Digital Commons Network^™

Increasing The Reliability Of General Purpose Bomb Fuzing In Precision Strike Warfare, Mitchell Ralph Conover

Masters Theses

The advent of modern high-precision guided airborne weapons has increased the need for extremely reliable bomb fuzing systems. An electro-mechanical bomb fuzing system is currently used in U.S. Navy and Air Force General Purpose bomb based-weapons to include Joint Direct Attack Munition and Laser Guided Bombs. The demonstrated reliability of that fuzing system in combat operations on average has been less than perfect. The operational commanders have expressed that this is unacceptable since any dud results in coalition forces being held at additional risk because a duded bomb could be utilized as an Improvised Explosive Device by enemy forces. Just …

An Evaluation Of The Ah-64 Night Vision Systems For Use In 21st Century Urban Combat, John Kevin Heinecke

Masters Theses

Currently one of the most arduous and dangerous aviation missions for the military attack helicopter pilot is the night combat mission. The mission entails flight at close proximity to the ground and obstacles such as wires, trees, and buildings in an effort to avoid detection by enemy air defense and insurgent small arms fire. Night flight requires the use of augmented vision systems and enhanced aircraft stability and control systems to allow pilots to effectively see and negotiate those hazards that would otherwise be visible during daylight.

The U.S. Army currently fields two variants of augmented visionics, the Aviator Night …

Bmp Adoption In Two East Tennessee Watersheds, Michael Barrowclough

Masters Theses

Voluntary adoption of Best Management Practices (BMPs) has been the foundation among many environmental conservation programs geared towards non-point source pollution. While farmers view BMPs as being both appropriate and problematic, there remain many constraints to BMP adoption on the farm. The objective of this research was to determine the criteria beef and dairy producers used in their decision making process on whether or not to adopt a given BMP or set of BMPs in the Pond Creek and Oostanaula Creek watersheds located in East Tennessee. Results are presented of exploratory sociological research designed to better understand how farmers select …

A Parametric Study Of Water Vapor Condensation In Supersonic Nozzle Flow Fields, Todd Branson Vanpelt

Masters Theses

Combustion driven hypersonic and supersonic wind tunnels are impaired in their flight simulation abilities by the condensation of water vapor introduced into the test stream by the burning byproducts of air and hydrocarbon fuels. The purpose of this study is to evaluate the abilities of a condensation model to predict the beginning axial locations of vapor changing into liquid droplets and study the correlations with initial combustion chamber conditions. A test matrix with different fuels, chamber pressure, and equivalence ratio was applied to the FIRACON model written by Erickson, et al. [7] using the dimensions of the NASA Langley …

Probing Precursor Interactions With The Chloroplast Import Apparatus, Sarah Jean Wright

Masters Theses

The majority of plastid proteins are nuclear-encoded and imported post-translationally. A cleavable N-terminal extension, the transit peptide, targets these preproteins to the plastid. Transit peptides show very little primary sequence homology, yet are able to direct the precursor protein to interact with the protein components of the translocation complexes located within the inner and outer membranes of the chloroplast. In this study, a semi-conserved motif of the transit peptide, (F/W)(P/G)h(R/K) has been targeted for deletion in order to probe its importance. Two corresponding regions were deleted in the transit peptide of the precursor to the small subunit of Rubisco (prSSU) …

Variational And Partial Differential Equation Models For Color Image Denoising And Their Numerical Approximations Using Finite Element Methods, Miun Yoon

Masters Theses

Image processing has been a traditional engineering field, which has a broad range of applications in science, engineering and industry. Not long ago, statistical and ad hoc methods had been main tools for studying and analyzing image processing problems. In the past decade, a new approach based on variational and partial differential equation (PDE) methods has emerged as a more powerful approach. Compared with old approaches, variational and PDE methods have remarkable advantages in both theory and computation. It allows to directly handle and process visually important geometric features such as gradients, tangents and curvatures, and to model visually meaningful …

Processing And Characterization Of A Novel Bioabsorbable Polymer For Biomedical Applications, Katherine Atchley

