Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Quantitative Comparison Of Two Approaches To Agent Cooperation, Jose Ramon Espino

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

Multi-agent systems (MASs) are characterized by collections of autonomous agents that interact with each other in simple ways, but the collection of agents as a whole is characterized by emergent behavior (EB) which will have properties that individual agents do not. Engineers want to design artificial MASs for a variety of reasons including military operations. The idea is for the EB to be carrying out the mission itself. In this scenario, the agents are relatively inexpensive and expendable. A large body of work exists in MAS research for military applications and a variety of different designs have been proposed. Because …

Structure Based Xml Indexing, Niroj Manandhar

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

The increase in the usage and popularity of semi-structured data has received considerable attention, and a lot of research is going on for the efficient retrieval and storage of semi-structured data. A popular model and language for semi-structured data is XML. In this thesis we focus on the structure based indexing of XML. As a part of an ongoing XML indexing project, we study and implement A(k)-index, which is a structure based indexing technique; and propose the use of offset, length pair to retrieve nodes of interest. We record offset and length of every node using the SAX parser, and …

Integration Of The Sam-Grid Infrastructure To The D0 Data Reprocessing Effort, Anoop Rajendra

Computer Science and Engineering Theses

The D0 experiment is one of the two high energy physics experiments currently being conducted at Fermi National Accelerator Laboratory, in Batavia, IL, on what is currently the world's highest energy particle accelerator, the Tevatron. The experiment produces vast amounts of raw data of the order of several hundred terabytes. This data needs to be converted from the raw format that comes from the detector, ie. digitized data, to a format that is close to the physics, ie. data that can be subjected to analysis. This process, called reconstruction, is done according to constantly evolving and improving reconstruction algorithms. This …

Potential Impacts Of Climate Change On Agricultural Land Use Suitability : Wheat, Dennis Van Gool, Luke Vernon

Resource management technical reports

This publication considers the impact of climate change on wheat crops. While a model was first used, it was only partially validated against real data, hence the model is now used as a decision support system that allows people with crop, land resource and climate knowledge to determine potential impacts of climate change on crop growth and production in Western Australia.

A Short Synthesis Of The Common Dihydropyran Segment Of The Antifungal Agents Ambruticin And Jerangolid A, Julie Lukesh, William Donaldson

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

The dihydropyranyl segment common to ambruticin and jerangolid A was prepared in six steps (31.7% yield) from (S)-2-benzyloxypropanal via silyloxydiene cyclocondensation, followed by C-glycosidation, and eventual epimerization at C18.

Spectroscopic Studies Of Inclusion Host-Guest Complexes Between Cyclophane Corrals And Polcyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbons, Mark O'Brien

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Cyclophanes are macromolecules that are known to effectively bind with molecules to form host-guest complexes. Several cyclophane molecules, referred to as corrals (1-6) by their founders, have been synthesized. The characterization of these compounds and their complexes has been investigated using combined spectroscopic and theoretical methods. Hostguest interactions of cyclophane-anthracene (C-A), cyclophane-9-fluorenone (C-F) and cyclophane-pyrene (C-P) complex systems in dichloromethane are presented in this thesis. The stability constants, log Ka, for the C-A, C-F and C-P complexes are determined using absorption and fluorescence spectroscopy. Heats of formation of corral 2 complexes were determined by measuring the complex association constants at …

Synthesis And Characterization Of Polyaminopolycarboxylic Acid Analogs Of Edta And Their Transition Metal Complexes, Martha Watson

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Polyaminopolycarboxylic acids have been studied for their ability to complex with various transition metal ions. Polyaminopolycarboxylic acids are of particular interest due to their ability to form multiple chelate rings with transition metal ions. Three analogs of EDTA have been successfully synthesized and characterized by i3C NMR: 1,3 PDTA (1,3-propylenediaminetetraacetic acid), 1,3-PDTP (1,3-propylenediaminetetrapropionic acid) and EDTP (ethylenediaminetetrapropionic acid). These ligands were then combined with copper (II), iron (III), cobalt (II) and nickel (II) to form complexes. The complexes formed were analyzed using UV-Vis, and the stability constants of the complexes were determined using potentiometry.

