Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Solvation Of Isoelectronic Halide And Alkali Metal Ions By Argon Atoms, Carly A. Rock, Sarah N. Arradondo, Gregory S. Tschumper

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

This work systematically examines the interactions of alkali metal cations and their isoelectronic halide counterparts with up to six solvating Ar atoms (M+Arn and X–Arn, where M = Li, Na, K, and Rb; X = H, F, Cl, and Br; and n = 1–6) via full geometry optimizations with the MP2 method and robust, correlation-consistent quadruple-ζ (QZ) basis sets. 116 unique M+Arn and X–Arn stationary points have been characterized on the MP2/QZ potential energy surface. To the best of our knowledge, approximately two dozen of these stationary points have been reported here for the first time. Some of these new …

Robotic Olfactory-Based Navigation With Mobile Robots, Lingxiao Wang

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Robotic odor source localization (OSL) is a technology that enables mobile robots or autonomous vehicles to find an odor source in unknown environments. It has been viewed as challenging due to the turbulent nature of airflows and the resulting odor plume characteristics. The key to correctly finding an odor source is designing an effective olfactory-based navigation algorithm, which guides the robot to detect emitted odor plumes as cues in finding the source. This dissertation proposes three kinds of olfactory-based navigation methods to improve search efficiency while maintaining a low computational cost, incorporating different machine learning and artificial intelligence methods.

A. …

Management Of Meadow Fescue Pasture For High-Producing Dairy Cows In Northern Japan, K. Sudo, K. Ochiai, T. Ikeda

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The objective of this study was to establish an intensive grazing system of meadow fescue (Festuca elatior L.) pasture for high-producing dairy cows in some areas of Japan where soil freezes in winter. Plant succession of meadow fescue pastures that had been grazed at different plant heights and milk production from cows grazed on meadow fescue pasture compared to that from cows grazed on perennial ryegrass pasture were surveyed over a five year period. Succession of meadow fescue pasture depended on the management of plant height before grazing use. Milk production from cows grazed on meadow fescue pasture was …

Leaf Blade Selection By Sheep In Kleingrass (Panicum Coloratum L.) Pastures With Different Deferment Periods, P. Sierra, M. S. Cid, M. A. Brizuela, C. M. Ferri

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

The winter use of standing dead biomass produced by warm season grasses during the previous growing season may be an alternative to grazing systems in the semi-arid Pampean Region of Argentina. This study evaluated: 1) the effect of different deferment periods on the leaf blade percentage and quality of ‘kleingrass’ (Panicum coloratum L.), a warm season specie recently introduced to that region, and 2) whether rams grazing the vegetation accumulated during these different periods are able to select leaf blades to maintain the quality of their diets. It was generated three treatments by deferment of the forage produced after …

Microhistological Estimation Of Leaf Blade Percentage In Diets From Monoespecific Pastures, P. Sierra, M. S. Cid, M. A. Brizuela, C. M. Ferri

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Although a decrease in the leaf-stem ratio affects the nutritive value of pastures, herbivores can reinforce selection for leaf blades to maintain the quality of their diets. This study evaluated whether the percentage of fragments with furrows in blades could be used to estimate the relative intake of this part of the leaves by herbivores grazing monoespecific pastures. It was worked with vegetation of kleingrass (Panicum coloratum L.) from paddocks with three deferment periods. Blade samples, and different plant part mixtures hand compounded were in vitro digested. The digestion residues were microhistological analyzed determining the number of fragment with …

Evaluation Of Kentucky Bluegrass (Poa Pratensis L.) For Creating Sustainable Grazing Swards In Hokkaido, T. Saigusa, S. Tejima, Y. Ogawa, S. Takahashi

IGC Proceedings (1977-2023)

Kentucky bluegrass (Poa pratensis L.) is generally considered to be a weed in the meadows of Hokkaido. However, a revaluation of this species should be undertaken in terms of its useful characteristics for labor-saving management on farms in marginal areas. The performance of steers (Holstein-Friesian) and botanical composition of Kentucky bluegrass swards were investigated under the stocking methods of set and rotational grazing and compared with timothy (Phleum pratense L.) swards. Kentucky bluegrass was stable over the grazing season under both methods, although timothy decreased rapidly. The average daily gain of steers raised on Kentucky bluegrass swards was …

