Drosophila suzukii was a known pest of berries, grapes, and stone fruits in East Asia for almost a century. Yet in recent years it has successfully migrated throughout the United States, Mexico, and Europe due to globalized fruit trade. The invasive success of D. suzukii is causing unrest for fruit...
Since the Altman Z-score was published in 1968, the Z-score has been a common way that investors predict bankruptcy and value risk. However, corporate structure has evolved since 1968 due to changes in economic factors and financial reporting standards. In 1976, the FASB created the first bright-line rules to distinguish...
We do not fully understand reasons behind extinction of populations and species. Consequently, our ability to anticipate extinction (which can be considered a permanent type of an ecological threshold) has remained elusive. In particular, it is not clear how the attributes of episodic disturbance regimes can elicit extinction. In this...
The purpose of this project is to examine the effect of the slot gap spacing on a multi element rear
wing. A three element rear wing is used in order to produce maximum downforce at the relatively
low speed of Formula SAE competitions. These high lift configurations serve to increase...
Diatoms are single celled eukaryotic microalgae that self-assemble complex SiO₂
nanostructures by sillafin proteins within their cell wall. There has been increasing
interest in mimicking the diatom’s silica self-assembly process for fabricating metal
oxide nanoparticles, namely germanium dioxide (GeO₂). GeO₂ has a higher refractive
index than silica, enabling it to...
This study examines the relationships between player salaries and performance in the
National Basketball Association, by analyzing team salaries and statistics for the five seasons between 2008 and 2013. We find that the teams are able to achieve more wins by
outspending their competitors, even if that means incurring a...
Pactamycin, a complex aminocyclitol compound produced by Streptomyces pactum, has significant antibiotic, antitumor, and antiplasmodial activity. However, this natural product has not been developed for clinical use due to its high cytotoxicity. Modulation of its biological properties by chemical synthesis has been difficult due to its complex chemical structure. Therefore,...
A new technique is developed to recover elemental tellurium (Te) from cadmium telluride (CdTe) which is abundantly available in photovoltaic semiconductor waste. The method is based on microchannel fluid flow with the use of a supported liquid membrane (SLM) between the donor (feed) and acceptor (strip) channels. A predictive theoretical...
With the growing incidence of total hip replacements performed each year in the United States, the incidence of patients with prosthesis requiring radiotherapy is bound to increase. It is necessary to understand and quantify the effects of the high atomic number material prostheses used in total hip replacements on therapeutic...
Constraining the magma evolution and dynamics that lead to the eruption of large volume continental arc systems is fundamental to our understanding of continental crust formation. An investigation into the magmagenesis that results in the formation of the Central Volcanic Zone (CVZ) in the Andes of South America, situated atop...
Quantum physics in the Copenhagen interpretation places an unsatisfying divide between the quantum and classical worlds. Decoherence -- the destruction of superposition states of the system -- helps us understand how the quantum transitions to the classical. Quantum Darwinism builds on decoherence to understand how information about the system is...
The slow β relaxation is understood to be a universal feature of glassy dynamics. Its presence in bulk metallic
glasses (BMGs) is evidence of a broad relaxation time spectrum that extends to deep within the glassy state.
Despite the breadth of research devoted to this phenomenon, its microscopic origin is...
End-user programming has become widespread. The increasing size of this population and the prevalence of barriers that they face has sparked the development of approaches that promote end-user programing by helping them overcome barriers and teaching them programming. Despite the fact that these approaches have done well in achieving those...
The release of the IEEE802.15.6 standard has led to increased interest in low-power technologies for wireless body-area-networks (WBANs). The power dissipation, supply voltage, and die area are some of the most important criteria for successful WBAN implementations. Digital-intensive RX architectures can potentially result in sub-1V operation with significant reductions in...
Large-scale safety-net programs such as Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) and the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) have been shown to alleviate the negative effects of low-wage jobs and unemployment on poor American households. However, less is known about the role of “emergency” safety net programs, such as rental...
Fennema and Sherman (1976) defined math anxiety as "feelings of anxiety, dread, nervousness, and associated bodily symptoms related to doing mathematics" (p. 326). The longitudinal impact that math anxiety has on adolescent students can include their experiencing reduced math achievement, avoiding majors that involve large amounts of math, and choosing...
Previous studies have shown that both younger and older adults exhibit similar brain activity while anticipating monetary gain but older adults exhibit less brain activity comparing to younger adults while anticipating monetary loss. In Anderson et al.’s (2011) study, they found that visual search was slower with a salient, task-irrelevant...
Previous studies have suggested that negatively valenced faces (e.g., angry faces) automatically capture attention away from faces with other emotional valences (e.g., happy faces and neutral faces). The present study evaluated two experiments with age-related differences: the first assessed recognition memory for pictures of faces and how it is modulated...