Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Sees - An Adaptive Multimodal User Interface For The Visually Impaired, Aparajit Saigal

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

The enormous amount of electronic data present today can be a daunting task to access and process for a regular person, let alone someone with a disability. The World Wide Web and Electronic Mail have transformed the way we live. We are constantly become more dependent on this information, communication and commerce medium. The Speech Enabled Email System (SEES) is an alternate user interface that allows for the retrieval of emails and RSS feeds using speech. SEES can be accessed via a desktop application or through a telephony interface such as a regular phone-line or Voice over IP. This thesis …

First Direct Measurement Of The Energy Spectra Of Individual Auger Cascade Steps In Solid Mno, Ag And Pd, Rajalakshmi Sundaramoorthy

Physics Dissertations

We present the first direct measurements of energy spectra of electrons emitted in the later steps of the Auger cascade processes in solids. Measurements were carried out for the L-->MV-->VVV and L-->MM-->MVV-->VVVV Auger cascades in MnO and L-->MM-->MVV, M-->NV-->VVV Auger cascades in Ag and M-->NV-->VVV Auger cascade for Pd. The spectra associated with the later steps in the cascade were separated from overlapping spectral contribution from other decay processes by acquiring the cascade induced spectra in time coincidence with Auger electrons emitted in the prior cascade step. The Auger …

Salinity, Ph, Temperature, Desiccation And Hypoxia Tolerance In The Invasive Freshwater Apple Snail Pomacea Insularum, Veena Ramakrishnan

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations

Pomacea insularum is a tropical and subtropical, ampullariid, freshwater prosobranch snail that is native to slow-flowing rivers and canals in South America. It is a member of the genus, Pomacea, and, like other species in this genus, can be a severe agricultural pest in wetland rice and taro agriculture systems. It has been introduced to the United States, establishing populations in the rice belt region of southeastern Texas. The resistance adaptations of P. insularum were investigated with respect to important physico-chemical parameters including temperature, salinity, pH, emersion, desiccation and progressive hypoxia in order to predict its potential distribution in North …

Coupling Photodriven Multielectron Reduction Of Ruthenium Polypyridyl Complexes With Hydrogen Evolving Co-Catalysts, Cale Mcalister

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses

With energy demands continuing to increase, the importance of finding a means of converting solar energy into a usable form of chemical energy continues to escalate. Photocatalysis provides a viable approach to harnessing energy from the sun for its use in energy converting reactions such as the water splitting reaction. Ruthenium polypyridyl complexes have played an important role in the growth and advancement of artificial photosynthetic systems, many of which have the ability to utilize solar energy in the process of H2 evolution. This thesis focuses on a biomimetic approach to solar H2 production through multi-electron photocatalysis. The two dinuclear …

Effect Of Structure And Stereochemistry On Cytotoxicity Of Ruthenium Polypyridyl Complexes, Arthi Krishnan

Chemistry & Biochemistry Theses

Efforts to develop novel non-platinum, metal-based antitumor drugs have been pursued by many groups and ruthenium complexes have drawn a lot of attention as prospective transition metal-based antineoplastic agents. Recently, it was discovered that complex [(phen)2Ru(tatpp)Ru(phen)2]+4 shows biological activity both in vitro and in vivo. Expanding on this area of research, in depth cytotoxicity studies in human lung cancer cells and healthy cells were carried out in five different ruthenium(II) polypyridyl complexes as racemic mixtures and also their enantiopure forms. This study was carried out by performing MTT-cytotoxicity assays on non small cell lung cancer cells (NSCLC), H358 - Human …

Computing Best Coverage Path In The Presence Of Obstacles In Wireless Sensor Networks, Senjuti Basu Roy

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Given a set S = {S1,...,Sn} of n homogeneous wireless sensors deployed in a two dimensional area, a source point s and a destination point t, the least protected point p along a path (s,t) is that point such that the Euclidean distance between p and its closest sensor node Si is maximum. This distance between p and S_{i} is called the Cover value of the path P(s,t). The Best Coverage Path between s and t, denoted as BCP(s,t), is the path that has the minimum cover value. Although there exists efficient algorithms to compute BCP in O(n log n) …

