Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

The Effect Of A 6-Week Strength And Balance Training Program On Navicular Drop And Proprioception In Excessive Pronated Foot, Ryoko Suzuki

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine the effect of a 6-week strength and balance training program on navicular drop and proprioception in subjects with excessive pronated feet. Eleven subjects who exhibited excessive pronated feet from student population participated in this study. Navicular drop test was used to assess the subtalar joint motion. The Biodex Stability System was used to determine balance using three indices; (1) overall stability index (OSI), (2) the anterior-posterior stability index (APSI), and (3) the medial-lateral stability index (MLSI). In a randomized order, the subjects were tested balancing on each foot at the two different …

A Study Of Hidden Markov Model, Yang Liu

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis is fourfold: Introduce the definition of Hidden Markov Model. Present three problems about HMM that must be solved for the model to be useful in real-world application. Cover the solution of the three basic problems; explain some algorithms in detail as well as the mathematical proof. And finally, give some examples to show how these algorithms work.

Finding Functional Gene Relationships Using The Semantic Gene Organizer (Sgo), Kevin Erich Heinrich

Masters Theses

Understanding functional gene relationships is a major challenge in bioninformatics and computational biology. Currently, many approaches extract gene relationships via term co-occurrence models from the biomedical literature. Unfortunately, however, many genes that are experimentally identified to be related have not been previously studied together. As a result, many automated models fail to help researchers understand the nature of the relationships. In this work, the particular schema used tomine genomic data is called Latent
Semantic Indexing (LSI). LSI performs a singular-value decomposition (SVD) to produce a low-rank approximation of the data set. Effectively, it allows queries to be interpreted in a …

A Clustering Method Based On Nonnegative Matrix Factorization For Text Mining, Farial Shahnaz

Masters Theses

This study presents a methodology for automatically identifying and clustering semantic features or topics in a heterogeneous text collection. The methodology involves encoding the text data using a low rank nonnegative matrix factorization algorithm to retain natural data nonnegativity, thereby eliminating the need to use subtractive basis vector and encoding calculations present in other techniques such as principal component analysis for semantic feature abstraction. Existing techniques for nonnegative matrix factorization are reviewed and a new hybrid technique for nonnegative matrix factorization is proposed. Performance evaluations of the proposed method is conducted on a few benchmark text collections used in standard …

Productivity Analysis And Use Of Sequence-Based Specification In A Web-Development Environment, Carla Renee Sparks

Masters Theses

This study evaluates the productivity of a software team in a web-development company and assesses the effects of the sequence-based specifications process on productivity and software accuracy in this environment. This study compares two software projects completed at GoTrain Corporation in 2001 and 2002. GoTrain is an application service provider and delivers environmental, safety and health (ES&H) training courses to a variety of clients through an Internet-based learning management system (LMS), called the Academy.

GoTrain was established in 1999 through the merger of two small companies – a training services organization and a web design group. Because neither of the …

Modeling The Cascade Of Reactions In Visual Transduction, Philip Torry Patton

Masters Theses

Phototransduction in the process by which light energy is transferred to an electrical potential by photoreceptors in the eye. Recently, Hamer et al proposed a mechanism for the cascade of reactions that occurs when a rhodopsin molecule on the surface of a disc in the rod photoreceptor becomes activated. From these reactions, one can derive a system of ordinary differential equations to simulate phototransduction.

These ODEs are solved numerically using forward Euler’s method. The products of this cascade are then used to predict the drop in photocurrent that occurs. A kinetic Monte Carlo simulation with the Gillespie algorithm is implemented …

Fractured Branched Circle Packings On The Plane, James Russell Ashe

Masters Theses

William Thurston first proposed that real circles could be used to approximate the underlying infinitesimal circles of conformal maps in 1985. Inspired pioneers developed Circle Packing into a very rich and deep field that can be used as a method for constructing discrete conformal maps of surfaces on different types of geometries. Offering the advantages of a computational method that lends itself to experimentation and the easy creation of visual models, Circle Packing has proven itself as valuable new tool in approaching both old and new problems.

In particular, Circle Packing has been used to make discrete analogues of continuous …

Spectroscopy Using Short-Path Surface Plasmon Dispersion, Philip Ryan Boudreaux

Masters Theses

A miniature surface-plasmon based spectrometer is presented for both the near zone and the far zone. In the near zone four different experiments have been completed with this system. It will be shown that with 632, 614, 543, and 440 nm incident lasers upon the system there is good agreement between experimental and theoretical transmission spectra. This system is shown to provide transmission spectra of different broad band-pass, glass filters across the visible wavelength range with high stray-light rejection at low resolution. These spectra are compared to those taken with a commercial spectrophotometer. Spectra of solutions of the laser dye …

Mathematical Representations Of The Architecture Of Graphical User Interfaces, Eric Freeman Mann

Masters Theses

This text is an introduction to mathematical representations of graphical user interfaces, GUIs. Vectors are employed as a means to represent the state of a GUI and the user interaction with a GUI. These representations form a model of the behavior of a GUI over time. The usefulness of the model in testing and developing well-behaved GUIs is discussed and demonstrated by example.