Metasurfaces For Nano-Illumination In Lidar And Lighting Applications, Sehyeon Kim

Graduate Theses - Physics and Optical Engineering

The development of a non-scanning laser-based imaging lidar system based on a diffractive optical element with potential applications in advanced driver assistance systems, autonomous vehicles, drone navigation, and mobile devices is reported. The proposed lidar utilizes image processing with homography. The emphasis in the design approach has been on compactness and cost of the final system for it to be deployable both as standalone or complementary to existing lidar sensors, enabling fusion sensing in the applications. This work describes the basic elements of the proposed lidar system. It presents the potential ranging mechanisms, along with their experimental results demonstrating the …

Comparison Of Major Cloud Providers, Justin Berman

Other Student Works

This paper will compare the following major cloud providers: Microsoft Azure, Amazon AWS, Google Cloud, and IBM Cloud. An introduction to the companies and their history, fundamentals and services, strengths and weaknesses, costs, and their security will be discussed throughout this writing.

Flavonoids Reduce Lipid Peroxides And Increase Glutathione Levels In Pooled Human Liver Microsomes (Hlms), William Yaw Boadi, Camille Stevenson, Dontrez Johnson, Mohamed Adel Mohamed

Chemistry Faculty Research

The effects of each of the flavonoids; genistein (G), quercetin (Q) and kaempferol (K) at several doses on lipid peroxides (LP) and reduced glutathione (GSH) in pooled human liver microsomes (HLMs) were investigated following the oxidative damage for 4, 6, 18 and 24 hr. HLMs (1 mg/ml) were exposed to each of the above flavonoids at 0, 5, 10, 15, 20 or 25 μM and incubated for the respective times as previously stated. Our hypothesis was that HLMs exposed to the flavonoids for the respective exposure times can decrease LP and increase GSH in HLMs to better cope with the …

Dark Energy At Early Times And Act Data: A Larger Hubble Constant Without Late-Time Priors, V. Poulin, Tristan L. Smith, A. Bartlett

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Works

Recent observations using the Atacama Cosmology Telescope (ACT) have provided ground-based cosmic microwave background (CMB) maps with higher angular resolution than the Planck satellite. These have the potential to put interesting constraints on models resolving the “Hubble tension.” In this paper we fit two models of early dark energy (EDE) (an increase in the expansion rate around matter/radiation equality) to the combination of ACT data with large-scale measurements of the CMB either from the WMAP or the Planck satellite (including lensing), along with measurements of the baryon acoustic oscillations and uncalibrated supernovae luminosity distance. We study a phenomenological axionlike potential …

Identifying Bots On Twitter With Benford’S Law, Sanmesh Bhosale

Master's Projects

Over time Online Social Networks (OSNs) have grown exponentially in terms of active users and have now become an influential factor in the formation of public opinions. Due to this, the use of bots and botnets for spreading misinformation on OSNs has become a widespread concern. The biggest example of this was during the 2016 American Presidential Elections, where Russian bots on Twitter pumped out fake news to influence the election results.

Identifying bots and botnets on Twitter is not just based on visual analysis and can require complex statistical methods to score a profile based on multiple features and …

Numerical Modeling Of Mineralizing Processes During The Formation Of The Yangzhuang Kiruna-Type Iron Deposit, Middle And Lower Yangtze River Metallogenic Belt, China: Implications For The Genesis And Longevity Of Kiruna-Type Iron Oxide-Apatite Systems, Xunyu Hu, Simon Jowitt, Feng Yuan, Guangxian Liu, Jinhui Luo, Yuhua Chen, Hui Yang, Keyue Ren, Yongguo Yang

Geoscience Faculty Research

The Yangzhuang iron deposit is a Kiruna-type iron oxide-apatite (IOA) deposit within the Ningwu mining district of the Middle and Lower Yangtze River Metallogenic Belt (MLYRMB), China. This study applies a numerical modeling approach to identify the key processes associated with the formation of the deposit that cannot be easily identified using traditional analytical approaches, including the duration of the mineralizing process and the genesis of iron orebodies within intrusions associated with the deposit. This approach highlights the practical value of numerical modeling in quantitatively analyzing mineralizing processes during the formation of mineral deposits and assesses how these methods can …

