Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Hypothesis Testing Of Student's Mathematical Performance In Relation To The Covid-19 Pandemic, Elizabeth Foster

Mathematics Senior Capstone Papers

The COVID-19 Pandemic affected everyone, especially schools and education due to the rapid switch from traditional face-to-face classes to online and hybrid classes. The goal of this study is to see how the pandemic affected students’ grades during distance learning when compared to before. Using hypothesis testing, we will analyze data from 13 sections of MATH 243 classes to determine if the averages went down during the pandemic, specifically in hybrid class settings. Based on the raw data of the test grades in relation to the COVID-19 Pandemic, a significant difference can be found in test scores before and during …

Factors That Relate To Academic Excellence, Matthew Lemoine

Mathematics Senior Capstone Papers

The American College Testing (ACT) provides university admissions offices a look into a student’s academic ability so that the university can determine admittance and scholarships. The premise of this study is to see whether this is the most effective way to determine academic ability, using the Logistic Regression Model. The data was collected from October 21, 2021 to December 31, 2021 at Louisiana Tech University. Using the Logistic Regression Model, predictions of academic excellence are obtained based on the parameters outlined in this paper. After the parameters for the Logistic Regression Model are calculated, conclusions can be drawn that the …

A Study Of Nash Equilibrium In Discrete Cases, Hallye Leleux

Mathematics Senior Capstone Papers

In game theory, Nash Equilibrium refers to a set of strategies in a non-cooperative game such that no player can benefit from changing their strategy. This paper examines the payoff matrices of the notable discrete games Battle of the Sexes, Matching Pennies, and The Prisoner’s Dilemma. We then create a custom discrete two player case and determine the pure and mixed strategy Nash Equilibria. After calculating the probabilities for each mixed strategy, we then determine the resulting payoff for each player and show how deviating from that strategy results in a lower payoff.

Statistical Analysis Of Home-Field Advantage In European Soccer, Francisco Simoncini

Mathematics Senior Capstone Papers

Home-field advantage in the sports world is commonly known as a huge factor in determining the final score of any sports game. By using a one-tailed, two-sample t-test, I am analyzing how playing at home generally affects a European soccer team’s performance. I am looking at how these performances are affected across three domestic leagues in Europe. I predict that when teams play at home, there will be a significant difference in their win ratio and goals scored.

Implementing A Key Exchange Protocol Using Isogenies On Elliptic Curves In Python, Thomas Schwartzenburg

Mathematics Senior Capstone Papers

The study of Elliptic Curves continues to reveal more secure and efficient methods to encrypt information. For example, in De Feo, Jao, and Plˆut’s paper Towards Quantum- Resistant Cryptosystems From Supersingular Elliptic Curve Isogenies, they provide an abstract key exchange protocol using isogonies on supersingular elliptic curves. The main idea of this research is to present an accurate manifestation of the abstract protocol constructed by De Feo et al., which will be realized using Python. This protocol is founded in the Diffie-Hellman algorithm using isogenies on Elliptic Curves as its primary operation. Background on Elliptic Curve Cryptography will also be …

Predicting Box Office Revenues Using Differential Equation Models, Brenden David

Mathematics Senior Capstone Papers

The growing popularity of the internet has increased exponentially in the past few decades. This sudden increase in popularity allows for users to gain access to more information than was thought possible in the past, including access to box-office movie revenues of previously released movies. Since we now have access to thousands of movie’s box office revenues, we can analyze some sort of trend within specific genres of movies. With these trends we develop a differential equations model that will predict the box office revenues of a movie that is in its early stages of the box office. This model …

Flood Risk Prediction In Southern Louisiana Using Support Vector Machines, Claire Dorsett

Mathematics Senior Capstone Papers

Flooding in Southern Louisiana is a growing concern as violent weather becomes more frequent. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Louisiana soils have become drier and annual rainfall trends have increased, which may lead to more severe flooding in the coming years. In light of this change in weather trends, flood prediction has become increasingly important for the public’s safety. The focus of this paper is to apply the Support Vector Machine (SVM), a machine learning technique, to classify flood risks based on water gage height, wind speed and direction, and time of the year. In this paper, the …

Tidelands Health Wellness Department: Sustainable Development Goals 3 And 4 In Georgetown County, Hailey Restuccia

Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being

No abstract provided.

