Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Raman Under Ln2: A Simple Approach To Low Temperature Raman Spectroscopy, E. Darren Ellis

Masters Theses

Conventional low temperature Raman Spectroscopy techniques utilize expensive equipment to cool a sample to 77˚ K. In this work, a new technique for performing Raman Spectroscopy at liquid nitrogen temperatures is presented. This technique of taking data with the sample placed under liquid nitrogen provides a low cost alternative to conventional methods, and can be utilized by any lab with a Raman spectrometer without the purchase of additional equipment. Representative spectra for CCl₄, C₆₀, and Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes at room temperature and under liquid nitrogen are shown and compared as validation of the utility of …

Pastoral Stock Water Workbook, T M. Sincliar, F A. Bright

Agriculture reports

The Pastoral Stock Water Workbook has been developed to assist you to estimate the costs of maintaining stock water and make informed decisions about managing existing and proposed water points. The first half of the Workbook provides background information on stock water points, their usage, advantages and disadvantages. Whilst the second part contains a series of stepby- step exercises that should be completed as you progress through the Workbook. The latter part of the Workbook aims to: • Show a worked example of the annual costs of maintaining water; • Provide tools to calculate water costs for your business; • …

Probing Multiple Sight Lines Through The Sn 1006 Remnant By Ultraviolet Absorption Spectroscopy, P. Frank Winkler, Knox S. Long, Andrew S. Hamilton, Robert A. Fesen

Dartmouth Scholarship

Absorption-line spectroscopy is an effective probe for cold ejecta within a supernova remnant (SNR), provided that suitable background UV sources can be identified. For the SN 1006 remnant we have identified four such sources, in addition to the much-studied Schweitzer-Middleditch (SM) star. We have used STIS on the Hubble Space Telescope to obtain UV spectra of all four sources, to study "core samples" of the SN 1006 interior. The line of sight closest to the center of the SNR shell, passing only 20 away, is to a V = 19.5 QSO at z = 1.026. Its spectrum shows broad Fe …

Classifying The Mobility Of Users And The Popularity Of Access Points, Minkyong Kim, David Kotz

Dartmouth Scholarship

There is increasing interest in location-aware systems and applications. It is important for any designer of such systems and applications to understand the nature of user and device mobility. Furthermore, an understanding of the effect of user mobility on access points (APs) is also important for designing, deploying, and managing wireless networks. Although various studies of wireless networks have provided insights into different network environments and user groups, it is often hard to apply these findings to other situations, or to derive useful abstract models. \par In this paper, we present a general methodology for extracting mobility information from wireless …

Classifying The Mobility Of Users And The Popularity Of Access Points, Minkyong Kim, David Kotz

Computer Science Technical Reports

There is increasing interest in location-aware systems and applications. It is important for any designer of such systems and applications to understand the nature of user and device mobility. Furthermore, an understanding of the effect of user mobility on access points (APs) is also important for designing, deploying, and managing wireless networks. Although various studies of wireless networks have provided insights into different network environments and user groups, it is often hard to apply these findings to other situations, or to derive useful abstract models. In this paper, we present a general methodology for extracting mobility information from wireless network …

Relationships Between Environmental Factors And Fungi On Occupants' Perceptions Of Indoor Air Quality, Monica Rodriguez

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

In recent decades, concerns about potential health effects resulting from exposure to contaminants that cause indoor air pollution have dramatically increased. The purpose of this study was to assess the indoor air quality of three buildings at Western Kentucky University and to examine and characterize indoor levels of basic comfort parameters, carbon dioxide, and fungi as well as occupants' perceptions of poor indoor air quality and the role of fungi on reported health symptoms. The three buildings included in the study were: Tate Page Hall (TPH), Jones Jagger Hall (JJH) and Science and Technology Hall (STH). Fifty-three questionnaires were completed …

Analysis Of Economic Models Through Calculus Of Variations, Raman Arora

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

This thesis is a combination of two science fields: Mathematics and Economics. Mathematics is often used to formulate a clear and concise solution to economic problems. In my observation calculus of variation has often been used in various macroeconomic problems. This mathematical method deals with maximizing or minimizing of various objective functions given a set of constraints. This topic brings out one of the best ways to show the relationship between mathematics and economics. My thesis consists of three parts: The first chapter contains a review of the calculus of variations. Basic definitions and important conditions have been stated. The …

