Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

(R2125) Impact Of Convective Condition And Inclined Magnetic Field On Casson Nanofluid With Bioconvection In Porous Medium, Touseef Fayaz, O. Otegbeye, Md. Sharifuddin Ansari

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

This paper presents an analysis on steady magnetohydrodynamic boundary layer flow of Casson nanofluid with microorganisms near an expandable boundary in a porous medium. The flow behaviour is analysed by incorporating impacts of magnetic field applied in a direction which makes an angle α∗ with the boundary and convective conditions in temperature, nanoparticle concentration and microorganism density at boundary. Non-dimensionalised nonlinear and coupled system of ordinary differential equations are solved by exercising a numerical algorithm termed as spectral local-linearization method. The considered numerical algorithm is found to be convergent and capable of yielding accurate results. Graphical sketches of solutions obtained …

Upcycling Commodity Polymers To Advanced Materials For Energy And Environmental Sustainability, Anthony Griffin-Espinoza

Dissertations

Synthetic polymers play an essential role in nearly every aspect of our lives. Extending beyond single-use packaging, polymeric material design has progressed to attain tailorable architectures granting exceptional performance across advanced applications, including carbon-fiber reinforced polymer composites for aerospace, conductive materials for soft electronics, and drug carriers for biomedicine. While highly promising, intricately designed polymers needed to achieve excellent performance often have limited processability, complex synthetic methods, and expensive precursors. Furthermore, due to a lack of recyclability, commodity polymer waste streams result in both environmental impacts and a substantial loss of economic value. This dissertation focuses on developing robust strategies …

Privacy Preserving-Based Artificial Intelligence For Precision Agriculture, Partha P. Sengupta

Dissertations

The research work finds a solution to precision agriculture of cotton cultivation using artificial intelligence (AI) models. Two sets of model performance based on the application are selected namely a low resource and a high resource setting. This is because using drone surveys to capture images identifying the classes of stressed and unstressed cotton plantation requires limited model architecture and CPU based computation. Thus, traditional AI models were selected for low resource settings. Again, for high computation intensive models like transfer learning-convolution neural network (CNN) based architectures were grouped into high resource settings. There was another issue of class imbalance …

The Malonate Template: The Key To Unlocking Novel Amino Acids, Thomas Owens

Dissertations

The “Malonate Template” provides access to various amino acids, all from a common intermediate. Herein, demonstrates the use of the malonate template to establish a synthetic route to both 2-thiohistidine and 2-thio-3-N-methyl-histidine from a benzyl methyl malonate derived intermediate. Furthermore, efforts exploiting the applicability of the malonate template for the of both 2-thiohistidine and 2-thio-3-N-methyl-histidine as a suitable alternative to methods previously described by Erdelmeier are described.

The method presented incorporates modifications to the biomimetic pathway described by Erdelmeier for the synthesis of 2-thiohisidine. By exploiting the biomimetic formation of 2-thiohisitidne’s mechanism via mass spectrometry, we …

Modeling The Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge Using Integrated Geophysical Analysis, Zachary Clowdus

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

The Greenland-Iceland-Faroe Ridge (GIFR) is an area of significant geologic interest with anomalously thick crust related to enhanced melt generation from the interaction between the Mid-Atlantic Ridge and the Iceland hotspot. To the northeast of Iceland lies the Jan Mayen Microcontinent (JMMC), which is a continental fragment separated from Greenland during the opening of the Northern Atlantic. The overall extent of the JMMC, especially its southern boundary, remains poorly constrained. The crust beneath the GIFR is believed to be primarily of oceanic affinity. However, a recent discovery of felsic lavas in Iceland led to an alternative hypothesis that implies the …

Copula-Based Tests For Assessing The Association Between Genetic Variants And Mixed Phenotypes, Martin Amoah

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

High-dimensional omics studies increasingly involve heterogeneous data types and phenotypes, which traditional association methods struggle to model jointly due to incompatible marginal distributions and complex dependence structures. This thesis develops a unified copula-based framework for assessing associations between genetic variants and mixed phenotypes by decoupling flexible marginal models from their joint dependence structure. While previous copula-based approaches in this setting have focused largely on continuous and binary traits, we extend these methods to a broader class of phenotype pairs. Specifically, we introduce new association tests for bivariate outcomes involving ordinal–continuous, nominal–continuous, and survival–continuous combinations. The proposed methodology derives joint density …

