Lone Star College–Tomball

Abstract – Water hydrodynamics and coastal engineering are essential areas of civil and environmental engineering that deal with understanding and controlling the behaviour of water bodies, particularly in coastal areas. Coastal areas are active environments which are shaped by intricate interactions among waves, tides, currents, and sediment transport. With the increased rate of climate change leading to sea-level rise and the occurrence of extreme weather events, there is a growing need for sophisticated hydrodynamic modeling and robust coastal infrastructure. This seminar discusses the basic principles of water hydrodynamics, such as fluid motion, wave generation and propagation, tidal dynamics, and their contribution to coastal processes. It emphasizes recent developments in coastal engineering in the form of numerical modeling of nearshore currents, methods for coastal erosion control, breakwater design, and beach nourishment planning. The focus is on the integration of high-resolution computational fluid dynamics (CFD), remote sensing, and Al-assisted prediction tools to simulate and manage coastal hazards. Examples of recent global coastal projects between 2020 and 2025 are presented in case studies, highlighting novel designs combining ecological sustainability and engineering effectiveness. Policy implications, strategies for disaster mitigation, and interdisciplinary cooperation in safeguarding vulnerable coastal areas are also touched upon by the seminar. With greater insight into hydrodynamics and engineering interventions, the discipline is striving to secure the long term sustainability of coastlines and coastal infrastructure. Key Words: Hydrodynamics, coastal engineering, wave modeling, sediment transport, erosion control, climate resilience, CFD, coastal infrastructure

ABSTRACT Although geologic carbon sequestration projects have yet to induce — or may never induce — a damaging earthquake, experiences from other deep injection industries such as hydraulic fracturing, enhanced geothermal systems, and saltwater disposal suggest that effective quantitative seismic risk assessment is necessary for deep saline carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) projects. One such imminent CCS project is the San Juan Basin CarbonSAFE Phase III program. We use Monte Carlo probabilistic geomechanical analyses combined with observations of the geologic and operational parameters of the San Juan Basin site and suggest that this project is of low-induced seismic risk. The primary analysis is split into four sections. First, we assess the literature for faults and past seismicity, and at least five faulting scenarios are directly relevant. Second, we develop and calibrate an integrated earth model for the project site. Third, we perform Monte Carlo simulations that consider reasonable uncertainties of the geomechanical parameters. Of five tested faulting scenarios, only one presents high Coulomb failure functions, but fourth, we determine the risk to be low based on the combined lack of historical seismicity, the geologic framework of the faulting scenario, and the presence of saltwater injection at the same depth as the proposed supercritical carbon dioxide injection. The most sensitive parameters in the geomechanical calculations are the fault dip and the coefficient of friction. The least sensitive are the fault strike and the orientation of the maximum horizontal principal stress.

This chapter discusses research findings on integrating mathematics and science within STEM platform. It summarizes the premises that benefit the learners as seen from the perspective of mathematics and science content knowledge and highlights the areas that need more attention. In the traditional curriculum, science provides the contexts and mathematics and offers the tools to quantify the contexts. While students do use the tools of mathematics to solve problems in science and use scientific contexts in mathematics, research shows that the methods applied are often disconnected. STEM activities can be seen as offering opportunities to create a new, unique knowledge rooted in merging these two disciplines into an integrated inquiry. In the attempt to merge these two learning disciplines in such a way, this chapter also provides an analysis of the primary phases of scientific investigation and its possible fit to STEM mathematics activities. A draft of the general theoretical framework on merging scientific inquiry with mathematical reasoning and its relation to STEM competencies is also brought to the reader’s attention in this chapter.

Understanding rates of change sets the foundations for differential equations that are central to modeling dynamic phenomena in science and engineering. While modeling with a constant rate of change is well understood, modeling an exponential change requires a more detailed approach due to a diversity of its computing. An exponential model can be characterized by a constant ratio of change of the quantity, a constant percent rate, decay or growth factor, decay or growth rate, and so forth. The purpose of this STEM activity was to create a STEM environment that would enable the learners to discover a constant ratio as a departing block to construct an exponential model. An experiment of investigating maximum heights of a bouncing ball was used as a scientific context. This phenomenon was selected due to providing observable and measurable data. A pretest analysis was used to identify students’ weaknesses, and the posttest analysis has been used to discuss students’ changes of perception on modeling exponential behavior. The STEM context has disclosed that the commonly applied term decay denoting a decreasing exponential function did not adequately describe the virtue of decaying processes. Conclusions and suggestions for further studies are discussed.

Although function analysis is widely applied in science, there are some areas, like function limits or continuity that are underrepresented. The purpose of this study is to model motion and support this process by applying function continuity. Students will model the principles of continuity by formulating position functions for objects moving along a horizontal path with multiple rules. The scientific context will be supplied by an interactive simulation called Walking Man that is available for free at http://phet.colorado.edu/en/simulation/moving-man. This simulation allows designing a movement that can be mathematized using piecewise polynomial functions. Function continuity and sided limits will be used as tools to support the construction of these functions. The activity was conducted with a group of 20 calculus students. It was hypothesized that by applying the principles in context, the students would realize that function continuity is a critical condition that functions representing motion must satisfy. Posttest results supported the hypothesis.

ABSTRACTPrevious research has found a positive relationship between students who had completed a sequence of developmental reading and writing courses and success in a reading-intensive college-level course. This study replicates and expands upon the previous research of Goldstein and Perin (2008) by utilizing a differently diverse sample and an additional literacy-demanding course in an attempt to broaden the findings. Binary logistic regression and multiple regression analyses were performed on data gathered from a large urban community college. The purpose was to predict success and performance—from literacy, demographic, and academic variables—in two literacy-demanding courses, psychology and geography. A number of variables, including literacy skill level, positively predicted successful grades in the courses. This study found that students who had originally tested into a developmental reading and/or writing course upon entrance into a community college and had taken the sequence of developmental courses prior to taking a content course were more successful than students who had placed into a developmental course, but had not taken the developmental sequence. These findings also suggest the more literacy skills a student has gained through completion of higher levels of English courses, the more likely the student will successfully complete a content course in which those skills are required.

In this study, campus involvement, faculty mentorship, motivational beliefs (self-efficacy and utility value), and sense of belonging were examined as potential predictors of African-American college student academic persistence. Participants ( n = 139) in the study were African-American college students from a large-urban university. Separate analyses were conducted to predict two related aspects of student persistence. A multiple linear regression was used to predict self-reported student persistence and a logistic regression was used to predict actual enrollment in the following semester. Results indicated that utility value was the only significant predictor of self-reported persistence. Surprisingly, results of the logistic regression indicated that students who reported having higher levels of self-efficacy in the fall were less likely to enroll in the subsequent spring semester. Findings in this study add to the body of research on college student persistence.

One U.S. societal reaction to and evaluation of poverty among its citizens was the concept of the “feminization of poverty.” In an analogous manner, the frame of reference of domestic violence has been to align women, rather than men, as the recipients of domestic violence. However, epidemiological surveys on the distribution of violent behavior between adult partners suggest gender parity. Similarly, in terms of child abuse, levels of fathers' domestic violence toward their own children are more consonant with those of mothers' rather than they are distinct. Nonetheless, the various perceptions and images, in both the popular and professional presses, seem to emphasize men's violence toward partners and toward children and to de-emphasize women's violence toward their partners and their children. With this shift in emphasis from epidemiological data to images, the political, social, legislative, and judicial forces are thereby directed at men's violence and women's victimization at the exclusion of women's violence and men's victimization. Potential costs of such a shift are presented.