Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Microgrid Assessment And Ml-Based Power System Faults Detection Leveraging Real-Time Co-Simulation, Diego Normando Gandara Mendez

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The rapid growth of distributed energy resources (DERs) and the increasing reliance on data-driven decision making have reshaped the operational challenges of modern electric power systems. As microgrids become more prominent in distribution networks, utilities require methods that unify planning, control, and real-time situational awareness to ensure resilient operation under faulted or uncertain conditions. The goal of this MSEE thesis is to design and validate a latency-aware ML framework for rapid, reliable fault detection in distribution grids. To achieve the goal of the thesis, there are three specific objectives. Objective 1 evaluates optimized microgrid configurations under varying DER levels and …

Lamda: A Longitudinal Android Malware Dataset For Benchmarking Concept Drift Detection And Adaptation, Md Ahsanul Haque

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Machine learning (ML)-based malware detection systems often fail to account for the dynamic nature of real-world training and test data distributions. In practice, these distributions evolve due to frequent changes in the Android ecosystem, adversarial development of new malware families, and the continuous emergence of both benign and malicious applications. Prior studies have shown that such concept drift—distributional shifts in benign and malicious samples—leads to significant degradation in detection performance over time. Despite the practical importance of this issue, existing datasets are often outdated and limited in temporal scope, diversity of malware families, and sample scale, making them insufficient for …

Using Uranium And Strontium Isotopes To Identify Water Flow Paths And Solute Sources In Agricultural Upper Snake-Rock Watershed In Idaho: Understanding Agrohydrology Processes Of Dryland Critical Zone, Jennifer Herrera

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Irrigation in agricultural systems alters hydrological cycles by redistributing surface water and groundwater, modifying Critical Zone elemental cycles, and impacting water quality and availability. Here, I focus on understanding agrohydrologic processes in Dryland Critical Zones and the impacts of land-use changes and climate variability in the extensively irrigated agricultural Upper Snake-Rock Watershed in semi-arid south-central Idaho. The Snake River originates in Wyoming and flows across southern and central Idaho. The Snake River supplies irrigation water to the Kimberly and Twin Falls areas of Idaho, the focus of this study, which is characterized by intensive agricultural activity. With the increasing pressure …

Exploiting The In-Distribution Embedding Space With Deep Learning And Gaussian Discriminant Analysis For An Out-Of-Distribution Malware Attach Detection, Tosin Olusola Ige

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

State-of-the-art machine and deep learning models generally perform well on previously seen data, albeit with wrong close world assumption that all real-world data are from previously seen train and validation samples, hence there poor performance when exposed to data which deviates from previously seen training and validation set. This is clearly evident in the domain of cybersecurity where the world continues to experience several high profile malware attacks despite advancement in state-of-the-art research. The reason being that the constant evolvement of innovation in the development of tools and method deployed to carry out various attacks had given hackers and other …

Phishibl: A Systematic Evaluation Of Instance-Based Learning Model For Predicting Phishing Susceptibility, Shova Kuikel

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

Despite enormous efforts to develop defenses against phishing attacks, humans still struggle to detect phishing emails given the constantly evolving attacker strategies. This thesis aims to test the predictive capabilities of a cognitive model that represents the individual susceptibility to phishing emails. While training programs aim to raise awareness, most remain outdated and ineffective against evolving attack strategies. Recent advances in Machine Learning, Artificial Intelligence, and Large Language Models (LLMs) offer new defenses, yet understanding human decision processes remains crucial, as effective systems must emulate how people evaluate unfamiliar emails based on prior experience. This research introduces a cognitive model …

Lorentz Invariance And Quantum Coordination: A Neo-Aristotelian Framework For Entanglement And Relativity, Angel Rafael Sosa Muniz

Open Access Theses & Dissertations

The phenomenon of quantum entanglement has been at the center of heated debates among physicists and philosophers since the dawn of the quantum era. The early discussions initiated by Einstein, Podolsky, and Rosen—regarding potential violations of the Principle of Relativity by entangled particles, expressed in the so-called “EPR Paradox”—ultimately culminated in the demonstration of Bell’s theorem and its violations. Since then, philosophers of science and physicists have developed multiple proposals attempting to account for the ontological status of quantum formalism and its possible tension with relativistic principles. This thesis contributes to these efforts by advancing a Neo-Aristotelian ontological framework inspired …