Modeling Aerosol Transport During High Particulate Matter Episodes In El Paso-Juarez Region And Mitigating Mining-Related Emissions Of Rare Earth Elements (Rees) To The Air, Suzan Aranda Luna

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

This dissertation examines the use of the HYSPLIT model to develop a methodology for the transport and dispersion of air masses affecting particulate matter (PM) concentrations in the El Paso Region, and bioleaching experiments as an alternative to mitigating rare-earth concentrations in the air. Chapter 2 describes the study methodology, 3 and 4 cover the modeling methodology using two-representative high PM2.5 episodes, occurring on February 28, 2024, and June 19, 2024, respectively. These sections encompass the analysis of backward trajectories using four different meteorological datasets to build trajectory frequency maps, the exploratory model analysis of modeled outputs from lower to …

Mbse For Process Analytical Technology- Bwon Analysis Case Study, Arnaldo Garcia Cervantes

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Volatile Organic Compound (VOC) emissions from industrial sources, particularly Benzene, present significant environmental and public health challenges. Regulatory frameworks, such as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Benzene Waste Operations NESHAP (BWON), mandate strict monitoring of control devices, specifically carbon adsorption canisters, to prevent emission breakthrough. However, current industry practices rely heavily on manual Method 21 testing, a labor-intensive process that creates lagging indicators and increases the risk of non-compliance events. This thesis proposes the design and development of an on-line, automated fugitive emissions monitoring system tailored for carbon canisters using Model-Based Systems Engineering (MBSE). Utilizing the Object-Oriented System Engineering Method …

A Combined Multi-Isotope And Machine Learning Approach To Determine Groundwater Salinity And Solute Sources, Lower Valley Area, El Paso County, Texas, Gloria A. Ortiz Gamboa

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Groundwater salinization is increasingly troublesome in aquifers in and around El Paso, Texas, where concern for available water resources has grown due to frequent droughts and increasing population. Both groundwater and surface water have experienced an increase in total dissolved solids (TDS), a trend that can pose future health and economic problems for residents who primarily rely on groundwater. To address this issue, this research focuses on the Hueco Bolson Aquifer and the Rio Grande Alluvial Aquifer within the Lower Valley area of El Paso, Texas, utilizing a multi-analysis approach to evaluate and determine solute sources and their possible end-members …

Draft Final 2022 Insufficiently Reclaimed Sites Sampling: Bres No. 50 – Zelia Site Evaluation Summary Report, Pioneer Technical Services, Inc.

Silver Bow Creek/Butte Area Superfund Site

No abstract provided.

Synthesis Of Phenyl-Substituted Zinc Dipyrrin Photosensitizer For Carbon Dioxide Reduction, Stephen Ankomah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The release of CO₂ from fossil fuel combustion drives the need for its conversion into more sustainable options like CO and CH₄ via photocatalytic reduction. This process requires a catalyst, sensitizer, and electron donor. Zinc dipyrrin-based complexes are promising photosensitizers, offering an alternative to expensive, rare-metal-based systems. Most first-row transition metal dipyrrin compounds have short excited-state lifetimes due to rapid nonradiative decay, but Zn(II) dipyrrin complexes stand out. With a d¹⁰ configuration, they lack deactivating ligand field states and can access long-lived triplet states through a charge-separated intermediate. A phenyl-substituted Zn(II) dipyrrin complex was synthesized and studied using NMR to …

Divergent Responses Of Branched-Chain And Straight-Chain Lipid Membranes To Butanol Stress Revealed By All-Atom Molecular Dynamics Simulations, Joshua Olaf Aggrey

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Membrane integrity under chemical stress is critical to cellular survival and industrial microbial bioproduction, yet the molecular basis of bilayer resilience remains poorly understood. Using all-atom molecular dynamics simulation, we compare the effect of increasing concentrations of 1‑butanol on membranes composed of straight-chain (1,2-dipalmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, DPPC) and branched-chain (1-anteiso-palmitoyl-2-palmitoyl-sn-glycero-3-phosphocholine, APPC) lipids, which differ in the point of attachment of a single methyl group. In the absence of butanol, both membranes exhibit well-ordered architectures consistent with experimental benchmarks; however, under increasing solvent stress, their behaviors diverge markedly. DPPC membranes display gradual thinning, modest area per lipid …

2025 December - Tennessee Monthly Climate Report, Tennessee Climate Office, East Tennessee State University

Tennessee Climate Office Monthly Reports

Hi All,

December was defined by quite a bit of temperature variability (though the temperature swings resulted in near-normal monthly averages) and an overall dry pattern.

