Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

A Meshless Approach To Computational Pharmacokinetics, Anthony Matthew Khoury

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

The meshless method is an incredibly powerful technique for solving a variety of problems with unparalleled accuracy and efficiency. The pharmacokinetic problem of transdermal drug delivery (TDDD) is one such topic and is of significant complexity. The locally collocated meshless method (LCMM) is developed in solution to this topic. First, the meshless method is formulated to model this transport phenomenon and is then validated against an analytical solution of a pharmacokinetic problem set, to demonstrate this accuracy and efficiency. The analytical solution provides a locus by which convergence behavior are evaluated, demonstrating the super convergence of the locally collocated meshless …

Motivic Classes Of Degeneracy Loci And Pointed Brill-Noether Varieties, D. Anderson, Linda Chen, N. Tarasca

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Works

Motivic Chern and Hirzebruch classes are polynomials with K-theory and homology classes as coefficients, which specialize to Chern–Schwartz–MacPherson classes, K-theory classes, and Cappell–Shaneson L-classes. We provide formulas to compute the motivic Chern and Hirzebruch classes of Grassmannian and vexillary degeneracy loci. We apply our results to obtain the Hirzebruch χ_y-genus of classical and one-pointed Brill–Noether varieties, and therefore their topological Euler characteristic, holomorphic Euler characteristic, and signature.

Amphichiral Knots With Large 4-Genus, Allison N. Miller

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Works

For each we give g > 0 infinitely many knots that are strongly negative amphichiral, hence rationally slice and representing 2-torsion in the smooth concordance group, yet which do not bound any locally flatly embedded surface in the 4-ball with genus less than or equal to g. Our examples also allow us to answer a question about the four-dimensional clasp number of knots.

Understanding The Hydrolytic Activity Of Papiliotrema Laurentii On Polyester Polyurethane Coatings, Ariana L. Santos

Honors Theses

Though plastic polymers such as polyester polyurethanes have many applications from electronics to aircraft coatings, their resistance to natural degradation presents an environmental concern. Therefore, elucidating the mechanism of degradation from microorganisms that were discovered breaking down the coating of a cargo aircraft may offer insights into a method of bioremediation. To explore this, the fungus Papiliotrema laurentii (one microorganism isolated from the consortium) was cultured in several different media types at different pH levels in order to understand how it adjusts its protein secretion patterns to environmental changes. 2D gel electrophoresis, isoelectric focusing (IEF) and a variety of gel …

The Analysis Of Microplastics Found In The Flowers Of Rhode Island, Hailey Hendricks, Matthew Kiesewetter

Senior Honors Projects

No abstract provided.

College Of Natural Sciences Newsletter, March & April 2022, College Of Natural Sciences

College of Natural Sciences Newsletters and Reports

Volume 3, Issue 3

Page 1 Dean's Message
Page 2-3 Awards and Recognition
Page 4 2022 URSCAD - CNS Snaps
Page 5 Geography Convention Recap
Page 6 Attention Students!
Page 7-8 Media Coverage of CNS
Page 9 Spring Break Outreach, Adopt the Pantry,
Page 10 Discovery on Tap Event
Page 11 CNS Students Visit State Capital
Page 12 Celebrating 50 Years of Sally
Page 13 Open PRAIRIE Data
Page 14 Grants Awarded and Bio-Micro Day of Scholars
Page 15 -17 2022 Geography Convention Snaps
Page 18 Sally Krueger's 50th Work Anniversary

Defining The Leading Edge Of The Marine – Non-Marine Transition In The Pee Dee Basin: Influences, And Dynamic Parameters Of A Highly Dynamic System, Nicole Mchugh

Honors Theses

Among estuaries, there is a large block of co-dependent and independent variables shaping habitat and environmental conditions within a critical area. Historical data proxies and indexes from seven different stations were assessed to consider temporal and spatial variability of the marine and non-marine transition along the South Carolina Pee Dee River Basin. Historical datasets from the upper reaches of Winyah Bay and lower section of the Pee Dee River basin were compiled along with shorter termed deployments of a new instrument station installed near Georgetown, SC. This area is representative of the marine-non-marine transition in drowned river mouth estuaries. Water …

X-Ray Spectroscopy Of The O Supergiant Ζ Puppis Indicates Surprising Variation In The Wind Mass-Loss Rate On Years Timescales, Jiaming Wang , '22

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

We apply two mass-loss rate diagnostics described in the thesis on Chandra and XMM-Newton X-ray spectroscopic measurements of ζ Pup, one of the most luminous stars in the Milky Way and one of the closest O stars to Earth. Emission line profile analysis from new long Chandra grating observations taken during 2018 and 2019 indicates a significant 40% increase in ζ Pup’s wind mass-loss rate as compared to data taken in Chandra’s first observation cycle in 2000. Broadband spectral modeling of 20 years of XMM observations also reveal non-periodic wind mass-loss rate variation at a 40% level on timescales …

Dynamic Corrosion Test System, University Of North Dakota. Energy And Environmental Research Center

EERC Brochures and Fact Sheets

Fact sheet about the Energy & Environmental Research Center’s Dynamic Corrosion Test System. Includes information on how the system evaluates alloy coupons in environments that mimic CO₂ cycles.

