Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Effects Of Sesame Consumption On Inflammatory Biomarkers In Humans: A Systematic Review And Meta-Analysis Of Randomized Controlled Trials, Shabnam Rafiee, Roghaye Faryabi, Mohammad Ali Zareian, Jessie Hawkins, Nitin Shivappa Mbbs, Mph, Ph.D., Laila Shirbeigi

Faculty Publications

Objectives. Existing evidence produces conflicting findings regarding the effect of sesame intake on inflammatory biomarkers; thisknowledge gap has yet to be met through systematic review and meta-analysis. )is meta-analysis of randomized, controlledclinical trials (RCTs) was conducted to evaluate the effects of sesame consumption on markers of inflammation in humans. Methods. PubMed, Scopus, and the Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews were searched through August 2020 to identify relevant papers for inclusion. Using the random-effects model, data were evaluated as weighted mean differences (WMD) with 95% confidence intervals (CI). Cochrane’s Q and I-squared (I2) tests were used to …

Next-Generation Ensemble Projections Reveal Higher Climate Risks For Marine Ecosystems, Derek P. Tittensor, Camilla Novaglio, Cheryl S. Harrison, Ryan F. Heneghan, Nicolas Barrier, Daniele Bianchi, Laurent Bopp, Andrea Bryndum-Buchholz, Gregory L. Britten, Matthias Büchner

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Projections of climate change impacts on marine ecosystems have revealed long-term declines in global marine animal biomass and unevenly distributed impacts on fisheries. Here we apply an enhanced suite of global marine ecosystem models from the Fisheries and Marine Ecosystem Model Intercomparison Project (Fish-MIP), forced by new-generation Earth system model outputs from Phase 6 of the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP6), to provide insights into how projected climate change will affect future ocean ecosystems. Compared with the previous generation CMIP5-forced Fish-MIP ensemble, the new ensemble ecosystem simulations show a greater decline in mean global ocean animal biomass under both strong-mitigation …

Apportioning Deformation Among Depth Intervals In An Aquifer System Using Insar And Head Data, Ryan G. Smith, Hossein Hashemi, Jingyi Chen, Rosemary Knight

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Land surface subsidence due to excessive groundwater pumping is an increasing concern in California, USA. Interferometric Synthetic Aperture Radar (InSAR) is a remote sensing technique for measuring centimeter-to-millimeter surface deformation at 10-100 m spatial resolution. Here, a data-driven approach that attributes deformation to individual depth intervals within an aquifer system by integrating head data acquired from each of three screened intervals in a monitoring well with InSAR surface deformation measurements was developed. The study area was the Colusa Basin in northern Central Valley. To reconstruct the surface deformation history over the study area, 13 ALOS-PALSAR scenes acquired between 2006 and …

Focus On Sustainable Cities: Urban Solutions Toward Desired Outcomes, M. Georgescu, M. Arabi, Winston T. L. Chow, E. Mack, K. C. Seto

Research Collection School of Social Sciences

Urbanization represents the single most impactful and long-lasting transformation of the Earth system since the dawn of civilization. Cities are simultaneously locations of innovation, social connectivity, and wealth, but they also create local-to-global environmental degradation and socioeconomic disparities. For example, food provision for cities has required significant land-use change and fertilizer input, has altered regional climate, biogeochemical cycles, and degraded marine and landscapes through biodiversity loss, algal blooms and fish kills. To maintain urban livelihoods and the provision of goods and services, cities require vast amounts of energy (e.g. to provide access to transport, cooling systems), which are massive producers …

New Methods For Assessing The Sustainability Of Wood-Burning Energy Facilities, Sarah Mittlefehldt, Erin Bunting, Emily Huff, Joseph Welsh, Robert Goodwin

Journal Articles

Methods to assess wood-based bioenergy projects have tended to focus on technological and physical constraints. Less is known about how longer-term environmental, economic, and social systems—the three pillars of sustainable development—have influenced technological development in the context of woody biomass energy. This research offers new methods for assessing the sustainability of wood-based energy projects by combining spatial analysis, semi-structured interviews, and archival data analysis. By integrating quantitative and qualitative methods, this project offers ways to understand how social and environmental dynamics from the past shape technological development in the future. A propensity analysis of biomass energy plants in Michigan, USA …

System Identification Through Lipschitz Regularized Deep Neural Networks, Elisa Negrini, Giovanna Citti, Luca Capogna

