Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Interactive Effects Of Cadmium And Benzo(A)Pyrene In Mummichog (Fundulus Heteroclitus), Peter Van Den Hurk

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

When animals are exposed to mixtures of environmental pollutants, it is generally assumed that the toxic effects of the individual components are additive. However, examples of synergistic and antagonistic effects have been described. to study the mechanisms of interaction between a metal and a polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon, mummichog (Fundulus heteroclitus) were injected with combinations of cadmium (Cd) and benzo (a) pyrene (BP). Measured effect parameters were: mortality, BP-metabolite production in isolated hepatocytes and microsomes, hepatic induction of CYP1A (the BP metabolizing enzyme) and metallothionein (the Cd binding protein), and biliary excretion of BP-metabolites. The mortality data demonstrated that both synergistic …

Development And Analysis Of A Nutrient Trading Program For The James River Watershed, Jennifer M. Reid

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Tagging And Habitat Utilization Of Juvenile Summer Flounder, Paralichthys Dentatus, Richard Thomas Kraus

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Phragmites Australis Invasion On Community Processes In A Tidal Freshwater Marsh, Michael Leadbeater Campana

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

No abstract provided.

Characterization Of Petroleum Fog Oil And Vegetable Oil Smokes, Andrew Oliver Larouche

Masters Theses

"Deception and concealment to gain tactical advantage in the battlefield has been an integral part of warfare. Smoke has been a common tool used for signaling, concealment of troop movement and weapon deployment. U.S. Armed Forces have made use of smokes in an organized manner since the 1st world war. Since then various materials such as white phosphorus, zinc chloride, diesel fuel and petroleum oil aerosols have been used to obscure military targets. For the past thirty years fog oil (FO) a medium distillate has been extensively used by the U.S. Armed Forces for generation of obscurant smokes (OS). During …

Africa As A Regional And Global Source Of Atmospheric Gases And Particulates, Lawrence Mtetwa

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The role of the continent of Africa as a source of gaseous and particulate emissions to the atmosphere is investigated in this study. Sources of gases and particulates from Africa include fossil fuel combustion, biomass burning, and biogenic soil emissions of nitric oxide. This study represents the first comprehensive database of gaseous and particulate emissions developed for the continent of Africa on a country by country basis and establishes the framework for country-by-country, assessment of greenhouse gases emissions as required by the Kyoto Conference on Global Warming, which was attended by representatives from more than 100 countries. Calculations of gases …

First Observation Of The Very Rare Decay Neutral Kaon(Long) Going To Electron Positron, Robert David Martin Iii

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Brookhaven National Laboratory AGS Experiment 871 (E871) has carried out a search for the very rare, GIM and helicity suppressed decay of the long-lived neutral kaon into an electron-positron pair. This decay is predicted within the Standard Model to occur with a branching ratio of {dollar}(9.0 \pm 0.4)\times 10\sp{lcub}-12{rcub}.{dollar} Data were taken during the 1995 and 1996 AGS HEP running periods on the B5 beamline. A signal of (4 {dollar}\pm{dollar} 2) {dollar}K\sbsp{lcub}L{rcub}{lcub}0{rcub} \to e\sp+e\sp-{dollar} events is seen with a physics background expectation of 0.2 events. The ratio of the partial decay widths {dollar}\Gamma(K\sbsp{lcub}L{rcub}{lcub}0{rcub} \to e\sp+e\sp-)/\Gamma(K\sbsp{lcub}L{rcub}{lcub}0{rcub}\to\mu\sp+\mu\sp-){dollar} is determined to be {dollar}(1.3\sbsp{lcub}-0.6{rcub}{lcub}+0.8{rcub} …

Analysis Of Algorithms For Online Routing And Scheduling In Networks, Jessen Tait Havill

