Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Synthetic Studies Towards The Stellettins, Tung Yin Lin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Fourier-Transform Microwave Spectroscopy Of Cyclopropylmethylgermane And Van Der Waals Complexes Of Fluorinated Methanes, Michal M. Serafin

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Image Analysis Techniques For Vertebra Anomaly Detection In X-Ray Images, Mohammed Das

Masters Theses

"In this research, imaging techniques are investigated for the analysis and detection of abnormalities in cervical and lumbar vertebrae. Detecting vertebra anomalies pertaining to osteoarthritis such as claw, traction and anterior osteophytes can aide in treatment plans for the patient. New size invariant features were developed for the detection of claw, traction and anterior osteophytes in cervical spine vertebrae. Using a K-means clustering and nearest centroid classification approach, the results were generated that were capable of discriminating cervical vertebrae for presence of anomalies related to osteophytes. The techniques developed can be integrated into systems based on querying spine images to …

Obscurant Oil Characterization Produced Through Vaporization By Exhaust Gas Of Mini-Jet Turbine Engine, Hossein Daniel Bahaghighat

Masters Theses

"Obscurants have been used for centuries to conceal and protect military assets from direct enemy attack, or as a signal between units. Obscurants still play a significant role in protecting soldiers on the battlefield. This research was geared towards development of highly efficient man portable obscurant generation system to demonstrate its use with biogenic oils as the obscurants. The research reported in the thesis was directed evaluating the performance of a mini-jet based generator in the laboratory and field with two different obscurant oils, Fog Oil (FO) the oil used by the US Army at present and potential replacement oil …

Critical Infrastructure Protection And The Domain Name Service (Dns) System, Mark Edward Snyder

Masters Theses

"Components of the critical infrastructure of any system are natural targets for attack. Any inherent weakness of such components can potentially expose the entire system to vulnerability. The Domain Name System (DNS) is one component of the proper functioning of the Internet. Although DNS is a relatively simple, isolated component, it serves as a straightforward example for the study of distributed systems in general, and as such, we have explored properties of DNS to examine how enterprise-scale, critical infrastructure components are vulnerable to attack, what protections are afforded to defenders of such components, the inherent weaknesses of such systems, and …

Preserd - Privacy Ensured Service Discovery In Mobile Peer-To-Peer Environment, Santhosh Muthyapu

Masters Theses

"In mobile peer-to-peer networks many service discovery protocols have been proposed. Most of these protocols disregard the exposure of the participating peers' privacy details, although they consider the security issues. In these methods, the participating peers must provide their identities, during the service discovery process, to be authorized to utilize the service. However, a peer might not be willing to reveal its identity until it identifies the service providing peer. So these peers face a problem; should the requesting peer or the service providing peer reveal the identity first, and hence, this is similar to the chicken-and-egg problem. The protocol …

A Rapid Method For Determination Of Alpha Hydroxy Acids In Seawater And Biological Fluids At Trace Levels, Ryan Lee Schwiderski

Masters Theses

"Alpha hydroxy acids (AHAs) - carboxylic acids with a hydroxyl substitution on the alpha carbon are an important class of molecules. Hydroxy Methyl Thiobutanoic Acid (HMTBA) is an α-hydroxy analog of essential amino acid methionine; it finds extensive use as a feed supplement for avian and bovine species. Efficacy of alpha hydroxy acid uptake is important for nutritional studies and such studies rely on accurate and precise methods for determination of these chemicals in biological samples. Several methods for AHAs determination have been reported, however, the methods are tedious, requiring multiple sample preparation steps. Experiments reported in this thesis were …

An Economic Incentive Based Routing Protocol Incorporating Quality Of Service For Mobile Peer-To-Peer Networks, Anil Jade

Masters Theses

"Economic incentive models are becoming increasingly popular in Mobile Peer to Peer Networks (M-P2P). These models entice node participation to combat free riding and to effectively manage constraint resources in the network. Due to the dynamic topology of the M-P2P network, the connections between the peers become unpredictable and therefore, reliable routing becomes important. Many routing protocols proposed earlier (such as DSR, AODV) are based on best effort data traffic policy, such as the shortest route selection (hop minimization). Using economic models to find a cost effective optimal route from the source to the destination, while considering Quality of Service …

Polymer Reinforced Aerogels And Composites A. Polyimide Crosslinked Aerogels B. Silica-Polymethylmethacrylate Composites, Vishal U. Patil