Reservoir Characterization Of The Clarksville Formation In Red River County, Texas, Matthew Allen Parker

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The Upper Jurassic Clarksville Formation in northern Texas and southern Oklahoma is a productive but poorly understood sandstone–conglomerate unit with unresolved questions regarding its depositional environment and sediment provenance. This study evaluates the depositional setting, spatial distribution, and diagenetic controls of the Clarksville Formation using integrated core and well log analyses in Red River County, Texas. Three cores (Lennox Unit #1, Reeder Oil Unit #2, and Reeder Oil Unit #7) were analyzed for lithology, mineralogy, porosity, permeability, and fluid saturation, and correlated with 137 well logs to map formation thickness and regional trends.

Four lithofacies were identified based on core …

The Transition Zone Hypothesis On Biodiversity Of The Indian River Lagoon System, Florida, Richard L. Turner

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

The Indian River Lagoon System (IRL) is regarded as having a high level of biodiversity. The level of biodiversity is often attributed in part to the 2-degree latitudinal span (251 km) of the IRL and to its position in a transitional zone between tropical and temperate biotic provinces. This hypothesis was tested for submerged aquatic vegetation (SAV) based on a recent treatise (Littler, Littler, and Hanisak, 2008). Five of seven species of seagrass are tropical, and two have either a broad or very narrow latitudinal distribution; the transition-zone hypothesis does not hold for seagrasses. Most macroalgae (131 spp.) are tropical/subtropical; …

The Effects Of Green Orientation And Technological Agility On Sustainable Competitive Advantage Under Environmental Uncertainty: Organizational Agility As A Pathway, Sahilali Saiyed, Vimal Kumar, Abdul Waaje, Adi Prasetyo Tedjakusuma

Michigan Tech Publications

Despite the strengthened efforts on sustainability and technological activities by firms, the existing literature lacks a clear picture regarding how green orientation (GO) and technological agility (TAG) can be transformed into sustainable competitive advantage (SCA) and at what time the conversion process may be most efficient. This paper conceptualizes organizational agility (OGA) based on the resource-based view (RBV) and dynamic capabilities theory (DCT) and hypothesizes that GO and TAG indirectly affect SCA with the mediating impact of environmental uncertainty (ELU). A moderated-mediation model was tested based on a sample of 200 managers (HR, marketing, accounting/finance, quality control, R&D) of auto-parts …

Benthic Infaunal Responses To Shoreline Restoration, Jessica Lauren Cline

Theses and Dissertations

In the age of increasing urban coastal sprawl, natural shorelines are being replaced by hard armoring structures, which result in the loss of valuable ecosystem services. Hybrid living shorelines, areas that include limited and less intensive armoring strategies paired with the integration of plants and other natural materials, present an opportunity to marry the need for more aggressive stabilization with the continued preservation of ecosystem functions and biological communities. This project uses benthic infauna to evaluate the success of a living shoreline installation in Palm Bay, Florida. The deployment features experimental treatments of breakwaters and red mangroves to explore how …

Qualitative Stereo Vision Using Distributed Extended Waltz Filtering, Ben Mathew

Theses and Dissertations

Stereo vision is a fundamental problem in computer vision, aimed at reconstructing three-dimensional scene structure from two or more two-dimensional images. Traditional stereo algorithms rely on quantitative disparity estimation, often constrained by calibration precision, lighting variations, and surface texture. In contrast, our proposed Qualitative Stereo Vision seeks to understand depth relationships and spatial configurations from multiple planar views through symbolic reasoning and constraint satisfaction, offering a more flexible and cognitively plausible approach to scene interpretation.

This dissertation presents a novel framework called Distributed Extended Waltz Filtering, designed to provide qualitative stereo vision, particularly in the presence of occlusions—a persistent challenge …

Occurrence Of Per And Polyfluoroalkyl Substances In Rural Wastewater Treatment Plants And Comparison To Large Treatments Plants, Madeleine Rauhauser

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Per and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) are a class of compounds defined by their carbon – fluorine bonds, which are incredibly strong. The strength of this bond makes these compounds very useful industrially, they are used as waterproof and grease proof coatings, and as fire retardants. The same thing that makes them useful industrially makes them incredibly recalcitrant in the environment, it is difficult to destroy these compounds. PFAS are also suspected to cause health impacts in people, such as kidney cancer and low birth weights. Wastewater has been commonly identified as a contributor to the amount of PFAS in the …

Securing Connected And Autonomous Vehicles, Owana Marzia Moushi

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

A vehicular network is susceptible to various security flaws and attacks. Cryptographic techniques are used in vehicular networks but these alone cannot provide proper security to the network. Identifying various types of attacks is necessary to secure vehicular communication networks. In this dissertation, we focused on detecting various insider attacks in vehicular networks to enhance the security of the network.