A Random Walk Approach To Sampling Hidden Databases, Arjun Dasgupta

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

A large part of the data on the World Wide Web is hidden behind form-like interfaces. These interfaces interact with a hidden back-end database to provide answers to user queries. Generating a uniform random sample of this hidden database by using only the publicly available interface gives us access to the underlying data distribution. In this thesis, we propose a random walk scheme over the query space provided by the interface to sample such databases. We discuss variants where the query space is visualized as a fixed and random ordering of attributes. We also propose techniques to further improve the …

Hydrogeochemical Evolution Of Arsenic Along Groundwater Flow Paths: Linking Aqueous And Solid Phase Arsenic Speciation, Shama Haque

Earth & Environmental Sciences Dissertations

The central hypothesis of this Doctoral research work is that changes occurring along groundwater flow paths that accompany chemical weathering and oxidation-reduction reactions catalyze both arsenic (As) mobilization from, and capture by, minerals via adsorption/desorption and/or mineral dissolution/precipitation reactions. This central hypothesis is addressed by (i) quantifying concentrations and speciation of As, and ancillary geochemical parameters, including a number of redox sensitive parameters in groundwater samples collected along flow paths, and (ii) determining solid phase speciation of As in aquifer sediment samples, with specific emphasis on the labile (i.e., surface exchangeable) and non-labile As fractions (e.g., precipitated with Fe oxides). …

Inference Of Node And Edge Replacement Graph Grammars, Jacek Kukluk

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

In this dissertation we study the inference of node and edge replacement graph grammars. The approach is based on previous research in frequent isomorphic subgraphs discovery. We extend the search for frequent subgraphs by checking for overlap among the instances of the subgraphs in the input graph. If subgraphs overlap by one node, we propose a node replacement graph grammar production. If subgraphs overlap by two nodes or two nodes and an edge, we propose an edge replacement graph grammar production. We also can infer a hierarchy of productions by compressing portions of a graph described by a production and …

Estimation Of Dry Deposition Of Atmospheric Mercury In Nevada By Direct And Indirect Methods, Seth N. Lyman, Mae Sexauer Gustin, Eric M. Prestbo, Frank J. Marsik

USU Uintah Basin Faculty Publications

Atmospheric models and limited measurements indicate that dry deposition of atmospheric mercury is an important process by which mercury is input to ecosystems. To begin to fill the measurement data gap, multiple methods were used simultaneously during seasonal campaigns conducted in 2005 and 2006 to estimate dry deposition of atmospheric mercury at two Mercury Deposition Network (MDN) sites in rural Nevada and in Reno, Nevada. Gaseous elemental mercury (Hg0), reactive gaseous mercury (RGM), and particulate-bound mercury (Hgp) concentrations were measured using Tekran 2537A/1130/1135 systems. These speciated measurements were combined with on-site meteorological measurements to estimate depositional fluxes of RGM and …

Temperature-Driven Transition From The Wigner Crystal To The Bond-Charge-Density Wave In The Quasi-One-Dimensional Quarter-Filled Band, Rahul Hardikar

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

It is known that within the interacting electron model Hamiltonian for the one-dimensional 14-filled band, the singlet ground state is a Wigner crystal only if the nearest-neighbor electron-electron repulsion is larger than a critical value. We show that this critical nearest-neighbor Coulomb interaction is different for each spin subspace, with the critical value decreasing with increasing spin. As a consequence, with the lowering of temperature, there can occur a transition from a Wigner crystal charge-ordered state to a spin-Peierls state that is a bond-charge-density wave with charge occupancies different from the Wigner crystal. This transition is possible because spin excitations …

Kentucky Structural Contours From Digitally Vectorized Geologic Quadrangles, Kentucky Geological Survey