Masters Theses

"Crosslinking of aerogels is a promising approach to combine the advantages of inorganic and polymeric materials. In the present study, two types of polyimide-silica hybrid aerogels, APTES-BTDA-MDA (mol ratio: 2:2:1) and APTES-BTDA-MDA (mol ratio: 2:3:2), were synthesized using a sol-gel process followed by heating in order to imidize the polyamic acid that is formed quickly and is covalently bonded to silica. The hybrid aerogels were made using 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane (APTES) endcapped polyamic acids and tetramethoxysilane (TMOS) as precursors. Polyimide crosslinked aerogels were characterized by TGA, SEM, FT-IR, BET, solid state NMR and gas pycnometry. These hybrid aerogels exhibit high thermal stability …

The Identification And Characterization Of Phenylalanine Ammonia-Lyase Gene Family Members In Glycine Max, Erin Kathleen Pringle

Masters Theses

"Gene families are collections of genes with similar functions. Studying gene families is important for understanding the evolution of genes and manipulating genes. Phenylalanine ammonia-lyase (PAL) is an enzyme found in plants. It catalyzes the deamination of phenylalanine to produce cinnamic acid. Genes for PAL have been identified in many different plant species. This project used the known sequence for the PAL1 gene in Glycine max to find other PAL genes in Glycine max"--Abstract, page iii.

Co-Optimization: A Generalization Of Coevolution, Travis Service

Masters Theses

"Many problems encountered in computer science are best stated in terms of interactions amongst individuals. For example, many problems are most naturally phrased in terms of finding a candidate solution which performs best against a set of test cases. In such situations, methods are needed to find candidate solutions which are expected to perform best over all test cases. Coevolution holds the promise of addressing such problems by employing principles from biological evolution, where populations of candidate solutions and test cases are evolved over time to produce higher quality solutions...This thesis presents a generalization of coevolution to co-optimization, where optimization …

Casimir Effect In Quantum Physics, Matthew James Urfer

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Numerical Approximations Of Differential Equations And Applications In Maple, Joyce Zimmerman

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Design Of Multi-Electron Transfer Catalysts For The Reduction Of Trichloroethylene, Christopher Gerard Eman Ciptadjaya

Masters Theses

For decades, organohalide (RX) compounds have been heavily used in the chemical and pharmaceutical industries and in agriculture as pesticides. Improper disposal of organohalides has resulted in their presence in the environment as pollutants, and they have therefore presented serious environmental and toxicological concerns. These organohalides have been associated with various health and environmental problems. Therefore, effective methods for their remediation are required. We have developed a multi-electron transfer (MET) catalyst consisting of flavin mononucleotide anchored to nanocrystalline mesoporous titanium dioxide (TiO₂) thin films, and examined its reactivity toward the organohalide pollutant trichloroethylene (TCE). Various environmental factors were …

Estimating Sea Level Due To Crustal Stretching In The Margin Of The Indian Ocean, Kisa Mwakanyamale

Masters Theses

Continental crust extension is a precursor to the formation of a new ocean. The overall crustal extension causes change in the volume of global oceans hence change in sea level. The break-up of Gondwana that began during Late Triassic to Early Jurassic time caused continental crustal extension prior to forming the Indian Ocean. Extension started 184 Ma with rifting between SE Africa, Madagascar and Antarctica. This was followed by rifting between Greater India, Australia and Antarctica beginning about 160 Ma. The most recent episode of extension occurred 34 Ma involving separation between Arabia and Horn of Africa. Gridded data sets …

The Effect Of A Skyrme Interaction On Nucleon Induced Reactions, Yingfa Zhang

Masters Theses

The main goal of this Master thesis is the theoretical study of the interaction between a nucleon and a nucleus. This is a fundamental method to study the structure and dynamics of nuclear systems. This thesis concentrates on the study of nucleon scattering on light nuclei, ⁶Li, ⁷Li and ¹⁴N, with the effective interaction M3Y and its modification by adding a Skyrme force. This is the first time the Skyrme interaction has been employed in scattering calculations. From a comparison of the measured differential cross section σ (θ) and the analyzing power Ay (θ) for ⁶Li …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Ruthenium Bipyridyl Complexes For Detecting Nerve Gas Agents And Explosives, Arambe Gedara Aruna Weerasinghe

Masters Theses

Five novel 2,2 '-bis bi pyridine Ru(II) complexes have been synthesized and characterized using ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, ¹H-¹H-COSY, elemental analysis, fast atom bombardment or electrospray mass spectra and electronic absorption spectroscopy. Binding of Ru (11) complexes with nerve gas analogos such as diethyl chlorophosphate (DCP), dimethyl methyl phosphonate (DMMP) and hydrolyzed product (HCl) has been investigated by electronic absorption, fluorescence, and lifetime studies. Compound 1 showed a quenching in ³MLCT emission after an initial increase in intensity upon the addition of DCP with a bathochromic shift of 25 nm. Compound 2 exhibit a …