Making Forests, Making Communities: An Ethnography Of Reforestation In Monteverde, Costa Rica, Megan Brown

Anthropology Theses and Dissertations

Reforestation is not just planting trees in the ground. More than net increase in forest cover, reforestation is a complex political endeavor undertaken by both humans and non-humans and a popular climate change mitigation tactic. However, little research has examined the dynamics between selection of specific reforestation strategies, health, and community resilience, particularly with attention to entanglements between the lives of both human and non-human forest dwellers. This ethnographic work, based on six months of in-person fieldwork and six months of digital ethnography, examines reforestation and forest relations in Costa Rica’s Monte Verde zone, a region which experienced widespread deforestation, …

Tidelands Health Community Care Resources Relations To Sdg Goals 3, 10, And 11 Sustainability 310: Methods/ Tools In Sustainability, Diquasha Simmons

Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being

No abstract provided.

A Small Business' Efforts To Support Mental Health, Leigha Schaefer-Ortega

Goal 3: Good Health and Well-Being

No abstract provided.

Georgetown County Environmental Services Office 2022 Spring Litter Index United Nations Youth Corps Internship, Rainwater Nicole

Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

No abstract provided.

Analysis Of Land Use And Development Related To Drainage Infrastructure In Georgetown, Brittany Whitehead

Goal 6: Clean Water and Sanitation

No abstract provided.

K-Means Clustering Using Gravity Distance, Ajinkya Vishwas Indulkar

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Clustering is an important topic in data modeling. K-means Clustering is a well-known partitional clustering algorithm, where a dataset is separated into groups sharing similar properties. Clustering an unbalanced dataset is a challenging problem in data modeling, where some group has a much larger number of data points than others. When a K-means clustering algorithm with Euclidean distance is applied to such data, the algorithm fails to form good clusters. The standard K-means tends to split data into smaller clusters during a clustering process evenly.

We propose a new K-means clustering algorithm to overcome the disadvantage by introducing a different …

Exploring Amaranth’S Color Palette: Linking Phenotype, Plant Adaptation, And Human Health, Sarah Redman, Chance Riggins Ph.D.

PRECS student projects

Amaranthus is a genus containing species that are highly desirable, yet underutilized crops and species that are highly despised pernicious agricultural weeds.

• Cultivated species are primarily grown as nutritious pseudograins, colorful ornamentals, or leafy greens and are recognized for tolerance to heat, drought, and salinity.
• Weedy amaranths possess similar adaptive traits, in addition to evolved resistance to numerous herbicides, and pose severe challenges to global agriculture.
• Plant pigments (i.e., betalains, carotenoids) are central to understanding this impressive diversity of phenotypes and adaptive traits.

The Causal Fairness Field Guide: Perspectives From Social And Formal Sciences, Alycia Carey, Xintao Wu

Computer Science and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Over the past several years, multiple different methods to measure the causal fairness of machine learning models have been proposed. However, despite the growing number of publications and implementations, there is still a critical lack of literature that explains the interplay of causality-based fairness notions with the social sciences of philosophy, sociology, and law. We hope to remedy this issue by accumulating and expounding upon the thoughts and discussions of causality-based fairness notions produced by both social and formal (specifically machine learning) sciences in this field guide. In addition to giving the mathematical backgrounds of several popular causality-based fair machine …

Optimal Approximants And Orthogonal Polynomials In Several Variables, Meredith Sargent, Alan A. Sola

Mathematical Sciences Faculty Publications and Presentations

We discuss the notion of optimal polynomial approximants in multivariable reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces. In particular, we analyze difficulties that arise in the multivariable case which are not present in one variable, for example, a more complicated relationship between optimal approximants and orthogonal polynomials in weighted spaces. Weakly inner functions, whose optimal approximants are all constant, provide extreme cases where nontrivial orthogonal polynomials cannot be recovered from the optimal approximants. Concrete examples are presented to illustrate the general theory and are used to disprove certain natural conjectures regarding zeros of optimal approximants in several variables.

