Digital Commons Network^™

Information Engineering Facility (Ief) Computer Aided Software Engineering (Case) For Church Management System, Cynthia T. Dubose

Electronic Dissertations and Theses

No abstract provided.

A Study On The Causes Of Variations In Transmissivity And Storativity During Pump Tests At Asylum Lake, Paul Joseph Pare

Masters Theses

Over a two year period, Western Michigan University ran a number of pump tests in the Asylum Lake Area in Kalamazoo, Michigan. The transmissivities and storativities calculated from these tests differed significantly from well to well in any particular test, and from pump test to pump test. Utilizing the computer programs AQTESOLV 3.0 and Aquifer Parameter Estimator, a number of T and S values were calculated. After analysis of the results, the following conclusion was drawn. The main reason for the deviations in the T and S values arose from the mixing of the results of numerous methods (some of …

Effects Of Insulin And Insulin Mimetics On Antioxidant Enzyme Levels: In Vivo And In Vitro, Shikha Varma

Masters Theses

Tissue antioxidation status is considered to be an important factor for elucidating the etiology of diabetes and its physiological complications. This study was aimed to determine the in vivo antioxidant enzyme levels in the altered antioxidant status of diabetic rat liver with the treatment of two potent insulin mimetics, vanadium and selenate. The direct effects of vanadate, selenate, and zinc (another insulin mimetic) on the antioxidant enzyme levels in primary rat hepatocytes in culture was also determined. Levels of superoxide dismutase (SOD), catalase (CAT) and gluthahione peroxidase (GPX) were determined in both model systems.

In the vivo model, insulin treatment …

The Effects Of Air Sparging On Aquifer Hydraulic Conductivity, Hans Neve

Masters Theses

Air sparging is a relatively new technology used to remove organic contaminants from aquifers. This remediation technique involves injecting into contaminated portions of water table aquifers. Theoretically air sparging will reduce aquifer hydraulic conductivity. Injected air fills some of the available sediment pores, thus restricting the flow of water to the remaining water-filled pore spaces.

The purpose of this study was to measure the reduction in hydraulic conductivity due to air sparging. This was assessed using both laboratory and field techniques. The hydraulic conductivities of several different sediments were determined in the laboratory using a large constant head permeameter modified …

Band Structure For Acoustic Waves Propagating In A Periodic Elastic Media And Impurity Modes Arising From Slab Substitutions, Abdur Rahman

Masters Theses

In this thesis I study the band structure for acoustic waves propagating in a one-dimensional elastic array which forms a periodic elastic system in which band gaps are opened in the frequency spectrum. Specifically, I study the single impurity problem in this system. An impurity is introduced in the system by replacing one of the acoustic slabs with a new slab of different acoustic medium or by changing the thickness of impurity slab. I study the very narrow (in frequency) impurity modes in the band gaps which are localized about the impurity sites. Then I study the frequency of impurity …

The Variability Of Carbon Dioxide In The Vadose Zone, John J. Ring

Masters Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to observe and attempt to explain the variations of carbon dioxide in the vadose zone of a nature area in southwestern Michigan. Well nests, consisting of discrete soil gas sampling points and temperature probes set at depths ranging from 3 to 53 feet, were constructed in a sandy, glacial outwash plain. Soil samples were collected for analysis of organic carbon content during installation. Soil gas samples were collected periodically from June, 1992 to March, 1993 and analyzed for CO₂ and O₂ concentrations. Occasionally, samples were collected and analyzed for isotopic C^{13 …}

Evaluation Of Bail-Down Test Methods For Characterizing Free Product Recoverability From An Aquifer, Laura L. Krol

Masters Theses

Determination of the occurrence and recoverability of free product impacting the subsurface environment has been an on-going challenge in the environmental industry. A simple and relatively inexpensive test to perform in the field is the free product bail-down test. Many authors have proposed various analysis methods using these data for the determination of different free product characteristics.