Fundamental Investigation Of Vesicle Bilayer Membrane Dynamics, Wilson Okumu

Masters Theses

We studied the bilayer of vesicles from dimyristolyphosphatidylcholine (DMPC), using nitrobenzoxadiazole (NBD) probes, attached to the head (NBD-PE) and the tail (NBD-PC) of phospholipid derivatives. We characterized the bilayer as it underwent reversible transition from the gel to the fluid through a phase transition range. The main phase transition was characterized by steady state and timeresolved fluorescence anisotropy, fluorescence intensity decrement and kinetics of dithionite reduction. We also studied DMPC with dihydrocholesterol. Differences between the surface and interior regions of the bilayer region were obtained. The activation barrier was enthalpic in the gel, entropic in the fluid phase and anomalous …

Nanosensors For The Detection Of Nerve Agents And Explosives, Deepak Kumar Thimmaraju

Masters Theses

The central hypothesis of this research was development of a novel nanosensor for the detection of nerve agents and explosives. The nanosensor assembly comprises a bottom up approach with nanoparticle (N), monomer (M), nanomolecule (N) and a receptor (R) as moieties of a NMNR assembly. My research was focused on evaluating receptors for their efficiency towards the target analytes such as nerve agents and explosives. Pi electron rich receptor 2-Phenyl-2-Propanol and its fluorinated analog 1,1,1,3,3,3-Hexafluoro-2-Phenyl-2-Propanol were investigated for their ability to detect nerve agents such as DCP, its analogs DMMP and HCl along with the explosives mono, di, and trinitrotoluene. …

Nanomaterial Composites For The Detection Of Nerve Gas Analogs, Yogesh Datar

Masters Theses

The basis of the research work described here is the use of nanocomposite materials built by bottom-up approach for the selective detection of nerve gas analogs. Nanocomposites materials constructed by using nanoparticle-monomer-receptor (NMR) concept have been utilized to detect nerve gas analogs DCP and DMMP. Synthetic approach used in the construction of nanosensors involved use of robust platforms such as silica nanoparticles and fluorescent quantum dots. Highly conjugated receptor molecules were synthesized by using stilbeneoid compounds. A complete opto-nanosensor was developed by anchoring highly conjugated receptor molecules onto the silica nanoparticles as well as onto the quantum dots. The opto-nanosensors …

Effects Of Environmental Stress On Growth, Yield, And Flavonolignan Content In Milk Thistle Silybum Marianum L. Gaertn, Amy Renae Belitz

Masters Theses

Four experiments were performed in a greenhouse or growth chamber to study the quantity and quality of flavonolignans in response to environmental stress in milk thistle (Silybum marianum L., Gaertn.). A preliminary experiment was conducted in spring 2004 to study effects of leaf harvests on growth, development, and flavonolignan content in milk thistle seeds. Taxifolin, a component of silymarin and precursor to flavonolignans, was significantly reduced due to leaf harvest treatments.

The weedy nature (sporadic germination) of Silybum made germinating enough plants for experimentation problematic. Initial germination studies to determine imbibition and pre-chilling requirements were inconclusive due to heavy …

Design Construction And Use Of A Thermomechanical Detwinning Apparatus: Detwinning Of Orthorhombic Nb2bacu2o3, Chad J. Bircher

Masters Theses

In this thesis I will describe a device designed and built for thermo- mechanically detwinning crystals. Twinning is a process in which a crys- talline structrure with two different axes of nearly equal length alternate directions throughout the material, effectively generating a single bulk material with two or more distinct internal crystals. This structure defect can lead to many other effects in the crystal, and it is useful to elimi- nate twinning in many materials in order to determine which properties are fundamental properties of the crystal, and which properties are ar- tifacts of the structural imperfections. The apparatus described …

Reduction Of Human Factors-Related Accidents During The Flight Test Of Homebuilt Aircraft Through The Application Of Professional Flight Test Practices, Justin Samuel Garr

Masters Theses

Homebuilt aircraft have a high accident rate during the flight test period, particularly during their first and second flights. For the 2002-2004 period, over 1.0% of homebuilt aircraft were involved in an accident on their first flight, and 3.3% were involved in accidents in the first 40 hours of operation. Untrained, low time in aircraft type amateur flight test participants, unorthodox flight test procedures, and lack of clear guidance as to who should and how to conduct safe and effective flight test lead to unsafe conditions and the accident statistics support this hypothesis. In the accidents analyzed, lack of experience …

Characterization Of The Temperature Dependence Of Optical Components In A Cryo-Vacuum Chamber Used For Space Sensor Testing, Jesse M. Labello