Our first contribution in this dissertation is the detection of both binary and multi-class data replay and data replay Sybil attacks in vehicular networks. A publicly available dataset, VeReMi-Extension is used to detect these attacks. This dataset has been reformulated …

Effect Of Planting Date, Insecticide Efficacy, And Hail Injury On Soybean Gall Midge (Resseliella Maxima Gagné) Infestation In Soybean, Natasha Hiromi Umezu

Dissertations and Doctoral Documents, University of Nebraska-Lincoln, 2023–

Resseliella maxima Gagné (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae) is a recently described and economically significant pest of soybean (Glycine max (L.) Merr.) in the Midwestern United States. Since its identification in 2019, this species has become widespread and is now associated with substantial yield losses in parts of the region. Prior to its formal description, orange larvae were observed in soybean associated with plants damaged by hail, suggesting that plant injury may influence infestation. Given the pest’s economic importance, understanding the role of hail injury and developing effective, integrated management strategies are critical for mitigating its impact.

Field studies were conducted to …

Reverse (Bio)Engineering: A Machine Learning Approach To Optimize Baseball Pitcher Health And Performance, Robert C. Moore

All Dissertations

Ball tracking systems are becoming ubiquitous in sport, creating an unprecedented opportunity for big data applications to optimize human health and performance. These applications are especially common in baseball, a sport known for analyzing ball flight data to quantify performance. Analysts routinely use ball flight data to identify the attributes of top performing pitchers, finding that the best pitchers throw with optimal combinations of release speed and spin to precise locations. However, for certain pitchers, the throwing motion required to produce optimal ball flight places exceedingly high biomechanical load on the elbow, and consequently injury rates continue to rise. This …

Contributions To Statistical Modeling And Estimation Of Rainfall Intensity–Duration–Frequency Curves, Jiyun Huang

All Dissertations

Extreme rainfall can cause flooding, damage infrastructure, and create serious risks for communities. Engineers use Intensity-Duration-Frequency (IDF) curves to estimate precipitation extremes over different lengths of time, such as one hour or one day, and the average time one would expect wait for one of these events to occur. Several approaches exist for estimating IDF curves, but no single approach is known to be best in all cases. In this dissertation, I study statistical methods that aim to improve IDF curve estimation. I use the Canadian Regional Climate Model (CanRCM4) Large Ensemble, which contains 35 independent climate simulations. These simulations …

Leveled Homomorphic Encryption Schemes: Noise And Precision Control, Kyle Yates

All Dissertations

Homomorphic encryption allows for computations on encrypted data without exposing the underlying plaintext, enabling secure and private data processing in various applications such as cloud computing and machine learning. In this thesis, we conduct a comprehensive worst-case noise analysis for three prominent leveled homomorphic encryption schemes: Brakerski-Gentry-Vaikuntanathan (BGV), Brakerski-Fan-Vercauteren (BFV), and Cheon-Kim-Kim-Song (CKKS). We propose modifications to these schemes and their residue number system (RNS) variants, ensuring fresh encryption noise falls under a constant bound. For BFV and BGV, we design and prove parameter conditions which guarantee certain homomorphic circuit evaluations return ciphertexts containing noise within a fixed bound. For …

Digital Reflections: Evaluating Body Dissatisfaction In Xr Through Eye- And Body-Tracked Virtual Humans, Deyrel Diaz

All Dissertations

In an era where digital and physical realities increasingly intertwine, the perception of body image is undergoing a significant transformation. Traditional understandings of body dissatisfaction, long studied in relation to psychological distress and eating disorders, are now being reshaped by technologies such as Virtual Reality (VR), Augmented Reality (AR), and Artificially Intelligent (AI)- generated media. These technologies have introduced novel ways of experiencing and interacting with the human form, raising critical questions about their impact on self-perception and internalization of beauty standards.