Masters Theses

A series of amino acid based bioanalogous polymers have been synthesized by Dr. C. C. Chu at Cornell University for future use in biomedical applications. These poly(ester amide)s have been designed to be bioabsorbable, with particular interest in internal fixation and drug delivery applications. The polymers PEA 4-Phe-4, 4-Phe-Das, and 8-Phe-Das were studied; however, due to better material properties, the focus mainly centered on 4-Phe-4. Since these are new polymers, processing conditions needed to be determined and the structure and properties characterized. The fibers were also processed post-extrusion in an effort to induce orientation and crystallinity within the polymer chains. …

A Reconfigurable Supercomputing Library For Accelerated Parallel Lagged-Fibonacci Pseudorandom Number Generation, Yu Bi

Masters Theses

To help promote more widespread adoption of hardware acceleration in parallel scientific computing, we present portable, flexible design components for pseudorandom number generation. Due to the success of the Scalable Parallel Random Number Generators (SPRNG) software library in stochastic computations (e.g., Monte Carlo simulations), we developed an efficient and portable hardware architecture fully compatible with SPRNG’s Parallel Additive Lagged Fibonacci Generator (PALFG). Our general design produces identical results for all the parameter sets that SPRNG supports and yields high performance parallel random number generators which can each generate 162 million 31-bit uniform random integers per second on Xilinx Virtex II …

Retrofit Reconfigurable Flight Control System And The F/A-18c, Matthew E. Doyle

Masters Theses

The United States Navy has completed the initial flight test of a Reconfigurable Control Law System (RCLAWS) on the F/A-18C. The purpose of reconfigurable control is to allow for the safe operation of an aircraft that has experienced a sudden change in aircraft dynamics resulting from aircraft damage or flight control effector damage. The RCLAWS utilized during this flight test are novel in that they are designed to augment the production flight control system instead of replacing it. In order to reduce verification and certification requirements, this retrofit reconfigurable methodology supplements pilot commands to compensate for undesirable aircraft dynamics instead …

Evaluation Of Socioeconomic Characteristics Of Farmers Who Choose To Adopt A New Type Of Cropand Factors That Influence The Decision To Adopt Switchgrass For Energy Production, Pamela C. Ellis

Masters Theses

Evaluating farmers’ perceptions and obtaining feedback about the adoption of a new crop is necessary for improving the efficiency of research, technology exchange, and information flow to policymakers. New technology has created new uses for non- traditional crops (such as switchgrass) as a sustainable source of energy. With new technology utilizing non-traditional crop uses, it is important to discern and understand the determinants of farmers’ behavior and attitudes toward new crop adoption rather than new technology adoption. Farmers must analyze financial and social costs and benefits of new crops, farming practices, and economic activities. Better understanding of the factors farmers …

Fpga Logic Design For Analog-To-Digital-Converter Hardware Utilizing High Speed Serial Data Links, Joshua Brandon Jones

Masters Theses

The Computer Assisted Dynamic Data Monitoring and Analysis System (CADDMAS) used by the aeropropulsion test cells at Arnold Engineering Development Center (AEDC) processes a large amount of high bandwidth accelerometer and strain gage data. Data from each sensor must be digitized before being processed by software running on networked computers. This thesis describes some of the original analog-to- digital converter (ADC) hardware used by the CADDMAS as well as some of its limitations. More up-to-date ADC hardware was designed to be used in the CADDMAS to enhance capabilities required by the aeropropulsion test cells. These new capabilities included an increase …

Photochemical Route To The Production Of Fullerene Allotropes, Olga Ovchinnikova

Masters Theses

A photochemical route to the formation of two C₆₀ molecules which are bridged by one and up to eighteen carbon atoms to form bucky-dumbbell shaped molecules, i.e., C₆₀ > C < C₆₀ to C₆₀ > C = C = C = C = C = C = C = C = C = C < C₆₀, etc. is described. Irradiation of C60 in solutions of chloroform and iodine (magenta color) with pulsed laser light from the frequency tripled (355 nm) Nd:YAG laser produced a dark crimson color. Matrix assisted laser desorption ionization (MALDI) negative ion mass spectroscopy was used to …