Finding Hamiltonian Cycles, Srihder Kaminanai

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Finding a Hamiltonian cycle in a graph is used for solving major problems in areas such as graph theory, computer networks, and algorithm design. In this thesis various approaches of Hamiltonian cycle algorithms such as backtrack algorithms and heuristic algorithms, their basic ideas, and their actual implementations are studied. Three specific implementations are explained in detail and tested with randomly generated 4-regular planar graphs that are 2-connected and 4-edge connected. The results are analyzed and reported.

Resistivity, Induced Polarization, And Spontaneous Potential Study Of Part Of The Calvin 28 Oil Field, Cass County Michigan, Eric M. Larsen

Masters Theses

Some hydrocarbon reservoirs have a documented reducing chimney, extending upward to the surface due to diffusion of hydrocarbon volatiles. This effect reportedly reduces the iron in the soil to magnetite and precipitates fine-grained pyrite if there is sufficient sulfur in the system. This study was conducted to test the detectability of the hypothetical chimney, using electrical geophysics in an environment of relatively recent glacial cover, known depth to an underlying petroleum reservoir, and known faulting.

The Calvin 28 oil field, in Cass County Michigan, is a middle Devonian domal field where reservoir rocks are draped over the central uplift block …

Medoid Queries In Large Spatial Databases, Kyriakos Mouratidis, Dimitris Papadias, Spiros Papadimitriou

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Assume that a franchise plans to open k branches in a city, so that the average distance from each residential block to the closest branch is minimized. This is an instance of the k-medoids problem, where residential blocks constitute the input dataset and the k branch locations correspond to the medoids. Since the problem is NP-hard, research has focused on approximate solutions. Despite an avalanche of methods for small and moderate size datasets, currently there exists no technique applicable to very large databases. In this paper, we provide efficient algorithms that utilize an existing data-partition index to achieve low CPU …

Wmxml: A System For Watermarking Xml Data, Xuan Zhou, Hwee Hwa Pang, Kian-Lee Tan, Dhruv Mangla

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

As increasing amount of data is published in the form of XML, copyright protection of XML data is becoming an important requirement for many applications. While digital watermarking is a widely used measure to protect digital data from copyright offences, the complex and flexible construction of XML data poses a number of challenges to digital watermarking, such as re-organization and alteration attacks. To overcome these challenges, the watermarking scheme has to be based on the usability of data and the underlying semantics like key attributes and functional dependencies. In this paper, we describe WmXML, a system for watermarking XML documents. …

Tuning Tabu Search Strategies Via Visual Diagnosis, Steven Halim, Wee Chong Wan, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While designing working metaheuristics can be straightforward, tuning them to solve the underlying combinatorial optimization problem well can be tricky. Several tuning methods have been proposed but they do not address the new aspect of our proposed classification of the metaheuristic tuning problem: tuning search strategies. We propose a tuning methodology based on Visual Diagnosis and a generic tool called Visualizer for Metaheuristics Development Framework(V-MDF) to address specifically the problem of tuning search (particularly Tabu Search) strategies. Under V-MDF, we propose the use of a Distance Radar visualizer where the human and computer can collaborate to diagnose the occurrence of …

Direct Numerical Simulation For Flow Transition Over A Flat Plate, Shutian Deng

Mathematics Dissertations

In this paper, direct numerical simulation (DNS) of flow transition over a flat plate at a free stream Mach number of 0.5 and a Reynolds number of 1000 based on the free stream velocity and inflow displacement thickness has been carried out. The time-dependent Navier-Stokes equations are solved directly by a third-order TVD Runge-Kutta method from Shu(1998). A sixth order central compact scheme from Lele (1992) that facilitates high resolution of the flow field is used for spatial discretization together with a sixth order implicit compact filter. To avoid possible non-physical wave reflection from the boundaries, the non-reflecting boundary conditions …

Dispatching Vehicles In A Mega Container Terminal, Ebru K. Bish, Frank Y. Chen, Thin Yin Leong, Barry L. Nelson, Jonathan W. C. Ng, David Simchi-Levi

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We consider a container terminal discharging and uploading containers to and from ships. The discharged containers are stored at prespecified storage locations in the terminal yard. Containers are moved between the ship area and the yard using a fleet of vehicles, each of which can carry one container at a time. The problem is to dispatch vehicles to the containers so as to minimize the total time it takes to serve a ship, which is the total time it takes to discharge all containers from the ship and upload new containers onto the ship. We develop easily implementable heuristic algorithms …

Evaluation Of Time-Varying Availability In Multi-Echelon Inventory System With Combat Damage, Hoong Chuin Lau, Huawei Song

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The models for multi-echelon inventory systems in existing literatures predominantly address failures due to reliability in peacetime. In wartime or even peacetime operational scenarios, unexpected combat damage can cause a large number of systems to be heavily damaged, to the extent that they become irreparable. In this paper, we study a multi-echelon spare parts support system under combat damage, discuss the replenishment policy and propose an approximate method to evaluate the time-varying system performance operational availability considering the effect of passivation. Experiments show our model works well and efficiently against simulation.