A Rule Based Expert System Framework For Small Water Systems, Suresh Jayanty

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Using an expert system to make decision making more reliable has been well studied and implemented over the years. For effective use, both data-driven questions (forward chaining) and goal-driven questions (backward chaining) need to be supported. Similarly, an avenue to update rules in the system as and when they change without major recompilation should be available. In this thesis we present an expert system framework that can help small water system operators make informed decisions regarding compliance with various EPA rules that may apply to them. To support both types of questions mentioned earlier, the system incorporates two expert system …

Investigating Keratoconus Using Optical Eye Modeling, Kevin Charles Baker

Masters Theses

Keratoconus (KC) is a corneal atrophy which causes a conical extrusion (cone). It is often misdiagnosed as optical defocus with astigmatism. In this thesis, computer KC eye models for various conditions are constructed. Using the KC eye model the influence on visual performance including the consequent refractive errors and the higher-order aberrations of KC eyes was investigated. The affects of cone shape, dimension (volume), and location on visual performance are also discussed. The modeled KC eyes are additionally used to evaluate the performance of a common eye vision-screening instrument. The simple photorefraction (PR) technique uses only one small light source …

Interagency Shoreline Management Consensus Document, Center For Coastal Resources Management, Virginia Institute Of Marine Science

Reports

There are concerns in the general public and regulatory and environmental advisory agencies regarding the apparent inconsistent and /or contradictory guidance offered to property owners regarding shoreline management in Virginia. There has been a growing interest among the agencies that manage, or otherwise have a role in shoreline management, to develop a Virginia perspective on the issue. This project to develop a consensus position from a VIMS perspective, with funding from the Virginia Coastal Program, may serve as the initiation of an effort to develop consensus guidance on shoreline management that integrates the issues and concerns extant in the various …

Distribution And Transportation Of Coal Tar Contaminants In The Chattanooga Creek Floodplain, Dalphania Syreeta Dickerson

Masters Theses

In Chattanooga, Tennessee, tens of thousands of tons of coal tar were disposed of in Chattanooga Creek during operations of the Chattanooga Coke Plant (1918-1987). Coal tar is composed of thousands of organic compounds, which span a wide range of molecular weight. Many of these compounds are polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) and are known carcinogens. Chattanooga Creek is an urban creek, which runs through the southern part of the city of Chattanooga and is surrounded by industrial development, residential neighborhoods, parks, and schools. Due to the hazardous nature of coal tar and coal tar constituents, portions of the creek and …

Learning Implicit User Interest Hierarchy For Web Personalization, Hyoung-Rae Kim

Theses and Dissertations

Most web search engines are designed to serve all users in a general way, without considering the interests of individual users. In contrast, personalized web search engines incorporate an individual user's interests when choosing relevant web pages to return. In order to provide a more robust context for personalization, a user interest hierarchy (UIH) is presented. The UIH extracts a continuum of general to specific user interests from web pages and generates a uniquely personalized order to search results. This dissertation consists of five main parts. First, a divisive hierarchical clustering (DHC) algorithm is proposed to group words (topics) into …

Mining Mobile Group Patterns: A Trajectory-Based Approach, San-Yih Hwang, Ying-Han Liu, Jeng-Kuen Chiu, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper, we present a group pattern mining approach to derive the grouping information of mobile device users based on a trajectory model. Group patterns of users are determined by distance threshold and minimum time duration. A trajectory model of user movement is adopted to save storage space and to cope with untracked or disconnected location data. To discover group patterns, we propose ATGP algorithm and TVG-growth that are derived from the Apriori and VG-growth algorithms respectively.

Leveraging Global Resources: A Distributed Process Maturity Framework For Software Product Development, Narayan Ramasubbu, M. S. Krishnan, Prasad Kompalli

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Distributed software development is pervasive in the software industry today as companies vie to leverage global resources. However, popular quality and process frameworks don?t specifically address the key processes needed for managing distributed software development. This practitioner-oriented, evolutionary process maturity framework for globally distributed software development features 24 new key process areas essential for managing distributed software product development and for continuously improving product management capabilities. An assessment survey helps practitioners implement the framework. In this article, the authors detail the framework and assessment survey, as well as report their experiences implementing the framework at a leading global firm. The …

Mindshare: A Collaborative Peer-To-Peer System For Small Groups, Gareth Charles Farrington

Theses and Dissertations

We present Mindshare, a system for small group collaboration using Peer to Peer networking technology. This paper details the motivation behind its design, how it benefits users and details of its construction and operation. The solution focuses on the needs of small collaborating groups with limited computing experience and resources. Mindshare allows the group to share an unlimited number of files and visualize them in unified hierarchical file system. Mindshare synchronizes the files between users without user input. Its robust design allows files to be shared even when the owner is offline and allows users to work with files from …

A Family Of Matrix Representations Of The Figure Eight Knot Group, Marvalisa M. Payne

Masters Theses

An exact computation is given of a new 1-parameter family of SL(4,R) representations of the figure eight knot group.

