill

Faculty Publications

Purpose — This paper aims to examine whether changing the clustering of countries within a United States Combatant Command (COCOM) area of responsibility promotes improved forecasting of conflict. Design/methodology/approach — In this paper statistical learning methods are used to create new country clusters that are then used in a comparative analysis of model-based conflict prediction. Findings — In this study a reorganization of the countries assigned to specific areas of responsibility are shown to provide improvements in the ability of models to predict conflict. Research limitations/implications — The study is based on actual historical data and is purely data driven. …

Optimizing The Performance Of Parallel And Concurrent Applications Based On Asynchronous Many-Task Runtimes, Weile Wei

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Nowadays, High-performance Computing (HPC) scientific applications often face per- formance challenges when running on heterogeneous supercomputers, so do scalability, portability, and efficiency issues. For years, supercomputer architectures have been rapidly changing and becoming more complex, and this challenge will become even more com- plicated as we enter the exascale era, where computers will exceed one quintillion cal- culations per second. Software adaption and optimization are needed to address these challenges. Asynchronous many-task (AMT) systems show promise against the exascale challenge as they combine advantages of multi-core architectures with light-weight threads, asynchronous executions, smart scheduling, and portability across diverse architectures.

In …

Multi-Sectoral Impact Assessment Of An Extreme African Dust Episode In The Eastern Mediterranean In March 2018, Alexandra Monteiro, Sara Basart, Stelios Kazadzis, Antonis Gkikas, Sophie Vandenbussche, Aurelio Tobias, Carla Gama, Carlos Pérez García-Pando, Enric Tarradellas, George Notas, Nick Middleton, Jonilda Kushta, Vassilis Amiridis, Kostas Lagouvardos, Panagiotis G. Kosmopoulos, Vasiliki Kotroni, Maria Kanakidou, Nikos Mihalopoulos, Nikos Kalivitis, Pavla Daggson-Waldhauserová, Hesham El-Askary, Klaus Sievers, T. Giannaros, Lucia Mona, Marcus Hirtl, Paul Skomorowski, Slobodan Nickovic, Athanasios Votsis, Timo H. Virtanen, Theodoros Christoudias, Biagio Di Mauro, Serena Trippetta, Stanislav Kutuzov, Outi Meinander

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In late March 2018, a large part of the Eastern Mediterranean experienced an extraordinary episode of African dust, one of the most intense in recent years, here referred to as the “Minoan Red” event. The episode mainly affected the Greek island of Crete, where the highest aerosol concentrations over the past 15 yeas were recorded, although impacts were also felt well beyond this core area. Our study fills a gap in dust research by assessing the multi-sectoral impacts of sand and dust storms and their socioeconomic implications. Specifically, we provide a multi-sectoral impact assessment of Crete during the occurrence of …

Edgenext: Efficiently Amalgamated Cnn-Transformer Architecture For Mobile Vision Applications, Muhammad Maaz, Abdelrahman Shaker, Hisham Cholakkal, Salman Khan, Syed Waqas Zamir, Rao Anwer, Fahad Shahbaz Khan

Computer Vision Faculty Publications

In the pursuit of achieving ever-increasing accuracy, large and complex neural networks are usually developed. Such models demand high computational resources and therefore cannot be deployed on edge devices. It is of great interest to build resource-efficient general purpose networks due to their usefulness in several application areas. In this work, we strive to effectively combine the strengths of both CNN and Transformer models and propose a new efficient hybrid architecture EdgeNeXt. Specifically in EdgeNeXt, we introduce split depth-wise transpose attention (SDTA) encoder that splits input tensors into multiple channel groups and utilizes depth-wise convolution along with self-attention across channel …

Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft Final Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #6 [Covering Stodden Park, Baptist Student Union (Former Mckinley School), Minor Park, Blacktail Lane, Earth Lane, Fleecer Drive, Boulevard (Josette), Boulevard (Lasalle), And Sesame-Sage (Golden Estates #3) (Dated June 14, 2022), Nikia Greene

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) 2022 Draft Final Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap), Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp), Non-Residential Parcels (Dated June 13, 2022), Nikia Greene

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Final 2022 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Quality Assurance Project Plan (Qapp) (Non-Residential Parcels), Mike Mcanulty

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Final 2022 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #1 [Covering Walkerville Ball Park, Antimony Ball Field, Walkerville Park (Walkerville Drive & Ryan Road), Walkerville Park (5th & Transit), & Walkerville Park (Alley Of North Main & Alley Of West Daly)], Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft Final Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #4 [Covering Tot Lot, Clark Park, Huron Tennis Courts, Father Sheehan Park, Community Garden, And Lexington Gardens] (Dated June 14, 2022), Nikia Greene