As virtual representations become more prevalent in entertainment, social media, and interactive platforms, it is becoming more crucial …

Cosmic Duets: A Search For Binary Supermassive Black Holes In Merging Galaxies, Sagar Adhikari

All Dissertations

Galaxies are vast cosmic islands of stars, dust, and gas. They come in various shapes and sizes. They might look static for the timescales we are used to, but they are dynamic and collisional systems that can merge with other galaxies to make bigger galaxies. Most galaxies, including the Milky Way, host a central supermassive black hole (SMBH) with a mass greater than a million (sometimes a billion) times the mass of the Sun. When galaxies merge, their SMBHs form a binary system before ultimately merging. These cosmic duets are of great interest to astronomers and astrophysicists as they are …

On Variations Of Isolation In Graphs, Geoffrey Boyer

All Dissertations

In 2015, Caro and Hansberg introduced a wonderful and natural generalization of the well-studied parameter of domination in graphs. For a graph $G$ and a family of graphs $\FF$, they define $S$ to be an $\FF$-isolating set if $G-N[S]$ contains no member of $\FF$ as a subgraph. The case where $\FF=\{K_1\}$ coincides with domination. The case where $\FF=\{K_2\}$ is now simply referred to as an isolating set. We strengthen known results about the isolation number of a graph, and explore variations of the parameter including the independent and total versions.

In particular for connected graphs of order $n$, a bound …

First Principles Calculation Of Electron-Phonon Coupling In Nonequilibrium Quantum Materials, Chendi Xie

All Dissertations

This dissertation combines first-principles computation and light-induced nonequilibrium analysis to understand and control electron–phonon coupling (EPC) and emergent many-body phenomena in quantum materials, in both equilibrium and nonequilibrium states.

Chapters 1 and 2 build the theoretical and computational foundation, beginning with electron and phonon self-energies, linewidths, and perturbation theory for EPC, followed by density functional theory (DFT) and density functional perturbation theory (DFPT), which serve as the first-principles workhorses used throughout. Chapter 3 reviews Bardeen-Cooper-Schrieffer (BCS) and Migdal-Eliashberg theory, including the BCS gap - transition temperature (T_c) relation and the strong-coupling generalization, and delineates the practical validity bound …

Universal Systems Simulation Via Constraint Hypergraphs With Applications To Digital Twins, John Morris

All Dissertations

The characterization of systems encompasses a variety of modeling frameworks designed to capture specific behaviors and components of various system domains. Whatever the framework, the core elements of a system representation are the information of the system and a description of how that information is related. The relations in deterministic systems are functions, which, when composed to form executable processes, can be used to simulate system data. A declarative modeling framework is one that encodes mechanisms for preparing these simulations within the model structure, allowing an external agent to form the execution processes required for a given context. To date, …

Flexible Spatial Priors In Bayesian Neuroimaging: Gmrf, Nngp, And Deep Gmrf, Boyoung Hur

All Dissertations

Structural neuroimaging is essential for understanding neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s disease, enabling accurate delineation of brain regions through image segmentation. Among various segmentation methods, multi-atlas-based approaches like label fusion have become leading techniques. In statistics, Bayesian hierarchical models for label fusion are increasingly favored for their ability to incorporate uncertainty and prior knowledge. Also, a key challenge in modeling neuroimaging data is spatial dependence among image voxels, making the choice of spatial prior critical—particularly in high-resolution settings where segmentation accuracy and computational efficiency are both essential.

This dissertation proposes fully Bayesian spatial hierarchical models that explore two flex- ible …

Spectroscopic Studies Of Metal Containing Molecules Under Jet-Cooled Conditions Using Laster-Induced Fluoresence (Lif) And Dispersed Fluorescence (Df) Techniques., Md Touhidul Islam

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation examines the jet-cooled spectroscopy of the calcium propoxide radical (CaOC₃H₇) to understand how increasing molecular complexity reshapes symmetry, electronic degeneracy, and vibronic coupling. Moving from Ca–OCH₃ to Ca–OC₃H₇ lowers symmetry (C₃v → Cs → C₁) and exposes effects such as spin–orbit splitting and both Jahn–Teller and pseudo–Jahn–Teller distortions. These features remodel the excited-state potential surfaces and are directly observable with laser-induced fluorescence (LIF) and dispersed fluorescence (DF). A central goal is to evaluate whether CaOC₃H₇ supports the near-diagonal vibronic branching needed for efficient optical cycling, while also highlighting implications for catalysis and astrochemistry, where precise spectral fingerprints guide …