The month started out cooler than normal, with a slight moderation in the second week of the month, before a strong cold front sent temperatures tumbling into the teens or single-digits and wind chills into the single digits or below zero on December 14 and 15 - with many locations stuck in the 20’s or even teens for high temperatures. Following this cold weather, temperatures quickly rebounded into the normal and then well above …

Detection Of Phase-Binning And Interpolation Artifacts In 4-Dimensional Computed Tomography Imaging Using Deep Learning And Rule-Based Approaches, Jorge Cisneros, Nathan H. Feldt, Yevgeniy Vinogradskiy, Richard Castillo, Edward Castillo

Department of Radiation Oncology Faculty Papers

BACKGROUND: Four-dimensional computed tomography (4DCT) imaging is a crucial component to lung cancer radiotherapy planning and enables CT-ventilation-based functional avoidance planning to mitigate radiation toxicity. However, 4DCT scans are frequently impaired by acquisition artifacts that corrupt downstream analyses that depend on lung segmentation and deformable image registration, such as CT-ventilation and dose accumulation.

PURPOSE: This study develops 3D deep learning models to identify phase-binning artifacts at the voxel level and a heuristic, rule-based method to identify interpolation slices within 4DCT images.

METHODS: We introduce a generator that systematically inserts synthetic phase-binning and interpolation artifacts into any artifact-free breathing phase obtained …

Floodplain Lake Hydrodynamic And Morphodynamic Connections Through Hydraulic Modeling Along The Pee Dee River, Sc, Charles Cj Mina

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Rivers have been essential in the success of humankind. This reliance has created a vested interest in studying the rivers' environmental history through using floodplain deposits, with the assumption that coarser sediments correlate to higher discharge floods. However, shifting hydrological connectivity and hydrodynamics can complicate this correlation in primary repositories of flood deposits, oxbow lakes, by altering the texture of sediments delivered to them. Studying these complications is essential for quantifying paleoflood magnitude using the sediment record, but has been difficult, as the currently used index of hydrological connectivity relies on water stage, which does not reflect the sediment flux …

Essays On The Economics Of Farmland Valuation And Investment In U.S. Agriculture, Colson Tester

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation presents three empirical essays that collectively advance the understanding of farmland valuation in key U.S. agricultural regions, emphasizing the critical advantages of comprehensive, transaction-based data over traditional survey methods. Farmland represents a significant portion of agricultural wealth, and its accurate valuation is crucial for farmers, investors, and policymakers, influencing everything from credit access to investment strategies. Historically, research has often relied on subjective survey data, which can suffer from biases, inaccuracies, and insufficient granularity. This dissertation addresses these limitations by leveraging extensive datasets of arm’s-length farmland transactions, offering a more precise and market-driven perspective on land values. The …

Impacts Of Nutrient Addition And Disturbance On Coastal Dune Arthropod Communities And Trophic Interactions, Kayla Beitzel

Graduate Theses and Dissertations (2019 - present)

Coastal dune ecosystems face ongoing threats from human-mediated disturbance and altered resource availability. Because these dunes provide critical habitat for many organisms, including shorebirds, beach mice, and arthropods, changes in disturbance regimes or resource availability can impact plant communities and higher trophic levels by altering plant richness and productivity, which in turn influence arthropod abundance and diversity. To examine how disturbance and nutrient addition affect arthropod communities, we established twenty 5×5 m plots on Dauphin Island, crossing mechanical disturbance with a 10 g m⁻² addition of nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium, replicated across five experimental blocks. Arthropods were sampled using three …

Performance Enhancement For Rufa: Rapid Urban Forest Assessment, Nicholas Tan

Master's Theses

Urban forests are crucial to the livability and resilience of cities, offering critical ecosystem benefits such as air quality enhancement, temperature regulation, and biodiversity. Managing said urban forests is essential to ensure their sustainability and adaptability to rapidly changing environmental and climate conditions. The Rapid Urban Forest Assessment (RUFA) tool was developed to address the need for a standardized approach to evaluating and comparing urban and community forestry programs. By analyzing and aggregating tree-specific data across California, such as canopy cover, tree counts, and diversity scores, RUFA assigns a comprehensive urban forestry score for each city. This score allows for …

