Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Internet Access For Instrumental Control And Data Viewing At Bear Lake Observatory, Kerry M. Nelson

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Two departments at Utah State University have collaborated to operate an observatory near Bear Lake, Utah. The purpose of the observatory is to study various phenomena in the upper atmosphere, and houses such instruments as high-power CCD cameras, a radar system, and others. Until recently, only one instrument has had the capability of being controlled and monitored remotely. Since the other instruments do not have this capability, they must be set up and left running, only to have a person drive up to the observatory to check their operation after a given amount of time. This monitoring system is not …

Microgravity Effects On Water Flow And Distribution In Unsaturated Porous Media, Scott B. Jones, Dani Or

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Several aspects of the physical processes of liquid flow and distribution within partially saturated porous media are altered in the reduced gravity conditions (microgravity) of orbiting spacecraft. The objectives of this study were to simulate and test measured flow and distribution in porous media from a microgravity environment using conventional capillary flow theory. Two past microgravity experiments studying water supply and uptake in porous media took place on a U.S. space shuttle, titled ASC-1, and on the Russian space station Mir, titled Greenhouse-2. Data from microgravity and ground experiments were simulated using similar physical flow models by elimination of the …

Validation Study Of A Novel Neonatal Pneumotach, Scott A. Kofoed

Utah Space Grant Consortium

We have developed a pneumotach for measuring respiratory gas flows in humans and or animals. The pneumotach enables the monitoring of respiratory and metabolic function in human subjects over extended periods of time. A bench study was conducted to validate the new pneumotach system against other predicate devices. The pneumotach under test compared well to the predicate devices used.

Binary Classification Of Wind Fields Through Hypothesis Testing On Scatterometer Measurements, Paul E. Johnson

Utah Space Grant Consortium

Scatterometers are radars specially designed to nearsurface wind over the ocean from space. Traditional scatterometer wind estimation inverts the model function relationship between the wind and backscatter at each resolution element, yielding a set of ambiguities due to the many-to-one mapping of the model function. Field-wise wind estimation dramatically reduces the number of ambiguities by estimating the wind at many resolution elements, simultaneously, using a wind model that constrains the spatial variability of the wind. However, the appropriate choice of the model order needed for a particular wind field is not known a priori. The approximate model order is valuable …

Temporal Change Enhancement In Multispectral Images Remotely Sensed From Satellites, William P. Pfaff

Utah Space Grant Consortium

The application of principal components analysis to multispectral satellite images is a routine way to present the data in false-color composite images. These composite images include a very high percentage of available information and have no correlation between the displayed colors. The transformation of multispectral image data into its principal components is also an effective way to separate image information from noise. This paper describes a procedure for temporal change enhancement which exploits both the decorrelation and noise isolation properties of the principal components transformation. Using simulated temporal change, this procedure was demonstrated to be more effective than the standard …

Development Of A Full-Spectrum Raman Device For Detection Of Environmental Contaminants, David G. Smith

Utah Space Grant Consortium

NASA needs sensors to accurately monitor the water and atmospheric quality in its space habitat. Concerns for health and safety necessitate the development of sensors to measure common atmospheric gas concentrations, as well as trace contaminants (low ppm or ppb), including both combustible and noncombustible gases. The University of Utah is developing an enhanced Raman monitoring system to detect airborne, environmental contaminants. We have collected laboratory data to benchmark current laser Raman technology for gas analysis, which provides a reference for future developments. The objective of this project was to design a prototype gas-phase monitor, incorporating new technology that would …

Numerical Simulations Of Gravity Waves Imaged Over Arecibo During The 10-Day January 1993 Campaign, M. P. Hickey, R. L. Walterscheid, Michael J. Taylor, W. Ward, G. Schubert, Q. Zhou, F. Garcia, M. C. Kelley, G. G. Shepherd

All Physics Faculty Publications

Recently, measurements were made of mesospheric gravity waves in the OI (5577 Å) nightglow observed from Arecibo, Puerto Rico, during January 1993 as part of a special 10-day campaign. Clear, monochromatic gravity waves were observed on several nights. By using a full-wave model that realistically includes the major physical processes in this region, we have simulated the propagation of two waves through the mesopause region and calculated the O(1 S) nightglow response to the waves. Mean winds derived from both UARS wind imaging interferometer (WINDII) and Arecibo incoherent scatter radar observations were employed in the computations as were the climatological …

Managed Health Care And Its Effects On Health Care Access In Box Elder County Utah, Douglas Sean Linford

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

Since 1994 the issue of how access is impacted by managed care in rural Utah has been the focus of State advisory groups, the Utah Health Policy Commission, and the legislature. The Health Systems Improvement Act (1995) formalized the concern with a request that the Utah Department of Health study this impact (Sinclair et. Al., #2, pg. 1). In focus meetings around the state, the perception that managed care can negatively impact access in rural communities is generally accepted without significant controversy. Such comments often assume that rural residents will be forced to travel further or will receive fewer services …

Terminal Emulation System, Chun-Fu Lee

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

Terminal emulation is a personal computer application software which emulates the terminal's behavior to communicate with the mainframe/host computer. It can show the terminal screen on a personal computer screen and make the mainframe/host computer interact with it as it would with a real terminal without any distinction.