Masters Theses

The space sensor cryo-vacuum chambers at Arnold Air Force Base are world class sensor characterization and calibration facilities. The chambers provide a simulated deep space background and accurate infrared projections. Several large optical systems are used within the chambers to accomplish this. Calibration of the chambers requires the use of a database of the measured optical properties of these components to simulate the output. However, as the information in the database is room temperature information and the chambers run near 20K, some discrepancies exist between the actual output and the model output. The purpose of this work is to translate …

Major And Trace-Element Chemistry Of Minerals In Lithologies A And B In Martian Meteorite Eeta79001: Petrogenesis Revisited, Michael Joseph Mellin

Masters Theses

EETA79001 is a unique shergottite composed of two mafic lithologies (termed LithA and LithB) that are separated by an igneous contact. Both lithologies have basaltic compositions; however, LithA contains megacrysts of olivine, orthopyroxenes, and chromite whereas LithB does not; also, LithA is finer-grained than LithB. Currently, the literature is in disagreement regarding the formation of this unique meteorite, especially regarding LithA. Different formational theories (e.g. fractional crystallization, magma mixing, assimilation, and impact melting) have their own constraints (chemical, thermal, or petrographic). This study uses petrographic observations combined with major- and trace- element compositions within minerals to investigate the petrogenesis of …

Bacterial Source Tracking In An Eastern Tennessee Stream Using Bacteroides Host Associated Real-Time Polymerase Chain Reaction Assays, Ryan Michael Ragsdale

Masters Theses

A bacterial source tracking study using Bacteroides host associated real-time PCR assays was performed to determine the sources of fecal contamination in Pond Creek (HUC 06010201013). Pond Creek, located in the Ridge and Valley physiographic region in Eastern Tennessee, is a 303(d) listed stream that fails to meet water quality standards for pathogens. Water samples and discharge were measured monthly at eight locations from November 2005 to November 2006. Grab samples were analyzed for several chemical parameters and for microbial fecal indicator organisms, namely Bacteroides spp., Escherichia coli, and Enterococcus. The objectives of the study were to quantify total, …

Impact Of Crop Rotations And Winter Cover Crops On Vegetative Cover, Aboveground Biomass, And Soil Organic Matter Under No-Till In Western Tennessee, Nicholas Phillip Ryan

Masters Theses

We investigated, under long-term no-till in western Tennessee, the effects of rotating the low-input crops cotton and soybeans with the high-input crop corn, compared to continuous monocultures of cotton and soybeans, and of using the winter cover crops (WCCs) winter wheat and hairy vetch, compared to winter fallow, on key indicators of soil health concerning vegetative cover and labile SOM. The line-transect method was used to measure percent vegetative cover. Dry weight of surface crop residue and aboveground living plant biomass (WCCs and winter weeds) was obtained. The living plant biomass was analyzed for carbon (C) and nitrogen (N) by …

Stream Restoration Assessment Of Abrams Creek In The Great Smoky Mountains National Park: Management Implications And Comparison Of Empirical And Analytical Physical Assessment Approaches, Daniel L. Carter

Masters Theses

Natural resource managers in the Great Smoky Mountains National Park requested the assistance of the University of Tennessee Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering to assess Abrams Creek for potential stream restoration needs. A presumed, unstable study reach and a stable reference reach were identified on Abrams Creek in Cades Cove. Chemical, biological and physical assessments were completed on Abrams Creek in order to evaluate ecological health and channel stability of the stream. Water quality and ecological (fish and habitat surveys) data acquired by National Park Service, Tennessee Valley Authority and the University of Tennessee were assessed. The physical assessment …

Impact Of The Equation Of State In Core-Collapse Supernovae, Mark Lewis Baird

Masters Theses

One of the key ingredients to the core collapse supernova mechanism is the physics of matter at or near nuclear density. Included in simulations as part of the Equation of State (EoS), nuclear repulsion experienced at high densities is responsible for the bounce shock, which initially causes the outer envelope of the supernova to expand, as well as determining the structure of the newly formed proto-neutron star. Recent years have seen renewed interest in this fundamental piece of supernova physics, resulting in several promising candidate EoS parameterizations. We will present the impact of several of their variations in the nuclear …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Doped Core/Shell Quantum Dots, Elizabeth J. Sodt

Masters Theses

The central theme of the research performed is the systematic modification of the optical properties of quantum dots by the formation of a shell of another quantum dot of a different band gap energy. Core/shell quantum dots such as CdS:Mn/CdS, CdS:Mn/ZnS, and ZnS:Mn/CdS with various concentrations of dopant Mn²⁺ in the core and shell concentrations have been synthesized under mild conditions in the aqueous phase using stoichiometric amounts of the surfactant stabilizer dodecyl sulfate. These quantum dots exhibit UV-vis, emission, and electron paramagnetic resonance (EPR) spectral behavior that is dependent on the concentration of the shell and the dopant …