Digital Commons Network^™

Design Of Asphalt Concrete Mixtures For Pavement Maintenance And Rehabilitation, Mubarak Bakheet Gaith Al-Falahi

Theses

The main objective of the thesis is to develop a knowledge base for the design of asphalt concrete mixtures suiting various types and causes of pavement distress and to develop supporting guidelines for the selection of aggregate types, gradation and binder contents for desirable mixture properties.

To achieve this objective, a two-level model was developed. The upper-level is a Factorial Experimental Design Model (FEDM) for the pavement condition evaluation. It can be used as a prediction tool to estimate the Pavement Condition Index (PCI), and determine the percentages of the types of distresses (Load, Environmental, Others). The upper-level model was …

Elastic Brain Image Registration Using Mutual Information, Srisheela Devabhaktuni

Theses

Image Registration is the determination of a geometrical transformation that aligns points in one image of an object with corresponding points in another image. The source image is geometrically transformed to match the target image. The geometric transformation can be rigid or non-rigid. Rigid transformations preserve straight lines and angles between straight lines. The basic rigid transformations are rotation, scaling and translation.

In this thesis non-rigid registration using B-splines is the method being used to take into account the elastic change in the brain structure. The B-spline equation is a type of curved transformation that does not preserve the straightness …

Study Of Mosfet Degradation Under Substrate Injection And Hot Carrier Degradation, Bhawar S. Patel

Theses

With continued scaling of MOSFET's, the reliability of thin gate oxides is becoming increasingly important. Degradation issues due to fabrication technology may result in misinterpretation unless the actual physical situation arising at source, drain, gate and substrate of a transistor during processing is understood. This degradation is prominent in plasma processing due to wafer charging which occurs due to the reactive ions in the plasma. The voltages developed at source and drain junctions, depending upon polarity relative to the substrate cause the source and drain junctions to be forward biased or reverse biased. Keeping in view this type of physical …

Photonic Crystals Composed Of Thick Inductive And Capacitive Meshes, Jay Shah

Theses

The transmission properties of metal meshes are studied for single meshes, photonic double layers and photonic crystals. Simulations are performed with the Flomerics Micro-Stripes program for light of infrared and millimeter wavelengths. The Micro-Stripes program solves Maxwell's equations numerically and, for simulations of the transmittance of metal meshes, has been proven as good as an experiment. Input data are the geometrical parameters, the indices of refraction and the conductivity, chosen according to the Drude model. The light is assumed to be at normal incidence and the simulation results are compared with experiments.

Single layers of inductive meshes are studied for …

Transport Properties Of Nc-Si / A-Sio2 Superlattices And Their Applications In Non-Volatile Memory, Lakshmi Susmitha Koneru

Theses

The dc current-voltage characteristics, ac conductivity, equivalent capacitance, photocurrent transients of the n-Si/nanocrystalline-Si/amorphous-SiO₂/Al heterostructure were measured in a wide range of illumination intensities for temperatures from 4.2 K to 300 K. Electrical transport properties of the nanocrystalline-Si/amorphous-SiO₂ superlattices were discussed. The observed domination of the electron component at negative bias and of the hole component at positive bias above 0.7 V in a dc current allows to separate transport features of electrons and holes in a nc-Si/a-SiO₂ superlattices. Transport of electrons is thermally activated if potential barrier at c-Si/SL interface of 70 meV is suppressed and …

Study Of Baroreceptor Sensitivity Index In Chronic Fatigue Syndrome, Diane L. Donnelly

Theses

Although numerous studies evaluate baroreflex response as part of their research protocol, only one was identified as having evaluated continuous baroreceptor response as part of a 70° head-up tilt. It was done by Youde et al. [28] and was limited in that it evaluated only sequences of three beats for lag 0. The limitations of the Youde study [28] are not present in this thesis.

The data for this thesis came from a 70° head-up tilt study performed on chronic fatigue syndrome subjects by LaManca et al. [3] at the East Orange VA Medical Center. Baroreflex was not evaluated as …

A Combined Channel-Modified Adaptive Array Mmse Canceller And Viterbi Equalizer, Richard M. Friedman

Theses

In this thesis, a very simple scheme is proposed which couples a maximum-likelihood sequence estimator (MLSE) with a X-element canceller. The method makes use of the MLSE's channel estimator to modify the locally generated training sequence used to calculate the antenna array weights. This method will increase the array's degree of freedom for interference cancellation by allowing the dispersive, desired signal to pass through the array undisturbed. Temporal equalization of the desired signal is then accomplished using maximum-likelihood sequence estimation. The T-spaced channel estimator coefficients and the array weights are obtained simultaneously using the minimum mean square error criteria. The …

Synthesis Of Nano/Micro Particles Using Supercritical Method And Particle Characterization, Abhijit Aniruddha Gokhale

Theses

The thesis work consists of the two parts, jet behavior of solvents (ethanol and acetone) and the particle formation using SAS method. In the first part, the study of the effects of process parameters like temperature, pressure, injection velocity and internal diameter of nozzle on liquid jets are studied. The critical pressure for which liquid jet of solvents changes to gas - like jet, is investigated.

