Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Teacher Preference In Professional Development, Cheri L. Keyes

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

Teacher Preference in Professional Development

Teacher professional development (PD) is seen as best ways to ensure teacher quality and guarantee positive student achievement outcomes; however, there is a lack of appropriate and effective PD. This quantitative study examined teachers’ preferences in PD content and delivery. Teachers from a K-12 public school district in Northwest Arkansas were invited to participate in a cross-sectional survey, and 292 teachers responded. The measured variables were the professional development preferences of the teachers, the teachers' years of experience, the grade level at which teachers teach, gender, the content of preferred PD, and the delivery or …

The Impact Of Virtual Learning Modalities On The Academic Success Of Students In One Arkansas School District, Diane F. Richards

ATU Theses and Dissertations 2021 - Present

The COVID-19 pandemic changed the way Arkansas public schools’ offered students an education. While moving through this pandemic, many Arkansas schools implemented optional methods of delivery for their students. Some schools tried to maintain face-to-face classes, while others offered completely online classes. Still, others offered a hybrid format where students attended some face-to-face classes and online classes. One Arkansas school district offered all three options. School districts need guidance as to which teaching methods worked well. The long-term effects of the educational impact of COVID-19 are not known at this time. Schools could benefit from a guide with useful strategies …

Large Earthquakes' Effect On The Ionosphere, Aaron Houston

Physics Capstone Projects

The ionosphere is a part of the Earth’s atmosphere that stretches from 80 – 600 kilometers. Gases in this area are ionized which creates a range of free electrons that make up the plasma of the ionosphere. A group of these electrons is known as Total Electron Content (TEC), which is responsible for signal delays between satellites in orbit and their GPS receivers on the surface. Using this delay, the TEC in a specific region can be calculated. This helps in GPS error analysis. During the earthquake in Japan on March 11, 2011, there was allegedly a noticeable jump in …

Improving The Efficiency Of The Preconditioning Of Iterative Solutions To The Kinetic Equation, D. Caleb Price

Physics Capstone Projects

To achieve the reality of fusion, a greater understanding of plasma is required. The kinetic equation can be evolved simultaneously alongside the fluid equations to solve for kinetic closures. NIMROD performs this with numerical solvers where the General Minimum Residual (GMRES) solver becomes more efficient with a preconditioning matrix as input. Using a GPU-enabled library, the efficiency of GPU offloading to the preconditioning step was tested. A significant decrease in the factoring time of preconditioning matrix was observed. This suggests that the allocation of GPUs is worth investigating for NIMROD’s own benefit, but also anyone seeking to improve the efficiency …

Jlootbox: An Agent-Based Model Of Social Influence And Gambling In Online Video Games, Lila Zayed

Honors Capstones

Loot boxes are digital treasure chests that players spend real money to purchase, wherein the contents are randomly generated. Since players spend money on the pretense they might receive something valuable, many comparisons have been drawn to gambling behavior as the reward is up to chance. To explore this phenomenon, agent-based modeling will be used to simulate this behavior. Agent-based modeling allows us to create heterogenous agents who follow simple rules so that we may observe emergent behavior in a population. An agent-based model was created using Repast Simphony for this end.

Parameters included the player’s internal decision strategy around …

Analysis Of The Light Responsive Azobenzene Peptide Nucleic Acid Duplexes, Kat Nguyen

Honors College Theses

Peptide nucleic acids (PNAs) are oligonucleotide analogues in which the sugar-phosphate backbone has been replaced by a pseudopeptide skeleton. Since PNAs use the natural nucleobases (Adenine, Thymine, Cytosine, Uracil, and Guanine) found in either DNA and/or RNA, they are able to hybridize according to Watson-Crick base-pairing to form duplexes. PNA is a promising therapeutic agent because they can function as antigene or antisense chemical agents. To further enhance their utility, we aim to incorporate a photoswitchable moiety using azobenzene. Here, we report the results of the synthesis and purification of a photoswitchable 11 mer PNA along with initial characterization efforts.