Entropy-Based 2d Image Dissimilarity Measure, Meng-Hung Wu

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Traditional histogram or statistics based 2D image similarity/dissimilarity metrics fail to handle conjugate pair of black and white images, due to the lack of spatial information in the measurement. Recently proposed Compression-based Dissimilarity Measure (CDM) [1] based on the concept of Kolmogorov complexity has provided a different paradise for similarity measurement. However, without a clear definition how to “concatenate” two 2D images, CDM has difficulties to directly apply with 2D images. In this thesis, an entropy -based 2D image dissimilarity measure is proposed within the same Kolmogorov complexity paradise. The spatial relationship between images is embedded in our metric, and …

Naboh System: Gathering Intelligence From Traffic Patterns, Angelica M. Delgado

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

Network traffic anomalies are important indicators of problematic traffic over a network. Network activity has patterns associated with it depending on the applications running on the local hosts connected to the network. There are traffic parameters into which network traffic of a local host can be divided: bandwidth usage, number of remote hosts that a local host is connecting to and vice versa, and number of ports used by the local host. This thesis develops a system for detecting and profiling network anomalies by analyzing traffic parameters using intelligent computational techniques. The developed system gathers intelligence by examining only the …

Hypersurfaces Of Prescribed Curvature In Hyperbolic Space, Marek Szapiel

Doctoral Dissertations

In this paper we consider the problem of existence of hypersurfaces with prescribed curvature in hyperbolic space. We use the upper half-space model of hyperbolic space. The hypersurfaces we consider are given as graphs of positive functions on some domain Ω ∈ Rⁿ satisfying equations of form

f (A) = f (κ₁, . . . , κ_n) = ψ,

where A is the second fundamental form of a hypersurface, f (A) is a smooth sym- metric function of the eigenvalues of A and ψ is a function of position. If we impose certain conditions …

Is First J102347.6+003841 Really A Cataclysmic Binary?, John R. Thorstensen, Eve Armstrong

Dartmouth Scholarship

The radio source FIRST J102347.6+003841 was presented as the first radio-selected cataclysmic variable star. In the discovery paper, Bond et al. (2002) show a spectrum consistent with a magnetic AM Her–type system, or polar, featuring strong Balmer lines, He I and He II emission lines, and a light curve with rapid, irregular flickering. In contrast, Woudt, Warner, and Pretorius found a smoothly varying light curve with a period near 4.75 hr and one minimum per orbit, indicating that the state of the system had changed dramatically. We present time-resolved spectra showing a superficially normal, mid-G type photosphere, with no detectable …

Enhanced Performance Monitoring - Extending Papi To Monitor Multiple Counter Domains, Kevin Scott London

Masters Theses

High performance computing is playing an increasingly important role in the scientific community. As simulations start replacing physical experiments there will be a need for larger computing resources and better optimized applications. The Performance Application Programming Interface (PAPI) already addresses the concerns for optimizing a serial application by providing a portable interface to the performance counters found on modern processors. Developers can use these counters to understand exactly how their application is running on the processor and use this information to determine the best way to optimize the application. This information is only a portion of the complete picture. As …

Diagnosing And Ameliorating Problem Soils : Decision Tree On How To Diagnose And Ameliorate Problem Soils, Department Of Agriculture And Food, Western Australia

Agriculture reports

Most cropping paddocks in Western Australia have lower yielding areas within paddocks that perform poorly in most years. If the agronomy and management are good, the poor yields are usually due to soil-related problems. Some of these problems can be corrected or reduced by adopting certain proven practices. However, it is important to identify and quantify the problem so that decisions can be made on whether amelioration is possible and economically feasible. The objective is to provide a simploe decision tool for farmers and advisers to use in identifying and quantifying soil problems in agricultural soils in Western Australia. It …

Fluorescent Photoinduced Electron Transfer (Pet) Cation Sensors Derived From Natural Products, Kenny Loo

