Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Internet Affects All Areas Of The World: A Quantitative Report On Canadians Internet Usage, Kristina Sims

Symposium of Student Scholars

The Internet has had a significant influence on modern life with Pew research reporting that 99% of American adults between the ages of 18-29 used the internet in 2021 with reported reduced internet use for older Americans. Both positive and negative consequences can be attributed to its widespread use. In attending Kennesaw State University internet use is almost mandatory to successfully complete coursework. Witnessing how active internet use is in collegiate age populations in the US is has sparked some curiosity of use in Canadian residents. The survey on "Canadian Internet Use", in the year 2018 was designed to measure …

A Review Of Dark Web: Crawling And Discovery Of Information, Timothy Williams, Edwin Matthew, Juanjose Rodriguez-Cardenas, Jack Wright, Hossain Shahriar

Symposium of Student Scholars

The dark web is often discussed in taboo by many who are unfamiliar with the subject. However, this essay takes a dive into the skeleton of what constructs the dark web by compiling the research of published essays. TOR and other discussed browsers are specialized web browsers that provide anonymity by going through multiple servers and encrypted networks between the host and client, hiding the IP address of both ends. This provides difficulty in terms of controlling or monitoring the dark web, leading to its popularity in criminal underworlds.

In this work, we provide an overview of data mining and …

Corrosion Prevention Of Aluminum Alloy, Andrea Brenner

Symposium of Student Scholars

Aluminum alloy (Al-alloy) is a widely used metal in construction, aerospace, aviation, and other necessary fields due to its lightweight and tweakable properties. However, corrosion is inevitable on metals and alloys, and that causes millions of dollars of revenue loss every year. Therefore, we propose to research fabricating coating to prevent corrosion on Al-alloy. This study uses an iron-based metal-organic framework (MOF) and polyurethane (PU) based composite coating to prevent corrosion on the Al-alloy. The makeup of the composite material is changed by varying the percentage of MOF. In addition, a binder is also used to enhance the homogenization between …

The Fierce Green Fire: Vol. 12 Issue 16, Wofford College. Department Of Environmental Studies

The Fierce Green Fire

No abstract provided.

Optimization Of Adsorption Of Methylene Blue Dye On Activated Charcoal, Abigail Seputro

Research and Creativity Symposium

Methylene blue and crystal violet are cationic dyes of high intensity that are commonly discharged in wastewater. The colored compounds in wastewater inhibit sunlight penetration in waterways, resulting in the destruction of aquatic ecosystems. Activated carbon offers an attractive option for the efficient removal of dyes from wastewater due its excellent adsorption ability, highly porous structure, and large thermal/chemical stability. This study was conducted in order to investigate the adsorption of methylene blue dye from aqueous solution by various types of activated charcoal using UV-Vis spectroscopy. The effects of temperature and adsorbent quantity were studied to optimize the efficiency of …

Adjusting Environmental Performance Index Scores Toaccount For Gross National Income, Rory Black

Research and Creativity Symposium

I examined the Environmental Performance Index (EPI) report assembled by Yale University to address the need for environmental action. In this report, Yale University ranks countries across the globe on their environmental performance based on various indicators. I was interested in determining if all countries were ranked on a fair scale. Yale University acknowledges that each country varies in their economic resources measured by GDP but did not adjust for that in their scoring. I utilized factor analysis and cluster analysis to first analyze patterns and groupings that appeared the countries. I then standardized the original rankings with respect to …

Hot Rocks: Constraining The Thermal Conditions Of The Mistastin Lake Impact Melt Deposits Using Zircon Grain Microstructures, Gavin Douglas Tolometti, Timmons M. Erickson, Gordon R. Osinski, Cyril Cayron, Catherine Neish

Earth Sciences Publications

The production of superheated melt during hypervelocity impact events has been proposed to be a common occurrence on terrestrial planetary bodies. Recent direct evidence of superheated impact melt temperatures exceeding >2370°C from the Kamestastin (Mistastin Lake) impact structure, Canada, was based on a single impact glass sample. Such high superheated melt temperatures have strong implications for the evolution of crustal material, the thermal history of impact cratering events, and the rheology of impact melt. However, although widely predicted in previous studies, with the exception of the Mistastin Lake impact glass, there is little direct evidence for superheated temperatures in multiple …

