The Data@TAMU Digital Catalog
Data@TAMU collects and indexes datasets created by TAMU researchers and stored in data repositories around the world. The catalog increases discoverability of datasets in support of re-use, experimental reproducibility, and social impact.
“Open access to research data is critical for advancing science, scholarship, and society. Research data, when repurposed, has an accretive value. Publicly funded research should be publicly available for public good.” - from preamble to the Denton Declaration: An Open Data Manifesto
Communities in Data@TAMU
Select a community to browse its collections.
Recent Submissions
Topics in Mathematical Theory of Adaptive Finite Element Methods
Mathematics; TAMU; https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14641/668; National Science Foundation
Finite element methods (FEM) are widely used to approximately solve partial differential equations in simulations of physical phenomena arising in engineering and the physical sciences. Such simulations are an indispensable tool in the development and testing of new technologies. Adaptive variants of finite element methods are designed to increase the efficiency and accuracy with which simulations can be carried out by making better use of computational resources and to increase confidence in the accuracy of simulations by providing researchers with a computable measure of the errors that arise in approximation techniques. This research project aims to develop new variants of adaptive finite element methods and increase mathematical understanding of their underpinnings. The project has two main foci. The first is adaptive FEM for partial differential equations defined on surfaces, which arise for example in describing fluid flows with multiple components (such as oil and water). The second is development and analysis of adaptive FEM for controlling various measures of the error, especially maximum errors.
In the first project the investigator will construct and analyze adaptive variants of surface finite element methods with two main goals in mind. First, while surface FEM are an established finite element methodology with many useful variants defined, adaptive versions of some important variants are missing. This project aims to fill that gap. Secondly, the project will explore the interaction between adaptive surface FEM, the way a given surface is represented in a finite element code, and the smoothness or regularity of the surface. The result will be more robust adaptive surface codes that give users greater flexibility in representing surfaces while also making the best possible use of available information about the surface. The second main project will lead to proof of convergence of adaptive algorithms for controlling maximum errors, and will also provide new adaptive algorithms for controlling maximum errors in a class of singularly perturbed elliptic problems.
SusChEM: Resourceful Polymers Derived from Polyhydroxyl Natural Products
Chemistry; TAMU; https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14641/598; National Science Foundation
Organic polymer materials, commonly thought of as plastics, are of critical importance to every aspect of human life, from the clothes that we wear to the computers that we use to the tires on which we drive to the devices through which medicines are administered. Two key challenges with polymer materials are their production from petrochemical sources, which are non-renewable, and their persistence in the environment. To address these challenges, Professors Wooley, Darensbourg, and Dr. Sun of Texas A&M University are designing strategies to produce polymer materials from natural building blocks while also incorporating degradable linkages that regenerate those natural building blocks once the material has completed its useful lifetime. This project includes research and educational components to impact fundamental knowledge about polymer materials across the disciplines of chemistry and engineering.
The research team is developing synthetic chemistry approaches to the production of a series of polycarbonates and polyphosphoesters that originate from renewable resources, exhibit novel chemical, physical and mechanical properties, and undergo hydrolytic breakdown to biologically-beneficial or benign by-products. In one direction, this project combines polyhydroxyl natural products as the monomeric building blocks and carbonates as the linkages. Hydrolytic degradation of the resulting polymers produces the polyhydroxyl compound plus carbon dioxide. In a second direction, phosphoester linkages are utilized, again borrowing from Nature, in phosphoesters commonly found in biological macromolecules, such as DNA or RNA. The research activities include 1) the synthesis of functional monomers from polyhydroxyl natural products, 2) the transformation of those monomers into linear, branched or crosslinked polymer materials by either step-growth condensation or chain-growth ring-opening polymerizations, 3) rigorous characterization studies to determine the compositions, structures, physicochemical and mechanical properties; and 4) the study of hydrolytic stabilities and degradation products.