In the second part, the experiments are done to study the process of the particle formation using SAS method. Effects of process parameters like pressure, injection velocity of solution, the inner diameter of nozzle …

The Influence Of Exercise On Oxygen Uptake In Mild Hypertension, Matthew Joseph Herban

Theses

The amount of oxygen used by muscle cells increase with exercise. The two body systems that influence the amount of oxygen delivered are the cardiovascular system and the pulmonary system. Two groups of patients were studied, those that were mildly hypertensive (but are not taking prescription medication for hypertension) and the control or normal group. The two groups exercised on a bicycle ergometer. Work rate was increased in steps (multiples of thirty watts) until anaerobic threshold (as measured by an ear oximeter) was reached. Heart rate, blood pressure, oxygen uptake and carbon dioxide production were measured during exercise. Their data …

Tree Based Reliable Topology For Distributing Link State Information, Ram Narayan Krishnan

Theses

Finding paths that satisfy the performance requirements of applications according to link state information in a network is known as the Quality-of- Service (QoS) routing problem and has been extensively studied. However, distributing link state information may introduce a significant protocol overhead on network resources. In this thesis, the issue on how to update link state information efficiently and effectively is investigated. A theoretical framework is presented, and a high performance link state policy that is capable of minimizing the false blocking probability of connections under a given update rate constraint is proposed. Through theoretical analysis, it is shown that …

Issues Of Seismic Response And Retrofit For Critical Substation Equipment, Seyed Ali Hashemi Nezhad Ashrafi

Theses

This study focuses on means to reduce the seismic hazard for transformer-bushing systems and different issues of the response and rehabilitation of transformers. The primary means of seismic mitigation investigated is the use of the Friction Pendulum System (FPS) bearings to seismically isolate transformers. This is done by developing a finite element model representing the behavior of FPS bearings and implementing this model on to ADINA finite element package for further use in analytical studies. This model is used to study the behavior of isolated primary-secondary systems and the effects of parameters like different FPS radii or vertical excitations. Also …

Internet Traffic Over Wide Area Network - Statistical Modeling And Analysis, Yan Yi Lee

Theses

This thesis provides results on trace data collecting and modeling of the Internet traffic over a Wide Area Network. The study is based on extensive data, gathered by tracing the actual packet exchange at the interfaces of devices on the WAN of BCCLS (Bergen County Cooperative Library System). A powerful network monitoring system WhatsUp Gold was employed to monitor the WAN, and logged the byte rates and packet rates sent and received at the interfaces. Different statistical distributions were employed to model the data traces. In comparison with some other statistical models - normal, lognormal, Weibull, and Pareto, which are …

Deposition And Characterization Of Laser-Ablated Silicon, Wenwen Luo

Theses

Laser ablation is a powerful thin film deposition and material processing technology. In the Nonlinear Nanostructure Lab at NJIT, silicon films deposited by laser ablation have been studied for the potential applications in nonlinear optoelectronic devices. The previous studies have suggested that the deposited silicon has a hexagonal symmetry, being a polymorph of silicon that previously has been obtained only at very high pressure. This thesis is part of the continuous study and characterization of this new structure. The objective of the research was to gain better understanding of the hexagonal silicon properties as well as the mechanism that lead …

Service Differentiation In Multihop Wireless Packet Networks, Ilker Onat

Theses

This work explores the potential of link layer scheduling combined with MAC layer prioritization for providing service differentiation in multihop wireless packet networks. As a result of limited power, multihop characteristic and mobility, packet loss ratio in wireless ad hoc networks tends to be high compared to wireline and one-hop mobile data networks. Therefore, for wireless ad hoc networks, DiffServ-like distributed service differentiation schemes are more viable than hard QoS solutions, which are mainly designed for wireline networks. The choice and implementation of proper queuing and scheduling methods, which determine how packets will use the channel when bandwidth becomes available, …

A Biologically Inspired Joint Model Using Engineering Methods To Enhance Understanding Of Muscle Activity, Richard Paradiso

Theses

Compliant actuators and control methods have been known to exhibit similarities in human musculoskeletal systems. In order to better understand and improve the effects of force optimization under closed- loop conditions, a physical joint model was constructed with an agonist and an antagonist muscle operating under linear control. Utilizing LabVIEW software, compliant McKibben air muscles and Merlin stretch sensors, the author was able to incorporate a Bang-Bang controller and propose the inclusion of pulse width modulation (PWM) as well as a Proportional-Integral-Derivative (PD) controller to study the reflex loops under various levels of feedback sensitivity. The feedback mechanism, similar to …

Co-Operative Location Updates For Mobile Nodes For Cellular Networks, Samir Shah

Theses

In current pure cellular networks, each and every mobile node updates it's location to the particular base station separately following certain algorithms, say timer based, mobility based or both. For the next generation wireless networks, which we can consider as a highly dense network, such location update algorithms prove to be very costly in the terms of overall location update traffic to the base station and average battery usage by each mobile node for location updates due to large number of mobile nodes for particular base station area.