Research Data--KGS

This dataset includes geologic stuctural contours of varying datums across Kentucky in shapefile format. These structural contours are compiled from structural contour layers published as a part of the individual Digitally Vectorized Geologic Quadrangles (DVGQ) datasets (by the Kentucky Geologic Survey: https://kgs.uky.edu/kygeode/services/pubs/?pubtype=DVGQ&searchtype=pubcategory). The original structural contours were mapped on the 7.5-minute (1:24,000 scale) series geologic maps published during the Kentucky geologic mapping program (Kentucky Geological Survey - U.S. Geological Survey from 1960 to 1989: https://kgs.uky.edu/kygeode/services/pubs/?pubtype=GQ&searchtype=pubcategory). The digital contours were subsequently digitized as a part of the DVGQ datasets during the geologic digital mapping program at KGS (1996 – 2007). Contoured …

Gis Data: Westmoreland County, Virginia Shoreline Inventory Report, Marcia Berman, Harry Berquist, Carl Hershner, Sharon Killeen, Karinna Nunez, Tamia Rudnicky, Daniel E. Schatt, David Weiss

Data

The data inventory developed for the Shoreline Situation Reports is based on a three-tiered shoreline assessment approach. In most cases this assessment characterizes conditions that can be observed from a small boat navigating along the shoreline. Hand-held GPS units are used to log features observed. The three tiered shoreline assessment approach divides the shorezone into three regions: 1) the immediate riparian zone, evaluated for land use; 2) the bank, evaluated for height, stability, cover and natural protection; and 3) the shoreline, describing the presence of shoreline structures for shore protection and recreational purposes. Three GIS coverages are generated. The westm_lubc …

Paleomagnetic Dating Of Fault Slip In The Southern Rocky Mountains, Usa, And Itsimportance To An Integrated Laramide Foreland Strain Field, T. F. Wawrzyniec, Alexis K. Ault, J. W. Geissman, E. A. Erslev, S. D. Fankhauser

Geosciences Faculty Publications

The Laramide orogen of the U.S. Cordillera formed in the latest Cretaceous, and deformation lasted into the earliest Oligocene. Along and proximal to the eastern and northern margins of the Colorado Plateau, deformation associated with this event mainly took place along reactivated structures. Related tectonic models invoke some role for the plateau either as a stress guide transmitting compression to the foreland or as a freely rotating microplate. Models dominated by northward displacements of the Colorado Plateau also require covariance between timing and magnitude of dextral strike-slip deformation in the eastern domain and thrust deformation in the northern domain. Here …

On The Size Of Succinct Indices, Alexander Golynski, Ankur Gupta

Scholarship and Professional Work - LAS

A succinct data structure occupies an amount of space that is close to the information-theoretic minimum plus an additional term. The latter is not necessarily a lower-order term and, in several cases, completely dominates the space occupancy both in theory and in practice. In this paper, we present several solutions to partially overcome this problem, introducing new techniques of independent interest that allow us to improve over previously known upper and lower bounds.

Agmaps Land Manager Cd-Rom For The Lake Warden Catchment, Department Of Agriculture And Food

Agmaps

This CD-ROM contains land resource maps and land management information for the Lake Warden catchment. It was prepared by Environmental Knowledge Systems Australia (EKSA) on behalf of the Department of Agriculture and Food Western Australia. Funding has been provided by the Australian and State Governments investment through the Natural Heritage Trust delivered by South Coast NRM in the South Coast region.

Also included on the CD is a lot of technical information which may now be out of date.

Probabilistic Localization Of Mobile Ad Hoc Networks, Rui Huang

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

The mobile ad hoc network localization problem deals with estimating the physical location of the nodes that do not have a direct way (e.g., GPS) to determine their own locations. Being an enabling technology that is considered essential to the success of the future implementation of ad hoc networks in the real world, localization is a fundamental problem that needs to be solved with the best possible accuracy and efficiency. For this research, we study the localization problem in its various incarnations such as localization through static beacons, mobile beacons, dynamically deployed beacons and link longevity estimation based on relative …

Complementing Current Active Queue Management Schemes With Rechoke And Receiver-Window Modification (Rwm), Visvasuresh Govindaswamy

