Trees in urban areas offer ecosystem services like carbon sequestration, storm water attenuation, reduction of energy used in buildings and wildlife habitat. Cities invest substantial funds and resources to maintain a healthy urban forest, and much research has been done to improve its resiliency and sustainability. Studies have been done...
Minnesota is the land of 10,000 lakes (technically 11,842 > 10 acres)! This bold proclamation can be seen everywhere from license plates to tourism pamphlets; it reveals how much water matters to the state on not only a commercial level, but as the very identity of the community. At the...
With a glut of competing priorities, the financial industry faces major challenges in extracting timely, relevant, and specifically-focused information from text. Without clear-cut business cases, making the investment in text analysis methods does not justify the return on investment. Furthermore, the business landscape continues to become increasingly complex, and at...
Using transcripts from Kansas State University Libraries’ (KSUL) virtual reference services (VRS), an experimental design was created to investigate the value and impact of different natural language processing techniques in the context of creating predictive models. Models were created to use only the first few word tokens supplied by VRS...
Advances in machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) are enabling computers and robotics to take on an increasing number of work-related tasks that previously were the sole domain of humans. This trend raises questions: Which jobs will be most susceptible to replacement by automation? How many workers risk being replaced?...
CONTENTS: Tomography of Exsolution Processes in Magnetite; Amorphous Intergranular Phase Controls the Properties of Human Tooth
Enamel; Inorganic-Organic-Inorganic Double-Hybrid Interfaces in Cuprite Nanorod-
Gold Nanoparticle Composites; Characterization of DNA-wrapped CNTs using Atom Probe Tomography
The 2005 NHL Lockout instituted a hard salary cap, which is the most limiting salary cap of the major US sports leagues. The NHL as a result doesn’t have the luxury of overpaying or dumping a contract as other professional sports leagues have, which places a huge constraint and emphasis...
This thesis discussed how motifs of height and depth in Black literature highlight Black characters’ inability to form positive racial identities. The thesis uses three canonical pieces of Black literature, Passing, Native Son, and Plum Bun, to demonstrate that Black characters who try to reimagine White space are forced into...
A study to investigate the role of population sex ratio in gender switching in an A. Triphyllum population along with the role of different environmental factors and management activities on plant size and population sex ratio in two different populations
Attitude control in quadrotor Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV) systems is traditionally managed by optimal control loops tuned to minimize errors in performance. While robust, these loops perform sub-optimally in dynamic and unpredictable environments which inspire new interest in sophisticated solution and approaches such as reinforcement learning (RL) approaches which should...
The challenges of using inadequate online recruitment systems can be addressed with
machine learning and software engineering techniques. Bi-directional personalization
reinforcement learning-based architecture with active learning can get recruiters to recommend
qualified applicants and also enable applicants to receive personalized job recommendations.
This paper focuses on how machine learning...
Past efforts to reintroduce the native legume species Desmodium glutinosum and Lespedeza violacea into restored woodlands have not produced self-sustaining populations. Proposed factors preventing reintroduction include herbivory, persistent environmental effects of invasive shrubs, poor performance of commercial Rhizobium inoculants, and competitive displacement associated with elevated nitrogen availability. To address these...
Pollination is a reproductive necessity in the majority of the world’s flowering plants. Pollen limitation threatens plant reproduction, particularly in self-incompatible species. Although assessing pollen limitation usually requires pollen supplementation experiments, alternative methods support the findings of traditional pollen supplementation experiments.
Pollination is a reproductive necessity in the majority of the world’s flowering plants. Pollen limitation threatens plant reproduction, particularly in self-incompatible species. Although assessing pollen limitation usually requires pollen supplementation experiments, alternative methods support the findings of traditional pollen supplementation experiments.
Two experiments were conducted to assess the germination, growth, and survival of Cirsium pitcheri Torr. ex Eaton T & G in the Chicagoland region. The first experiment involved growing seeds from various native populations to determine tolerance for the current Chicagoland climate. The second experiment tested three of the populations...
Habitat fragmentation can alter the conditions of natural plant populations, introducing novel selective pressures. The ability of a population to respond to environmental change can be inferred by assessing the population’s genetic diversity and the heritability of traits thought to be under selection.
Identifying factors that shape the spatial distribution of genetic variation within and among natural populations is crucial to understanding many population> and landscape>level processes. In this study, I characterize the strength and extent of spatial genetic structure in Oenothera harringtonii (Onagraceae), an insect>pollinated, gravity>dispersed herb endemic to the grasslands of...
Nitrogen (N) deposition can alter belowground microbial communities, especially ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi, resulting in a reduced ability of associated trees to access organic nutrients. This study tested whether N addition decreases ECM species richness and shifts ECM species composition across spatial scales in a subtropical slash pine (Pinus elliottii) plantation...