Spreading Rates Of Bacterial Colonies Depend On Substrate Stiffness And Permeability, Alison Patteson, Merrill Asp, Minh H. Thanh, Danielle A. Germann, Robert J. Carroll, Alana Franceski, Roy D. Welch, Arvind Gopinath

Physics - All Scholarship

The ability of bacteria to colonize and grow on different surfaces is an essential process for biofilm development. Here, we report the use of synthetic hydrogels with tunable stiffness and porosity to assess physical effects of the substrate on biofilm development. Using time-lapse microscopy to track the growth of expanding Serratia marcescens colonies, we find that biofilm colony growth can increase with increasing substrate stiffness, unlike what is found on traditional agar substrates. Using traction force microscopy-based techniques, we find that biofilms exert transient stresses correlated over length scales much larger than a single bacterium, and that the magnitude of …

Spin Interactions In New Donor-Acceptor Complexes, Ju Chen

Chemistry and Chemical Biology ETDs

Transition metal complexes ligated by Donor-Acceptor (D-A) biradicals are of interest for probing the degree of electronic coupling between chemically biased radical fragments. The unique nature of their electronic coupling has allowed these systems to serve as ground state analogues of charge separated excited states generated by photoexcitation. We have been interested in how the nature of the acceptor radical affects the magnitude of the electronic coupling matrix element in these biradicals. As such, we have synthesized a new series of D-A semiquinone-verdazyl (SQ-VD) biradical ligands and their transition metal complexes. We have characterized these new complexes by x-ray crystallography, …

Deep Learning: The Many Approaches Of Intrusion Detection System Can Be Implemented And Improved Upon, Trinity Taylor

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

For my research topic I decided to look at Deep learning. Deep learning can be used in many ways for example in web searching. Deep learning can also can improve new businesses and products. Deep learning could lead to amazing discoveries. Deep learning is making a neural network learn something. In my research I talk about Intrusion detection system, traditional approach for intrusion detection, existing intrusion detection, machine learning and deep learning based intrusion detection system, and future work.

Building-Block Approach To The Discovery Of Na8mn2(Ge2se6)2: A Polar Chalcogenide Exhibiting Promising Harmonic Generation Signals With A High Laser-Induced Damage Threshold, Srikanth Balijapelly, Andrew J. Craig, Jeong Bin Cho, Joon I. Jang, Kartik Ghosh, Jennifer A. Aitken, Aleksandr V. Chernatynskiy, Amitava Choudhury

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

A new polar quaternary chalcogenide, Na8Mn2(Ge2Se6)2, has been synthesized using the building-block approach by reacting preformed Na6Ge2Se6 and MnCl2 at 750 °C. The structure consists of layers of [Na(1)Mn(Ge2Se6)]3– stacked perpendicular to the c-axis and sodium ions occupying the interlayer space. An indirect bandgap of 1.52 eV has been calculated using density functional theory, which is expectedly underestimated compared to the observed optical bandgap of 1.95 eV derived from diffuse reflectance spectroscopic measurements in the UV/Vis/NIR region. Magnetic measurements confirm the paramagnetic nature of Na8Mn2(Ge2Se6)2 with an experimental magnetic moment of 5.8 μB in good agreement with the theoretical spin …

Measurement Error Modeling Applied To Phylogenetic Inference And Parametric Bootstrap Approach To Multifactor Anova Models With Unequal Variances And Unbalanced Data, Sarah Katharine Alver

Mathematics & Statistics ETDs

This dissertation includes two main topics. The first uses measurement error modeling to improve upon an existing method of inferring species trees from gene trees that were estimated with error. The second involves extending the parametric bootstrap (PB) approach, which was previously shown to work well for one- and two-way analysis of variance models with unequal variance and unbalanced data (heteANOVA), to multi-factor heteANOVA models. An overall framework using PB is presented. For each topic, the underlying theory is shown, and simulations and applications to empirical data are presented, demonstrating improvement over earlier methods. The proposed species tree inference method …

In The Face Of Climate Change, Does Human Trampling Affect Dune Resilience And Alter Ecosystem Services?, Alexandra O. Findlay