Computer Science and Engineering Dissertations

Explicit Congestion Notification (ECN) and Active Queue Management (AQM) schemes have been proposed for present-day TCP/IP networks to better manage network congestion. ECN enabled AQMs were shown to have a promising advantage over existing drop-tail queues. However, when implemented, they were susceptible to the following problems: 1) the timeout mechanism or the duration of the reception of three duplicate acknowledgements (ACKs), due to early-dropped packets by these AQMs, delays the response time of TCP (in reducing the offered rate) 2) using ECN with these AQMs has its downsides: i) its messages may get delayed or dropped due to congestion in …

Novel Functions And Physiological Significance Of Ral Interacting Protein - Rlip76 In In Vitro And In Vivo Models, Ewa L. Zajac

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations

This dissertation is divided into four parts. The first part is an introduction of energy dependent xenobiotic transporters and their relevance in multidrug resistance. However, the main focuse is the description of RLIP76 protein, non-ABC transporter, which it the most efficient transporter of glutathione conjugates and anti-cancer drugs. The second part describes materials and methods that were used in two investigated projects. The third part explains the correlation of RLIP76 with signaling protein POB1 and an involvement of these two proteins in apoptosis of lung cancer cells. The effect of recombinant POB1 and its deletion mutant POB11-512, on transport activity …

The Formation And Obduction Of Ophiolites Since The Late Precambrian, Stacey Metzler

Earth & Environmental Sciences Theses

Ophiolite formation and emplacement has been episodic since the Late Precambrian. This research study examines ophiolites that formed during the Cenozoic, Mesozoic, Paleozoic and Late Precambrian. The ophiolites were plotted on paleogeographic reconstructions using PALEOMAP Project maps, and the ophiolite localities were analyzed by their temporal distribution in relation to the tectonic framework in which they were emplaced. The ophiolites appear to show episodic events linked to global plate reorganization. These episodes coincide with collisional events from the supercontinents of Gondwana and Pangea. The primary mechanisms of formation and emplacement proved to be mid-ocean ridge systems and back arc basins …

Calix[4]Arene-Based Synthetic Nanotubes, Voltaire Guanlao Organo

Chemistry & Biochemistry Dissertations

Nanoscale science and technology represents a tremendous opportunity to gain unprecedented insight into the unique phenomena that exists at the nanometer scale, and to use that knowledge to develop materials and devices with novel characteristics. This dissertation explores the unique properties of calix[4]arene-based synthetic nanotubes, the process of filling and characteristics of materials confined in one dimension. Chapter 1 provides an overview of recently developed nanoscale materials, particularly single-walled carbon nanotubes and their ability to encapsulate materials in a one-dimensional configuration. Molecules inside carbon nanotubes are reported to exhibit structural and dynamic properties that are not observed in the bulk. …

Effects Of Temperature Gradients On Transverse Oscillations Of Solar Magnetic Flux Tubes, Shilpa Subramaniam

Physics Theses

Solar magnetic flux tubes support three fundamental modes: longitudinal, transverse and torsional tube waves. Previous studies showed that the propagation of longitudinal and transverse waves along thin and isothermal magnetic flux tubes is affected by the cutoff frequency, which are global quantities that restricts the wave propagation to only those frequencies that are higher than the cutoff. It was also demonstrated that the tubes respond to freely propagating longitudinal and transverse tube waves by oscillating at the corresponding cutoff frequency. No cutoff frequency was found for torsional waves propagating along thin and isothermal magnetic flux tubes. Since the solar atmosphere …

Runtime Optimization And Load Shedding In Mavstream: Design And Implementation, Balakumar Kendai

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

In data stream processing systems Quality of Service (or QoS) is extremely important. The system should try its best to meet the QoS requirements specified by a user. On account of this difference, unlike in a database management system, a query cannot be optimized once and executed. It has been shown that different scheduling strategies are useful in trading tuple latency requirements with memory and throughput requirements. In addition, data stream processing systems may experience significant fluctuations in input rates. In order to meet the QoS requirements of data stream processing, a runtime optimizer equipped with several scheduling and load …