Instead of using such one-to-one link for location updates, this report describes …

Production Of Nanocrystalline Nitramine Energetic Materials By Rapid Expansion Of Supercritical Solutions, Victor Stepanov

Theses

Nanotechnology is a rapidly evolving field and has been characterized as "the next industrial revolution". Nanostructured materials are receiving increasing amount of attention in fields ranging from electronics to metallurgy due to their novel and unique properties. This work was focused on exploring the benefits of nanofabrication of high density energetic materials. The work primarily focused on the feasibility and viability of recrystallization of nitramine explosives down to the nanometer crystal size (<100 nm). It is anticipated that properties of the high density energetic materials such as sensitivity, packing density, crystal quality, energetic performance will be benefited.

Rapid Expansion of Supercritical Solutions was chosen as the process most appropriate to realize the objective. Solubility of CL-20 in supercritical solutions was studied. Nitramine crystals with …

Low Interference Routing For Wireless Ad-Hoc Networks, Mohit Gupta

Theses

In this thesis the primary focus is on the problem of interference between messages. The thesis discusses why the messages are blocked in a system? How adding a message impacts the cost of all other available links, which can be established in the system.

This thesis analyzes how the availability of channels, increase in number of nodes and increase in the transmission range help in increasing the number of messages that can be handled in the network. It is also analyzes how critical is the selection of the maximum transmission range MTR, transmission range TR and required transmission range RTR. …

The Effectiveness Of Sacp In Controlling Of Concrete Steel Reinforcement In Aggressive Environments, Hassan Ali Abubaker Al Jafri

Theses

The Arabian Gulf is considered to be one of the world's most aggressive environments for reinforced concrete. Traditional methods of corrosion protection may not be enough to provide the required level of corrosion control for the design life of concrete structures in such environments.

Cathodic protection has been found as a viable technique of inhibiting chloride induced corrosion of steel in concrete structures. As an alternative to impressed current cathodic protection ICCP a remarkable developments recently have been made in the application of sacrificial anode cathodic protection as a means of enhancing the performance of patch repair.

The main objective …

Assessment Of The Performance Of Shape Memory Alloys As Implant Devices, Noura Ali Al-Khalifi

Theses

Shape memory alloys are one class of the family of smart materials. They are considered as biomaterials, since they are well accepted by the human body. One special feature of shape memory alloys (SMA) is their ability to revert to their previous shape. This material is deformed at low temperature and when it is heated, it returns (remember) to its original form. Although, the implant binary NiTi SMA is particularly successful as a biomaterial, our NiTi SMA consist of more that 50% (55.7%) of nickel. The main purpose of this thesis was to evaluate the biological response of the shape …

Paints And Their Environmental Impacts On Human Health In The U.A.E, Masara Y. Al-Ameri

Theses

This thesis records the findings of a research program related to "Paints and Their Environmental Impacts on Human Health in the U.A.E". The study recommends attempt to find out what paint types are of a less harmful influence on human health within different building types in United Arab Emirates due to environmental conditions.

According to Larry W. Canter (1997) "Environmental Impact Assessment" can be defined as "the systematic identification and evaluation of the potential impact (effects) of proposed projects, plans, programs, or legislative actions relative to the physical- chemical, biological, cultural, and socioeconomic components of the total environment. The primary …

The Consolidation Analysis Of A Clay Layer In The City Of Belem Do Para, Brazil, John Bezerra Jr.