Finland, A Package Deal: Disciplinary Climate In Science Classes, Science Dispositions And Science Literacy, Larry J. Grabau, Jari Levonen, Kalle Juuti

Plant and Soil Sciences Faculty Publications

Finland’s educational prowess, though tempered by recent international assessments, has remained intact. This report focused on lessons that could be learned regarding secondary-level science education from the Program for International Student Assessment (PISA) 2015, science-focused assessment. That PISA iteration included not only science literacy but also students’ science dispositions (epistemology, enjoyment, interest, and self-efficacy) and the schools’ science climate measures (disciplinary climate and teaching support). Due to the hierarchical nature of the PISA data, multilevel models were employed in this Finnish study, involving 5582 students from 167 schools. Science dispositions (as outcome measures) were differently associated with teaching support and …

Smoking, Alcohol Consumption, And Depression In Association With Incidence Of Type 2 Diabetes Among Mexican Americans In Starr County, Texas, Gabriela Rubannelsonkumar

Honors Program Theses and Research Projects

Previous studies on conditions like obesity, hypertension, and type 2 diabetes mellitus (T2DM) have explored the correlations between them and various other human conditions, including aortic stiffness, left ventricular hypertrophy and sleep apnea, as they predict possibilities of developing certain diseases in Mexican Americans. This study aims to observe the correlation between lifestyle decisions that could relate to the onset of the depression in normal, prediabetic, and diabetic individuals. These include smoking habits and alcohol consumption. Many papers have previously conducted research on these lifestyle habits as they relate to obesity, hypertension, diabetes, however, have done so in a singular …

Quantum Field Theories, Topological Materials, And Topological Quantum Computing, Muhammad Ilyas

Dissertations and Theses

A quantum computer can perform exponentially faster than its classical counterpart. It works on the principle of superposition. But due to the decoherence effect, the superposition of a quantum state gets destroyed by the interaction with the environment. It is a real challenge to completely isolate a quantum system to make it free of decoherence. This problem can be circumvented by the use of topological quantum phases of matter. These phases have quasiparticles excitations called anyons. The anyons are charge-flux composites and show exotic fractional statistics. When the order of exchange matters, then the anyons are called non-Abelian anyons. Majorana …

Iron And Manganese Oxidation By Oxyhalogen Species: Implications For Paleoenvironmental Reconstruction On Mars, Kaushik Mitra

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

As the nearest planetary neighbor with potential earlier habitable conditions, Mars is replete with minerals that hold clues to its past chemistry and evolution of the aqueous systems. Oxidized iron (Fe) and manganese (Mn) minerals on Mars are geochemical markers of such environments in which they formed and record past pH, redox conditions, and intensity of water-rock interaction. Fe and Mn oxides can therefore be used to reconstruct past Martian environmental conditions from settings where aqueous fluids were active. Various processes that form Fe and Mn oxide minerals on Mars have been previously proposed, including chemical oxidation using molecular oxygen …

Mass Spectrometry-Based Protein Footprinting: High-Throughput Maldi Platform And Large Protein Complexes Of Baf, Ruidong Jiang

Arts & Sciences Graduate Student Theses and Dissertations

Human’s advances in understanding biological processes rely heavily on the breakthroughs in biophysical tools. Mass spectrometry (MS)-based protein footprinting, which interrogates protein structures by measuring protein solvent assessable surface area (SASA), has grown rapidly in the last decade, successful in providing valuable data for numerous protein systems. This thesis focuses mainly on this technology.We set out to push the boundary of MS-based protein footprinting further into the new areas, preparing it for potential future applications including large-scale experiments that require high-throughput analysis the structure of large, complicated protein complexes. This thesis devotes five chapters to the method development of MS-based …

Modifying The Aspect Survey To Support The Validity Of Student Perception Data From Different Active Learning Environments, Nicole Naibert, Erin E. Shortlidge, Jack Barbera