Honors College Theses

Sand dunes play a valuable role on the coastline supporting unique native species and protecting beach communities. The City of Tybee Island, Georgia, USA has undergone extensive dune restoration to expand and rehabilitate its shoreline to better defend the town against the increasing frequency of hurricanes and storm surge. The project included the recovery of existing dune structures and construction of new dunes filled with sand pumped from offshore and vegetated with a variety of native species. To analyze the impact of human trampling on dune vegetation occurring adjacent to footpaths and crossovers in new and established dunes, we measured …

Computer Simulations And Network-Based Profiling Of Binding And Allosteric Interactions Of Sars-Cov-2 Spike Variant Complexes And The Host Receptor: Dissecting The Mechanistic Effects Of The Delta And Omicron Mutations, Gennady M. Verkhivker, Steve Agajanian, Ryan Kassab, Keerthi Krishnan

Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science Faculty Articles and Research

In this study, we combine all-atom MD simulations and comprehensive mutational scanning of S-RBD complexes with the angiotensin-converting enzyme 2 (ACE2) host receptor in the native form as well as the S-RBD Delta and Omicron variants to (a) examine the differences in the dynamic signatures of the S-RBD complexes and (b) identify the critical binding hotspots and sensitivity of the mutational positions. We also examined the differences in allosteric interactions and communications in the S-RBD complexes for the Delta and Omicron variants. Through the perturbation-based scanning of the allosteric propensities of the SARS-CoV-2 S-RBD residues and dynamics-based network centrality and …

Controls On Buffering And Coastal Acidification In A Temperate Estuary, Christopher W. Hunt, Joseph Salisbury, Douglas Vandemark

Faculty Publications

Estuaries may be uniquely susceptible to the combined acidification pressures of atmospherically driven ocean acidification (OA), biologically driven CO2 inputs from the estuary itself, and terrestrially derived freshwater inputs. This study utilized continuous measurements of total alkalinity (TA) and the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (pCO2) from the mouth of Great Bay, a temperate northeastern U.S. estuary, to examine the potential influences of endmember mixing and biogeochemical transformation upon estuary buffering capacity (β–H). Observations were collected hourly over 28 months representing all seasons between May 2016 and December 2019. Results indicated that endmember mixing explained most of the observed variability …

Time Dependent Analysis Of Rat Microglial Surface Markers In Traumatic Brain Injury Reveals Dynamics Of Distinct Cell Subpopulations, Assaf Gottlieb, Naama Toledano-Furman, Karthik S Prabhakara, Akshita Kumar, Henry W Caplan, Supinder Bedi, Charles S Cox, Scott D Olson

Faculty, Staff and Student Publications

Traumatic brain injury (TBI) results in a cascade of cellular responses, which produce neuroinflammation, partly due to the activation of microglia. Accurate identification of microglial populations is key to understanding therapeutic approaches that modify microglial responses to TBI and improve long-term outcome measures. Notably, previous studies often utilized an outdated convention to describe microglial phenotypes. We conducted a temporal analysis of the response to controlled cortical impact (CCI) in rat microglia between ipsilateral and contralateral hemispheres across seven time points, identified microglia through expression of activation markers including CD45, CD11b/c, and p2y12 receptor and evaluated their activation state using additional …

Search Of The Early O3 Ligo Data For Continuous Gravitational Waves From The Cassiopeia A And Vela Jr. Supernova Remnants, Ligo Scientific Collaboration, Virgo Collaboration, Tiffany Z. Summerscales

Faculty Publications

We present directed searches for continuous gravitational waves from the neutron stars in the Cassiopeia A (Cas A) and Vela Jr. supernova remnants. We carry out the searches in the LIGO detector data from the first six months of the third Advanced LIGO and Virgo observing run using the weave semicoherent method, which sums matched-filter detection-statistic values over many time segments spanning the observation period. No gravitational wave signal is detected in the search band of 20–976 Hz for assumed source ages greater than 300 years for Cas A and greater than 700 years for Vela Jr. Estimates from simulated …

Inhibition Of Cell Adhesion And Actin Localization During Migration Upon Protective Antigen Mutant Ligand Binding To The Capillary Morphogenesis Gene 2, Sai Lun Lee