Personal computers are increasingly more powerful and efficient today. Their mobility, compatibility, flexibility, and extendibility are definitely superior to the 'dumb' traditional terminals. Terminal emulation is therefore devised to take advantage of these personal computers' redemptions to offset the traditional terminal's drawbacks and inconveniences.

A terminal emulation is actually a very complex …

Geomorphology Of The Green River In Dinosaur National Monument, Paul E. Grams

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Longitudinal profile, channel cross-section geometry, and depositional patterns of the Green River in its course through the eastern Uinta Mountains are each strongly influenced by river-level geology and tributary sediment delivery processes. We surveyed channel cross sections at 1-km intervals, mapped surficial geology, and measured size and characteristics of bed material in order to evaluate the geomorphic organization of the 70- km study reach. Canyon reaches that are of high gradient and narrow channel geometry are associated with the most resistant lithologies exposed at river level and the most frequent occurrences of tributary debris fans. Meandering reaches that are characterized …

Identification Of Belowground Woody Structures Using Molecular Biomarkers, Benny R. Bobowski

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Within the last two decades substantial progress has been made in understanding seed bank dynamics and the contribution of the soil seed bank to a post-disturbance plant community. There has been relatively little progress, however, in understanding perennial bud bank dynamics and the contribution of the soil bud bank to secondary succession. This lack of information is due primarily to the inability to reliably identify roots, rhizomes, and lignotubers that lie dormant beneath the soil surface. This scientific investigation, therefore, addressed the issue of identification of belowground woody structures.

The first objective was to develop a methodology that utilizes molecular …

Modelling Vegetation Cover Types Using Multiseasonal Remotely Sensed Data To Compare Ecotones At Multiple Spatial And Spectral Resolutions, Kimberly Patraw

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Army National Guard Bureau has implemented a cooperative project with Utah State University to help with the use, display, and evaluation of environmental data for maintaining land condition. Camp Grayling, Michigan, is comprised of deciduous and evergreen forest types. Use of remote sensing for classification has been limited in this region due to the difficulty of species-level classification using single-date remote-sensing techniques. Also, remote sensing has traditionally focused on mapping homogenous zones rather than vegetation boundaries, while one of the concerns for land managers is the nature of vegetation edges (ecotones).

This study analyzed each season and band from …

The Geomorphic Basis Of Colorado Squawfish Nursery Habitat In The Green River Near Ouray, Utah, Cynthia L. Rakowski

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Nursery habitat availability is considered a bottleneck to successful recruitment of Colorado squawfish (Ptychocheilus Lucius). Detailed geomorphic studies were conducted in a 1.5-km reach to examine channel response to flows and the geomorphic setting of nursery habitats during a 2-year period. Videography was used to extend relationships in the 1.5-km reach to a longer 10-km reach.

Nursery habitat availability varied yearly with little persistence in location or geomorphic setting of individual habitats for the 2 years of this study. A small number of habitats provided most of the area of high-quality (i.e., deep) habitat, and most of the …

Cenozoic Tectonic And Paleogeographic Evolution Of The Horse Prairie Half-Graben, Southwest Montana, Colby J. Vandenburg

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The Horse Prairie basin (HPB) of southwestern Montana is a complex, east dipping half-graben that contains three angular unconformity-bounded sequences of Tertiary lacustrine, paludal, and fluvial sediments overlying middle Eocene volcanic rocks. The basin is near the eastern edge of the Cordilleran thrust belt, and represents the western half of a larger Paleogene rift basin. Geologic mapping within the Everson Creek and Bannock Pass 7.5 minute quadrangles indicates that five temporally and geometrically distinct episodes of extension characterize the late Mesozoic (?) to Cenozoic tectonic evolution of the upper HPB.