Rare-Earth Elements, University Of North Dakota. Energy And Environmental Research Center

EERC Brochures and Fact Sheets

Fact sheet about the importance of rare-earth elements, how they are utilized, their supply risk, and information about the lignite industry.

Improving I/O Performance For Exascale Applications Through Online Data Layout Reorganization, Lipeng Wan, Axel Huebl, Junmin Gu, Franz Poeschel, Ana Gainaru, Ruonan Wang, Jieyang Chen, Xin Liang, Dmitry Ganyushin, Todd Munson, Ian Foster, Jean Luc Vay, Norbert Podhorszki, Kesheng Wu

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The applications being developed within the U.S. Exascale Computing Project (ECP) to run on imminent Exascale computers will generate scientific results with unprecedented fidelity and record turn-around time. Many of these codes are based on particle-mesh methods and use advanced algorithms, especially dynamic load-balancing and mesh-refinement, to achieve high performance on Exascale machines. Yet, as such algorithms improve parallel application efficiency, they raise new challenges for I/O logic due to their irregular and dynamic data distributions. Thus, while the enormous data rates of Exascale simulations already challenge existing file system write strategies, the need for efficient read and processing of …

A Parallel Algorithm Template For Updating Single-Source Shortest Paths In Large-Scale Dynamic Networks, Arindam Khanda, Sriram Srinivasan, Sanjukta Bhowmick, Boyana Norris, Sajal K. Das

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Single Source Shortest Path (SSSP) problem is a classic graph theory problem that arises frequently in various practical scenarios; hence, many parallel algorithms have been developed to solve it. However, these algorithms operate on static graphs, whereas many real-world problems are best modeled as dynamic networks, where the structure of the network changes with time. This gap between the dynamic graph modeling and the assumed static graph model in the conventional SSSP algorithms motivates this work. We present a novel parallel algorithmic framework for updating the SSSP in large-scale dynamic networks and implement it on the shared-memory and GPU …

Security Posture: A Systematic Review Of Cyber Threats And Proactive Security, Amanda Jones

Senior Honors Theses

In the last decade, several high-profile cyber threats have occurred with global impact and devastating consequences. The tools, techniques, and procedures used to prevent cyber threats from occurring fall under the category of proactive security. Proactive security methodologies, however, vary among professionals where differing tactics have proved situationally effective. To determine the most effective tactics for preventing exploitation of vulnerabilities, the author examines the attack vector of three incidents from the last five years in a systematic review format: the WannaCry incident, the 2020 SolarWinds SUNBURST exploit, and the recently discovered Log4j vulnerability. From the three cases and existing literature, …

2022 Research Day Program, Lincoln Memorial University

Research Day

This program contains abstracts and presentation summaries from LMU's 2022 Annual Research Day conference.

Synthesis And Characterization Of Aluminum Complexes Implementing Redox-Active Nitroxide Bidentate Ligands, Omar Saleh , '22

Senior Theses, Projects, and Awards

Aluminum is an abundant, sustainable, and non-toxic metal, which would be a great candidate to be used in redox and catalytic chemistry in lieu of the currently used heavy metals. However, aluminum can only exist over one stable oxidation state, which is a major obstacle in this pursuit. To tackle this issue, the Graves Lab has been focusing on incorporating redox active ligands into aluminum complexes. Nitroxide (NO⁻) is an exceptionally important functional group, as it can reversibly exist over three stable oxidation states. In this work, I synthesized and characterized neutral aluminum complexes, [(^(OMe)pyNO)AlMe₂]₂ (1b) and [(^(OMe)pyNO)AlMe₂]AlMe₃ (2b), with …

Simulation, Optimization, And Economic Assessment Of Pelamis Wave Energy Converter, Hana Ghaneei, Mohammadreza Mahmoudi

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

Wave energy and power is accessible on almost any body of water. One of the most widely known floating structures to generate renewable energy from the seas and the ocean is wave energy converter Pelamis. In this study, an attempt was made to simulate the dynamic behaviour of Pelamis P2 in the software AQWA under the influence of a nonlinear second-order Stokes wave. Pelamis P2 was simulated in different marine conditions including different water depths, wave heights, periods, and angles to assess its optimal operation. With the results in mind, it can be argued that with an increase in water …

Block Copolymer Directed Self-Assembly: Exploring The Efficacy Of Applications In Semiconductor Fabrication, Jakin Bryce Delony