Mathematics Sciences: Faculty Publications

In this paper we use neural networks to learn governing equations from data. Specifically we reconstruct the right-hand side of a system of ODEs x˙(t)=f(t,x(t)) directly from observed uniformly time-sampled data using a neural network. In contrast with other neural network-based approaches to this problem, we add a Lipschitz regularization term to our loss function. In the synthetic examples we observed empirically that this regularization results in a smoother approximating function and better generalization properties when compared with non-regularized models, both on trajectory and non-trajectory data, especially in presence of noise. In contrast with sparse regression approaches, since neural networks …

Microgrid Design And Component Replacement Analysis, Jose Trinidad Reyes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This study focuses on developing specific methods that can be friendly applied to obtain efficient usage and maintenance of electricity production in a micro-grid used in a residence or stand-alone building to determine long-term component replacement strategies for aging components. After designing the best option to produce electricity by installing green energies such as photovoltaic panels and their proper devices such as inverters and batteries, this work has developed electric power reliability models to approximate the most efficient component replacement accurately. Due to the nature of the components of this study, repair time is not a substantial part of the …

Engaging Residents In Policy And Planning For Sea Level Rise: Application Of The Action-Oriented Stakeholder Engagement For A Resilient Tomorrow (Asert) Framework, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, J. Gail Nicula, Daniel P. Richards, Ogechukwu Agim, Michelle Covi, Khairul A. Anuar

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

This chapter describes the application of the Action-oriented Stakeholder Engagement for a Resilient Tomorrow (ASERT) framework for communicating with and engaging both residents and community stakeholders in their localities’ efforts to prepare for and to respond to flooding and sea level rise. The application of ASERT incorporates communication, education/learning, and gamification elements that can be embedded into community meetings. We describe the way in which ASERT community meetings are designed (1) to provide an inclusive and engaging process that will allow residents to participate in their city’s resilience efforts; (2) to provide information about resilience in an environment that encourages …

Communicating And Co-Producing Information With Stakeholders: Examples Of Participatory Mapping Approaches Related To Sea Level Rise Risks And Impacts, Pragati Rawat, Khairul A. Anua, Juita-Elena (Wie) Yusuf, Jon Derek Loftis, Ren-Neasha Blake

School of Public Service Faculty Publications

This chapter discusses practical approaches for using participatory mapping as a tool to visualize and communicate sea level rise (SLR) and climate change risks, to share information about the vulnerability to, and threats of, climate change, and to co-produce knowledge with stakeholders. The examples presented in this chapter are from demonstrated applications in communities in Virginia (USA) that involve participatory mapping and that utilize a web-Geographic Information System (GIS). The web-GIS is innovatively combined with other technologies and participatory processes to create low-cost high-tech approaches so that even people with little to no knowledge of GIS can interact with maps …

Examination Of The Catalytic Role Of The Axial Cystine Ligand In The Co-Type Nitrile Hydratase From Pseudonocardia Thermophila Jcm 3095, Irene Anyango Ogutu, Martin St. Maurice, Brian Bennett, Richard C. Holz

Physics Faculty Research and Publications

The strictly conserved αSer162 residue in the Co-type nitrile hydratase from Pseudonocardia thermophila JCM 3095 (PtNHase), which forms a hydrogen bond to the axial αCys108-S atom, was mutated into an Ala residue. The αSer162Ala yielded two different protein species: one was the apoform (αSer^A) that exhibited no observable activity, and the second (αSer^B) contained its full complement of cobalt ions and was active with a k_cat value of 63 ± 3 s⁻¹ towards acrylonitrile at pH 7.5. The X-ray crystal structure of was determined at 1.85 Å resolution and contained no detectable …

Identification Of An Intermediate Species Along The Nitrile Hydratase Reaction Pathway By Epr Spectroscopy, Wasantha Lankathilaka Karunagala Pathiranage, Natalie Gumataotao, Adam T. Fiedler, Richard C. Holz, Brian Bennett

Physics Faculty Research and Publications

A new method to trap catalytic intermediate species was employed with Fe-type nitrile hydratase from Rhodococcus equi TG328-2 (ReNHase). ReNHase was incubated with substrates in a 23% (w/w) NaCl/H₂O eutectic system that remained liquid at −20 °C, thereby permitting the observation of transient species that were present at electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR)-detectable levels in samples frozen while in the steady state. Fe^III-EPR signals from the resting enzyme were unaffected by the presence of 23% NaCl, and the catalytic activity was ∼55% that in the absence of NaCl at the optimum pH of 7.5. …

Nudging Students To Use Stronger Passwords: A Test Of Big Five Personality-Based Messages, Shelia Kennison, Eric Chan-Tin

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

Cybersecurity breaches can occur when one uses an easily hacked password. Prior research has investigated 1) possible steps to encourage users to use strong passwords and 2) how personality is related to users using strong passwords.