Theses and Dissertations

Capillary Morphogenesis Gene 2 protein (CMG2) is a type 1 transmembrane receptor known as the anthrax toxin receptor 2 (ANTXR2). While it is documented that the cell surface receptor CMG2 mediates anthrax toxin entry into the cell via endocytosis, the physiological role of CMG2 is not well understood. Others have suggested that CMG2 may have a role in mediating ECM homeostasis and angiogenesis. Additionally, both anthrax protective antigen (PA) and a furin protease-resistant mutant, PASSSR, inhibit corneal neovascularization in a mouse model, and interestingly PASSSR has a greater affinity to CMG2 receptor. PASSSRalso has a more potent antiangiogenic effect than …

Using Supervised Learning Algorithms As A Follow-Up Method In The Search Of Gravitational Waves From Core-Collapse Supernovae, Javier M. Antelis, Marco Cavaglia, Travis Hansen, Manuel D. Morales, Claudia Moreno, Soma Mukherjee, Marek J. Szczepańczyk, Michele Zanolin

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

We present a follow-up method based on supervised machine learning (ML) to improve the performance in the search of gravitational wave (GW) bursts from core-collapse supernovae (CCSNe) using the coherent WaveBurst (cWB) pipeline. The ML model discriminates noise from signal events by using a set of reconstruction parameters provided by cWB as features. Detected noise events are discarded yielding a reduction in the false alarm rate (FAR) and the false alarm probability thus enhancing the statistical significance. We tested the proposed method using strain data from the first half of the third observing run of advanced LIGO, and CCSNe GW …

Chimney Identification Tool For Automated Detection Of Hydrothermal Chimneys From High-Resolution Bathymetry Using Machine Learning, Isaac Keohane, Scott White

Faculty Publications

Identifying the locations of hydrothermal chimneys across mapped areas of seafloor spreading ridges unlocks the ability to research questions about their correlations to geology, the cooling of the lithosphere, and deep-sea biogeography. We developed a Chimney Identification Tool (CIT) that utilizes a Convolutional Neural Network (CNN) to classify 1 m gridded AUV bathymetry and identify the locations of hydrothermal vent chimneys. A CNN is a type of Machine-Learning model that is able to classify raster data based on the shapes and textures in the input, making it ideal for this task. The criteria that have been used in previous manual …

Validation Of Accelerometry As A Digital Phenotyping Measure Of Negative Symptoms In Schizophrenia, Gregory P. Strauss, Ian M. Raugh, Luyu Zhang, Lauren Luther, Hannah C. Chapman, Daniel N. Allen, Brian Kirkpatrick, Alex S. Cohen

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Research

Negative symptoms are commonly assessed via clinical rating scales; however, these measures have several inherent limitations that impact validity and utility for their use in clinical trials. Objective digital phenotyping measures that overcome some of these limitations are now available. The current study evaluated the validity of accelerometry (ACL), a passive digital phenotyping method that involves collecting data on the presence, vigor, and variability of movement. Outpatients with schizophrenia (SZ: n = 50) and demographically matched healthy controls (CN: n = 70) had ACL continuously recorded from a smartphone and smartband for 6 days. Active digital phenotyping assessments, including surveys …

Stakeholder Participation And Influence At State Public Utility Commissions, Genevieve Theresa Kruse

Dissertations and Theses

Despite the international consensus that climate change is a problem, few substantive policies are being pushed forward at the national level to meet international greenhouse gas reduction commitments under the Paris Agreement. The most significant climate change policies are emerging at state public utility commissions (PUCs). While PUCs were traditionally structured to regulate utilities, state PUCs are now finding themselves at the hub for renewable energy, clean energy, and distributed energy policies. Despite the increase in renewable and clean energy policies at state PUCs, there is a noticeably small environmental and clean energy stakeholder presence at those PUC proceedings. A …

Isotopic Study Of The Waters From The Sulphur Springs Catchment, Tampa, Florida, Esra Zengin

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

A stable isotope study was carried out using precipitation, spring water, groundwater well sample, and a seawater sample during the wet season in the Sulphur Springs watershed in Tampa, Florida. Studies that track long term isotopic variation over wet seasons are limited in the region. To fill this knowledge gap, this study aims to quantify the contributions of precipitation and diffuse sources to discharge in Sulphur Springs. A three-component mixing model was applied using δ18O and δ2H values to determine different source water contributions to spring water discharge. The three-component mixing model calculations suggest spring water consists mainly of diffuse …