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

We study situations in which an algorithm must make decisions about how to best route and schedule data transfer requests in a communication network before each transfer leaves its source. For some situations, such as those requiring quality of service guarantees, this is essential. For other situations, doing work in advance can simplify decisions in transit and increase the speed of the network. In order to reflect realistic scenarios, we require that our algorithms be online, or make their decisions without knowing future requests. We measure the efficiency of an online algorithm by its competitive ratio, which is the maximum …

Improvements To The Color Quantization Process, Rance David Necaise

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

The presentation of color images on devices with limited color capabilities requires a reduction in the number of colors contained in the images. Color image quantization is the process of reducing the number of colors used in an image while maintaining its appearance as much as possible. This reduction is performed using a color image quantization algorithm. The quantization algorithm attempts to select k colors that best represent the contents of the image. The original image is then recolored using the representative colors. to improve the resulting image, a dithering process can be used in place of the recoloring.;This dissertation …

Stability Of Quark-Antiquark Models Of Mesons: A Study On The Validity Of The Spectator, Dirac, And Salpeter Equations, Michael Uzzo

Dissertations, Theses, and Masters Projects

Mesons are made of quark-antiquark pairs held together by the strong force. The one channel spectator, Dirac, and Salpeter equations can each be used to model this pairing. We look at cases where the relativistic kernel of these equations corresponds to a linear combination of scalar exchange and vector exchange. The vector exchange will be either the time-like component or the full four vector. The systems covered here are referred to as quasirelativistic, which means retardation, regularization, and form factors are not included. Since the model used in this paper describes mesons which cannot decay physically, the equations must describe …

Teachers And Students Investigating And Communicating About Geometry: The Math Forum, K. Ann Renninger, S. A. Weimar, Eugene A. Klotz

Educational Studies Faculty Works

No abstract provided.

An Interlibrary Loan System On The World Wide Web, Schubert Shou Boon Foo, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Inter-Library Loan (ILL) service is one of the services provided by libraries that offers users a way to access library resources beyond their affiliated libraries. Additionally, it allows participating libraries to share and maximize their resources. This work examines the ILL process used by libraries in Singapore and proposes that the existing paper-based manual system be replaced by a Web-based ILL system. Such a Web-based system has been successfully designed and implemented at the Nanyang Technological University. The paper presents an overview of the system requirements and architecture, implementation details and demonstrates the feasibility and advantages of the new system.

An Integrated Web-Based Ill System For Singapore Libraries, Schubert Foo, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The paper proposes an integrated Web-based inter-library loan (ILL) system to replace and enhance the existing manual-based ILL system used by Singapore libraries. It describes the system requirements that must be supported in order to make it a viable and acceptable solution to all participating libraries. Subsequently, it presents the client-server Web-based system architecture, database design and Java development platform that are used to implement the system. The new system exhibits a host of advantages over the manual system including the minimising of human resource by eliminating form-filling and other forms of paper work completely, improving the access and speed …

Isospectral Deformations Of Closed Riemannian Manifolds With Different Scalar Curvature, Carolyn S. Gordon, Ruth Gornet, Dorothee Schueth, David L. Webb

Dartmouth Scholarship

No abstract provided.

The Adjoint Alternative For Matrix Operators, C. H. Cooke

Mathematics & Statistics Faculty Publications

The following inverse problem is considered: given a matrix B of rank r, does there exist a matrix A such that

B = T(A) = adjoint (A)

where the classical adjoint operation is intended? Conditions are determined on the rank of B which decides whether or not B lies in the range of the matrix adjoint operator.

Requirement Elicitation For Environmental Life Cycle Processes, Mariam Y. Burmawalla

Theses

To develop a user-satisfying product the most essential ingredient is to understand user's needs and expectations from the system. Lack of communication between the user and the developer results in an unsatifying output from the user's point of view. Thus proper understanding between the stakeholder and the developer is the most important requirement during the development of any system.