We investigated whether personality-based nudging messages based on Big Five traits could nudge people to create stronger passwords (c.f., Jones et al., 2021). We also examined how personal characteristics, such as gender, age, personality traits, password knowledge, attitudes, and behavior, and need for cognition, were related to password strength.

We tested the hypothesis that passwords created following messages matching participants’ personality would be stronger …

Tweets R Us: Predicting Personality From Language And Emoji Use On Twitter, Maxwell Meckling, Sarah Shoup, D. E. Chan-Tin, Shelia Kennison

Computer Science: Faculty Publications and Other Works

The research investigated the suggestion from prior research that language and emojis use on Twitter and other social media platforms can predict users’ personality and gender (Adali et al., 2014; Golbeck et al., 2011; Li et al., 2019; Moreno et al., 2019; Raess, 2018). Some studies have also analyzed Twitter language to identify individuals with specific health conditions (e.g., alcohol recovery, Golbeck, 2012; sleep problems, Suarez et al., 2018).

If strategies to predict Twitter users’ characteristics prove to be successful, future efforts to direct persuasive messages related to recommended practices in public health and/or cybersecurity will be possible. Commercial applications …

Acoustic/Gravity Wave Phenomena In Wide-Field Imaging: From Data Analysis To A Modeling Framework For Observability In The Mlt Region And Beyond, Jaime Aguilar Guerrero

Doctoral Dissertations and Master's Theses

Acoustic waves, gravity waves, and larger-scale tidal and planetary waves are significant drivers of the atmosphere’s dynamics and of the local and global circulation that have direct and indirect impacts on our weather and climate. Their measurements and characterization are fundamental challenges in Aeronomy that require a wide range of instrumentation with distinct operational principles. Most measurements share the common features of integrating optical emissions or effects on radio waves through deep layers of the atmosphere. The geometry of these integrations create line-of-sight effects that must be understood, described, and accounted for to properly present the measured data in traditional …

Risk Communication In The Tourism Industry, Lindsay E. Usher, Ashley Schroeder

Human Movement Studies & Special Education Faculty Publications

This chapter focuses on risk communication in the tourism sector. Tourism organizations must communicate with a variety of stakeholders when conveying messages about impending severe weather or disasters, which are increasing due climate change and sea level rise. There is also an increased need to distribute information to tourism stakeholders about preparing for, continuing service during, and recovering from, disasters. Stakeholders involved with the tourism industry include business owners, government officials and tourists, all of whom have differing degrees of vulnerability in a destination when a threat occurs. Different messages regarding disaster preparation and recovery must be communicated to the …

High Precision Numerical Computation Of Principal Points For Univariate Distributions, Santanu Chakraborty, Mrinal Kanti Roychowdhury, Josef A. Sifuentes

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

Principal points were first introduced in 1990: for a positive integer n, n principal points of a random variable are the n points that minimize the mean squared distance between the random variable and the nearest of the n points. In this paper, we give a high precision numerical method for calculating the n principal points and the n th quantization errors for all positive integers n. For some absolutely continuous univariate distributions, we calculate the n principal points for different n using Newton’s method. Additionally, we also provide the corresponding values of mean squared distances.

Fundamental Solutions For The Dirac Equation In Curved Spacetime And Generalized Euler-Poisson-Darboux Equation, Karen Yagdjian, Anahit Galstian

School of Mathematical & Statistical Sciences Faculty Publications

We present the fundamental solutions for the spin-1/2 fields propagating in spacetimes with power type expansion/contraction and the fundamental solution of the Cauchy problem for the Dirac equation. The derivation of these fundamental solutions is based on formulas for the solutions to the generalized Euler-Poisson-Darboux equation, which are obtained by the integral transform approach.