Compensation Of Photobleached Images For A Cell Dynamics System, Sowmya Gopinath

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Progress in the field of medicine attributes to the discoveries in biology that require an extensive knowledge of cell dynamics. Intracellular Cell Dynamics Analysis System (ICellDAS) is a web based tool aimed at automating sub cellular particle motion estimation, tracking and mobility analysis. The purpose of this tool is to develop a better understanding of specific biology problems by visualizing biological data. For reliable analysis as well as visualization of cell dynamics, it is essential that the acquired images reflect the exact information of the specimen. The goal of the thesis is to design an interface for the ICellDAS project …

Analyzing Differences In Color Variation Sensitivity Between Experts And Novices To Find A Differentiating Process In Pigmented Skin Lesion Diagnosis, Yu-Chin Chai

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Fatal skin lesions such as melanomas appear as having high color variation to experts but often as having low variation to novices. This thesis investigated if it is possible to find a function representing an expert's color variation sensitivity to skin lesions without explicitly requiring them to provide a diagnosis. Various pigmented skin images with either normal pigmentation or with diseased lesions were evaluated by experts and novices. To determine the best color space for lesion differentiation, an optimization process based on parametric color dimensions in a RGB color space was used to find the parameters of a color transformation …

Using Part Of Speech Structure Of Text In The Prediction Of Its Readability, Jagadeesh Kondru

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Readability formulas predict the reading difficulty associated with text. They typically output a U.S. school grade level that indicates the reading ability required of a person in order for him to comprehend that text. Ability to predict text readability is useful because it helps educators select appropriate texts for students and authors write texts accessible to the audience they target. Existing readability formulas are based on countable aspects of the text such as average sentence length and average word length. We propose a new readability formula, the Readability Index, which is based on the part-of-speech structure of sentences in a …

Ca-Ole- A Collaborative And Adaptive Online Learning Environment, Paola Gomez

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Demand for online learning environments has grown in the past few years, and schools have been offering more distance courses to their students. Designing adequate online learning environments is considerably more challenging than conventional Face-To-Face courses; therefore traditional methods can not be used. This thesis proposes the creation of a Collaborative and Adaptive Online Learning Environment (CA-OLE) that provides a structure where instructors can combine their lesson materials with an adaptive system and collaborative tools. CA-OLE innovative approach consists of an adaptive framework that changes the way the learning materials prepared by instructors are presented to the students depending on …

Personalizing (Re-Ranking) Web Search Results Using Information Present On A Social Network, Sushruth Puttaswamy

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

We describe a social search engine paradigm which can be built on top of a classic search engine (e.g. Google, Yahoo, etc.) and a social information network (such as FriendSter). In this thesis, the objective was to design algorithms and develop methods to efficiently combine information available in the underlying systems (Search Engine & Social Information Network) to better satisfy the search needs of a user. We are interested on how to efficiently employ social information to re-order a list of URLs retrieved by querying a search engine. The objective was to re-order the list of URLs in a way …

Adaptive Load Balancing And Change Visualization For Webvigil, Subramanian Chelladurai Hari Hara

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

There is a need for selective monitoring, the contents of web pages. Periodical visit for understanding changes to a web page is both inefficient and time consuming. WebVigiL is a system developed for automating the change detection and timely notification of HTML/XML pages based on user specified changes of interest. User interest, specified as a sentinel/profile, is automatically monitored by the system using a combination of learning-based and event-driven techniques. The first prototype concentrated on the functionality of the WebVigiL system. This thesis extends the WebVigiL system in a number of ways. The primary focus of this thesis is the …

Efficient Main Memory Algorithms For Significant Interval And Frequent Episode Discovery, Sagar Hasmukh Savla

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

There is a considerable research on sequential mining of time-series data. Sensor-based applications such as MavHome require prediction of events for automating the environment using time-series data collected over a period of time. In these applications, it is important to predict tight and accurate intervals of interest to effectively automate the application. Also, detection of frequent patterns is needed for the automation of sequence of happenings. Although, there is a considerable body of work on sequential mining of transactional data, most of them deal with time point data and make several iterations over the entire data set for discovering frequently …