An Analysis Of Neuroidal Memory Formation Within D. Melanogaster, Jerry Chang

Master's Theses

The Neuroidal model poses a neurobiologically plausible theory for modeling the brain. This symbolic network has been shown to capture realistic memorization behaviors using the JOIN algorithm. The model has also been recently improved by incorporating Watts-Strogatz small-worlds within its base structure. From the efforts of neuroscience researchers, we have access to the Drosophila melanogaster (D. melanogaster) fruit fly’s connectome, which has been found to also contain small-worlds in this thesis. By synthesizing the Ocellar Ganglion (OCG) region of Drosophila, we compare a digitized version of a real-world brain with an instance of the Neuroidal model. In this thesis, we …

The Food Truck: A Multi-Product Newsvendor With Expectile Risk, Sekyiwaah Nuamah

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Newsvendor Problem is a fundamental model in Operation Research and Supply Chain Management used to determine the optimal order quantity under uncertain demand to minimize expected costs.
This research extends the classical Newsvendor problem to a multi--product setting, addressing the risk of asymmetric cost structures faced by a food truck. This thesis introduces expectile risk measures to quantify and manage uncertainty in demand, moving beyond traditional risk metrics. To evaluate the impact of expectile-based decision-making, we analyze three types of demand distributions--simple, symmetric, and skewed. For skewed distributions, we apply linear spline inverse interpolation to derive expectile values from …

Spatial–Temporal Evolution Of The Box Springs Plutonic Complex, Riverside, Ca, Mateo Ospino Díaz

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The mechanisms of pluton emplacement into continental crust have long been debated in igneous geology, with early models emphasizing forceful processes such as ballooning, later contrasted by alternative emplacement mechanisms including diapirism, incremental assembly, stoping and, emplacement by sheets and dikes. These contrasting perspectives highlight the complexity of the construction of mid-crustal intrusions and the need for case studies that integrate multiple datasets. The Box Springs Plutonic Complex (BSPC) in the northern Peninsular Ranges Batholith (PRB) preserves structural, textural, and compositional features that record its emplacement and internal construction. Although its lithology, structure, and geochemistry have been described, an integrated …

(R2137) Smarandache Curved Ruled Surfaces And Their Characterizations According To Modified Orthogonal Frame In E^3, Gülnur Şaffak Atalay

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

In this study, the ruled surfaces generated by Smarandache curves are expressed according to the modified orthogonal frame defined according to both curvature and torsion of the given unit speed curve in 3-dimensional Euclidean space; some special characterizations of these surfaces such as developability, striction curves, distribution parameters are given. In addition, some examples of these surfaces are given in graphical form. We use Maple to draw the graphs of the examples.

(R2130) Cusum-Test For Unconditional Variance Change Detection In Bilinear Garch Models, Edoh Katchekpele, Abdou Kâ Diongue, Ben Célestin Kouassi

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

We examine CUSUM-type test for detecting changes in unconditional variance within Bilinear GARCH models. We derive the asymptotic distribution of the test statistic under both null and alternative hypotheses and assess test effectiveness in identifying single structural breaks. Simulation studies support our theoretical results and demonstrate the practical utility of the test.

Examination Of Differences Of Similar-Sized Martian Craters At The Simple-Complex Transition As Revealed By High-Resolution Imaging And Stereo-Derived Topography, Lindsey Dorn

Geosciences

Impact craters on Mars have a wide range of morphologies, and the relationship between the mechanics of their formation and their eventual morphologies is still not completely understood. By examining craters within a narrow diameter range, impact energies are constrained to similar values - enabling focused investigation of target properties and their influence on crater excavation and modification. There is a transition from simple bowl-shaped depressions to complex craters with terraced walls and central floor structures with increasing crater diameter. We analyzed target influences on morphology by examining eleven well-preserved craters of varying morphologies in the 7 to 9 km …

Multi-Scale Insar Investigations Of Anthropogenic And Natural Processes In The American Southwest, Emily Jo Graves

Geosciences

Arid regions in the American Southwest undergo measurable surface deformation driven by variations in subsurface fluid pressure, and other natural and anthropogenic processes. These processes range from regional scale aquifer dynamics to local oil and gas wellsite activities. This dissertation produces and then utilizes InSAR-derived average velocity fields and displacement time series to reveal and understand these multi-scale processes, their interactions, and impacts for a portion of the American Southwest. Chapter 1 discusses the climate and natural and anthropogenic processes present in our study area. In Chapter 2, we generate detailed large scale average velocity maps that reveal deformation associated …