Indexer++: Workload-Aware Online Index Tuning With Transformers And Reinforcement Learning, Vishal Sharma, Curtis Dyreson

Computer Science Student Research

With the increasing workload complexity in modern databases, the manual process of index selection is a challenging task. There is a growing need for a database with an ability to learn and adapt to evolving workloads. This paper proposes Indexer++, an autonomous, workload-aware, online index tuner. Unlike existing approaches, Indexer++ imposes low overhead on the DBMS, is responsive to changes in query workloads and swiftly selects indexes. Our approach uses a combination of text analytic techniques and reinforcement learning. Indexer++ consist of two phases: Phase (i) learns workload trends using a novel trend detection technique based on a pre-trained …

Feed-In Tariffs And Sustainable Energy: Why Different Oecd Governments Support Sustainable Energy At Different Rates Through Feed-In Tariffs, Joshua M. Grahame

Business and Economics Honors Papers

Why is it that different governments in the OECD support sustainable energy at different rates? In the effort to explain this difference, Feed-in-Tariffs (FITs) will be closely examined to see if it can explain the significant portion of the variation among countries. This project serves as a continuation of previous scholars' works, to better understand the variation between countries in adopting renewable energy, even though all members of the OECD have pledged that by 2030 half of their energy will come from sustainable energy. Whereas previous research considered data ending in 2012 and looked at countries outside of the OECD, …

Climatic Influences On Summer Use Of Winter Precipitation By Trees, Gregory R. Goldsmith, Scott T. Allen, Sabine Braun, Rolf T. W. Siegwolf, James W. Kirchner

Biology, Chemistry, and Environmental Sciences Faculty Articles and Research

Trees in seasonal climates may use water originating from both winter and summer precipitation. However, the seasonal origins of water used by trees have not been systematically studied. We used stable isotopes of water to compare the seasonal origins of water found in three common tree species across 24 Swiss forest sites sampled in two different years. Water from winter precipitation was observed in trees at most sites, even at the peak of summer, although the relative representation of seasonal sources differed by species. However, the representation of winter precipitation in trees decreased with site mean annual precipitation in both …

Read This: A Content Analysis Framework For Book Recommendation Applications, Cypress S. Payne

Honors Projects

Book recommendation applications combine word-of-mouth recommendations with algorithms that can suggest books based on a user’s account activity, creating a robust system for finding new books to read. Current research on recommendation systems is purely quantitative, focusing on the efficacy of the system, and content analyses are only just beginning to be performed on mobile applications. I use previous content analyses on applications as a basis for creating a content analysis framework for book recommendation applications. This framework can be used to analyze what users find important in book recommendation apps and inform app creators about their users’ wants and …

A Method For Phenotyping Roots Of Large Plants, Brian Rinehart, Hanna J. Poffenbarger, Daniel Lau, David H. Mcnear

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Linking root traits to plant functions can enable crop improvement for yield and ecosystem functions. However, plant breeding efforts targeting belowground traits are limited by appropriate phenotyping methods for large root systems. While advances have been made allowing for imaging large in situ root systems, many of these methods are inaccessible due to expensive technology requirements. The aim of this work was to develop a plant phenotyping platform and analysis method suitable for assessing root traits of large, intact root systems. With the use of a purpose-built imaging table and automated photo capture system, machine learning-based image segmentation, and off-the-shelf …

Computational Analysis Of A Mn-Based Electrocatalyst With Primary Amine Substituents In The Secondary Coordination Sphere For Co2 Reduction, Erin Urban

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The purpose of this research was to report the mechanism for the two-electron, two-proton conversion of CO 2 to CO and H 2 O using a manganese(I) electrocatalyst, Mn(L)(CO) 3 Br (where L = bipyridyl ligand with aryl-amine moieties installed at the 6 position of 2,2’-bipyridine), synthesized by the Jurss group, including any other competing reactions, such as the hydrogen evolution reaction (HER). The “protonation- first” and “reduction-first” pathways were considered for CO 2 RR. Density functional theory (DFT) calculations were performed to determine the redox potentials and Gibb’s free energies for each step in the mechanism for CO 2 …

Plant Protein-Based Nanocomposite Films: A Review On The Used Nanomaterials, Characteristics, And Food Packaging Applications, Shima Jafarzadeh, Mehrdad Forough, Sajed Amjadi, Vahid J. Javan Kouzegaran, Hadi Almasi, Farhad Garavand, Masoumeh Zargar