The purpose of this project was to determine the comparability and possible validity of bail-down test interpretation methods for predicting hydrocarbon hydraulic conductivity/transmissivity and true free product thickness. Bail-down test data collected from two sites were analyzed and interpreted using methods from the …

Regulation Of The Expression Of Lipogenic Enzymes By Insulin-Mimetics, Juiyu Wu

Masters Theses

Many researchers have shown that selenate (SeO₄^2-) and vanadate (VO₄^2-) have insulin-mimetic effects in certain biological processes. These mimetic effects include increasing glucose transport, regulating glycolytic enzymes, normalizing plasma glucose levels and activities of insulin regulated enzymes in diabetic rats. To clarify the functions and roles of these insulin-mimetics in different insulin-regulated metabolic pathways, the expression of the genes for glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase (G6PDH) and fatty acid synthase (FAS) were investigated. G6PDH is a key enzyme in the pentose phosphate pathway and is also involved in lipogenic metabolism by providing 55-70% of the NADPH utilization …

The Effects Of Vegetative Canopies On Atmospheric Dispersion, John R. Lindell

Theses and Dissertations

This research was conducted to improve our understanding of the effects of vegetative canopy-induced turbulence on the dispersion of air pollution. The computer model most often used to calculate atmospheric dispersion is the Gaussian plume model, which requires some method to compute the downwind dispersions coefficients. These coefficients are a parameterization of the atmospheric stability or the level of turbulence in the atmosphere. The Environmental Protection Agency's recommended parameterization scheme is the Pasquill-Gifford method. By comparing the Pasquill-Gifford method to the Modified Mitchell method using sigma theta, the standard deviation of the horizontal wind fluctuations, the relative precision of each …

Tectonic Denudation Of Mesozoic Contractile Structures By A Low-Angle Normal Fault And Associated Faults, Southern White Pine Range, Nevada, Holly Langrock

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Blackrock Canyon area in the southern White Pine Range, Nevada mostly consists of the highly extended upper plate of a low-angle normal fault, the Blackrock fault. The post-31.3 Ma Blackrock fault places upper Paleozoic sedimentary rocks and overlying Tertiary volcanic rocks of the Garret Ranch Group in its hangingwall against a 50 degrees E-dipping homocline of Cambrian through Mississippian rocks in its footwall. The 15 to 30 degrees W-dipping Blackrock fault is non-planar and consists of two fault segments and a pronounced corrugation, the Bull Spring corrugation. These geometric irregularities suggest the slip direction on the fault was east-southeast …

Geochemical Evolution Of A Mid-Miocene Synextensional Volcanic Complex: The Dolan Springs Volcanic Field, Northwestern Arizona, Scott Michael Mcdaniel

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The Dolan Springs volcanic field (DSV), of northwestern Arizona, is dominated by andesite and basaltic-andesite flows and breccias, with minor amounts of basalt, rhyolite, and ash-flow tuff. Geochemistry is used here as a tool to evaluate the roles and contributions of the lithospheric and asthenospheric mantles to magmatism related to Miocene extension in the Colorado River extension corridor (CREC). The majority of synextensional volcanic rocks in the DSV are geochemically similar to regional trends, but rare tholeiitic basalts erupted near the end of extension. The tholeiites have trace element signatures similar to ocean island basalt (OIB), but have isotopic values …

Photoluminescence And Electroluminescence Of Erbium And Neodymium Implanted Semiconductors, James R. Hunter

Theses and Dissertations

Low temperature photoluminescence (PL) and electroluminescence (EL) measurements were used to study the excitation of erbium- and neodymium-implanted GaAs and Al_xGa_1-xAs (x=0. 1, 0.3) pn-junctions. The rare-earth (RE) emissions were investigated as a function of ion dose, aluminum mole fraction, laser excitation power, and applied forward bias voltage for the implanted samples. Low temperature PL was also measured from Er doped silicon grown by the metalorganic chemical vapor-phase deposition (MOCVD) method using various growth parameters.. The MOCVD-grown Si samples were studied as a function of metalorganic source temperature, silane (SiH₄) flow, growth time, and …