Zoo Education Efficacy In The Context Of The Modern-Day Zoo: A Study Of Aza-Accredited Zoos And Education Models, Taylor L. Ruscitti

Honors Scholars Collaborative Projects

Zoos have become a built-in component of society and play many roles. One of the roles includes being facilitators of education. Education serves to increase the positive public perception of zoos and works to continue to gain funds and support for a zoo’s overall purpose. Through a literature review and analysis, this thesis explores the modern-day context of zoos and analyzes how education can drive the zoo’s mission. The focus will be on Association of Zoos and Aquariums (AZA) and European Association of Zoos and Aquariums (EAZA) accredited zoos. While many other facilities that house an array of animals, AZA …

Examining The Optical Properties Of Monosodium Urate For The Detection Of Gout Using A Magneto-Optical Device (Mod), Victoria Marino

Celebration of Scholarship 2022

The purpose of this research was to quantify the magnetooptical properties of monosodium urate (MSU) crystals that would allow for an easy diagnosis using a magneto-optical device (MOD). Characterization of these magnetic and optical properties was achieved by measuring the transmitted light intensity of a laser shining through a sample of monosodium urate with or without an applied (static) magnetic field. Using our theoretical model under the simplifying assumption that absorption is dominant, we determined that the extinction cross-section is σ𝑥 = 0.0127 cm3 /μg and we determined σ𝑧 using two different relationships which gave two distinctly different values. Due …

Preserving The Monarchs, Martin Brannaman, Abby Schroeder, Stephany Pinzon Perez

Environmental Engagement in the Community (ENVR 319): Student Projects

Environmental Engagement in the Community projects, spring 2022

Poster titled Preserving the Monarchs with client Lincoln Electric System.

Pioneers Park Nature Center, Sarah Burr, Trystyn Cox, Corie Gleason, Carli Maier

Environmental Engagement in the Community (ENVR 319): Student Projects

Environmental Engagement in the Community Projects, spring 2022

Slides of a presentation titled Pioneers Park Nature Center for client Ansrea Faas of Pioneers Park Nature center, Lincoln, Nebraska.

The Canopy, Chandra Spangler, Lillian Soucie, Brian Fuelberth, Rachel Hines

Environmental Engagement in the Community (ENVR 319): Student Projects

Environmental Engagement in the Community projects, spring 2022

Slides of a presentation titled The Canopy with client Kayla Vondracek, and a computer application for the citizens of and visitors to the Lincoln, Nebraska community.

Improving Low-Income Housing Can Help The Environment!, Ethan Halman Gonzalez, Margo Johnson, Alesha Skoda, Shane Vrbicky

Environmental Engagement in the Community (ENVR 319): Student Projects

Environmental Engagement in the Community projects, spring 2022

Poster titled Improving Low-income Housing Can Help the Environment! for client City of Lincoln, Nebraska.

Tony Hawk Pro Skater, Kelly Stone-Patrick

ART 108: Introduction to Games Studies

Looking back on life there are so many memories that have truly made a lasting impact, these can include different vacations, accomplishments, and family, but have you ever had one that included a game or video game? From my personal experience, Tony Hawk Pro Skater has been one of those memories for me from childhood and now as an adult. Tony Hawk Pro Skater was a key part of my enjoyment and leisure as a child while also providing me with memories of time spent with my older brothers. In this paper, we will be highlighting the different elements of …

Game-Theoretic Approach Explains -- On The Qualitative Level -- The Antigenic Map Of Covid-19 Variants, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich, Nguyen Hoang Phuong

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

To effectively defend the population against future variants of Covid-19, it is important to be able to predict how it will evolve. For this purpose, it is necessary to understand the logic behind its evolution so far. At first glance, this evolution looks random and thus, difficult to predict. However, we show that already a simple game-theoretic model can actually explain -- on the qualitative level -- how this virus mutated so far.