A Whole Genome Phylogeny Using Truncated Pivoted Qr Decomposition, Shakhina Abdimajidovna Pulatova

Masters Theses

The increasing availability of whole genome sequences in public databases has stimulated the development of new methods to automatically compare and categorize genes and species. Recently developed methods based on the singular value decomposition (SVD) allow for the simultaneous identification and definition of well concerved motifs and gene families using very large whole genome datasets. In contrast, this work discusses the use of a truncated pivoted QR factorization as a scalable alternative to the SVD for comparing whole genomes in a phylogenetic context. This algorithm computes the R factor of the decomposition without forming the Q factor or altering the …

Metal Ion Imprinted Polymers For Biomolecular Recognition, Len A. Harris

Masters Theses

Protein recognition by HPLC, based on histidine residues, was achieved by incorporating a copper chelating ligand covalently bonded to a polystyrene/divinyl benzene substrate, into column packing. The metal ion was bonded to the substrate in two ways: randomly, where the copper was bound to the ligand after the substrate polymerization and imprinted, where the copper was bound to the ligand before the substrate polymerization. The effect of this templating was measured by protein separation parameters of the resulting HPLC chromatographs. The hypothesis of this thesis is the imprinted substrate will have a higher copper content, and with coppers affinity toward …

Resonant And Non-Resonant Inelastic X-Ray Scattering Of Copper Phthalocyanine, Michelle Deleene Tuel-Benckendorf

Masters Theses

With the ever-changing demands of technology and the desire to use new materials to replace the old, researchers have the job to not only find alternative materials, but also understand their properties. There continues to be extensive research in the properties of organic semiconductors, for use in many microelectronic applications. There is very little known about the excitation properties of these materials. For my research, I have chosen to study the electronic excitations of copper phthalocyanine (CuPc), one specific organic semiconductor. To do this, we used resonant and non-resonant inelastic x-ray scattering to measure the evolution of excitations as a …

Synthetic Studies On Anticancer Compounds: The Tylophorinines, Conrad Gracjan Kaczmarek

Masters Theses

This thesis describes synthetic studies in the area of alkaloid chemistry, specifically, potent anticancer compounds: the tylophorinines.

Tylophorinine is a naturally occurring compound found in the Monarch butterfly and plants of the genus Tylophora. Described here is a concise methodology for stereoselective synthesis of this compound, and analogs, starting from simple, naturally occurring compounds. The synthetic strategy represents a simplification in synthesizing tylophorinines, and would allow numerous other tylophorinines with similar chemical structure to be conveniently synthesized in an analogous fashion.

Further, the tylophorinines are convenient compounds for determining where a cancer cell may be most effectively attacked. Numerous …

An Applied Statistical Reliability Analysis Of The Internal Bond Of Medium Density Fiberboard, David Joseph Edwards

Masters Theses

The forest products industry has seen tremendous growth in recent years and has a huge impact on the economies of many countries. For example, in the state of Maine in 1997, the forest products industry accounted for 9 billion U.S. dollars for that year. In the state of Tennessee, for example in 2000, this figure was 22 billion U.S. dollars for that year. It has, therefore, become more important in this industry to focus on production higher quality products. Statistical reliability methods, among other techniques, have been employed to help monitor and improve the quality of forest products. With such …

Studies Of Reversible Inhibition, Irreversible Inhibition And Activation Of Alkaline Phosphatase By Capillary Electrophoresis, Angela Randall Whisnant

Masters Theses

Reversible inhibition, irreversible inhibition, and activation of calf intestinal alkaline phosphatase (EC 3.1.3.1) have been studied by capillary electrophoresis. The capillary electrophoretic enzyme-inhibitor assays were performed by electrophoretically mixing zones of inhibitor and enzyme in a substrate-filled capillary. Enzyme inhibition was indicated by a decrease in product formation detected in the capillary by laser-induced fluorescence. Reversible enzyme inhibitors could be quantified by Michaelis-Menten treatment of the electrophoretic data. Reversible, competitive inhibition of alkaline phosphatase by sodium vanadate and sodium arsenate has been examined. The calculated K_i value for the capillary electrophoretic enzyme-inhibitor assays was 2.1 µM for sodium vanadate …

Software Reconfigurability For Heterogeneous Robot Cooperation, Maureen Chandra

Masters Theses

Previous work in multi-robot cooperation has aimed at gaining autonomy and fault tolerance in the robot team. Most attempt to accomplish this by dynamically assigning roles or tasks to the robots and pre-designing the solution for heterogeneous robot teams with known sensing capabilities. However, pre-designed solutions fail when changes occur in the robot team composition or in the available environmental sensors at run-time. Automated solution design is thus needed to accomplish autonomy and fault tolerance in multi-agent systems. Very little work has been done in automating robot solutions at run-time due to the difficulty of adapting to many unexpected events …

Iron-Promoted Remediation Of Atrazine: Solution And Amended Sandy Column Studies, Donghua Zeng

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Physiology And Biochemistry Of Sclerotinia Sclerotiorum, A Fungal Plant Pathogen, Erastus Gatebe