Evaluation Of The Air Force Installation Restoration Advisory System, Dale M. Fox

Theses and Dissertations

This research is intended to evaluate the Air Force's Installation Restoration Advisory System Workstation software and documentation. Groundwater modeling is the biggest aid to Air Force Installation Restoration decision makers in making their conclusions about what to do with their hazardous waste sites where the groundwater is contaminated. The Advisory System aids the user in determining if a site poses a potential problem, and if so assists the user in selecting an appropriate groundwater transport model. The decision of what type of model is most suitable is based upon the user's conceptual site model and the decision is made by …

A Neural Network Approach To The Prediction And Confidence Assignation Of Nonlinear Time Series Classifications, Erin S. Heim

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis uses multiple layer perceptrons (MLP) neural networks and Kohonen clustering networks to predict and assign confidence to nonlinear time series classifications. The nonlinear time series used for analysis is the Standard and Poor's 100 (S&P 100) index. The target prediction is classification of the daily index change. Financial indicators were evaluated to determine the most useful combination of features for input into the networks. After evaluation it was determined that net changes in the index over time and three short-term indicators result in better accuracy. A back-propagation trained MLP neural network was then trained with these features to …

Analysis And Interpretation Of Ion Data Associated With Neutral Gas Releases In The Earth's Ionosphere, Timothy M. Shadid

Theses and Dissertations

Barium and strontium release experiments were conducted throughout 1991 from the Combined Release and Radiation Effects Satellite (CRRES) to study both natural and man-made disturbances in the earth's ionosphere. A mass spectrometer on the spacecraft counted the Ba and Sr ions as the cloud expanded. In this study, data from the G-1 (in sunlight) and G-11b (in darkness) releases were modeled to understand the source of the ion signals. The model reproduced the Ba⁺ sun data well assuming photoionization (τ = 28 s) was the primary ionization mechanism. However, it was not able to account for the remaining ion …

Micromirror Array Control Of A Phase-Locked Laser Diode Array, Carl J. Christensen

Theses and Dissertations

A ten element micromirror array has been designed, fabricated, and employed to control the far field irradiance pattern of a phase locked laser diode array. The laser array used in this experiment was a ten element, gain guided array lasing at a nominal wavelength of 828 nm and operating in the it out of phase supermode. The laser's near field irradiance was imaged onto a micromirror array, where the it phase differences between adjacent laser elements were corrected. This was accomplished by moving the micromirrors with individually applied voltages. The result was the desirable single lobed far field pattern, placing …

The Petrology Of The Precambrian Roof Pendants Thompson Peak, Sawtooth Mountains, Idaho, Susan Denise Anderson

Honors Theses

No abstract provided.

A Comparison Of Response Surface Methodology And A One-Factor-At-A-Time Approach As Calibration Techniques For The Bioplume-Ii Simulation Model Of Contaminant Biodegradation, Benjamin Shuman

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis compared Response Surface Methodology (RSM) to the one-factor-at-a-time approach for calibrating the Bioplume-II simulation model of contaminant biodegradation. The MADE-2 data set from Columbus Air Force Base, Mississippi was used. The one-factor-at-a-time approach reduced the root-mean-squared (RMS) error for the flow to 0.921225 feet in a total of 36 runs of Bioplume-II. The RSM approach reduced the error criterion to 0.918875 in a total of 47 runs. The one-factor-at-a-time approach was unable to reduce the error below 67.1831 parts per billion (ppb) after 21 runs. The RSM approach reduced the RMS error to 67.0327 ppb after 47 runs. …

Mandibular Asymmetry In Unilateral Class Ii Malocclusion : A Cephalometric Study, Raed Z. Moussa

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

The purpose of this study is to evaluate skeletal and dental asymmetry in unilateral class II malocclusion. A study group of 25 unilateral subdivision patients was compared to 25 class I malocclusion patients serving as the control group. Submento-vertical and frontal radiographs were used for the evaluation. Symmetry was evaluated by comparing measurements between right and left sides for both groups and matching the middle points with the midsagittal axis. Statistical paired and simple t-test were used to evaluate the difference between the two sides for both groups. The measurements showed no significant skeletal and dental asymmetries except for three …