Theses

In this study, an analysis was done on a particular clay layer found in the city of Belem do Para, Brazil. Various soil tests were conducted including a consolidation analysis. Data were gathered and analyzed in order to obtain a better understanding of how the soil responds under certain loading conditions. There have been no previous studies done on this material and so when it has been encountered in the field geotechnical engineers provide the safest, but not necessarily best design method possible. In the case of large buildings, piles are driven past this material to competent sand. There have …

Role Of Catalyst And Substrate In Synthesis Of Single Wall Carbon Nanotubes, Amit Goyal

Theses

The synthesis of single wall carbon nanotubes (SWNTs) by the catalyticdisproportionation of carbon monoxide (CO) (i.e., Boudouard reaction) at I atm pressureand 700-800 C, has been systematically investigated in order to determine whether theprocess can be used for the large scale production. SWNT diameter distribution andmorphology were studied by Raman scattering, and scanning and transmission electronmicroscopy, respectively. X-ray diffraction was used to determine levels of the remnantcatalyst and support. Synthesis experiments were conducted using a three-stage processwith hydrogen to reduce the catalyst-precursor and argon to cool the system. Two typesof catalyst/support synthesis were studied: (1) Combustion synthesis to form catalyst …

Fpga Implementation Of A Cholesky Algorithm For A Shared-Memory Multiprocessor Architecture, Satchidanand G. Haridas

Theses

Solving a system of linear equations is a key problem in the field of engineering and science. Matrix factorization is a key component of many methods used to solve such equations. However, the factorization process is very time consuming, so these problems have traditionally been targeted for parallel machines rather than sequential ones. Nevertheless, commercially available supercomputers are expensive and only large institutions have the resources to purchase them or use them. Hence, efforts are on to develop more affordable alternatives. This thesis presents one such approach.

The work presented here is an implementation of a parallel version of the …

Detecting Malfunction In Wireless Sensor Networks, Pablito C. Lake

Theses

The objective of this thesis is to detect malfunctioning sensors in wireless sensor networks. The ability to detect abnormality is critical to the security of any sensor network. However, the ability to detect a faulty wireless sensor is not trivial. Controlled repeatable experiments are difficult in wireless channels. A Redhat Linux. 7.0 Wireless Emulation Dynamic Switch software was used to solve this problem.

Six nodes were configured with a node acting as a base station. The nodes were all part of a cell. This means that every node could communicate with all other nodes. A client-server program simulated the background …

Direct Simulation Of Electrorheological Suspensions Subjected To Pressure Driven Flow And Spatially Non-Uniform Electric Field, Arun Thankamony John Kadaksham

Theses

A numerical method based on the distributed Lagrange Multiplier method is developed for direct simulation of electrorheological (ER) suspensions subjected to pressure driven flows and spatially non-uniform electric fields. The flow inside particle boundaries is constrained to be rigid body motion by the distributed Lagrange multiplier method and the point-dipole approximation is used to model the electrostatic forces acting on the polarized particles. Simulations show that the particles move to the regions of high electric field when the value of β, the Clausius-Mossotti factor is positive and they move to the regions of low electric field when the value of …

Sub-Segment Based Transport Layer Protocol For Wireless Medium, Som Sengupta

Theses

This thesis discusses the techniques to improve the TCP over wireless. The loss-intensive wireless communication results in high retransmission rates to recover lost packets and bandwidth consumption. In addition, the retransmitted segments have significant chance of being dropped. To make the retransmission process more granular, large segments at the transport layer (540 bytes, by default) can be subdivided into smaller sub-segments. This document introduces a split TCP based solution and describes how to produce a series of smaller-sized segments that share the same transport layer header. A new header format is introduced to support the transmission of smaller segments …

Soft Fault Detection Using Mibs In Computer Networks, Sachin Arora

Theses

To improve network reliability and management in today's high-speed communication system, a statistical anomaly network intrusion detection system (NIDS) has been investigated, for network soft faults using the Management Information Base (Mm) traffic parameters provided by Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), for both wired and wireless networks. The work done would be a contribution to a system to be designed MIB Anomaly Intrusion Detection, a hierarchical multi-tier and multiobservation-window Anomaly Intrusion Detection system. The data was derived from many experiments that had been carried out in the test bed that monitored 27 MIB traffic parameters simultaneously, focusing on the soft …

Shape Finding Of Fabric Structures Using Grid Method, Armin Bischof

Theses

Fabric structures can span large distances with a very low self-weight, which makes them very efficient for covering huge areas. They have attractive shapes and an appealing architecture. These properties make them very popular and they are used in many different kinds of buildings. Airports, stadiums and halls are typical examples where the use fabric structures is often recommendable.

Fabric structures are built mainly out of fabric and cables; two structural members that can only take tension stresses. Therefore these structural members must be prestressed in such a way that their shape can carry all loads that might affect the …

Graphical User Interface For Improved Laser Eye Surgery, Venkata K. Kuruganti

Theses

This thesis develops a system for laser eye surgery that is a significant improvement over existing technology. The new system uses image matching and MEMS micromirrors to introduce feedback control, automation and record keeping to the laser surgery process, eliminating the unwanted effects of eye movement during surgery and introducing a wide range of other benefits. It is expected that this improvement can be implemented as an addition to existing systems as well as a foundation for new tools, perhaps even remote, internet enabled ones.

The basic components of the new system are described and demonstrated, including image matching between …