The first episode of extension occurred prior to emplacement of …

Studies Of Mid-Latitude Mesospheric Temperature Variability And Its Relationship To Gravity Waves, Tides, And Planetary Waves, Kenneth C. Beissner

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Temperature observations of the middle atmosphere have been carried out from September 1993 through July 1995 using a Rayleigh backscatter lidar located at Utah State University (42°N, 111°W). Data have been analyzed to obtain absolute temperature profiles from 40 to 90 km. Various sources of error were reviewed in order to ensure the quality of the measurements. This included conducting a detailed examination of the data reduction procedure, integration methods, and averaging techniques. eliminating errors of 1-3%. The temperature structure climatology has been compared with several other mid-latitude data sets. including those from the French lidars, the SME spacecraft, the …

Quaternary Bear River Paleohydrogeography Reconstructed From The 87sr/86sr Composition Of Lacustrine Fossils, David P. Bouchard

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Diverted from its former course to the Pacific Ocean by basalt flows in Gem Valley, Idaho, the Bear River presently flows south into the Bonneville Basin. Constraining the timing of the river's diversion is pivotal to understanding the hydrologic budgets, and thus the climatological implications of the Bonneville Basin lakes. This study employs strontium (Sr) isotopes in mollusc fossils as a tracer of the Bear River water that entered Lake Thatcher, a small, closed-basin lake into which the redirected river flowed en route to the Bonneville Basin. The Sr ratios, combined with the temporal control afforded by amino acid geochronology …

Nettest: An Integrated Web-Based Test Tools, Tzy-Tao Yang

All Graduate Plan B and other Reports, Spring 1920 to Spring 2023

This report presents the design and implementation of NetTest; a Java program that can be run within a Java enabled Web browser. NetTest is a Web-based test tool, which allows instructors to create or edit tests and students to take tests using a Java-enabled Web-browser. It also allows managers to perform their tasks using similar tools.

NetTest is a server/client program, which is located on the server. While using the NetTest system, the Web browser will automatically download the program and execute it on the client machine. In other words, NetTest can be run on any kind of network …

Wildfire Case Study: Butte City Fire, Southeastern Idaho, July 1, 1994, Bret W. Butler, Timothy D. Reynolds, United States Department Of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Research Station

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

The Butte City Fire occurred on July 1, 1994, west of Idaho Falls, ID. Ignited from a burning flat tire, the blaze was driven by high winds that caused it to cover over 20,500 acres in just over 6.5 hours. Sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis) is the principal shrub species of this high dese~t rangeland. With the absence of vegetation after the fire, erosion increased tremendously. Because the fire occurred on the Idaho National Engineering Laboratory, researchers were able to gather weather information from remote meteorological stations positioned on and around the site.

Fourth Siam Conference On Applications Of Dynamical Systems, Siam Activity Group On Dynamical Systems

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

No abstract provided.

Synthesis And Protection Of Nitrogen Containing Heterocycles, Timothy I. Elwell

Undergraduate Honors Capstone Projects

The pyrrolo[2,3-d] pyrimidine ring systems are present in a variety of antibacterial/anticancer compounds. A scarcity of natural sources has made necessary the need for researchers to find more efficient methodologies to synthesize such compounds.1 The Edstrom research group is currently exploring new routes to these compounds, varying the protecting groups and the precursors used to make them.

Geometric Aspects Of Second-Order Scalar Hyperbolic Partial Differential Equations In The Plane, Martin Jurás

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The purpose of this dissertation is to address various geometric aspects of second-order scalar hyperbolic partial differential equations in two independent variables and one dependent variable

F(x, y, u, u_x, u_y, u_xx, u_xy, u_yy) = 0

We find a characterization of hyperbolic Darboux integrable equations at level k (1) in terms of the vanishing of the generalized Laplace invariants and provide an invariant characterization of various cases in the Goursat general classification of hyperbolic Darboux integrable equations (1). In particular we give a contact invariant characterization of equations integrable by …

Channel Narrowing Of The Green River Near Green River, Utah: History, Rates, And Processes Of Narrowing, Tyler M. Allread

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Previous scientific research has documented channel narrowing on the Green River near Green River, Utah, but the exact timing, rates, and causal mechanisms of that narrowing have been the source of disagreement in the scientific literature. This thesis demonstrates that the Green River has narrowed in two separate periods during the last 100 years. The narrowing is driven primarily by changes in the hydrologic regime and not by the invasion of saltcedar. The channel narrowed between 1930 and 1938, when a shift from wetter than normal conditions to a period of draught led to a reduction in river discharge. Channel …

Empirical Studies Of Ionospheric Electric Fields, Ludger Scherliess

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The first comprehensive study of equatorial- to mid-latitude ionospheric electric fields (plasma drifts) is presented, using extensive incoherent scatter radar measurements from Jicamarca, Arecibo, and Millstone Hill, and F-region ion drift meter data from the polar orbiting DE-2 satellite. Seasonal and solar cycle dependent empirical quiet-time electric field models from equatorial to mid latitudes are developed, which improve and extend existing climatological models. The signatures of electric field perturbations during geomagnetically disturbed periods, associated with changes in the high-latitude currents and the characteristics of storm-time dynamo electric fields driven by enhanced energy deposition into the high-latitude ionosphere, are studied. Analytical …

Stratigraphy, Geochronology, And Tectonics Of The Salt Lake Formation (Tertiary) Of Southern Cache Valley, Utah, Kristine A. Smith

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study synthesizes the deposition and tectonic evolution of the Tertiary deposits in southern Cache Valley, a narrow, north-trending valley in the northeastern Basin-and- Range Province. The surrounding mountains consist of Proterozoic and Paleozoic sedimentary rocks. Southern Cache Valley is an east-tilted half-graben. The oldest Tertiary sediments are on the west side of the basin, and the overall dip is to the east.

