Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty: Effectively Verifiable, David W. Hafemeister

Physics

No abstract provided.

An Exploration Of Tablet-Based Presentation Systems And Learning Styles, Ngan T. Phan

Master's Theses

Learning in the classroom can occur as a combination of students' personal effort to study class material, the instructor's attempt to present class material, and the interaction that takes place between instructor and students. In a more traditional setting, instructors can lecture by writing notes on a chalkboard or a whiteboard. If instructors want to display prepared lecture slides, they can use the overhead projector and write additional notes on top of these overhead transparencies. With many technological advances, various researchers are advocating towards integration between technology and learning. With the advent of tablet PCs, researchers recognize the potential usefulness …

Erosion Control Performance Studies On Ornamental Vegetation, Compost, And Jute Netting, Brent Hallock

Earth and Soil Sciences

No abstract provided.

Implementing Continuation Marks In Javascript, John Clements, Ayswarya Sundaram, David Herman

Computer Science and Software Engineering

MzScheme’s continuation marks provide a flexible mechanism for implementing a number of useful language features and tools. We demonstrate the simplicity and utility of continuation marks by adapting them for JavaScript as frame-based stack marks using the Rhino implementation, showing a simple model of their behavior, and using them to build a toy debugger. Along the way, we discover a few interesting things. First, it requires some thinking—but not much code—to add continuation marks to JavaScript. Second, coupling tail-calling with the “return” of statement-based languages leads to some interesting problems in formulating a semantics. Third, building a debugger based on …

Physics Of Energy Efficient Buildings, David W. Hafemeister

Physics

A scaling model shows that that the free temperature offset between inside and outside increases with the size of buildings. Reducing the lossiness in buildings offers three energy savings advantages: (1) reduce the multiplicative term, (2) increase the free—temperature subtractive term, and (3) cater to the degree-day distribution. Thermal storage can be made to transfer sufficient heat of the day into the coolth of the night. The daily passive solar input is modeled by integrating over the change in zenith angle during the day. Passive solar storage is sized to give a 12—hour time constant.

Results From A Search For The 0 ΝΒβ-Decay Of 130Te, C. Arnaboldi, D. R. Artusa, F. T. Avignone Iii, M. Balata, I. Bandac, M. Barucci, J. W. Beeman, F. Bellini, C. Brofferio, C. Bucci, S. Capelli, L. Carbone, S. Cebrian, M. Clemenza, O. Cremonesi, R. J. Creswick, A. De Waard, S. Di Domizio, M. J. Dolinski, H. A. Farach, E. Fiorini, G. Frossati, A. Giachero, A. Giuliani, P. Gorla, E. Guardincerri, T. D. Gutierrez, E. E. Haller, R. H. Maruyama, R. J. Mcdonald, S. Nisi, C. Nones, E. B. Norman, A. Nucciotti, E. Olivieri, M. Pallavicini, E. Palmieri, E. Pasca, M. Pavan, M. Pedretti, G. Pessina, S. Pirro, E. Previtali, L. Risegari, C. Rosenfeld, S. Sangiorgio, M. Sisti, A. R. Smith, L. Torres, G. Ventura, M. Vignati

Physics

A detailed description of the CUORICINO n¹³⁰Te neutrinoless double-beta (0 νββ) decay experiment is given and recent results are reported. CUORICINO is an array of 62 tellurium oxide (TeOn₂) bolometers with an active mass of 40.7 kg. It is cooled to ∼8–10 mK by a dilution refrigerator shielded from environmental radioactivity and energetic neutrons. It is running in the Laboratori Nazionali del Gran Sasso (LNGS) in Assergi, Italy. These data represent an exposure of 11.83 kg yr or 91 mole-years of n¹³⁰Te. No evidence for 0 νββ-decay was observed and a limit …

Sequential Sorption Of Lead And Cadmium In Three Tropical Soils, Chip Appel, Lena Q. Ma, Roy D. Rhue, William Reve

Earth and Soil Sciences

It is important to examine mechanisms of Pb and Cd sorption in soils to understand their bioavailability. The ability of three tropical soils to retain Pb, Cd, and Ca was evaluated. The objectives of this study were to (1) determine the extent to which soil sorption sites are metal specific, (2) investigate the nature of reactions between metals and soil surfaces, and (3) identify how metals compete for sorption sites when they are introduced to soils sequentially or concurrently. Lead was shown to be much less exchangeable than Cd and inhibited Cd sorption. Cadmium had little effect on Pb sorption, …