Requirement elicitation process is one such means of expressing wants and requirements from the system by both the parties. Based on Software Engineering Institute's model, requirement elicitation is a web-based application that allows all the people involved in the system to …

Potential And Consistency For Semivalues Of Finite Cooperative Tu Games, Irinel C. Dragan

Mathematics Technical Papers

A new axiomatic characterization of the semivalues of finite cooperative n-person games with transferable utilities is given, by using a potential function. The semivalues are proved to be the unique functionals on the space of such games, which are consistent relative to a Hart/Mas Colell type of reduced game and weighted standard for two person games. The potential is also used to prove the validity of a recursive definition of semivalues, as well as the fact that the semivalues are Shapley values of the so called Power Game.

A Framework For Controlling Quality Of Sessions In Multimedia Systems, Alaa S. Youssef

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

Collaborative multimedia systems demand overall session quality control beyond the level of quality of service (QoS) pertaining to individual connections in isolation of others. At every instant in time, the quality of the session depends on the actual QoS offered by the system to each of the application streams, as well as on the relative priorities of these streams according to the application semantics. We introduce a framework for achieving QoSess control and address the architectural issues involved in designing a QoSess control laver that realizes the proposed framework. In addition, we detail our contributions for two main components of …

Exo- And Endo-Tricarbonyl[(4b,5,6,7,8,8a-Η)-Cis-N-Methyl-2,3,4,4a,9,9a-Hexahydro-1h- Carbazole]Chromium(0), Nigam Rath, F. Pigge, Shiyue Fang

Chemistry & Biochemistry Faculty Works

Acid-mediated hydride reduction of tricarbonyl([eta]6-N-methyl-1,2,3,4-tetrahydrocarbazole)chromium(0) affords either the cis-fused exo-hexahydrocarbazole chromium(0) complex {[Cr(C13H17N)(CO)3], (I)} exclusively, or a separable mixture of (I) and the endo-isomer {[Cr(C13H17N)(CO)3], (II)}, depending upon the choice of hydride donor. The conformations of the hexahydrocarbazole systems differ in the orientation of the indoline moiety with respect to the saturated hexahydrocarbazole rings. The isolation of the exo isomer is unusual, as this complex arises via reaction at the sterically more hindered endo face of the coordinated ligand.

Ab Initio Single- And Multiple-Scattering Exafs Debye-Waller Factors: Raman And Infrared Data, N. Dimakis, Grant Bunker

Physics and Astronomy Faculty Publications and Presentations

The extended x-ray-absorption fine structure (EXAFS) Debye-Waller factor is an essential term appearing in the EXAFS equation that accounts for the molecular structural and thermal disorder of a sample. Single- and multiple-scattering Debye-Waller factors must be known accurately to obtain quantitative agreement between theory and experiment. Since the total number of fitting parameters that can be varied is limited in general, data cannot support fitting of all relevant multiple-scattering Debye-Waller factors. Calculation of the Debye-Waller factors is typically done using the correlated Debye approximation, where a single parameter (Debye temperature) is varied. However, this procedure cannot account in general for …

Stackguard: Automatic Adaptive Detection And Prevention Of Buffer-Overflow Attacks, Crispin Cowan, Calton Pu, David Maier, Heather Hinton, Jonathan Walpole, Peat Bakke, Steve Beattie, Aaron Grier, Perry Wagle, Qian Zhang

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

This paper presents a systematic solution to the persistent problem of buffer overflow attacks. Buffer overflow attacks gained notoriety in 1988 as part of the Morris Worm incident on the Internet. While it is fairly simple to fix individual buffer overflow vulnerabilities, buffer overflow attacks continue to this day. Hundreds of attacks have been discovered, and while most of the obvious vulnerabilities have now been patched, more sophisticated buffer overflow attacks continue to emerge.