Occupancy Of Small Mammals On Private Lands In The Emory/ Obed Watershed, Tennessee, Carrie Hedio Salyers

Masters Theses

The Emory/Obed watershed of the Cumberland Plateau area of Tennessee is an important area for wildlife conservation and has recently been subjected to land-use changes. This study was conducted to determine if occupancy of selected mammalian species was affected by land-use and habitat characteristics, and to provide baseline data before further land-use changes occur in the region. Small mammal trapping was conducted in a total of 132 sample sites from June through August in 2002, 2003, and 2004 using live traps. A total of 11 mammalian species was trapped. Three species were trapped in sufficient numbers to evaluate occupancy and …

Petrogenesis Of Apollo 15 Olivine-Normative And Quartz-Normative Mare Basalts, Darren W. Schnare

Masters Theses

New data are presented for four Apollo 15 low-Ti mare basalts, two from the olivine-normative suite (15106, and 15555) and two from the quartz-normative suite (15475, and 15499). Previous studies have examined the relationships between these groups on the basis of whole-rock chemistry, many with analyses that may have been of insufficient sample-size, or of limited range of elements analyzed. To determine a relationship between these basalts, these samples have been analyzed for their mineral major-element and trace-element compositions by electron-microprobe and laser-ablation inductively-coupled-plasma mass-spectrometry, respectively.

The trace-element compositions of the main silicate phases, olivine, pyroxene, and plagioclase, are consistent …

Soapstone Vessel Chronology And Function In The Southern Appalachians Of Eastern Tennessee, Edward William Wells Iii

Masters Theses

The role of soapstone along the South Atlantic Slope in Late Archaic societies is well researched; however, information concerning both the chronology and function of soapstone vessel use in the South Appalachian region is limited. Excavations at the Apple Barn site (40BT90) in eastern Tennessee has produced one of the largest assemblages of soapstone artifacts in the region. The results of radiocarbon dating, residue analysis (pollen, starch and phytoliths) (Apple Barn only), and vessel attribute analysis from this assemblage and the Iddins Site (40LD38) are used to reconsider regional soapstone chronology and vessel function. The results suggest that soapstone vessels …

Flood Tolerance Of Hardwood Bottomland Oak Seedlings, Jonathan Ray Mccurry

Masters Theses

The afforestation of hardwood bottomlands is an expanding conservation practice in the southeastern United States. Understanding relative flood tolerance of hardwood bottomland seedlings is fundamental to ensuring restoration success. Thus, I examined the combined effects of 3 early growing-season flood duration treatments (0, 15, and 30 days) and the natural flood regime on willow (Quercus phellos, WIO), Nuttall (Q nuttallii, NTO) and overcup (Q lyrata, OCO) oak seedlings in a 6-ha replanted west Tennessee bottomland. Seedlings (n = 5,003) were planted from January-March 2004 in a randomized design. All seedlings were uniquely tagged, survival …

Analysis Of Information Networks Of Freshman Engineering Students, Sara Noel Abdulla

Masters Theses

The main purpose of this study was to determine if social interaction within the University of Tennessee, Knoxville college freshman engineering classrooms correlates with academic performance. Also of interest was whether the interactions between genders had a significant affect on academic performance. Better academic performance is cited in the literature as improving retention and graduation rates; therefore, if factors that affect academic performance can be understood measures can be taken to help students perform better.

Five UT freshman engineering classes were surveyed to determine their level of involvement with the rest of the members in their class. Academic performance of …

The Environmental Reward Observation Scale (Eros): Development, Validity, And Reliability, Maria Elizabeth Anne Armento

Masters Theses

Researchers have established a strong association between the frequency and duration of environmental reward and affective mood states, particularly in relation to the etiology, assessment and treatment of depression. Given behavioral theories that outline environmental reward as a strong mediator of affect and the unavailability of an efficient, reliable and valid self-report measure of environmental reward, we developed the Environmental Reward Observation Scale (EROS) and examined its psychometric properties. In Experiment one, an exploratory factor analysis supported a unidimensional 10-item measure with strong internal consistency and test-retest reliability. When administered to a replication sample, confirmatory factor analysis suggested an excellent …