Visitor Compliance With Fire Restrictions: An Observational Study Using Verbal Messages And Symbolic Signage, Sara S. Cohn, William W. Hendricks, Deborah J. Chavez

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of message type and source on visitor compliance with fire restrictions at the Applewhite Picnic Area, Cajon Ranger District, San Bernardino National Forest, California. Six treatments were administered during summer 2005 involving verbal messages (awareness of consequences and altruistic messages) and signage for primarily Hispanic recreation visitors. Six treatment groups were assigned: sign only, sign/verbal moral, sign/verbal fear, no sign/verbal moral, no sign/verbal fear, and no sign/no verbal (control). During treatments using signage, two signs containing “no fire” symbols were posted in each experimental zone. Visitor behavior was recorded by …

Big Sur Visitor Characteristics And Wildland Fire Recreational Constraints, William W. Hendricks, Deborah J. Chavez, Sara S. Cohn

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

A study conducted with visitors to the Big Sur region of California during summer 2002 is presented. An onsite survey was administered to visitors to the U.S. Forest Service and California State Parks day-use and overnight facilities. Recreational constraints owing to wildland fire and fire management are detailed along with the effects of activity type, visitor demographics and other characteristics, and views of these constraints. Differences primarily exist in views of constraints related to regulations.

Recreation And Fire Management In Urban National Forests: A Study Of Manager Perspectives, Kelly S. Bricker, Deborah J. Chavez, William W. Hendricks

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

The purpose of this study was to understand U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service public land managers’ perceptions of fire management and recreational use in urban national forests of the United States. An online survey was used to understand managers’ perceptions of (a) the degree to which the presence of recreational activities and experiences are a constraint to fire management, (b) the degree to which fire management and suppression activities influence the quality of a visit to a recreation site, and (c) the relationships between fire management and recreation constraints. In all, 62 district rangers within urban national forests were …

Place Attachment And Recreational Constraints Relating To Fire Management, William W. Hendricks, Deborah J. Chavez, Kelly S. Bricker

Natural Resources Management and Environmental Sciences

This paper presents a study of visitors to the Big Sur region of California during summer 2001. An onsite survey was administered to visitors to USDA Forest Service day-use areas and at developed campgrounds. Place attachment, observations relating to fires and fire management, and perceived recreational constraints owing to wildland fire and fire management are examined. The results indicate that place dependence and place identity influence some perceived constraints and observations of fire conditions. A discussion of the findings is provided, emphasizing the importance of managers’ understanding of visitors’ perceptions relating to fire and fire management.

Observation Of Nanosecond Laser Induced Fluorescence Of In Vitro Seawater Phytoplankton, Thomas J. Bensky, Lisa Clemo, Chris Gilbert, Bryan Neff, Mark A. Moline, Dov Rohan

Physics

Seawater has been irradiated using a train of 70 ns flashes from a 440 nm laser source. This wavelength is on resonance with the blue absorption peak of Chlorophyll pigment associated with the photosystem of in vitro phytoplankton. The resulting fluorescence at 685 nm is instantaneously recorded during each laser pulse using a streak camera. Delayed fluorescence is observed, yielding clues about initiation of the photosynthetic process on a nanosecond time scale. Further data processing allows for determination of the functional absorption cross section, found to be 0:0095 Ų, which is the first reporting of this number for …

Conflations Of Probability Distributions, Theodore P. Hill

Research Scholars in Residence

The conflation of a finite number of probability distributions P₁,..., P_n is a consolidation of those distributions into a single probability distribution Q=Q(P₁,..., P_n), where intuitively Q is the conditional distribution of independent random variables X₁,..., X_n with distributions P₁,..., P_n, respectively, given that X₁= ... =X_n. Thus, in large classes of distributions the conflation is the distribution determined by the normalized product of the probability density or probability mass functions. Q is shown to be the …

Pre-Conference Proceedings Of The Focus Symposium On Intelligent Software Tools And Services, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

No abstract provided.

Perspective Models: A Mechanism For Achieving Interoperability Among Expressive, Personalized Domain Views, Kym J. Pohl, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

Accurate and expressive representation of the subject matter over which a context-oriented, decision-support system operates is fundamental to the effectiveness and longevity of the resulting solution. Often taking the form of an ontology, such extensive representational models, by their very nature, are rich in relationships and both coarse and fine-grained objects. It is, however, these qualities enabling rich expression that can significantly increase both the complexity of developing against these models as well as the potential for incurring undesirable performance issues. Further, due to the typically detail-oriented usage inherent in the software-based users (i.e., reasoning agents, etc.) of these models, …

Similarity Assessment Techniques, Michael A. Zang, Adam Gray, Michael Hobbs, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This paper serves as a layman’s introduction to similarity assessment techniques, their distinction from contemporary computing paradigms, and their real-world applications. The following content derives from the experience gained by the authors in applying similarity assessment techniques to resolve the real-world problems of CDM customers, in particular those faced by the United States Transportation Command (USTRANSCOM).