Chemistry Faculty Publications and Presentations

Measuring students’ perceptions of active learning activities may provide valuable insight into their engagement and subsequent performance outcomes. A recently published measure, the Assessing Student Engagement in Class Tool (ASPECT), was developed to assess student perceptions of various active learning environments. As such, we sought to use this measure in our courses to assess the students’ perceptions of different active learning environments. Initial results analyzed with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) indicated that the ASPECT did not function as expected in our active learning environments. Therefore, before administration within an introductory biology course that incorporated two types of active learning strategies, …

Deep Convolutional Neural Networks For Accurate Diagnosis Of Covid-19 Patients Using Chest X-Ray Image Databases From Italy, Canada, And The Usa, Amgad A. Salama, Samy H. Darwish, Samir M. Abdel-Mageed, Radwa A. Meshref, Ehab I. Mohamed

The University of Louisville Journal of Respiratory Infections

Introduction: Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), famously known as COVID-19, has quickly become a global pandemic. Chest X-ray (CXR) imaging has proven reliable, fast, and cost-effective for identifying COVID-19 infections, which proceeds to display atypical unilateral patchy infiltration in the lungs like typical pneumonia. We employed the deep convolutional neural network (DCNN) ResNet-34 to detect and classify CXR images from patients with COVID-19 and Viral Pneumonia and Normal Controls.

Methods: We created a single database containing 781 source CXR images from four different international sub-databases: the Società Italiana di Radiologia Medica e Interventistica (SIRM), the GitHub Database, the …

Utilizing Software Engineering And Cloud Computing Principles To Develop The Revised Self-Report Assessment Of Functional Visual Performance (R-Srafvp) Application, Kirk Hedlich

Masters Projects

Can principles from software engineering and concepts from cloud computing be applied to and aid in the development of a small project, specifically improving the use of the Revised Self-Report Assessment of Functional Visual Performance (R-SRAFVP)? The target for this project is to create a new application and improve on existing attempts to move the R-SRAFVP assessment from an electronic document format to a web-based application. The new application should provide better ease of use, simplicity in design and understanding for use, and hopefully increased access and adoption by Occupation Therapists who specialize in low vision rehabilitation. The benefits of …

Piezoelectricity In Hafnia, Sangita Dutta, Pratyush Buragohain, Sebastjan Glinsek, Claudia Richter, Hugo Aramberri, Haidong Lu, Uwe Schroeder, Emmanuel Defay, Alexei Gruverman, Jorge Íñiguez

Department of Physics and Astronomy: Faculty Publications

Because of its compatibility with semiconductor-based technologies, hafnia (HfO₂) is today’s most promising ferroelectric material for applications in electronics. Yet, knowledge on the ferroic and electromechanical response properties of this all-important compound is still lacking. Interestingly, HfO₂ has recently been predicted to display a negative longitudinal piezoelectric effect, which sets it apart from classic ferroelectrics (e.g., perovskite oxides like PbTiO₃) and is reminiscent of the behavior of some organic compounds. The present work corroborates this behavior, by first-principles calculations and an experimental investigation of HfO₂ thin films using piezoresponse force microscopy. Further, the simulations …

Analysis Of Camera Trap Footage Through Subject Recognition, Nirnayak Bhardwaj

Master's Projects

Motion-sensitive cameras, otherwise known as camera traps, have become increasingly popular amongst ecologists for studying wildlife. These cameras allow scientists to remotely observe animals through an inexpensive and non-invasive approach. Due to the lenient nature of motion cameras, studies involving them often generate excessive amounts of footage with many photographs not containing any animal subjects. Thus, there is a need for a system that is capable of analyzing camera trap footage to determine if a picture holds value for researchers. While research into automated image recognition is well documented, it has had limited applications in the field of ecology. This …

Employee Churn Prediction Using Logistic Regression And Support Vector Machine, Rajendra Maharjan

Master's Projects

It is a challenge for Human Resource (HR) team to retain their existing employees than to hire a new one. For any company, losing their valuable employees is a loss in terms of time, money, productivity, and trust, etc. This loss could be possibly minimized if HR could beforehand find out their potential employees who are planning to quit their job hence, we investigated solving the employee churn problem through the machine learning perspective. We have designed machine learning models using supervised and classification-based algorithms like Logistic Regression and Support Vector Machine (SVM). The models are trained with the IBM …