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Rugose Corals Of The Livingston Limestone Member, Bond Formation, Coles And Edgar County, Illinois, John Tobias Burke

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Cyclic Rings, Warren K. Buck

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Computational Modeling Of Tumor Angiogenesis, Santanu Chatterjee

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Electron Transfer In Phosphido-Bridged Complexes, Pradeep N. Perera

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Practical Approach To Incorporating Maple Into The Finite Mathematics Course: 3 Modules And 8 Case Studies, Jonica Helene Craft-Mcbride

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

Novel N-Body Orbits For Constrained Potentials Including The Unusual Figure Eight Three Body Orbit, Jan M. Dudzik

Masters Theses

Recently new n-body planar orbits have been discovered which are known as choreographies. These orbits correspond to small n, generally n<20, and exhibit unexpected patterns with respect to given initial conditions. Here we shall examine numerical solutions to the three-body problem and the restricted three-body problem for three body potentials that are the sum of three two-body potentials. Then for an everywhere attractive three body potential with non-collinear and collision-less orbits with a strictly monotone decreasing potential function there exist bound states that are not chaotic that are choreographies. For the right initial conditions these orbits can be mapped numerically and visualized. We will display a number of these cases corresponding to the three body problem, restricted three body problem, the chaotic restricted three body problem and the new figure eight bound state choreography for the Kazalov potential orbits to exhibit some of their special features and to take note of a number of open questions dealing with simple orbital problems.

A Similarity Based Concordance Approach To Word Sense Disambiguation, Ramakrishnan B. Guru

Masters Theses

This study attempts to solve the problem of Word Sense Disambiguation using a combination of statistical, probabilistic and word matching algorithms. These algorithms consider that words and sentences have some hidden similarities and that the polysemous words in any context should be assigned to a sense after each execution of the algorithm. The algorithm was tested with sufficient sample data and the efficiency of the disambiguation performance has proven to increase significantly after the inclusion of the concordance methodology.

A Comparative Study Of Photomultiplier Tubes And Charge Coupled Devices In Glow Discharge-Optical Emission Spectrometry, Robert James Broadwater

Masters Theses

This Masters Thesis compared two glow discharge-optical emission spectrometers designed around two different types of detectors: the photomultiplier tube (PMT) and the charge-coupled device (CCD). The two instruments compared were the LECO SA2000 (PMT-based) and the LECO GDS500a (CCD-based). Detection limit, dynamic range, precision, accuracy, and drift were determined to compare the detection systems between 165 and 450nm.

The PMT-based system outperformed the CCD-based system in all five of the categories studied based on the initial protocol. However, it was shown that improvements could be made in four of the five categories studied by exploiting the CCDs ability to monitor …

Laboratory Testing Of Select Geotextiles As Biointrusion Barriers And Sediment Filters, David R. Beck

Masters Theses

It has been proposed that placing a geotextile over sediments with adsorbed contaminants can prevent bioaccumulation of the contaminants in larger animals by isolating the benthic organisms living within these sediments from fish. In conjunction with a field study carried out at Gull Creek, a laboratory study testing two geotextiles as biointrusion barriers and sediment filters was conducted.

Constant-head permeameters were run for seven days using cores from the field study area with a geotextile placed over the cores. For biointrusion barrier tests, medium sand was placed over the geotextile and spiked with nutrients. Following each trial, benthic organisms in …

A Class Of Functions That Are Quasiconvex But Not Polyconvex, Catherine S. Remus

Masters Theses

In 1991 V. Sverak [11] gave an example of a function that was invariant and quasiconvex but not polyconvex. We have generalized this example to a wide class of functions that meet certain ellipticity and growth conditions. Quasiconvexity is one necessary and sufficient condition for the existence of solutions to the minimization problem in elliptic P.D.E. theory. Invariance is frequently a requirement of the stored energy function in Calculus of Variation approaches to elasticity problems.

Monte Carlo Simulations And Analysis Of Single-Molecule Detection And Imaging, Peter Williams

Masters Theses

Computer modeling and analysis methods are developed for two modes of operation of an instrument for sensitive fluorescence detection of individual dye-labeled molecules in solution. First, Monte Carlo simulations of experiments for single-molecule imaging (SMI) are extended to include effects of sample flow, sticking of molecules to surfaces, and the finite depth-of-focus of the optics. The results have a bearing on a patented method for high-speed single-molecule DNA sequencing. They indicate that the imaging of freely moving fluorescent labels within a microfluidic flowcell will be considerably more involved than that of immobilized molecules at a surface, which is the usual …

Isosurface Extraction In The Visualization Toolkit Using The Extrema Skeleton Algorithm, Subha Parvathy Mahaadevan

Masters Theses

Generating isosurfaces is a very useful technique in data visualization for understanding the distribution of scalar data. Often, when the size of the data set is really large, as in the case with data produced by medical imaging applications, engineering simulations or geographic information systems applications, the use of traditional methods like marching cubes makes repeated generation of isosurfaces a very time consuming task. This thesis investigated the use of the Extrema Skeleton algorithm to speed up repeated isosurface generation in the visualization package, Visualization Toolkit (VTK). The objective was to reduce the number of non-isosurface cells visited to generate …