The aim of this dissertation is to construct a virtual element method (VEM) for models in magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD), an area that studies the behavior and properties of electrically conducting fluids such as a plasma. MHD models are a coupling of the Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetics and models for fluid flow....
We develop several a-priori and a-posteriori error estimates for two-grid finite element discretization of coupled elliptic and parabolic systems with a set of parameters P. We present numerical results that verify the convergence order of the numerical schemes predicted by the a-priori estimates. We present numerical results that verify the...
In 1877 John Kerr described an experiment that demonstrated a quadratic change in refractive index in a plate glass placed in a strong external electric field. This results in a nonlinear relationship between the average electric polarization within the materials and the intensity of the applied electric field. This opened...
Gender has been the subject of study in engineering education and science social research for decades. However, little attention has been given to transgender and gender nonconforming (TGNC) experiences or perspectives. The role of cisgender or gender conforming status has not been investigated nor considered in prevailing frameworks of gender...
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...
We construct an implicit derivative matching (IDM) technique for restoring the accuracy of the Yee scheme for Maxwell's equations in dispersive media with material interfaces in one dimension. We consider media exhibiting orientational polarization, which are represented using a Debye dispersive model, examples of which are water and living tissue....
Temperature data from above and below the Cougar Dam collected by the U.S. Geological Survey prior to the construction of the temperature control structure was analyzed to determine how the di®ering temperature regimes a®ect the growth and survival of threatened spring- run Chinook salmon. An ARIMA time-series model was used...
Modern scientific and engineering problems often require simulations with a level of resolution difficult to achieve in reasonable amounts of time—even in effectively parallelized programs. Therefore, applications that exploit high performance computing (HPC) systems have become invaluable in academia and industry over the past two decades. Addressing the questions that...
A central challenge for ecology is to understand the dynamic nature of species interactions. A classic approach to community ecology assumes that individuals within a species are functionally identical and that consumer-resource dynamics can be predicted solely by using species abundances. However, one species can consist of multiple functional groups,...