Thermodynamic Contributions Of Various Metal-Nucleotide Complexes Binding To Yeast Phosphoglycerate Kinase, Randall Allen Holzberger

Masters Theses

The purpose of this study was to determine the thermodynamic parameters of various enzyme-substrate complexes of Yeast Phosphoglycerate Kinase by using Isothermal Titration Calorimetry (ITC). The addition of metal-nucleotide substrate to a PGK solution elicited an exothermic response ranging from 0.5 kilocalories to 2.8 kilocalories. Titrations of MgATP and MgADP into PGK yielding binary complexes generated a greater amount of heat than titrations of MgADP into PGA-PGK and MgAMP-PCP into PGA-PGK yielding ternary complexes. The entropic contribution of the ternary complex formations was significantly greater than binary complex formations. Although entropic and enthalpic contributions varied, the Gibbs free energy remained …

An Infrastructure For The Analysis Of Communication Patterns In Virtual Topologies, Nikhil Bhatia

Masters Theses

The virtual topology of a parallel application is the neighborhood relationship between communicating processes developed due to specific communication patterns resulting from domain decomposition. We present an infrastructure that allows the usage of topological information for the performance analysis of a parallel application. For this purpose we have implemented an easy to use extension of the KOJAK performance analysis toolkit.

The KOJAK toolkit defines communication patterns for parallel applications which describe inefficient behavior. The performance analysis is carried out by calculating the effect of these inefficiency patterns on the application's performance. The distribution of these inefficiency patterns is studied across …

Streamlining The National Environmental Policy Act Reporting Requirements: A Hard Look At The Healthy Forests Initiative, Jeffrey Alan Geller

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The U.S. Forest Service (USFS) has implemented the Healthy Forests Initiative (HFI) (2002), which streamlines the NEPA process for proposed forest fuel reduction projects. A key question is whether the USFS’s streamlined NEPA process produces an adequate environmental document and fulfills regulatory requirements. This thesis evaluates whether the streamlined approach practiced by the USFS under the HFI satisfies the NEPA requirements. A review of four streamlined documents assesses whether these requirements are met. The following NEPA requirements in particular are explored for each project to determine whether the NEPA requirements are met: consideration of a reasonable range of alternatives to …

A Comparison Of Population Sizes And Number Of Captures For The Desert Woodrat (Neotoma Lepida) In Two Microhabitats In The Las Vegas Wash, Nevada, Jayson Barangan

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

Planned removal and eradication of saltcedar in the Las Vegas Wash, Nevada could potentially generate adverse impacts on present desert woodrat (Neotoma lepida) populations inhabiting the area. Consequently, research was conducted investigating population sizes of N. lepida in two distinct microhabitat types, saltcedar (Tamarix sp.) and mesquite/quailbush (Prosopis sp./Atriplex lentiformis). The results of this study will aid in gauging the effects of the changes in vegetation once restoration work is completed and assist with logistical scheduling for implementation of control measures. Mark-recapture field techniques were utilized for data collection from July 2002 to June 2003. Population estimates were calculated using …

Novel Algorithms And Datamining For Clustering Massive Datasets, Aruna K. Buddana

Masters Theses

Clustering proteomics data is a challenging problem for any traditional clustering algorithm. Usually, the number of samples is much smaller than the number of protein peaks. The use of a clustering algorithm which does not take into consideration the number of feature of variables (here the number of peaks) is needed. An innovative hierarchical clustering algorithm may be a good approach. This work proposes a new dissimilarity measure for the hierarchical clustering combined with a functional data analysis. This work presents a specific application of functional data analysis (FDA) to a highthrouput proteomics study. The high performance of the proposed …

Determination Of An Appropriate Geometrical Model For Soil Aggregates Based Upon Specific Surface Area Scaling, Jeremy E. Lawson

Masters Theses

The appropriate geometrical form of soil aggregates is important for modeling soil hydraulic and mechanical properties. To investigate this topic, specific surface are (SSA) measurements were conducted on soul aggregates obtained from two sites. Differing long-term agricultural practices at the two sites resulted in nine distinct soil treatments. Each of the soil treatments was fractionated into five size classes and the SSA of each class was measured using the nitrogen adsorption technique. The measured data were then compared to simulated SSA results. To accomplish this, six geometrical models were developed, using either Euclidean or fractal geometry, to predict the SSA …