Plankton Dynamic At Eastern Arabian Gulf And Sea Of Oman, Muzna Mohammed Husam Saeed Al Junaibi

Theses

The present study is part of the collaborative research project entitled “Comparative Analysis and Predictions of Algal Blooms in the Arabian Gulf and the Sea of Oman”, between the United Arab Emirates University and Sultan Qaboos University (Grant # G00002684- 31S321), in which simultaneous and intensive biweekly plankton and water samples were collected from two opposite coastal stations off the Strait of Hormuz with the aim to study plankton dynamics at the Arabian Gulf and the Sea of Oman and the effect of environmental parameters on their community structures during the period from May 2018 until May …

Biological Treatment Of Produced Water Using Algae: A Proof Of Concept, Shibin Hashem Mohammed Nadersha

Theses

Produced water (PW) is the effluent generated during oil mining and extraction. On average, for every barrel of oil, 4 - 5 barrels of PW are generated worldwide. In UAE, 1.22 billion cubic meters of PW were generated in the year 2017. Proper management of PW is thus very important taking into account the large volumes of it being generated. In addition, PW is considered toxic as it contains various contaminants such as aliphatic and aromatic hydrocarbons, inorganic salts, metals, phenols, radioactive materials, and chemical additives. Disposal of untreated PW into oceans and water bodies can cause adverse effects on …

Aqueous Wastewater Treatment With Aluminium Oxide, Silicon Dioxide And Alginite, Anifat Adenike Bankole

Theses

Wastewater, regardless of the source, has always found its way into the environment. If not treated it can pose a threat to the life of humans as well as aquatic organisms. In regard to the treatment of wastewater containing remnant organic dyes, the adsorption of these on recyclable sorbent materials such as alginite, alumina, and silica gel was evaluated. The main objective of this thesis is to evaluate the sorption process for dye tainted water specifically stemming from educational and research laboratories. Adsorption studies of the wastewater with sorbent materials were carried out under different experimental conditions. The study investigates …

Studying Neurotoxic Effects Of Three Synthetic Insecticides And Two Herbal Infusions On The Nervous System Of The Fruit Fly Drosophila Melanogaster, Sara Khamis Obaid Hamarain Al Dhaheri

Theses

Pesticides applied on plants and animals can reach the human diet once they enter food chains. Insecticides are neurotoxic agents; they have the potential of causing damage to the nervous system in people. The damage could induce or promote neurodegenerative diseases such as the Parkinson’s and Alzheimer's. It is well-documented that the exposure to the insecticide chlorpyrifos (CPF) stimulate the Parkinson disease in humans and experimental animals. Thus, this research project will study effect of three synthetic insecticides pirimicarb, tefluthrin, and CPF on the nervous system of Drosophila melanogaster as a model organism. In addition, the project will evaluate the …

Improving Phytoremediation Of Oil Polluted Soil In The Uae Using Acc Deaminase Producing Bacteria Under Arid Conditions, Maitha Mubarak Almansoori

Theses

Many 1-aminocyclopropane-1-carboxylic acid (ACC) deaminase-producing and oil-degrading rhizosphere actinobacteria were isolated from oil-contaminated soils in the United Arab Emirates. These actinobacterial isolates were further selected based on their ability to solubilize phosphorus, to produce siderophores, and to produce plant growth regulators (PGRs) including auxins and polyamines. The ability of the most-promising isolate #20 (Streptomyces sp.) to promote the growth of the hyper-accumulating plants “Bermuda grass” in soil polluted with Light Arabian Crude Oil (LACO) was evaluated under greenhouse conditions. Under controlled greenhouse conditions, the application of the strongest Streptomyces sp. #20 which exhibited the maximum production of ACC deaminase and …

Development Of A Methodology For Data Integration Of Multiple Datasets In The Study Of Martian Dust Storms, Rawdha Majid Al Bedwawi

Theses

The research investigates the distribution of dust on mars. In general, the study is inspired by the need to provide findings that will improve the study about extraterrestrial phenomena. The research explains the practical effects of extraterrestrial physics considering it entails assessing the extraterrestrial matter. The research seeks to validate the correctness of multiannual data pretending to the pertaining to the optical depth of optical depth of column dust, which would assist in determining the necessity of evaluating the existing map reconstruction approaches. the methodological section has several steps which combined qualitative and quantities optical depth and virtual imagery to …