High Performance Document Store Implementation In Rust, Ishaan Aggarwal

Master's Projects

Databases are a core part of any application which requires persistence of data. The performance of applications involving the use of database systems is directly proportional to how fast their database read-write operations are. The aim of this project was to build a high- performance document store which can support variety of applications which require data storage and retrieval of some kind. This document store can be used as an independently running backend service which can be utilized by search engines, applications which deal with keeping records, etc. We used Rust to make this document store which is fast, robust, …

Odu Research Is Showcased In ‘Waters Rising’ Exhibition At The Chrysler Museum Of Art, Amber Kennedy

News Items

No abstract provided.

Interfacial Engineering And Photoelectrochemistry Of Patterned Metal/Semiconductor Heterostructures, Che Tan

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Photoelectrochemical (PEC) cells enable the conversion of solar energy into storable fuels, which is critical in overcoming the intermittent nature of this largest renewable source. However, the majority of semiconductors used as photoelectrodes in these cells have low conversion efficiencies and/or stabilities. Silicon (Si) is an attractive semiconductor material for photoelectrodes, but the development of efficient Si-based photoanodes is challenging due to their instability in alkaline solutions. Thus, one focus of this dissertation is the design and fabrication of highly stable nickel (Ni)-patterned Si photoanodes through interfacial engineering of the barrier heights. Recently, hot carriers in plasmonic metal nanostructures have …

“Transitioning Organisations From A Data Quagmire To Knowledge Nirvana Through The Digital Thread”, David Twohig, Barry Heavey

Level 3

Historically, organisations have managed product data in a combination of Microsoft Office, Sharepoint and Document Management Systems. In this paper, we explore how different technologies can be leveraged to create digital product profiles, and in doing so structure data to enable effective knowledge management.

Modeling Iterative Reconstruction And Displacement Field In The Large Scale Structure, Atsuhisa Ota, Hee Jong Seo, Shun Saito, Florian Beutler

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The next generation of galaxy surveys like the Dark Energy Spectroscopic Instrument and Euclid will provide datasets orders of magnitude larger than anything available to date. Our ability to model nonlinear effects in late time matter perturbations will be a key to unlock the full potential of these datasets, and the area of initial condition reconstruction is attracting growing attention. Iterative reconstruction developed by Marcel Schmittfull et al. [Phys. Rev. D 96, 023505 (2017)PRVDAQ2470-001010.1103/PhysRevD.96.023505] is a technique designed to reconstruct the displacement field from the observed galaxy distribution. The nonlinear displacement field and initial linear density field are highly correlated. …

Electrodeless Electrochemistry Enabled By Nonthermal Plasma, Harold Oldham

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

The increasing availability and decreasing cost of electricity generated by renewable resources have motivated research into electrified chemical processing, whereby electrical energy is used to drive chemical transformations. Electricity-intensive processing techniques such as electrochemistry using solid electrodes has attracted attention in this context for the synthesis of organic compounds, such as high-value pharmaceuticals and renewable chemical production. Selective chemical transformations are achieved in conventional aqueous electrochemical systems by using external circuitry to bias solid electrodes, allowing for the preferential transfer of electrons between the electrode-liquid interface. Despite having the ability to promote controlled electrochemical reactions, configurations using solid electrodes are …

On The Study Of Age-Related Physiological Decline In C. Elegans, Drew Benjamin Sinha

McKelvey School of Engineering Graduate Student Theses & Dissertations

Aging decline is a universal and unescapable phenomenon; as organisms reach maturity and continue living, physiological function inevitably declines, resulting in mortality. While the study of mortality has been long studied, technical and practical challenges have limited the equally important study of how/when individuals deteriorate and what types of factors affect that deterioration. This gap in knowledge is not only evident in a relative lack of empirical data on physiological decline, but considerable debate around the analysis and conceptual interpretations of the little data that is available.

In this dissertation, I use quantitative reasoning and analysis of longitudinal data to …