Debating Development Help: Ngo Fieldworker Perspectives On Street And Urban Poor Children In Ghana, Richard D. Darby

Masters Theses

This ethnographic investigation of the non-governmental organization (NGO) Catholic Action for Street Children (CAS) questions the cultural appropriateness of its policies and practices. By situating CAS in a historical context of colonialism and structural adjustment reforms, I show how it is responsive to a legitimating environment that consists of private donors, international finance institutions, and the Ghanaian government, all of which put pressure on CAS to specifically target "street children" and to adopt a policy of choice that places primary responsibility for development on the individual child. I argue that the legitimating environment is neoliberal in orientation, especially with respect …

Consumer Perceptions Of Branded Beef Products, Leslie Erin Williams

Masters Theses

This study examined consumer perceptions of branded beef products. Research was conducted to determine what motivates consumers to purchase branded beef products. In addition, this study focused on consumer perceptions of quality, risk, added value, credibility and loyalty toward both branded beef products in general and branded beef products when compared to non-branded beef products.

A self-developed question guide was used as a guide for the focus group and the in-depth interviews. This study entailed one focus group with nine participants and nine one-on-one in-depth interviews.

The majority of participants in this study held a positive impression of branded beef …

Ethics In Architecture: The Application Of An Ethic Of Care In The Design Of A Cancer Treatment Center, Emily Lynn Hardin

Masters Theses

The project chosen for this thesis is a healthcare facility, specifically a Cancer Treatment Center, as it is a paradigmatic project for application of an ethic of care. Moreover, healthcare facilities are not given due attention in architectural discourse and education despite the importance of their role in society. While healthcare specific organizations have begun to recognize and research the effects of built environment on health, this newfound concern seems to be generally limited to those organizations. Broader discourse involving other related professions, i.e. architecture, philosophy, psychology, sociology, etc., could benefit research as healthcare entails not only the treatment of …

An Investigation Of Different Golf Ball Dimple Flow Fields, Walter Robert Michalchuk

Masters Theses

This experimental study evaluated the potential of various golf ball dimple designs to reduce the drag produced by a golf ball in flight. An experimental setup using four dimple models placed between the leading and trailing edges of a wing section was used. A traditional spherical dimple design was used as the baseline to comparatively study and evaluate the results of the other three different designs. This study was performed on scaled dimple geometries in a water channel at realistic Reynolds number. Surface dye flow visualization, pressure measurements and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) were used to evaluate the various designs. …

A Peculiar Diversion: The Social Ramifications Of Quarter-Racing In The Eighteenth-Century Tidewater Virginia, Tollie Jean Banker

Masters Theses

Virginia's horse culture combined with the colonists' obsession with immediate gratification created the perfect ingredients for the formation of quarter-racing. Not only did short racing afford the ideal outlet for tidewater Virginians' independence, competitiveness, and materialism but it also functioned as a tool to police social order. Consequently, seventh and eighteenth-century tidewater Virginians embraced their new innovation, transforming it from an ad hoc drag race into a formalized competition complete with specially made race courses, racing covenants that stipulated the how, when, and where of the race, and even public notices announcing upcoming events.

As a result Quarter-racing became one …

Origin And Tectonic Evolution Of The Southern Appalachian Neoacadin Crystalline Core: Evidence From The Geology Of The Gilreath 7.5-Minute Quadrangle, North Carolina, Crystal Gayle Wilson

Masters Theses

Detailed geologic mapping of the Gilreath 7.5-minute quadrangle recognizes the northernmost continuation of the Brindle Creek fault, a terrane boundary that separates Neoproterozic-Ordovician metasedimentary and metavolcanic rocks of the western Tugaloo terrane (western Inner Piedmont) from Silurian-Devonian metasedimentary rocks and Devonian-Mississippian anatectic granitoids of the Cat Square terrane (eastern Inner Piedmont). The Brindle Creek fault is folded in the study area and exposes the Ordovician Brooks Crossroads Granite in a reentrant. Low high-field strength element concentrations and a flatter rare earth element patterns typical of western Inner Piedmont granitoids, support a footwall setting for the Brooks Crossroads Granite.