Research outputs 2022 to 2026

Consumer demands to utilize environmentally friendly packaging have led researchers to develop packaging materials from naturally derived resources. In recent years, plant protein-based films as a replacement for synthetic plastics have attracted the attention of the global food packaging industry due to their biodegradability and unique properties. Biopolymer-based films need a filler to show improved packaging properties. One of the latest strategies introduced to food packaging technology is the production of nanocomposite films which are multiphase materials containing a filler with at least one dimension less than 100 nm. This review provides the recent findings on plant-based protein films as …

An Application Of Differential Mathematical Modeling Techniques To Study The Ongoing Rabies Epizootic In China, Christopher Turner

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rabies remains a global public health issue with a wide variety of neurological symptoms such as confusion, slight paralysis, hypersalivation, and hydrophobia. Rabies is usually fatal once symptoms appear. Many species are reservoirs for rabies, such as foxes, racoons, and wild dogs, which in turn can transmit the disease to humans, leading to complex transmission chains. There is a long latent period of rabies, between 1 to 3 months after infection, which further complicates control efforts. Mathematical modeling is a valuable tool in the study of infectious disease outbreaks and there have been many models applied to rabies outbreaks. However, …

Ligers Interferometric Survey Of M Dwarf Diameters, Tyler Gregory Ellis

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

In this dissertation, I present the largest single collection of M dwarf stellar radii in over a decade and contextualize these measurements with the systematic model discrepancies. The measurements of stellar angular diameters are also important in the quantification of the properties of exoplanets. In order to estimate the property of the exoplanet, it is first necessary to quantify the properties of the planet's host star. Using the survey results complemented with previous direct observations of the angular diameters of low mass stars, I develop updated updated surface brightness relationships. These relationships allow predictions of angular diameters using easy to …

Theoretical Aspects Of Calculation Of Photocurrent In Structures With Periodically Spaced Heterinclusions, R. Аyukhanov, A. Uteniyazov, S. Farmonov, N. Shernazarov

Karakalpak Scientific Journal

The processes of excitation of photoconductivity in structures with heteroinclusions with a band gap greater than the band gap of the base material of the matrix have been studied. Structures are studied when such macroinclusions are located periodically and are located at distances equal to the size of the inclusions. A technique has been developed and analytical expressions have been derived for calculating the photocurrent and specific photoconductivity in such structures.

Injection Depletion Effect In Semiconductors With Pair Impurity Complexes, A. Yu. Leyderman, A. Uteniyazov, R. Turmanova, M. Dauletbayev

Karakalpak Scientific Journal

The possibility of realizing the effect of injection depletion in a ⁺ -structure made on the basis of a semiconductor with paired donor-acceptor complexes is considered. It is shown that the appearance of this effect is possible under conditions of almost complete compensation of the shallow dopant donor impurity by the charge of the acceptor component of the pair complex. A necessary condition is also a strong asymmetry of the coefficients of capture of holes at the acceptor level in comparison with the coefficient of capture of electrons at the donor level.

Nonlinear Photoelasticity Processes Near Resonances At The Frequency Of Electronic Transitions From Deep Levels To The Conduction Zone, R. Аyukhanov, A. Uteniyazov, S. Farmonov, N. Shernazarov

Karakalpak Scientific Journal

The phenomenon of nonlinear photoelasticity, which consists of the occurrence of nonlinear photoelasticity coefficients comparable in magnitude to linear ones near the electronic resonance between the deep impurity levels and the bottom of the conduction zone, is considered theoretically. Analytical expressions for the Fourier decomposition coefficients of the dielectric permittivity of the crystal in the phase of the sound wave, which are proportional to the photoelasticity coefficients, are obtained. A general criterion for the nonlinear photoelasticity effect in the investigated frequency region is found numerically. It is shown that high deformation potentials of deep levels stimulate the appearance of this …

Fluorinated Molecularly Imprinted Polymer - Monomer And Polymer Synthesis For Pfoa Sorption, Sean Durbin

