Other Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Mathematical Model Of Devil Facial Tumor Disease (Dftd) Spread In Tasmanian Devils, Abigail Collins

Scholars Week

Applications of disease models can lead to insight on spread of diseases, population movements, and wildlife health safety. This exploration of mathematical models sought to determine the spread of wildlife disease, specifically devil facial tumor disease (DFTD). Tasmanian devil populations have been negatively affected by DFTD. The basic SIR disease model was modified to better fit the spread of DFTD, along with a network model to inspect the rate of infectivity. It was found that the population of Tasmanian devils will continue to decrease in size and multiple populations are connected to each other. Models of wildlife disease have the …

Weather And Climate Research At The Kentucky Climate Center Based On Mesonet Observations, Brittany Pekara, Eric Rappin

Posters-at-the-Capitol

The Kentucky Mesonet is a great asset for the Commonwealth of Kentucky in a multitude of ways, from real-time storm monitoring to building a detailed climate record. A detailed climate record is essential as causality between observations and extreme weather can be identified, making it a great tool in an evolving climate system. The climate record being developed at the 75+ Kentucky Mesonet observation stations consists of approximately 75 indices that reflect frequency, extremes, range, duration, trends of precipitation, droughts, and extreme temperatures. Calculations are done for daily, weekly, monthly, seasonal, bi-annual, and annual aggregation periods. Tools will also be …

Diffusing Wild Type And Sterile Mosquitoes In An Optimal Control Setting, K. Renee Fister, Maeve L. Mccarthy, Seth F. Oppenheimer

Faculty & Staff Research and Creative Activity

This paper develops an optimal control framework to investigate the introduction of sterile type mosquitoes to reduce the overal moquito population. As is well known, mosquitoes are vectors of disease. For instance the WHO lists, among other diseases, Malaria, Dengue Fever, Rift Valley Fever, Yellow Fever, Chikungunya Fever and Zika. [http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs387/en/ ] The goal is to establish the existence of a solution given an optimal sterilization protocol as well as to develop the corresponding optimal control representation to minimize the infiltrating mosquito population while minimizing fecundity and the number of sterile type mosquitoes introduced into the environment per unit time. …

Integration Of Lidar And Imagery To Delineated Water Bodies For Change Detection, Ashley E. Casselberry, Cetin Haluk

Scholars Week

Through integration of Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) data and high spatial imagery, it is plausible to delineate the bodies of water in order to monitor their changes in size. The purpose of this study is to integrate two different sets of LiDAR data, several multi-date high spatial resolution National Agriculture Imagery Program (NAIP) images, and multi-dateLandsat-8 satellite images of Ballard County, Kentucky for the delineation of the water bodies in the County. Accuracy and precision of the datasets in terms of spatial and spectral resolutions will be examined. The hypothesis is that an integration of such datasets would provide …

Vegetation Mapping Of Mammoth Cave National Park Using Multi-Date Landsat-8 Imagery And Lidar Data, Hongli Yang, Robin Q. Zhang

Scholars Week

Up-to-date and detailed vegetation map provides critical information for habitat management. In addition, a vegetation map is necessary for the Park’s Fire Management, for classification of fuel types, and for delineation of fire management units. There have been several attempts of vegetation mapping in 1934, 1975 and 1997. Recent advancements in mapping technology and the availability of high resolution Lidar data call for a new vegetation map for the Park’s management team.

In this study, Landsat-8 Operational Land Imager (OLI) imagery, Lidar and geology dataset were applied to vegetation mapping. Habitat types are determined by a combination of geology, aspect …