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Over the course of the past 80 years, semiconductor devices have become increasingly ubiquitous in everyday life.From constructing mainframes that encompassed entire rooms during the 1940s, to inventing personal computers in the 1980s, to developing progressively faster smartphones and wearable technology in the 2010s, the primary driving force behind the Digital Revolution has been increasing transistor counts, and thus computing power, via incremental improvements in optical lithography. In 1965, Intel co-founder Gordon Moore boldly predicted that the transistor density of semiconductor devices would double approximately every 18-24 months. While this prediction -- now colloquially referred to as Moore's Law -- …

Empirical And Modeled Δ13c And Δ15n Isoscapes In The Gulf Of Mexico And Their Application To Fish Eye Lens Migration Studies, Brianna Michaud

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Isoscapes are depictions of the spatial patterns of isotopic values in a given area. Isoscapes can be created using measurements form samples (empirical isoscapes) or using statistical models of spatial isotopic variation (modeled isoscapes). Isoscapes have a wide variety of potential applications though, in the realm of marine ecology, they are most often used infer ecological processes, food web linkages, the origin of samples, and the movements of marine organisms.

However, to use isoscapes for these applications, it is necessary to have isoscapes at spatial scales relevant to the application in question. It is also necessary to have isoscapes that …

Relationships Among The Community Of Inquiry, Achievement Emotions, And Academic Achievement In Asynchronous Online Learning In Higher Education, David H. Tai

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This research aimed to investigate how achievement emotions predict, mediate, and affect academic achievement in online learning. Online learning has been proliferating, but little is known about how emotion mediates cognition in the Community of Inquiry framework. Recent progress in cognitive neuroscience provided the theoretical foundation for researchers to investigate emotion's role in online learning, especially academic achievement. The researcher of this study adopted a quantitative non-experimental research design to investigate how achievement emotions mediated, predicted, and affected academic achievement in the Community of Inquiry framework. The Partial Least Square Structure Equation Modeling (PLS- SEM) method was adopted for statistical …

Advances And Applications Of Optimal Polynomial Approximants, Raymond Centner

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The history of optimal polynomial approximants (OPAs) dates back to the engineering literature of the 1970s. Here, these polynomials were studied in the context of the Hardy space H^2(X), where X denotes the open unit disk D or the bidisk D^2. Under certain conditions, it was thought that these polynomials had all of their zeros outside the closure of X. Hence, it was suggested that these polynomials could be used to design a stable digital filter. In recent mathematics literature, OPAs have been studied in many different function spaces. In these settings, numerous papers have been devoted to studying the …

Parallel Resource Defined Fitness Sharing: A Study On Parallel Optimizations For Niching Algorithms, Blayne A. Rogers

Masters Theses

The exploitation of niches by genetic algorithms (GAs) is a computationally expensive, but effective, methodology for solving complex open problems and real-world applications. Niching, differentiated on the modality of sharing, casts problems in terms of the specific resources available. These concepts arise from the broader natural algorithms that encapsulate the ideas and theories used in artificial intelligence. In remediating the computational costs, a study on exploiting niche-defined parallel structures is performed in the contest of the resourcedefined fitness sharing (RFS) algorithm.

Sharing is a natural algorithm paradigm that emulates the use of resources within an environment or population. Defining these …

Assessing Security Risks With The Internet Of Things, Faith Mosemann

Senior Honors Theses

For my honors thesis I have decided to study the security risks associated with the Internet of Things (IoT) and possible ways to secure them. I will focus on how corporate, and individuals use IoT devices and the security risks that come with their implementation. In my research, I found out that IoT gadgets tend to go unnoticed as a checkpoint for vulnerability. For example, often personal IoT devices tend to have the default username and password issued from the factory that a hacker could easily find through Google. IoT devices need security just as much as computers or servers …

Convolutional Neural Network For Covid-19 Detection In Chest X-Rays, Joshua Elliot Henderson

Honors Thesis

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a large effect on almost every facet of life. As COVID-19 was a disease only discovered in recent history, there is comparatively little data on the disease, how we detect it, and how we cure it. Deep learning is a powerful tool that can be used to learn to classify information in ways that humans might not be able to. This allows computers to learn on relatively little data and provide exceptional results. In this paper, I propose a novel convolutional neural network (CNN) for the detection of COVID-19 from chest X-rays called basicConv. This …

Héroes Anónimos: La Relación Entre La Gente Y Las Plantas Nativas En Río Grande, Argentina, Rachel Elliott