Liberty University Research Week

Undergraduate

Basic

Impact Of Community Radio On Community Development In The United States, Jillian Hermansky

Capstone Collection

Community radio is a community-led broadcasting service that serves as a tool for development for communities around the world. This research study explores the development benefits of community radio in the United States using a case study of Federal Communications Commission (FCC)-licensed FM community radio stations to evaluate the role of community radio in communication and information sharing and promoting sustainable social change and development. To fulfill the objectives of the case study, data was collected from 55 community radio stations in the United States using mixed-questionnaire digital surveys and supplementary virtual interviews. Findings indicated that community radio stations in …

A Machine Learning Based Approach To Detect The Ethereum Fraud Transactions With Limited Attributes, Rabia Musheer Aziz, Mohammed Farhan Baluch, Sarthak Patel, Pavan Kumar

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Ethereum smart contracts have recently received new commercial applications and a lot of attention from the scientific community. Ethereum eliminates the requirement for a trusted third party by allowing untrusted parties to expose contract details in computer code. Nonetheless, as online commerce grows, plenty of fraudulent activities, such as money laundering, bribery, and phishing, emerge as major threats to trade security. For correctly recognizing fraudulent transactions, this paper developed a Light Gradient Boosting Machine (LGBM) technique-based model. The modified LGBM model optimized the parameters of Light GBM using the Euclidean distant structured estimation approach. This paper also examines the performance …

A Bi-Level Data Lowering Method To Minimize Transferring Big Data In The Sensors Of Iot Applications, Ali Kadhum M. Al-Qurabat, Ali Kadhum Idrees, Abdallah Makhoul, Chady Abou Jaoude

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

In the IoT era, the number of devices connected to it continues to grow significantly. This can lead to an increase in the amount of reported data by these IoT devices. The reported data by the Sensor Nodes (SNs) to the Gateway (GW) drives these IoT sensors to consume their energy and storage. These problems can be solved by reducing the amount of data in the source nodes in order to reduce both the amount of energy consumed and the amount of storage required. Energy consumption represents one aspect of the Quality of Service (QoS) in the sensor nodes of …

An Economical Source For Peroxidase: Maize Cobs, Hathama Razooki Hasan, Ali Waleed Al- Ani

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

According to the current situation of peroxidase (POD), the relevant studies on this enzyme indicated its importance as a tool in clinical biochemistry and different industrial fields. Most of these studies used the fruits and vegetables as source of this enzyme. So that in order to couple the growing requirements for POD with the recent demands for reduc-ing disposal volume by recycling the plant waste, the aim of the present study was to extract POD through management of municipal bio-waste of Iraqi maize species. A simple, green and economical method was used to extract this enzyme. Our results revealed that …

Efficient Removal Of Common Organic Pollutants From Water By Zn-Doped Tio2 Nanoparticles With Different Applications, Khaled Elgendy, Ibrahim Elmehasseb, Saleh Kandil

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Water purification via adsorption without energy consumption was considered a green process. Zn-doped TiO2 nanoparticles were fabricated by the Sol-gel method and characterized by different analysis techniques. Zinc doping of TiO2 increases the surface area to 26.7m2g-1 with adsorption results, 75.1%, 71.1%, and 68.2% for methylene blue, ofloxacin, and SLS, respectively. Variable affecting factors on adsorption have been studied. The adsorption behavior fitted with Langmuir and Freundlich equations than Temkin isotherm, indicating the preferred heterogeneous adsorption at equivalent adsorbent sites. The application of nanoparticles in many synthetic specimens of pollutants gave excellent removal results, which exceeded 75% of detoxification.