We describe StackGuard: a simple compiler technique that virtually eliminates buffer overflow vulnerabilities with only modest performance penalties. Privileged programs that are recompiled with the StackGuard …

Statistical Dynamics Of The Royal Road Genetic Algorithm, Erik Van Nimwegen, James P. Crutchfield, Melanie Mitchell

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Metastability is a common phenomenon. Many evolutionary processes, both natural and artificial, alternate between periods of stasis and brief periods of rapid change in their behavior. In this paper an analytical model for the dynamics of a mutation-only genetic algorithm (GA) is introduced that identifies a new and general mechanism causing metastability in evolutionary dynamics. The GA’s population dynamics is described in terms of flows in the space of fitness distributions. The trajectories through fitness distribution space are derived in closed form in the limit of infinite populations. We then show how finite populations induce metastability, even in regions where …

A Complex-Systems Perspective On The “Computation Vs. Dynamics” Debate In Cognitive Science, Melanie Mitchell

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

I review the purported opposition between computational and dynamical approaches in cognitive science. I argue that both computational and dynamical notions will be necessary for a full explanatory account of cognition, and give a perspective on how recent research in complex systems can lead to a much needed rapprochement between computational and dynamical styles of explanation.

Adaptive Prefetching For Device-Independent File I/O, Dan Revel, Dylan Mcnamee, David Steere, Jonathan Walpole

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

Device independent I/O has been a holy grail to operating system designers since the early days of UNIX. Unfortunately, existing operating systems fall short of this goal for multimedia applications. Techniques such as caching and sequential read-ahead can help mask I/O latency in some cases, but in others they increase latency and add substantial jitter. Multimedia applications, such as video players, are sensitive to vagaries in performance since I/O latency and jitter affect the quality of presentation. Our solution uses adaptive prefetching to reduce both latency and jitter. Applications submit file access plans to the prefetcher, which then generates I/O …

Stochastic Analysis Of Quality Control Charts Using Integral Equations, Kenneth Adam Scharnagl

Legacy ETDs

No abstract provided.

Data Report: Pump Sampling And Sediment Analysis In Support Of The Sensor Insertion System Duck, N.C. April And October, 1997, Grace M. Massey, Carl T. Friiedrichs, Amo De Kruif, Daan C. Rijks

Reports

The objectives of this study were to (i) construct a pumping system, (ii) operate the system and collect samples of suspended sediment across the width of the surf zone during two major field experiments planned for the SIS in 1997, and (iii) analyze the resulting samples for sand concentration, sand size distribution, total percent sand, total percent mud, and organic content. The purpose was to provide a high quality data set of pump samples with which to later test the sensitivity of indirect measurements of suspended sand concentration to the presence of suspended mud. The response of OBSs is known …

Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program Annual Report 1997, C.M. Bain Iii, John A. Lucy, M. D. Arendt

Reports

The Virginia Game Fish Tagging Program (VGFI'P), a cooperative project of the Virginia Marine Resources Commission and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science (VIMS), set records for participation, fish tagged, and fish recaptured during its third year of operation.

Environmental Studies Relative To Potential Sand Mining In The Vicinity Of The City Of Virginia Beach, Virginia, Carl H. Hobbs Iii

Reports

Part 1: Benthic Habitats and Biological Resources Off the Virginia Coast 1996 and 1997 / G. R. Cutter, Jr. and R. J. Diaz

Part 2: Preliminary Shoreline Adjustments to Dam Neck Beach Nourishment Project Southeast Virginia Coast / C. S. Hardaway, Jr., D. A. Milligan, G. R. Thomas, and C. H. Hobbs, III

Part 3: Nearshore Waves and Currents Observations and Modeling / J. D. Boon

Part 4: Coastal Currents A. Valle-Levinson

Part 5: Benthic Foraminifera and Ostracoda from Virginia Continental Shelf / T. M. Cronin, S. Ishman, R. Wagner, and G. R. Cutter, Jr

Studies Of Quantum Chromodynamics With The Aleph Detector, R. Barate, M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

No abstract provided.

Search For Evidence Of Compositeness At Lep I, R. Barate, M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Extensive searches for evidence of compositeness of quarks and leptons have been made in the complete set of ALEPH data from LEP running at the Z peak. These include searches for radiative and weak decays of excited fermions, produced either in pairs or singly, and a scalar partner of the Z. Coupling and branching ratio limits deduced from these searches are presented.