Localization of Voltage-Gated Ca2+ Channels and Ca2+-Gated K+ Channels to Specific Active Zone Material Macromolecules at Presynaptic Active Zones and How that Influences Neurotransmitter Secretion
Vet - Pathobiology; TAMU; https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14641/379; DHHS-NIH-National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke
Synaptic impulse transmission fundamentally relies on the coupling of neuron impulses with neurotransmitter secretion from specialized sites along the presynaptic plasma membrane (PM) of the axon terminals called ac- tive zones. Active zones of all synapses have comparable organelles, called ‘Active Zone Material’ (AZM), which are composed of homologous proteins that assemble to form distinct classes of AZM macromolecules; AZM regulates the events that lead to neurotransmitter secretion from docked synaptic vesicles (SV) (i.e. SVs held in contact with the PM). Determining the identity of the proteins that assemble to form the AZM is neces- sary to understand the general rules that govern the molecular mechanisms that regulate neurotransmitter se- cretion throughout the nervous system under normal, experimental and disease conditions. The arrival of an electrical impulse at an active zone causes voltage-gated Ca2+ (CaV) channels to open and allow Ca2+ to enter the cytosol which results in elevated concentrations of Ca2+ near the mouth of the channel for a very brief peri- od of time. If sufficient concentrations of Ca2+ interact with the SV protein synaptotagmin it triggers membrane fusion and neurotransmitter secretion, which is the defining stage for the described impulse-secretion coupling. The Ca2+ that enters the cytosol also activates Ca2+-gated K+ (KCa) channels to repolarize the PM and deacti- vate the CaV channels to arrest further neurotransmitter secretion. Thus, the relative proximity of CaV channels to docked SVs and KCa channels strongly influences impulse-secretion coupling. In axon terminals of a model synapse, frog neuromuscular junction, it has long been suspected that both CaV and KCa channels are compo- nents of the macromolecules that span the PM at active zones arranged in parallel double row arrays de- scribed in freeze-fracture replicas. Previous studies from our lab used electron tomography to quantitatively study the 3D macromolecular structure of AZM at frog neuromuscular junctions and found that the members of a particular class of AZM macromolecules called pegs are connected to the macromolecules that span the PM. We also found that docked SVs that had the greatest probability of fusing with the PM when an impulse arrives were associated with pegs in the row proximal to the SVs that were displaced closer to them. We proposed that the proximal pegs were connected to CaV channels because the closer the CaV channel is to synaptotag- min when the impulse causes the channel to open and allow an influx of Ca2+ into the cytosol, the higher the concentration of Ca2+ exposure to synaptotagmin and the greater the probability that it will trigger membrane fusion. The objective of the research proposed here is to localize the CaV and KCa channels at active zones of frog neuromuscular junctions with sufficient resolution to determine if they are associated with the pegs that are connected to the macromolecules that span the PM, and if they are, to determine which row each channel is concentrated. To meet this objective, an innovative method involving histochemical labeling of CaV and KCa channels together with quantitative electron tomography will be used.
Conference: International Workshop on Operator Theory and its Applications 2018
Mathematics; TAMU; https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14641/232; National Science Foundation
This award provides funding to help defray the expenses of participants in the meeting "International Workshop in Operator Theory and its Applications" (IWOTA) a workshop that will take place during July 23-27, 2018, on the campus of the East China Normal University in Shanghai, China. Additional information about the conference can be found on the website http://iwota2018.fudan.edu.cn
The 2018 IWOTA meeting will continue the tradition of past meetings in this series going back to 1981. The meeting will be focused on the latest developments in functional analysis, specifically, operator theory and and related fields. This includes applications in engineering and mathematical physics from areas such as differential and integral equations, interpolation theory, system and control theory, signal processing, and scattering theory. The IWOTA meeting will run the week before the international symposium "Mathematical Theory of Networks and Systems"(MTNS) and this pairing provide opportunities for analysts to get exposed to engineering problems. Priority for funding will be given to early career mathematicians, women, members of underrepresented groups and those without other means of support. This is an important conference in operator theory and its applications that will offer participants the opportunity to learn of state-of-the-art research in operator theory with applications to engineering and other sciences.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
Supplement request for PCMHAB: Expanding Harmful Algal Bloom Mitigation in the Gulf of Mexico with Operational Support and Training for the Imaging FlowCytobot Network
Oceanography; TAMU; https://hdl.handle.net/20.500.14641/416; DOC-National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
The network of Imaging FlowCytobots (IFCBs) has provided early warning for harmful algal blooms (HABs) along the Texas coast since 2007. The IFCB combines flow cytometry and imaging technology to collect a high resolution (hourly) time series of the phytoplankton dynamics and their response to environmental changes. One extremely valuable product of this decade-long time series of phytoplankton abundance has been the successful early warning of eight HAB events. An automated image classification and notification (email alerts to state managers [Texas Department of State Health Services and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department]) system has been developed based on the IFCB data stream. The lack of any phytoplankton abundance information at this crucial, central Texas coastal station has rendered the early warning system less useful for HAB detection and early warning. The goal of this supplemental funds request is to replace equipment lost or damaged during Hurricane Harvey and its aftermath, and to obtain an IFCB instrument that will permit an uninterrupted time series for the Texas IFCB network.
The IFCB in Port Aransas was deployed on the pier of the University of Texas Marine Science Institute and had been in operation since September 2007. The pier was destroyed when a drilling ship broke free of its moorings during the storm and eventually crashed into the pier. IFCB. The loss of the continuous data collection by the IFCB has directly impacted several ongoing projects. The result is a data gap in our time series and loss of HAB early warning capability.
The second IFCB deployment site at Surfside Beach, TX was established to expand the HAB early warning network and to look at the coastal connectivity between the Port Aransas and Surfside sites. Models of coastal currents and current velocity/direction data obtained from the Texas Automated Buoy System (TABS) are combined with IFCB data at both locations to determine the connectedness of the two sites to improve early warning of HABs.
Gaps in data at the two sites severely impact the effectiveness of the early warning network for HABs. A new IFCB will permit immediate restoration of the time series if a deployed instrument requires maintenance or is damaged at Port Aransas or Surfside Beach deployments.