The Role Of Frame Selection And Bispectrum Phase Reconstruction For Speckle Imaging Through Atmospheric Turbulence, Elizabeth A. Harpold

Theses and Dissertations

Frame selection using quality sharpness metrics have been shown in previous AFIT theses, to be effective in improving the final product of images obtained using adaptive optics. This thesis extends this idea to noncompensated speckle image data. Speckle image reconstruction is simulated with and without frame selection. Speckle images require the processing of hundreds of data frames. Frame selection is a method of reducing the amount of data required to reconstruct the image. A collection of short exposure image data frames of a single object are sorted based on sharpness metrics. Only the highest quality frames are retained and processed …

A Comparison Of Methods For Estimating Rms Error: A `Brute Force" Approach Versus A Mathematically-Elegant Approach, As Applied To The Calculation Of A Specific Retrieval Error For A Limb-Scanning Microwave Radiometer-Spectrometer, Larry L. Johnson

Theses and Dissertations

The Millimeter-wave Atmospheric Sounder (MAS) is a high resolution limb- scanning microwave radiometer-spectrometer which has been flown aboard the Space Shuttle. The instrument was designed to sense the microwave emission from several upper atmospheric constituents, including water vapor and ozone. The resonant frequencies of water vapor and ozone are extremely close (183 and 184 GHz, respectively), so that the high-frequency wing of the water vapor spectrum overlaps the low frequency wing of the ozone spectrum. Consequently, the measured ozone spectrum incorporates a slight water vapor contribution; therefore, the retrieved ozone profile is dependent on the true water vapor profile. The …

An Object-Oriented, Formal Methods Approach To Organizational Process Modeling, Vincent S. Hibdon

Theses and Dissertations

This document presents a methodology for developing an organizational process model which is based on the principles of object oriented design and formal software engineering methods. The methodology begins with the development of an object oriented Rumbaugh model (27). The Rumbaugh model is then formally specified in Z (Zed) schemas. Finally, the Z specifications are translated into an executable model in the Software Refinery Environment(TM). This model is described based on the AF wing domain and developed in this domain. The proposed methodology is then shown to produce a very general model which is extendable across almost any domain. The …

Neutron Damage In Distributed Bragg Reflectors And Microcavity Lasers, Mark A. Suriano

Theses and Dissertations

Distributed Bragg Reflectors (DBRs) grown on a gallium-arsenide substrate for a solid state mirror and a vertical cavity surface emitting laser (VCSEL) were subjected to a neutron fluence to determine the sensitivity of the DBRs. The samples were irradiated at Ohio State University's 500 kW research reactor. Relative and absolute reflectance measurements were taken before and after each irradiation over a spectral band of 530 880 µm. Relative reflectance measurements showed that the irradiation did not cause any spectral shift over seven decades of neutron fluences. The reflectivity of the DBRs decreased from their initial measurements after being irradiated. The …

Objectism 3.0: A Software Architecture For The Development Of Portable Visual Simulation Applications, Shawn M. Hannan

Theses and Dissertations

A visual simulation software architecture is a reusable design for visual simulation applications. This thesis effort was the third stage in an ongoing refinement of such an architecture, named ObjectSim. The primary goals of this stage were to improve the architecture by eliminating its dependence on two platform-specific graphics libraries (named GL and Performer, from Silicon Graphics, Inc.), and to examine the potential for expanding the architecture to accommodate distributed simulations. The effort resulted in a new version of the architecture which allows the development of visual simulation applications which take full advantage of the aforementioned libraries without calling those …

An Assessment Of The Impact Of Fuel Jettisoning Events Using Simulation And Impact Models, Jeffrey M. Todd