Icodes: A Multi-Agent System In Practice, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This paper describes the Integrated Computerized Deployment System (ICODES) from both an architectural and evolutionary vantage point.

First, ICODES is a logistic software application of ship load-planning tools that utilizes intelligent software agents in a human-computer collaborative mode. As an example of a new generation of intelligent military decision-support systems, ICODES includes expert agents with automatic reasoning and analysis capabilities. This is made possible by an internal virtual representation of the load-planning environment, in terms of conveyance and cargo characteristics and the complex relationships that constitute the context within which load-planning operations are performed. ICODES agents monitor the principal determinants …

Challenging Computer Software Frontiers And The Human Resistance To Change, Jens G. Pohl

Collaborative Agent Design (CAD) Research Center

This paper examines the driving and opposing forces that are governing the current paradigm shift from a data-processing information technology environment without software intelligence to an information-centric environment in which data changes are automatically interpreted within the context of the application domain. The driving forces are related to the large quantity of data and the complexity of networked systems that both call for software intelligence. The opposing forces are non-technical and due to the natural human resistance to change.

Based on this background the paper describes current information-centric technology, proposes a vision of intelligent software system capabilities, and identifies four …

Joxm: Java Object —Xml Mapping, Adam Dukovich, Jimmy Hua, Jong Seo Lee, Michael Huffman, Alex Dekhtyar

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Java object XML mapping (JOXM) is a library that supports the automated persistence and querying of Java objects in a native XML database. The goal of this library is to provide a suitable alternative to standard object-relational mapping (ORM) tools, most notably Hibernate. Unlike techniques such as XML-relational persistence, the storage mechanism provided by JOXM is transparent, allowing the developer to store, retrieve, and query typed Java objects as opposed to plain XML data.

A Tutorial On The Basic Physics Of Climate Change, David W. Hafemeister, Peter V. Schwartz

Physics

In this paper, we have used several basic atmospheric–physics models to show that additional carbon dioxide will warm the surface of Earth. We also show that observed solar variations cannot account for observed global temperature increase.

Magnetic Properties Of Marine Magnetotactic Bacteria In A Seasonally Stratified Coastal Pond (Salt Pond, Ma, Usa), Bruce M. Moskowitz, Dennis A. Bazylinski, Ramon Egli, Richard B. Frankel, Katrina J. Edwards

Physics

Magnetic properties of suspended material in the water columns of freshwater and marine environments provide snapshots of magnetic biomineralization that have yet to be affected by the eventual time-integration and early diagenetic effects that occur after sediment deposition. Here, we report on the magnetism, geochemistry and geobiology of uncultured magnetite- and greigite-producing magnetotactic bacteria (MB) and magnetically responsive protists (MRP) in Salt Pond (Falmouth, MA, USA), a small coastal, marine basin (∼5 m deep) that becomes chemically stratified during the summer months. At this time, strong inverse O₂ and H₂S concentration gradients form in the water column …

Toward Systematic Approaches To Design And Implement Vehicles Semi-Active Control Systems, Hamidreza Bolandhemmat, Christopher M. Clark, Farid Golnaraghi

Computer Science and Software Engineering

In this paper a systematic while practical methodology has been presented for design of vehiclepsilas semiactive suspension systems. The semi-active control strategies developed to improve vehicle ride comfort and stability generally have a switching nature. This makes the design of the controlled suspension systems difficult and highly dependent on an extensive trial and error process. The proposed methodology maps the discontinuous control system model to a continuous linear region where all the time/frequency design techniques established in the conventional control system theory can be applied. If the semiactive control system is designed to satisfy some ride/stability requirements, an inverse mapping …

De Vries Behavior In Smectic Liquid Crystals Near A Biaxiality-Induced Smectic-A-Smectic-C Tricritical Point, Karl Saunders

Physics

We show that a generalized Landau theory for the smectic-A-smectic-C (Sm- A -Sm- C ) phases exhibits a biaxiality induced Sm- A -Sm- C tricritical point. Proximity to this tricritical point depends on the degree of orientational order in the system; for sufficiently large orientational order the Sm-A-Sm-C transition is three-dimensional XY -like, while for sufficiently small orientational order, it is either tricritical or first order. We investigate each of the three types of Sm-A-Sm-C transitions near tricriticality and show that for each type of transition, small orientational order implies de Vries behavior in the layer spacing, an unusually small …