The Late Miocene to Early Pliocene Salt Lake Formation (Tsl) accumulated above the thin (to absent) Early to Middle Eocene Wasatch Formation (Tw) and the newly identified Fowkes and Norwood Tuff equivalents (Tfn; late Middle Eocene to …

A Hydrogeochemical Study Of The Evolution Of The Headwaters Of The Bear River In The Uinta Mountains, Utah, Michael F. Leschin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

The headwaters of the Bear River in the Uinta Mountains of Utah provide a good setting in which to examine the influence of geological materials on stream chemistry. Ionic contributions to the stream-water from soils, vegetation, and the atmosphere generally are sparse enough that they do not mask the geologic contributions. Samples from 37 sites on the four major headwater streams and several minor tributaries were examined geochemically. Data derived from the samples allowed the construction of a hydrogeochemical weathering model specific to the study area. A significant feature of this model is that carbonic acid is the dominant chemical …

Geochemical, Petrologic, And Structural Characterization At Multiple Scales Of Deformation Associated With The Punchbowl Fault, Southern California, Steven E. Schulz

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Three traverses across the exhumed trace of the Punchbowl fault zone in the Pelona Schist, southern California, were examined at the millimeter to kilometer scales to determine the morphology, deformation mechanisms, and geochemistry of the fault zone in schistose rocks. The Pelona Schist is predominantly a quartz-albite-muscovite-actinolite schist with associated minor metabasalts. The Punchbowl fault zone, which is exhumed 2-4 km, has 44 km of right lateral slip, and is composed of a fault core enveloped by a damaged zone.

The fault core is a region of extreme slip localization that records most fault displacement. Deformation in the fault core …

Effects Of Flow Augmentation On Channel Morphology And Riparian Vegetation In The Upper Arkansas River Basin, Colorado, Dewitt S. Dominick

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

This study examined historic change of riparian plant communities and fluvial geomorphic response of gravel-bedded streams and their floodplains to over 50 years of hydrologic disturbance. Four tributary basins of the Arkansas River were analyzed. Lake Creek, Clear Creek, and Cottonwood Creek are drainages similar in area, physiography, and vegetation composition. However, Lake Creek may receive an instantaneous discharge of approximately 28 m3sec^-1 from the Twin Lakes tunnel, over three times the normal flow of the stream during spring runoff. By contrast, Clear Creek and Cottonwood Creek, nonaugmented streams, were used as controls to compare the historic and present …

A Slow-Release Nitrogen Fertilizer: Ammonium-Loaded Clinoptilolite, T. Scott Perrin

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Crops grown in sandy soils require frequent irrigation. As a result, nitrogen (N) fertilizers. such as ammonium sulfate((NH₄)₂SO₄), are leached from the rooting zone of crops. This loss of N increases N fertilizer use and the potential for nitrate (NO₃^-) contamination of water. Ammonium-loaded clinoptilolite (NH₄⁺-Cp) may reduce this N leaching, increase N fertilizer use-efficiency, and prevent NO₃- contamination of water while sustaining normal crop growth.

The potential of NH₄⁺-Cp as a N fertilizer was assessed in three leaching experiments without plants and …

Wind Climatology At 87 Km Above The Rocky Mountains At Bear Lake Observatory--Fabry-Perot Observations Of Oh, V. B. Wickwar, I K. Monson, C M. Vadnais, D Rees

Reports

This paper presents the neutral -wind climatology at approximately 87-km 53 altitude from Utah State University's Bear Lake Observatory (BLO). a mid-latitude site 54 situated in the middle of the Rocky Mountains. The winds were determined using a very 55 sensitive Fabry-Perot interferometer (FPI) observing the OH Me inel (6-2) PI (3) line al 56 843 nm. The climatology. determined from monthly averages of the nightly evolution of 57 the geographic meridional and zonal wind components over forty· five months, has three 58 distinct seasonal patterns: winter (November- February), summer (May-Jul y), and late 59 Slimmer (August and September). The …

Investigations On The Effect Of Grazing Intensity On The Transfer Of Radionuclides To Cow's Milk, G. Voight, C. Schotola, N. M.J. Crout, J. Absalom

All U.S. Government Documents (Utah Regional Depository)

No abstract provided.