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft Final Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #1 [Covering Walkerville Ball Park, Antimony Ball Field, Walkerville Park (Walkerville Drive & Ryan Road), Walkerville Park (5th & Transit), And Walkerville Park (Alley Of North Main & Alley Of West Daly)] (Dated June 14, 2022), Nikia Greene

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft Final Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #5 [Covering Longfellow Ball Fields, Peace Park, Rocker Park, Racetrack Park, C Street, Jfk Park, And Rickey Park] (Dated June 14, 2022)., Nikia Greene

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Accountable Data: The Politics And Pragmatics Of Disclosure Datasets, Lindsay Poirier

Statistical and Data Sciences: Faculty Publications

This paper attends specifically to what I call "disclosure datasets"- tabular datasets produced in accordance with laws requiring various kinds of disclosure. For the purposes of this paper, the most significant defining feature of disclosure datasets is that they aggregate information produced and reported by the same institutions they are meant to hold accountable. Through a series of case studies of disclosure datasets in the United States, I specifically draw attention to two concerns with disclosure datasets: First, for disclosure datasets, there is often political and social mobilization around the definitions that determine reporting thresholds, which in turn implicates what …

Chronological Accumulation Of Microplastics In The Gulf Of Mexico And Their Acute Effects On Coral Bleaching, Martina M. Plafcan

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Microplastics have accumulated in the environment since plastic production began. They have spread to all areas of the globe from marine trenches to mountains and they can be harmful to organisms. However, research on microplastics has only recently begun so it is unclear how they have changed over time in many regions of the ocean and how current oceanic concentrations might affect marine life. Additionally, organisms such as corals are under stress and have been declining due to climate change, so it is not yet known if microplastics exacerbate these threats. My thesis addressed these gaps in the literature by …

Analytical And Numerical Solutions To Describe Water Table Fluctuations Due To Canal Seepage And Time-Varying Recharge, Ashutosh Upadhyaya, Manisha M. Kankarej

All Works

Abstract Hybrid finite analytic solution (HFAS), Galerkin's method based finite element solution (FES) and fully implicit finite difference solution (FIFDS) of one dimensional nonlinear Boussinesq equation and Analytical solution of Boussinesq equation linearized by Baumann's transformation (analytical solution I, AS I) as well as linearized by Werner's transformation (analytical solution II, AS II) were employed to obtain water table rise in a horizontal unconfined aquifer lying between two canals located at finite distance having different elevations and subjected to various patterns of recharge, i.e. zero recharge, constant recharge, as well as time varying recharge. Considering HFAS as benchmark solution, water …

Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft Final Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #2 [Covering Scown Field, Cherokee Park, Copper/Emmet, West Side Subdivision Park, Chester Steele Park, And Cinders Field] (Dated June 14, 2022), Nikia Greene

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Approval Letter For The Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit (Bpsou) Draft Final Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #3 [Covering Koprivica Park, Mcgruff Park, Skate Park, Belmont Park, Rock Park, And Hanna Park] (Dated June 14, 2022)., Nikia Greene

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Final 2022 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #2 [Covering Scown Field, Cherokee Park, Copper/Emmet, West Side Subdivision Park, Chester Steele Park, And Cinders Field], Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Final 2022 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #4 [Covering Tot Lot, Clark Park, Huron Tennis Courts, Father Sheehan Park, Community Garden, And Lexington Gardens], Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Final 2022 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #3 [Covering Koprivica Park, Mcgruff Park, Skate Park, Belmont Park, Rock Park, And Hanna Park], Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Final 2022 Residential Metals Abatement Program (Rmap) Park Soil Sampling Field Sampling Plan (Fsp) Submittal #5 [Covering Longfellow Ball Fields, Peace Park, Rocker Park, Racetrack Park, C Street, Jfk Park, And Rickey Park], Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Noncontact Liquid Crystalline Broadband Optoacoustic Sensors, Hengky Chandrahalim, Michael T. Dela Cruz

AFIT Patents

An optoacoustic sensor includes a liquid crystal (LC) cell formed between top and bottom plates of transparent material. A transverse grating formed across the LC cell that forms an optical transmission bandgap. A CL is aligned to form a spring-like, tunable Bragg grating that is naturally responsive to external agitations providing a spectral transition regime, or edge, in the optical transmission bandgap of the transverse grating that respond to broadband acoustic waves. The optoacoustic sensor includes a narrowband light source that is oriented to transmit light through the top plate, the LC cell, and the bottom plate. The optoacoustic sensor …

Equitable, Affordable And Climate-Cognizant Housing Construction, Shelby D. Green

Arkansas Law Review

In this Article, I recount some of the history of unwise and improvident land use policy and practices that have led to gross inequities and to the climate-exposed state, not only in terms of where people were assigned spaces to live, but how. I go on to suggest that communities should be designed with intent, with regard for the threats of climate change as well as accessibility to those historically excluded.