Span-Level Emotion Cause Analysis By Bert-Based Graph Attention Network, Xiangju Li, Wei Gao, Shi Feng, Daling Wang, Shafiq Joty

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We study the task of span-level emotion cause analysis (SECA), which is focused on identifying the specific emotion cause span(s) triggering a certain emotion in the text. Compared to the popular clause-level emotion cause analysis (CECA), it is a finer-grained emotion cause analysis (ECA) task. In this paper, we design a BERT-based graph attention network for emotion cause span(s) identification. The proposed model takes advantage of the structure of BERT to capture the relationship information between emotion and text, and utilizes graph attention network to model the structure information of the text. Our SECA method can be easily used for …

Disentangling Diverse Responses To Climate Change Among Global Marine Ecosystem Models, Ryan F. Heneghan, Eric Galbraith, Julia L. Blanchard, Cheryl S. Harrison, Nicolas Barrier, Catherine Bulman, William Cheung, Marta Coli, Tyler D. Eddy, Maite Erauskin-Extramiana

School of Earth, Environmental, & Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Climate change is warming the ocean and impacting lower trophic level (LTL) organisms. Marine ecosystem models can provide estimates of how these changes will propagate to larger animals and impact societal services such as fisheries, but at present these estimates vary widely. A better understanding of what drives this inter-model variation will improve our ability to project fisheries and other ecosystem services into the future, while also helping to identify uncertainties in process understanding. Here, we explore the mechanisms that underlie the diversity of responses to changes in temperature and LTLs in eight global marine ecosystem models from the Fisheries …

Gdpr, Pipl & Lgpd: Privacy Regulations & Policies Across The Globe, Raymond H. Geistel

Cybersecurity Undergraduate Research Showcase

Several privacy laws around the world are adopting similar regulations to the GPDR; this has effects on privacy policies of companies providing services in across multiple countries & continents. While these regulations share many attributes, their differing requirements can make things difficult for companies regarding said policies. Automation could be a potential solution to both analyze and compare regulations from different nations & international organizations, analyze and monitor privacy policy adherence to said regulations.

Can We Make It Better? Assessing And Improving Quality Of Github Repositories, Gede Artha Azriadi Prana

Dissertations and Theses Collection (Open Access)

The code hosting platform GitHub has gained immense popularity worldwide in recent years, with over 200 million repositories hosted as of June 2021. Due to its popularity, it has great potential to facilitate widespread improvements across many software projects. Naturally, GitHub has attracted much research attention, and the source code in the various repositories it hosts also provide opportunity to apply techniques and tools developed by software engineering researchers over the years. However, much of existing body of research applicable to GitHub focuses on code quality of the software projects and ways to improve them. Fewer work focus on potential …

Correcting Correlation Functions For Redshift-Dependent Interloper Contamination, Daniel J. Farrow, Ariel G. Sánchez, Robin Ciardullo, Shun Saito, For Full List Of Authors, See Publisher's Website.

Physics Faculty Research & Creative Works

The construction of catalogues of a particular type of galaxy can be complicated by interlopers contaminating the sample. In spectroscopic galaxy surveys this can be due to the misclassification of an emission line; for example in the Hobby-Eberly Telescope Dark Energy Experiment (HETDEX) low-redshift [O ii] emitters may make up a few per cent of the observed Ly α emitter (LAE) sample. The presence of contaminants affects the measured correlation functions and power spectra. Previous attempts to deal with this using the cross-correlation function have assumed sources at a fixed redshift, or not modelled evolution within the adopted redshift bins. …

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Npl Site Butte Priority Soils Operable Unit, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Exploiting Reasoning Chains For Multi-Hop Science Question Answering, Weiwen Xu, Yang Deng, Huihui Zhang, Deng Cai, Wai Lam

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We propose a novel Chain Guided Retriever reader (CGR) framework to model the reasoning chain for multi-hop Science Question Answering. Our framework is capable of performing explainable reasoning without the need of any corpus-specific annotations, such as the ground-truth reasoning chain, or human annotated entity mentions. Specifically, we first generate reasoning chains from a semantic graph constructed by Abstract Meaning Representation of retrieved evidence facts. A Chain-aware loss, concerning both local and global chain information, is also designed to enable the generated chains to serve as distant supervision signals for training the retriever, where reinforcement learning is also adopted to …