Preparing Confident Elementary Mathematics Teachers: Addressing Anxiety, Building Fluency, And Strengthening Practice., Amber Diamond Pendleton

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation, presented in three articles, examines how elementary preservice teachers (PSTs) experience and develop as mathematics learners and future educators when methods coursework deliberately integrates mathematical reasoning with affective supports. Collectively, the studies investigate how research-informed instructional design may help address mathematics anxiety (MA), mathematics teaching anxiety (MTA), procedural fluency, and instructional practice. The first article, written for practitioners and elementary mathematics teachers, illustrates how well-established instructional routines, such as number talks and student work analysis, can be facilitated to support procedural fluency in multiplication. Using classroom vignettes, this article highlights instructional moves that make structure visible, promote strategy …

Controlling Selectivity In Electrocatalytic Co2 Reduction With An External Magnetic Field., Nawaraj Karki

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

My dissertation describes how to alter the speciation and concentration of molecules at the electrode-electrolyte interface, and how those alterations affect reactivity and selectivity. This dissertation presents two distinct approaches to control the mass transport of neutral molecules such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) at the electrode-electrolyte interface by using an external magnetic field. The first finding demonstrates that magnetic fields indirectly affect the mass transport of target analytes such as CO₂ molecules by selectively interacting with charged species, such as hydroxide ions (OH^-). Such interaction induces magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) effects, which generate localized hydrodynamic flow and …

Symmetry, Stability, And Robust Optimization Strategies For Nonorthogonal Multiconfiguration Self-Consistent Field Wavefunctions., Zihui Song

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The "different orbital different configuration" (DODC) framework is a general formulation of multireference wavefunctions that allows each configuration (determinant) to possess its own set of optimized molecular orbitals, rather than sharing a common orbital basis as in conventional orthogonal configuration interaction (CI) or Complete Active Space Self-Consistent Field (CASSCF) methods. One prominent example of the DODC framework is the Nonorthogonal Configuration Interaction (NOCI) method, which relaxes the orthogonality constraint between the orbitals of different configurations. This relaxation enables a compact yet flexible description of systems exhibiting strong correlation. By employing multiple nonorthogonal reference determinants, NOCI naturally incorporates orbital relaxation and …

By The Numbers: Numeracy, Religion, And The Quantitative Transformation Of Early Modern England (Book Review), Calvin Jongsma

Faculty Work Comprehensive List

Reviewed Title: By the Numbers: Numeracy, Religion, and the Quantitative Transformation of Early Modern England by Jessica Marie Otis. New York, NY: Oxford University Press, 2024. 264 pp. ISBN: 9780197608777.

Mechanistic Analysis Of Rare Earth Element Extraction From Coal Byproducts Using Supercritical Fluid Process: Solubility Studies Of Supercritical Carbon Dioxide With Tbp: Hno3 Complex, Zakiya Konda Nurudeen

Engineering

This thesis introduced the essence of REE application in the modern world, the primary and secondary sources of REEs. It revised the fundamentals of supercritical carbon dioxide (SC- CO2), its application in REE extraction as green technology, the complex formation of tributyl phosphate (TBP)- nitric acid (HNO3), and temperature-pressure effects in REE extraction. The methodology systematically examined the thermodynamic solubility of CO2 in TBP-nitric acid (HNO3) complexes at three molar ratios (2:1, 1:1, and 1:2), temperatures between 40-60 degrees Celsius, and at a maximum pressure of 12 MPa, respectively. Preliminary extraction experimental runs were conducted to validate solubility studies. Data …

Studies Of Trispyrazolylborate Molybdenum-Oxo Compounds And Related Reactions, Miranda Sanders

Graduate Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation details the design, development, and synthesis of a molybdenum-dioxo complex bearing a trispyrazolylborate ligand. The system was tested for its efficiency as a catalyst for deoxydehydration with a small substrate scope. Deoxydehydration reactions with 1-phenyl-1,2-ethanediol, diethytartrate, and 1,2-octanediol show low yields with catalytic turnover only found for diethyltartrate. Electrochemical studies show well behaved PCET behavior with two distinct electron transfer events in the presence of a proton donor. Studies of two molybdenum-dioxo complexes bearing dianionic pincer ligands were conducted to expand further on systems that have been extensively studied in our lab. Deoxydehydration of glycerol by a molybdenum-dioxo …