Modeling And Simulation Of Microscopic Fibers In A Viscous Fluid, William Mitchell

Mathematics Colloquium Series

In biology, the movements of tiny structures often rely on the mechanical properties of long, thin tubes. For example, bacteria swim by rotating their flagella, and in cell division (mitosis) the two copies of the DNA must be pulled apart by microtubules. To understand these processes it is very tempting to take advantage of the large aspect ratio of the thin structures, for example by modeling them as one-dimensional curves rather than as more complicated objects with volume and surface area. This kind of shortcut saves a lot of work! I will describe one standard and widely used tool known …

On The Consistency Of Alternative Finite Difference Schemes For The Heat Equation, Tran April

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal

While the well-researched Finite Difference Method (FDM) discretizes every independent variable into algebraic equations, Method of Lines discretizes all but one dimension, leaving an Ordinary Differential Equation (ODE) in the remaining dimension. That way, ODE's numerical methods can be applied to solve Partial Differential Equations (PDEs). In this project, Linear Multistep Methods and Method of Lines are used to numerically solve the heat equation. Specifically, the explicit Adams-Bashforth method and the implicit Backward Differentiation Formulas are implemented as Alternative Finite Difference Schemes. We also examine the consistency of these schemes.

Additional Fay Identities Of The Extended Toda Hierarchy, Yu Wan

Rose-Hulman Undergraduate Mathematics Journal

The focus of this paper is the extended Toda Lattice hierarchy, an infinite system of partial differential equations arising from the Toda lattice equation. We begin by giving the definition of the extended Toda hierarchy and its explicit bilinear equation, following Takasaki’s construction. We then derive a series of new Fay identities. Finally, we discover a general formula for one type of Fay identity.

Anticipating Stochastic Integrals And Related Linear Stochastic Differential Equations, Sudip Sinha

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Itô’s stochastic calculus revolutionized the field of stochastic analysis and has found numerous applications in a wide variety of disciplines. Itô’s theory, even though quite general, cannot handle anticipating stochastic processes as integrands. There have been considerable efforts within the mathematical community to extend Itô’s calculus to account for anticipation. The Ayed–Kuo integral — introduced in 2008 — is one of the most recent developments. It is arguably the most accessible among the theories extending Itô’s calculus — relying solely on probabilistic methods. In this dissertation, we look at the recent advances in this area, highlighting our contributions. First, we …

Improving Memory Forensics Capabilities On Apple M1 Computers, Raphaela Santos Mettig Rocha

LSU Master's Theses

Malware threats are rapidly evolving to use more sophisticated attacks. By abusing rich application APIs such as Objective-C’s, they are able to gather information about user activity, launch background processes without the user’s knowledge as well as perform other malicious activities. In some cases, memory forensics is the only way to recover artifacts related to this malicious activity, as is the case with memory-only execution. The introduction of the Rosetta 2 on the Apple M1 introduces a completely new attack surface by allowing binaries of both Intel x86 64 and ARM64 architecture to run in userland. For this reason it …

Mathematical Analysis Of An Sir Disease Model With Non-Constant Transmission Rate, Emma Bollinger, Tayler Valdez, Swarup Ghosh, Sunil Giri

Student Research

• Epidemiology: A branch of medicine that studies causes, transmission, and control methods of diseases at the population level.
• Mathematical epidemiology deals with creating a model for a disease through the study of incidence and distribution of the disease throughout a population.
• Here, we have examined the behavior of a measles-like disease[2] that is characterized by a non-constant transmission rate.

Optimizing The Alkylation Of Carboxylic Acid Derivatives For Use In The Synthesis Of The Oxidative Metabolites Of Dehp, Hannah Harris

Research and Creativity Symposium

Di(2-ethylhexyl) phthalate (DEHP) is a widely used chiral plasticizer whose primary metabolite (MEHP) and secondary oxidative metabolites have been shown to have peroxisome proliferating and endocrine disrupting effects in mice. The synthesis of these oxidative metabolites is necessary to study their binding affinity to nuclear receptor PPAR. Here, the first step in these syntheses, the construction of the alkyl side chains, was optimized by comparing GC-MS data showing percent composition of the desired alkylation product under varying reaction conditions. The most successful yield with the fewest byproducts was obtained when using LDA as the base, tert-butyl butanoate as the starting …