The fate of biologically available nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) in stream ecosystems is controlled by the coupling of physical transport and biogeochemical reaction kinetics. However, determining the relative role of physical and biogeochemical controls at different temporal and spatial scales is difficult. The hyporheic zone (HZ), where groundwater–stream water...
Understanding the dynamics of seasonal epizootics of vector-borne pathogens infecting multiple host species presents several challenges. The transmission potential of competent hosts depends on factors influencing the contact rate between hosts and vectors. Feeding preferences of vectors can determine which host species drive the prevalence of infection throughout the overall...
The introduction of an Magnetohydrodynamic (MHD) generator in coal or natural gas energy plants could significantly increase the efficiency by converting kinetic and thermal energy of the combustion exhaust to electrical energy by the generation of a Faraday and Hall current. The traditional MHD system was transformed into a simplified...
This work presents improvements to a multi-core performance/power simulator. The improvements which include updated power models, voltage scaling aware models, and an application specific benchmark, are done to increase the accuracy of power models under voltage and frequency scaling. Improvements to the simulator enable more accurate design space exploration for...
Malaria is a vector-borne disease that has affected humans and other animals for a long time and which has shown high prevalence among different populations. During the beginning of the 20th century, Sir Ronald Ross and George Macdonald developed a model that represents the spread of malaria through the interaction...
Microplastics (<5mm diameter) are present in a considerable number of marine and aquatic species. Understanding which species, the global spatial distribution, and what quantities of microplastics are present is extremely important for understanding the potential impacts they could have on recreationally important organisms and for the assessment of risk. We...
This thesis consists of three subsequent parts addressing the applications of stochastic
processes to the analysis and solutions of parabolic equations with discontinuous coefficients
that are of mathematical interest.
The first two parts consist of three manuscripts, in which we analyze solutions
of Fickian convection dispersion equations with discontinuous coefficients...
Biological invasions provide a unique opportunity to study the mechanisms that regulate community composition and ecosystem function. Invasive species that are also ecosystem engineers can substantially alter physical features in an environment, and this can lead to cascading effects on the biological community. Aquatic-terrestrial interface ecosystems are excellent systems to...
The feedbacks between hydrology and biogeochemical cycling of nitrogen (N) are of critical importance to global bioavailable N budgets. Human activities are dramatically increasing the amount of bioavailable N in the biosphere, which is causing increasingly frequent and severe impacts on ecosystems and human welfare. Streams are important features in...
The goal of this research was to explore if an inkjet 3D printing technology, known as Multi Jet Fusion (MJF), could be used to fabricate magnetic polymer nanocomposites with systematically varied volume fractions of magnetic nanoparticles. Soft magnetic nanoparticles were chosen because of their applications in communications technologies and other...