Theses and Dissertations

Work has been accomplished to determine the impact of jettisoned fuel when it reaches the surface. While previous work indicates that jettisoning JP-4 jet fuel results in a negligible ground fall impact, the impact of jettisoning lower volatile JP-8 jet fuel has not been thoroughly characterized. Several efforts have been made to mathematically model the evaporation, advection, and dispersion of the plume of fuel as it travels to the surface. The AFIT Fuel Jettisoning Model, the Fuel Jettisoning Simulation Model, and Fuel-Dumping Impact Assessment Model were evaluated and compared to assess the impact of jettisoned JP-8 jet fuel. Additionally, the …

A System Dynamics Approach To Modelling The Degradation Of Biochemical Oxygen Demand In A Constructed Wetland Receiving Stormwater Runoff, Leslie A. Mudgett

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research was to develop a tool to aid the Air Force Environmental Manager in the identification of the design parameters of a constructed wetland system that may be optimized to provide a desired biochemical oxygen demand (BOD) removal efficiency during the treatment of Air Force stormwater runoff. The objective is achieved through the development and use of a system dynamics model which simulates the hydrological functions of a constructed wetland as well as the processes within the wetland responsible for degradation of BOD. Based on literature review, the primary mechanism responsible for the degradation of BOD …

Geology And Geochemistry Of Tertiary Volcanic Rocks In The Northern Reveille And Southern Pancake Ranges, Nye County, Nevada, Kelly Brian Rash

UNLV Theses, Dissertations, Professional Papers, and Capstones

The northern Reveille and southern Pancake Ranges, located in the south-central Great Basin, experienced a prolonged history of Tertiary volcanism. Volcanic activity in this area began with the eruption of large-volumes of ash-flow tuffs from calderas of the central Nevada caldera complex. The Reveille Range and the southernmost portion of the Pancake Range are the site of two calderas that are the sources for the tuff of Goblin Knobs and tuff of northern Reveille Range. The tuff of Goblin Knobs (70.4-75.3 wt.% SiO₂) erupted from the caldera of Goblin Knobs (25.6 Ma) and is the thickest (~1700 m) …

Evaluating The Feasibility Of Sequential Indicator Simulation In Reproducing Spatial Connectivity In A Heterogeneous Transmissivity Field, D. Duane Kenyon

Theses and Dissertations

A Non-Parametric estimation technique was used to simulate realizations of a heterogeneous transmissivity field based upon sampled values from three different sampling scenarios. These realizations were compared to output from a parametric estimation technique with respect to truth as defined by an exhaustive data set of 6,000 transmissivity values. Estimated transmissivity fields were then used as input into a flow model from which fields of heads and specific discharges were obtained and compared. Given the financial limitations imposed upon the number and quality of samples reasonably available, Sequential Indicator Simulation, a non-parametric technique, was shown to be of considerable value …

Temporal Influence On Awareness, Don E. Hill

Theses and Dissertations

Grossberg's Motion Oriented Contrast Filter (MOC) was extensively analyzed (7). The output from the filter's "global motion" neuronal layer was compared to a noncausal post-processing filter developed by AFIT. Both filters were shown to incorporate a weighted, noncausal temporal range of input data in processed output. The global motion framework was then implemented using a physiologically motivated pulsed neural model - the Pulse Coupled Neural Network (PCNN). By incorporating both spatial and temporal data, the PCNN was shown to exhibit a common visual illusion, apparent motion. The existence of a physiological temporal processing range was further investigated through implementation of …

Effects Of Ammonium Perchlorate On The Thyroid Hormone Levels Of The Sprague-Dawley Rat, James H. King Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this research was to determine the threshold dose for ammonium perchlorate (AP) in the Sprague-Dawley rat. No dose response data exist for AP and the EPA has studied literature on the subject of perchlorates to determine a provisional reference dose. The Perchiorate Group, a consortium of DoD and industry representatives, believes this provisional reference dose is too conservative. This experiment was executed to provide dose response data on which to base a more accurate reference dose. The study consisted of eight groups of 12 Sprague-Dawley rats, six male and six female, which were exposed to incremental doses …