Ametropic Eye Modeling, Bo Tan

Masters Theses

Using a commercial optical design software, a general ametropic eye model was constructed based on the measured data of 69 young adults. The experiment data was obtained from 2 published literatures. The correlation between refractive errors of the eyes and their axial lengths, cornea curvatures and intraocular powers was investigated and adopted into the modeling for the first time. The optical performance of the new model eye was evaluated and compared with published aberration data from human eyes. The comparison was performed on both on-axis and periphery vision. High-order wavefront aberrations that include the asymmetric properties of eyes and the …

Disease Outbreaks In Coupled Populations : An Application To Measles Spread In Cameroon, Kirsten Maggie Viz

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Many childhood diseases can be modeled mathematically using a system of differential equations that group the overall population into compartments. Much research has been done to understand and control the spread of these diseases within a single population and between coupled populations with constant parameters. In this thesis, we are concerned with how a disease is spread through and between coupled populations using models with time-varying parameters and asymmetric coupling.

Measles outbreaks in the West African country of Cameroon present a good example of disease spread with seasonality. By dividing Cameroon into two subpopulations and using parameters that reflect recent …

Effects Of Pre- And Post-Trip Activities Associated With A Residential Environmental Education Experience At The New Jersey School Of Conservation On Students’ Attitudes Toward The Environment, Lisa Cavern

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

Scholars of both general education and environmental education (EE) have suggested using targeted activities before and after field experiences may increase the assimilation of desired concepts by students (Ballantyne & Packer, 1996; Bogner, 1998; Dettmann- Easler & Pease, 1999; Flavell, 1979; Knapp & Poff, 2001; Marzano, Gaddy, & Dean, 2000). A search of the EE literature using the ERIC database for the years 1967-present found two studies that explored the use of additional activities to prepare for or reinforce concepts from zoo and garden programs (Farmer & Wott, 1995; Gutierrez de White & Jacobson, 1994), but none related to residential …

Environmental Restoration : The Catalyst Of A City's Successful Revitalization, A Potential Application Example, City Of Camden, New Jersey, Maria Del Rocio Bosch Clark

Theses, Dissertations and Culminating Projects

This thesis aims to concisely emphasize and demonstrate the importance of the connection between urban and natural environments, towards fostering a strong and healthy quality of life for its citizens.

The notion of applying an integrated comprehensive approach to city planning and environmental restoration (such as brownfields redevelopment) is lacking throughout many communities. On the other hand, "success stories" exist around the world that link a comprehensive city plan and environmental restoration to their successes. These attestations of accomplishments demonstrate that regardless of the geographical or economic circumstances, this thesis concept might be applied.

This thesis concept is simplified by …

Experimental Investigation Of The Breakdown Of Dolomite And Isotope Transport In Rock Cores At 100 Mpa, 650–750 °C, Michael Thomas Deangelis

Masters Theses

The kinetics of the breakdown reaction dolomite = periclase + calcite + CO2 were investigated using cores of dolomitic marble. Two samples of Reed Dolomite from southwestern Nevada were cut into cylinders approximately 4×6 mm in size.

The cores were sealed in gold capsules with isotopically enriched water (H218O or HD 18O0.5 16 O0.5). The samples were heated in a cold-seal hydrothermal apparatus to 650–750 °C at 100 MPa for durations ranging from 2–59 days. The cores were then sectioned and examined by EMP, XRD, and SIMS techniques. All experiments show some amount of reaction regardless of duration or temperature. …

Monte Carlo Simulation Of Scatter In A Cone-Beam X-Ray Micro-Ct Scanner, Noel F. Black

Masters Theses

No abstract provided.

A Stark-Effect Modulator For Co2 Laser Free-Space Communications, Ryan Lane Holloman

Masters Theses

A Stark-effect modulator prototype has been designed and constructed to transmit an RF signal upon an infrared carrier wave produced by a CO₂ laser. The anticipated future use of this prototype will be to integrate it into an all-weather long-wavelength infrared (LWIR) free-space communication link. This communication system is expected to be capable of operation at 2.5 Gbits/sec over a range of >6 kilometers. The Stark-effect modulator prototype is ideal to replace existing microwave and radio communication links used currently. Also, the Stark-effect modulator is a better choice than electro-optic crystal modulators and acousto-optic Bragg cell modulators because it …

Eluent Component Adsorption Properties And Chromatographic Behavior Of Reversed Phase Adsorbents With Phenyl Functionalities In Reversed Liquid Chromatography, Fred S. Chan

Seton Hall University Dissertations and Theses (ETDs)

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