Towards Semiconductor Nanorods With Nickel/Iron Cocatalyst., Kehinde Ayorinde

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The adverse effects associated with the utilization of fossil fuels has led to the need to provide an alternative cleaner energy. Photocatalytic hydrogen evolution reaction via water splitting provides a renewable pathway to generating energy. Our photocatalyst system includes a semiconductor component (CdSe/CdS core/shell nanorods) to capture light and an attached metal (cocatalyst) for the hydrogen evolution reaction. Platinum is an effective metal catalyst for this reaction due to strong proton binding energy that easily facilitates the reduction of water to produce hydrogen gas. However, due to the high cost of platinum, there is a need to find a less …

Reinforcement Learning With Deep Q-Networks, Caleb Cassady

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In the past decade, machine learning strategies centered on the use of Deep Neural Networks (DNNs) have caught the interest of researchers due to their success in complicated classification and prediction problems. More recently, these DNNs have been applied to reinforcement learning tasks with state of- the-art results using Deep Q-Networks (DQNs) based on the Q-Learning algorithm. However, the DQN training process is different from standard DNNs and poses significant challenges for certain reinforcement learning environments. This paper examines some of these challenges, compares proposed solutions, and offers novel solutions based on previous research. Experiment implementation available at https://github.com/caleb98/dqlearning.

A Monte Carlo Analysis Of Seven Dichotomous Variable Confidence Interval Equations, Morgan Juanita Dubose

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Department of Psychological Sciences Western Kentucky University There are two options to estimate a range of likely values for the population mean of a continuous variable: one for when the population standard deviation is known and another for when the population standard deviation is unknown. There are seven proposed equations to calculate the confidence interval for the population mean of a dichotomous variable: normal approximation interval, Wilson interval, Jeffreys interval, Clopper-Pearson, Agresti-Coull, arcsine transformation, and logit transformation. In this study, I compared the percent effectiveness of each equation using a Monte Carlo analysis and the interval range over a range …

Synthetic, Photophysical, And Catalytic Studies Of Light-Harvesting Macrocyclic Complexes, Fox Bratcher

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Chromophores are an important class of compounds in Nature and industry, with several hundred thousand tons produced annually as dyes and pigments. Alone, these compounds absorb light unto themselves; however, several of these compounds can be combined to produce a beneficial cascading transfer of energy to a core chromophore.

In this study, photophysical properties of several covalent and axially borondipyrromethene (BODIPY)-conjugated complexes of porphyrin and salphen scaffolds have been evaluated in a series of emission and catalytic studies. In the porphyrin systems, a beneficial excited energy transfer (EET) from the BODIPY moieties to the porphyrin core was observed; however, only …

An Exploration Of Bedtime Music Genres And Sleep Quality, Hannah Bell, Macie Culberston, Hannah Foss, Devyn Prater

[Archive] Belmont University Research Symposium (BURS)

Various studies have been conducted to research beneficial sleep practices including audio, such as music or white noise. Younger individuals have access to phones and unique sleep aids that claim to benefit one’s sleep quality. It’s a common enough practice to turn on music to alleviate the mind, guiding it towards relaxation. Surprisingly, there is a lack of consensus on the helpfulness of music, with some studies finding it harms rather than aids. Seeing as sleep is a crucial factor of healthy living, it’s a worthwhile pursuit to discover whether music can improve sleep quality and duration. Our study aimed …