Evaluating Utilidor Performance And Ground Temperature Variability In UtqiaġVik, Tate Rachow

Geosciences

Permafrost degradation in Arctic regions poses increasing risks to infrastructure as climate warming accelerates thaw processes, alters hydrology, and deepens the active layer. In Utqiaġvik, Alaska, utilidors— utility conduits—play a vital role in protecting water and wastewater services, yet their thermal performance under changing conditions remains poorly constrained. This thesis evaluates the thermal behavior of the Site U-1 direct buried pipes on Stevenson Street using historical thermistor resistance data converted to temperature, combined with calibrated two- dimensional TEMP/W numerical models. The models incorporate layered backfill materials and polyurethane insulation, while also simulating operational influences of water and wastewater temperatures. Calibration …

Synthesis Of Antibody Functionalized Polyaniline/Polystyrene/N-Gqds Composite Fibermats For Sweat Based Cortisol Biosensing Applications, Ashwin James

Honors Theses

Noninvasive, wearable biosensors capable of detecting stress biomarkers in sweat require electrodes that are flexible, conductive, insoluble in water, and highly sensitive at low concentrations of analyte. In this work, bovine serum albumin blocked and anti-cmab immobilized nitrogen doped graphene quantum dots integrated polyaniline/polystyrene composite fibermat electrodes (BSA/Anti-Cmab/N-GQDs/PANI/PS electrodes) were synthesized and evaluated as a potential platform for an electrochemical cortisol biosensor in sweat based systems. Polyaniline was utilized in order to provide electrical conductivity, while polystyrene served as a carrying polymer for mechanical support and its hydrophobicity. Composite fibermats were manufactured through Forcespinning™, followed by a secondary polyaniline graft …

Engineering Risk And Indigenous Resilience Toward Intelligent Decision Support For Mining In Ancestral Lands, Izech Brian O. Edwin, King Harold A. Recto

Electronics, Computer, and Communications Engineering Faculty Publications

Mining within ancestral territories reveals an ongoing conflict between technical viability and Indigenous consent. This collaborative study, conducted by an engineering scholar and a policy researcher of Indigenous heritage in Benguet among the Ibaloi and Kankanaey peoples, investigates how risk transparency and policy alignment can bridge existing divides, while formulating principles applicable to other Indigenous mining contexts. The study provides an initial evaluation of the feasibility of a proposed large-scale mining operation within a risk-informed, data-driven governance framework. Three elements of engineering risk were assessed utilizing literature-derived and proxy parameters: (1) Land degradation is indicated by a Soil Productivity Index …

Investigating The Efficiency Of Ingan P-N-P-N Homojunction Solar Cells, Moath Alhejji, Mohammad Alavijeh, Jacob Kupernik, Mirsaeid Sarollahi, Abbas Jammali, Seyed Taghavi, Reem Alhelais, Md Hel Uddin Maruf, Morgan Ware

Electrical Engineering and Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This research investigates the development of a novel p-n-p-n homostructure solar cell, through semiconductor simulations using the Nextnano software. InGaN was used as a model system in order to achieve a bandgap with optimized efficiency for a p-n homojunction solar cell. By increasing the uniform doping concentration from 1.5*10(16) cm(-3) to 1.5*10(17) cm(-3), the open circuit voltage (V-oc) increased while the short-circuit current density (J(sc)) decreased, as expected in simple p-n junctions. The p-n-p-n structure achieved a peak efficiency of 32.91% at a doping level of 6.5*10(16) cm(-3), a similar to 7% improvement over a conventional p-n junction's 25.31% efficiency …

Proverag: Provenance-Driven Vulnerability Analysis With Automated Retrieval-Augmented Llms, Reza Fayyazi, Stella Hoyos Trueba, Michael Zuzak, Jay Yang

Institute for Informatics and Applied Technology Scholarship

In cybersecurity, security analysts constantly face the challenge of mitigating newly discovered vulnerabilities in real-time, with over 300,000 vulnerabilities identified since 1999. The sheer volume of known vulnerabilities complicates the detection of patterns for unknown threats. While LLMs can assist, they often hallucinate and lack alignment with recent threats. Over 40,000 vulnerabilities have been identified in 2024 alone, which are introduced after most popular LLMs’ (e.g., GPT-5) training data cutoff. This raises a major challenge of leveraging LLMs in cybersecurity, where accuracy and up-to-date information are paramount. Therefore, we aim to improve the adaptation of LLMs in vulnerability analysis by …