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Two new second generation fluorescent switches that are based on the chromophore-spacer-receptor architecture are reported in this thesis. The fluorescence modulation of these switches is a result of quenching or initiating photoinduced electron transfer (PET) between the chromophore and the receptors due to cation binding. These two molecules utilize an alkaloid, anabasine, as the proton receptor, and function as fluorescent off-on-off switches with decreasing pH. One of these molecules also utilizes a coumarin as the chromophore, making it the first rationally designed fluorescent PET system based on natural products. Further studies of two well-known first generation fluorescent switches to achieve …

Constrained Shortest Path Computation, Manolis Terrovitis, Spiridon Bakiras, Dimitris Papadias, Kyriakos Mouratidis

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper proposes and solves a-autonomy and k-stops shortest path problems in large spatial databases. Given a source s and a destination d, an aautonomy query retrieves a sequence of data points connecting s and d, such that the distance between any two consecutive points in the path is not greater than a. A k-stops query retrieves a sequence that contains exactly k intermediate data points. In both cases our aim is to compute the shortest path subject to these constraints. Assuming that the dataset is indexed by a data-partitioning method, the proposed techniques initially compute a sub-optimal path by …

Geogdl: A Web-Based Approach To Geography Examination, Ee Peng Lim, Dion Hoe-Lian Goh, Yin-Leng Theng

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The traditional educational approach with students as passive recipients has been the subject of criticism. A constructivist learner-centered approach towards education has been argued to produce greater internalization and application of knowledge compared to the traditional teacher-centered, transmission-oriented approach. Nevertheless, contemporary instructional design models argue for the use and integration of both approaches especially in complex learning tasks. This paper describes GeogDL, a Web-based application developed above a digital library of geographical resources for Singapore students preparing to take a national examination in geography. GeogDL is unique in that it not only provides an environment for active learning, it also …

The Classification Of Links Of Up To And Including Thirteen Crossings, Dylan Joshua Faullin

Masters Theses

The prime links of up to 13 crossings are classified up to unoriented equivalence.

Valuing Wildfire Risk Mitigation In Kyle Canyon, Nevada, James P. O'Brien

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The federal government lists Kyle Canyon, Nevada, as an at-risk wildland-urban interface community. Stakeholders' attitudes and preferences about wildfires and mitigation options were assessed through a survey. 541 surveys were sent and 107 returned. More than a majority of stakeholders report the chances of wildfire occurrence as very likely. Stakeholders demonstrate consensus in reporting high concern about wildfire potential for Kyle Canyon, Nevada. Fire fighters assign the greatest responsibility for mitigating wildfire risks to Clark County, Nevada, and the federal government, while resident property owners do not assign responsibility consistently to any particular group. Trimming is the most favored mitigation …

Biomass Shifts In Phytoplankton, Macroalgae And Seagrass With Reduced Nitrogen Loading Rates To Hillsborough Bay, J.O. R. Johansson

Reports

Presentation on Biomass Shifts In Phytoplankton, Macroalgae And Seagrass With Reduced Nitrogen Loading Rates To Hillsborough Bay.

Improved Vehicle Based Multibeam Bathymetry Using Sub-Maps And Slam, Christopher Roman, Hanumant Singh

Christopher N. Roman

This paper presents an algorithm to improve sub-sea acoustic multibeam bottom mapping based on the simultaneous mapping and localization (SLAM) methodology. Multibeam bathymetry from underwater water vehicles can yield valuable large scale terrain maps of the sea door, but the overall accuracy of these maps is typically limited by the accuracy of the vehicle position estimates. The solution presented here uses small bathymetric patches created over short time scales in a sub-mapping context. These patches are registered with respect to one another and assembled in a single coordinate frame to produce a more accurate terrain estimate and provide improved renavigation …

Using Containers To Enforce Smart Constraints For Performance In Industrial Systems, Scott A. Hissam, Gabriel A. Moreno, Kurt C. Wallnau

Gabriel A. Moreno

47th Rocky Mountain Conference On Analytical Chemistry

Rocky Mountain Conference on Magnetic Resonance

Final program, abstracts, and information about the 47th annual meeting of the Rocky Mountain Conference on Analytical Chemistry, co-endorsed by the Colorado Section of the American Chemical Society and the Rocky Mountain Section of the Society for Applied Spectroscopy. Held in Denver, Colorado, July 31 - August 4, 2005.