New geochemical …

Controlling The Dispersion Of Nanoparticles In Polymer Matrices, Chang-Uk Lee

Masters Theses

The dispersion of nanoparticles in a polymer matrix is a critical parameter to design and realize targeted morphologies and properties of a final polymer-based nanocomposite. This thesis presents experimental studies to investigate the dispersion of nanoparticles is polymer matrices using specific intermolecular hydrogen bonding between the nanoparticles and polymer matrices under two main topics.

The first topic is the impact of sample preparation processes on the properties of polymer carbon nanotube nanocomposites. Polymer nanocomposites composed of poly(styrene-co-vinyl phenol) (PSVPh) copolymers and 5 wt % multi-walled carbon nanotubes (MWNTs) were prepared from three different methods, including melt-mixing and solution casting. The …

Preparation And Characterization Of Melt Blown And Electro-Spun Polyurethane Webs, Constance Rebecca Eastman

Masters Theses

Nonwoven fiber webs were formed through the processes of melt blowing and electro-spinning with the use of polyester thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), aromatic polyether TPU, and aliphatic polycarbonate TPU. Each polyurethane was used to form fiber webs into sheets and onto stainless steel springs. Three types of fiber sheets were made: (1) melt blown, (2) electro-spun, and (3) melt blown coated with electro-spun fibers to form a composite structure. The melt blown sheets consisted of polyether TPU or aliphatic polycarbonate (PC) TPU. The electro-spun sheets were made from a 15wt% polymer solution of polyester TPU or aliphatic PC TPU. There were …

Developing A Model To Evaluate Maintenance Operations, Soundararajan Kannan

Masters Theses

Maintenance has become a prominent function in today's manufacturing environment. Tremendous efforts have been put into in developing different types of maintenance strategies for enhancing the performance of the equipment but very little has been done in actually streamlining maintenance activities. This refers to systematically evaluating and analyzing the non-value added activities within the maintenance function. One of the primary lean tools that can provide a different dimension in identifying and analyzing non-value added activities is Value Stream Mapping (VSM). However, the traditional VSM cannot be utilized "as is" because the maintenance activities do not completely correspond with VSM terminology. …

System Identification And Parameter Estimation Of The Piper Pa32-301 Saratoga, Catherine Anne Kelly

Masters Theses

The purpose of this project was to estimate the longitudinal stability derivatives of the Piper Saratoga (tail number N22UT), one of the aircraft owned and operated by the University of Tennessee Space Institute (UTSI), using the System Identification Programs for Aircraft, SIDPCAC. After the instrumentation error was reduced by means of a data compatibility analysis, the stability derivatives were estimated using both an output error and an equation error parameter estimation technique.

Following a discussion of the test aircraft and instrumentation and a brief overview of stability derivatives and parameter estimation, the flight test is discussed in detail along with …

Compressible Flow In Slab Rocket Motors, Brian A. Maicke

Masters Theses

In this thesis, the compressible flow inside a rectangular, porous channel is considered. A Rayleigh-Janzen perturbation is applied to the inviscid, steady, two-dimensional, isentropic flow equations. Closed form expressions are derived for the main properties of interest. The results of the study are verified via numerical simulation, with laminar and turbulent models, and with available experimental data. The critical point where the flow field reaches sonic conditions is determined analytically. Our analysis captures the steepening of the velocity profiles that has been reported in several studies using either computational or experimental methods. Explicit design criteria are presented to quantify the …

Using Gps And Gis To Evaluate Military Vehicle Traffic Patterns For The Prediction Of Vegetation Removal, Matthew Kendall Rice

Masters Theses

Military vehicle traffic during military training at installations can result in land degradation, vegetation removal, and increased soil erosion in training areas. Multiple vehicle passes (possible column movement) over the same terrain result in more severe damage to the soil and vegetation. Military training area land managers have a responsibility to manage the military lands in a sustainable way and maintain the environmental integrity of the land. This study utilized the Global Positioning System (GPS) and Geographic Information System (GIS) to evaluate military vehicle traffic patterns to predict vegetation removal. Investigation included vehicle tracking, estimation of impact during maneuvers, comparison …