Digital Commons Network^™

An Analysis Of The Early Retirement Programs Offered During The 1992-1993 School Year By The Public School Districts In The State Of Florida, Peter B. Berry

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Computational Fluid Dynamics Study Of Swirling Sonic Jets, Murphy Leo O'Dea

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Using Electronic Portfolios To Archive Student Performance, Phyllis M. Olmstead

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

This study regards the use of portfolios for evaluating and documenting student progress and performance. In consideration of the far reaching and global nature of education, the researcher included educators from both the United States and other countries. Based upon the great importance that many countries and states have placed upon servicing students by alternative means, the population sample examined included 500 teachers instructing by both conventional and distance education modalities; Many current educational reform measures and legislative issues concern the attainment of job skills; therefore, both vocational and non-vocational instructors were included in the study.

Examined in the study …

Implementation Of Ultrafast Optical Characterization Techniques, Nicholas J. Croglio

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

The single beam Z-Scan technique, a two beam Pulse-Delay Modulation Technique (PDMT), and a combination of these methods are implemented to measure both nonlinear absorption and nonlinear refraction in semiconductors. The laser source used is a Kerr Lens Modelocked (KLM) Ti:sapphire laser producing tunable near IR 100 femtosecond pulses of ~5 nJ of energy per pulse at a 90 MHz repetition rate. Specifically we monitor two photon absorption and the bound electronic nonlinear refraction in ZnSe and this nonlinear refraction in ZnS. These techniques open the spectral range where these nonlinear optical parameters can be measured by allowing tunable high …

Integration Of Artificial Neural Networks And Simulation Modeling In A Decision Support System, Kenney Lecroy

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

A simulation based decision support system is developed for AT&T Microelectronics in Orlando. This system uses simulation modeling to capture the complex nature of semiconductor test operations. Simulation, however, is not a tool for optimization by itself. Numerous executions of the simulation model must generally be performed to narrow in on a set of proper decision parameters. As a means of alleviating this shortcoming, artificial neural networks are used in conjunction with simulation modeling to aid management in the decision making process. The integration of simulation and neural networks in a comprehensive decision support system, in effect, learns the reverse …

Re-Examining Subfamily Classifications For The Alu Family Of Repeated Dna Sequences, William A. York

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

The primate Alu family of repetitive elements has been widely characterized. This ubiquitous class of retroposons has been found to occupy some 5% of the human genome. This heterogenous group of Short Interspersed Nucleic add Elements (SINEs) has been theorized to possess an identifiable subfamily structure between and within various taxonomic levels in primates. It has been postulated that humans possess up to 6 Alu subfamilies in their genome; this number, however, has varied according to the method of analysis performed on the data. Quentin (1988) analyzed 127 aligned Alu sequences and found evidence supporting the amplification/fixation theory in 5 …

Close To Home, Donald P. Gagnon

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Color Image Enhancement Using Both Chromatic And Luminance Components, George Eric Hague Ii

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

A vast amount of work has been published regarding grayscale processing of digital images. Although some of this work has been adapted for color images, many of the resulting algorithms neglect the correlation that exists between the individual RGB color components. Consequently, they introduce color artifacts. Attempts have been made to decouple the RGB components through color space transformations that isolate the luminance from the chromatic information. Color image enhancement is then considered a two step process, where the luminance and the chromatic components are processed independently. However, the RGB color space only has a finite number of available colors, …

Synthesis Of Numerical Integrators For The Real-Time Digital Simulation Of Continuous Systems, Michael James Panzitta

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

Real-time digital simulation is a powerful means for engineers and scientists in government, industry, and academia to perform research and training as well as serving as a basis for many commercial applications. Due to the special constraints imposed by digitally simulating continuous systems in real time, however, many of these systems either require costly high-speed components or are unable to provide suitable performance characteristics using affordable computers.

This dissertation describes a new technique for the synthesis of numerical integrators specifically designed for the real-time digital simulation of continuous systems. This methodology is based upon the fact that the state derivatives …

An Efficient Method For Representing And Computing Transitive Closure Over Temporal Relations, Vincent J. Kovarik

Retrospective Theses and Dissertations

The need for temporal reasoning is found throughout the engineering disciplines. James Allen introduced a representation for temporal reasoning based upon the concept of intervals. This approach provides a rich set of temporal relations for reasoning over events and changes in state. The full temporal algebra is NP-complete however. The algorithm developed by Allen executes in 0(n³) time but only ensures consistency between any three intervals.

This research presents an approach to representing interval relations as a bit-encoded form which captures the relationships between the end-points of the intervals. A bit-algebra is then defined which provides an …