Transient Optical Sky Survey Automated Telescope System, Elena Hadjiyska, Philip Lubin, Scott Taylor, Gary B. Hughes

Statistics

We describe the optical design of a sky survey system comprised of small aperture telescope tube assemblies mounted on a common semi-equatorial frame with a single polar axis. It is the first ground-based instrument to create a map of transients down to optical m=17 by imaging a fixed-declination strip of the sky on a nightly basis. The system is fully remotely automated and physically robust. The mount tracks the sky using a motion controller, drive motor, and a laser rotary encoder. The prototype configuration is suited to house up to 6 telescopes on the current mount and is easily expandable …

Full Algebra Of Generalized Functions And Non-Standard Asymptotic Analysis, Todor D. Todorov, Hans Vernaeve

Mathematics

We construct an algebra of generalized functions endowed with a canonical embedding of the space of Schwartz distributions. We offer a solution to the problem of multiplication of Schwartz distributions similar to but different from Colombeau’s solution. We show that the set of scalars of our algebra is an algebraically closed field unlike its counterpart in Colombeau theory, which is a ring with zero divisors. We prove a Hahn–Banach extension principle which does not hold in Colombeau theory. We establish a connection between our theory with non-standard analysis and thus answer, although indirectly, a question raised by Colombeau. This article …

Analysis Of Longitudinal Beam Dynamics Behavior And Rf System Operative Limits At High-Beam Currents In Storage Rings, Themis Mastorides, C. Rivetta, J.D. Fox, D. Teytelman, D. Van Winkle

Physics

PEP-II plans to achieve the final goal in luminosity will require an increase of the beam currents to 4A for LER and 2.2A for HER. These magnitudes are challenging in part because they will push the longitudinal low-order mode (LOM) beam stability and the station stability to the limit. To analyze the behavior of both rings at high currents and to understand the limits in the longitudinal feedback systems, a simulation tool has been developed at SLAC. This tool is based on a reduced model of the longitudinal LOM dynamics of the beam interacting with the effective impedance presented by …

Realtime Experiments In Markov-Based Lane Position Estimation Using Wireless Ad-Hoc Network, Thanh-Son Dao, Luke Ng, Christopher M. Clark, Jan Paul Huissoon

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This paper presents real-time experimental results for a new lane positioning system using Markov localization based on inter-vehicle communication. The proposed system uses low-cost GPS receivers to provide vehicle locations. The system also combines a low-pass Butterworth filter and a particle filter for GPS receiver noise rejection. To study the new lane positioning system, a multi-threaded program in C++, that enables the communication between vehicles and determines their lane positions in real-time, was developed. Experiments using this software validate the effectiveness of the lane positioning system.

Reinforcement Learning Of Adaptive Longitudinal Vehicle Control For Dynamic Collaborative Driving, Luke Ng, Christopher M. Clark, Jan P. Huissoon

Computer Science and Software Engineering

Dynamic collaborative driving involves the motion coordination of multiple vehicles using shared information from vehicles instrumented to perceive their surroundings in order to improve road usage and safety. A basic requirement of any vehicle participating in dynamic collaborative driving is longitudinal control. Without this capability, higher-level coordination is not possible. This paper focuses on the problem of longitudinal motion control. A detailed nonlinear longitudinal vehicle model which serves as the control system design platform is used to develop a longitudinal adaptive control system based on Monte Carlo reinforcement learning. The results of the reinforcement learning phase and the performance of …

Distributed Platoon Assignment And Lane Selection For Traffic Flow Optimization, Thanh-Son Dao, Christopher M. Clark, Jan Paul Huissoon

Computer Science and Software Engineering

This paper presents an approach to lane assignment for highway vehicles that increases traffic throughput while ensuring vehicles can exit successfully at their destinations. To enhance traffic safety and increase lane capacities, vehicles can be organized into platoons with the objective of maximizing the travel distance that platoons stay intact and then apply lane assignment to these platoons. The goal of this research is to form a distributed control strategy to select lanes for platoons using inter-vehicle communication. We evaluate the current platoon lane assignment strategy and compare its improvement over average vehicle travel time with the lane assignment for …

Simulation And Monte Carlo: With Applications In Finance And Mcmc, Samuel J. Frame

Statistics

No abstract provided.