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Este estudio fue realizado para la Fundación Estepa Viva, Naturaleza y Ciudadanía con el fin de entender mejor cómo lxs residentes se relacionan con las plantas nativas y dónde ellas están ubicadas dentro de la ciudad de Río Grande, Argentina. Un total de 52 manzanas en 10 zonas de la ciudad fueron muestreadas en busca de 5 especies nativas clave: la lenga (Nothofagus pumilio), el ñire (Nothofagus antarctica), el guindo (Nothofagus betuloides), la mata negra (Chiliotrichum rosmarinifolium), and el calafate (Berberis microphylla). Además, se realizaron 50 entrevistas y se creó un mapa interactivo. Se observó que las plantas eran poco …

La Ciencia Deshumanizada: La Relación Humano-Ambiental Entre El Cadic-Conicet Y La Antártida, Ariel Silverman

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Las investigaciones científicas reconocen cada vez más que los humanos tienen una relación recíproca con la naturaleza, donde cambios rápidos en uno produce inestabilidad en el otro (Mace, 2014). Los humanos y la Antártida son particularmente interdependientes considerando la vulnerabilidad de los servicios ecosistémicos antárticos al cambio climático antropogénico. El Centro Austral de Investigaciones Científicas (CADIC) en Ushuaia, Argentina, es una institución importante en la producción del conocimiento sobre el continente. Por lo tanto, cómo lxs científicxs del CADIC perciben la relación de los humanos con la Antártida pueden afectar la manera en que la Antártida es afectada, y, en …

Water: The Gift And The Curse: A Climate Change Preparedness Study On An Increased Rainfall Scenarios In The Yunguilla Cloud Forest, Ecuador, Emilia Dick Fiora Del Fabro

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The purpose of this project was to try and better understand the risks posed to the Yunguilla community in an increased rainfall climate change scenario. While climate modeling is not exact, many models do predict increased rain and storm intensity in this area (“Explainer…”, 2018). This project studies erosion risk, and the potential damage to crops through a series of experiments and mapping.

The first experiment used three hydration percentages 50, 75 and 100, to water two crop types, Fragaria and Caspium, and monitored plant health to see the water's effect. The hydraulic stress testing did not model an increased …

Aquatic Diversity In A Changing Tropical Andean Glacierized Catchment: Macroinvertebrates Reveal Possible Important Consequences To The Chimborazo Region As Glaciers Recede And The Climate Continues To Change, Tanner Thomas

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Tropical Andean glaciers are retreating rapidly, and their disappearance will have drastic consequences for the people and ecosystems that depend on them. While they have begun to receive the attention they deserve in scientific literature, much is still not known. Majority of these investigations have taken place on the Volcán Antisana, while other important glacierized systems, like the Volcán Chimborazo have received little attention. This investigation aimed to a) evaluate the possible effects of glacier loss and climate change on aquatic ecosystems by comparing glacial meltwater, non-glacial and mixed streams, and b) to evaluate the effects of pasture intensity on …

A Quantitative Study Of Orchids And Their Proximate Environments Over An Elevational Gradient On The Northern Slope Of Montagne D’Ambre, Hazel Schrader

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This research investigated change in orchid populations and their proximate environments on the Northern slope of Montagne d’Ambre, a subhumid forest in Northern Madagascar. Orchid density, way of life (epiphyte or terrestrial), phenology, and associations were recorded over 100m elevation gradients and between forest types (primary, secondary, dry, and humid forests at the same altitude). Additionally, orchid preferences for certain heights in the forest and DBH of host trees were analyzed. The establishment of 50X20m plots in 100m elevation gradients combined with ground survey yielded significant results demonstrating change along with elevation as well as forest types. Orchid density increased …

The Battle For The Sea: Tourism Development And Public Ocean Access In Jambiani, Zanzibar, Sophie Beauchesne

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

The battle for coastal access is a prevalent and controversial issue in both the Global North and the Global South (Mongeau, 2001; Ojo, 2013). Due to investment in coastal land, vulnerable communities around the world are losing their access to the sea (Ojo, 2013; Bennett, Govan & Satterfield, 2015). Battles for ocean access in the Global North tend to focus on recreational activities, but what is to be said about ocean access in the Global South, where access to the sea is needed for the survival of entire communities? (Mongeau, 2001;). Using geographical mapping, environmental condition assessments and open-ended interviews …

Assessing The Threat Of Coral Decline On Fish Diversity In Response To Temperature, Ryland Talmadge

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

Misali, a PECCA-protected island off the east coast of Pemba, Tanzania, is considered to be a marine biodiversity hotspot with a protected Non-Extractive Zone (NEZ) and remaining Extractive Zone (EZ). Upon protection, the island’s fringe reefs faced severe coral bleaching during the 1998 bleaching event, estimated to kill up to 70% of corals. Since the event, several others have occurred in addition to restructuring the management plan in 2006 to expand the region to 1000km. While the damage from the most recent coral bleaching event in 2020 has yet to be surveyed, this study investigates the current reef health in …