Synthesis Of Cuo/Zno And Mgo/Zno Core/Shell Nanoparticles With Plasma Jets And Study Of Their Structural And Optical Properties, Raghad S. Mohammed, Kadhim A. Aadim, Khalid A. Ahmed

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

This paper reports the synthesis of CuO/ZnO and MgO/ZnO core/shell nanoparticles using atmospheric plasma jets. The characterization of the synthesized CuO/ZnO and MgO/ZnO core/shell nanoparticles were confirmed by a series of techniques, including X-ray diffraction (XRD), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), X-ray dispersive spectroscopy (EDS), transmission electron microscopy (TEM), and UV–Vis spectroscopy. The XRD analysis confirmed no other peaks related to the secondary phases for CuO, MgO, or ZnO, indicating the purity of these nanoparticles. Additionally, EDX analysis confirmed the formation of high purity CuO/ZnO and MgO/ZnO core/shell nanoparticles. The surface morphology, which represented the high agglomeration rate, was investigated using …

Numerical Analysis Of A Silicon-Based Electro-Optic Modulator, Mario Alberto García-Ramírez, Orfil González-Reynoso, Everardo Vargas-Rodríguez, Miguel Angel Bello-Jiménez, Abel García-Barrientos

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

A phase shift electro-optic semiconductor structure that features a Mach-Zehnder Interferometer (MZI) is numerically analyzed. The interferometer structure considers a highly-doped Si-based waveguide that can control the phase shift by varying the refractive index through the carrier concentration while applying a control voltage. To analyze the structure, Kramers-Kronig dispersion relations, the effective index method and the Drude model are implemented within a finite element software. As a result, for an optical waveguide structure with a 9 mm length and 10 V, it is possible to obtain a phase shift by that allows, at the output of the MZI, total interference …

Partial Pseudo-Random Hashing For Transactional Memory Read/Write Data Processing And Validation, G M Sridevi, Ashoka D V, B V Ajay Prakash

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Development of a bypass parallel processing block is one of the emerging and interesting research areas in memory read/write application domain. Many Random Number Generation (RNG) techniques have been introduced for processing the data in storage memory. But the limitations include reduced efficiency, increased computational complexity, high area consumption and higher cost. This paper presents a novel dynamic memory register with optimal XOR design based on partial pseudo-random hashing to process transactional memory read/write data. Transfer characteristics of the current are analysed based on the pseudo differential pair for proficient memory utilization. A memory window is then created and adjusted …

A Content-Based File Identification Dataset: Collection, Construction, And Evaluation, Saja Dheyaa Khudhur, Hassan Awheed Jeiad

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

File-Type Identification (FTI) is one of the essential functions that can be performed by examining the data blocks' magic numbers. However, this examination leads to a challenge when a file is corrupt, or these magic numbers are missing. Content-based analytics is the best way for file type identification when the magic numbers are not available. This paper prepares and presents a content-based dataset for eight common types of files based on twelve features. We designed our dataset to be used for supervised and unsupervised machine learning models. It provides the ability to classify and cluster these types into two levels, …

Structural And Spectroscopic Analysis For Silver Bulk And Nanoparticles, Hajir M. Fadhil, Khaleel I. Hassoon, Hyder A. Salih

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

In this research work, a pulsed Nd-YْAG laser having a wavelength of 1064 nm and energy (400-700 mJ (has been utilized as a source in an induced breakdown spectroscopy (LIBS) experiment to determine the density of electron and the tem-perature of Ag-plasma. Two forms of silver (as a bulk and as a compressed nano powder) have been used as targets in the LIBSs setup. The aim of the present work is to study the impact of target properties and laser energy on the plasma fea-tures formed by the interaction between a pulsed laser and these two forms of silver. The …

Nigella Sativa Methanol Extract Inhibits Pc-3 Cell Line Colonization, Induced Apoptosis, And Modulated Lc3-Based Autophagy, Yusuf Toy, Merve Kivrik, Marwa H. Alkhafaji, Aryan M. Faraj, Ibrahim H. Gecibesler, Can A. Ağca

Karbala International Journal of Modern Science

Nigella sativa has various pharmacological properties and has been used throughout history for a variety of reasons. However, there is limited data about the effects of Nigella sativa (NS) on human cancer cells. This study aimed at observing the roles of methanolic extract of N. sativa on apoptosis and autophagy pathway in the Human PC3 (prostate cancer) cell line. The cell viability was checked by MTT assay. Clonogenic assay was performed to demonstrate clonogenicity and Western blot was used to check caspase-3, TIGAR, p53, and LC3 protein expression. The results demonstrated that PC3 cell proliferation was inhibited, caspase-3 and p53 …