Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Developing And Testing A Greenness-Duration Method For Mapping Irrigated Areas: A Case Study In The Snake River Plain, Blaine C. Dawson

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Climate change has raised concerns about the interplay between agricultural productivity, water demand, and water availability in semi-arid to arid regions of the world. As these regions cover nearly 41% of the Earth’s surface and are home to more than 38% of the total global population of 6.5 billion, it is important to understand the implications of changes to water use and water availability on the civilizations and industries that rely upon already scarce water resources. Currently, irrigated agriculture is the dominant water user in these regions and is estimated to consume approximately 80% of the world’s diverted freshwater resources. …

Development And Application Of Tools For Avalanche Forecasting, Avalanche Detection, And Snowpack Characterization, Scott Christopher Havens

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Avalanche formation is a complex interaction between the snowpack, weather, and terrain. However, detailed observations typically can only be made at a single point and must be extrapolated over the slope or regional scale. This study aims to provide avalanche forecasters with tools to evaluate the snowpack, avalanche hazard, and avalanche occurrence when manual observations are not feasible.

Avalanches that occur within the new storm snow are a prevalent problem for the avalanche forecasters with the Idaho Transportation Department (ITD) along Highway 21. We have implemented a real time SNOw Slope Stability (SNOSS) model that provides an index to the …

Evaluation Of String Constraint Solvers Using Dynamic Symbolic Execution, Scott Kausler

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Symbolic execution is a path sensitive program analysis technique used for error detection and test case generation. Symbolic execution tools rely on constraint solvers to determine the feasibility of program paths and generate concrete inputs for feasible paths. Therefore, the effectiveness of such tools depends on their constraint solvers.

Most modern constraint solvers for primitive data types, such as integers, are both efficient and accurate. However, the research on constraint solvers for complex data types, such as strings, is ongoing and less converged. For example, there are several types of string constraint solvers provided by researchers. However, a potential user …

Estimating Unsaturated Flow Properties In Coarse Conglomeratic Sediment, Michael James Thoma Jr.

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, I address the lack of knowledge of unsaturated flow in coarse, conglomeratic sediment by determining if functional θ-ψ-K relationships, specifically van Genuchten-Mualem (VGM) relationships, developed to predict unsaturated flow in relatively fine-grained sediment can be directly applied to coarse, conglomeratic sediment. In the summer of 2011, a field-scale infiltration test was conducted at the Boise Hydrogeophysical Research Site to determine if functional ψ-θ-K relationships could be applied to infiltration in coarse, conglomeratic sediment, and to estimate parameter values for the VGM relationships. Vertically and laterally distributed ψ(t) and θ( …

Targeted Full-Waveform Inversion For Recovering Thin- And Ultra-Thin-Layer Properties Using Radar And Seismic Reflection Methods, Esther Babcock

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Ground penetrating radar (GPR) and seismic reflection methods are useful geophysical tools for near-surface characterization. Analysis of radar or seismic reflection data can combine velocity analysis with common physical transformations to provide subsurface physical properties such as subsurface porosity, density, and contaminant locations. However, reliable quantitative characterization of thin subsurface layers may be impossible using standard reflection data processing techniques, e.g. velocity analysis, if the layer thickness is below the conventional resolution limits of the data. The limiting layer thickness for layer resolution may be up to ½ or even ¾ of the dominant wavelength (λ) of the …

In-Situ Viscoelastic Soil Parameter Estimation Using Love Wave Inversion, Michael Wayne Morrison

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

Industry best practices for estimating viscoelastic soil properties employ either crosshole seismic surveys, or ex-situ laboratory testing. The former method can be costly, and its area of investigation limited to a few meters. The latter method samples only a tiny volume from the research area, and requires that samples be disturbed from their native condition. We investigated an alternative method that uses Love wave inversion to estimate layer geometry, shear modulus, and soil viscosity. We derived a method for determining the complex velocity of Love wave modes in horizontally layered viscoelastic media, and used the method to investigate the behavior …

A Stochastic Parameter Regression Model For Long Memory Time Series, Rose Marie Ocker

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

In a complex and dynamic world, the assumption that relationships in a system remain constant is not necessarily a well-founded one. Allowing for time-varying parameters in a regression model has become a popular technique, but the best way to estimate the parameters of the time-varying model is still in discussion. These parameters can be autocorrelated with their past for a long time (long memory), but most of the existing models for parameters are of the short memory type, leaving the error process to account for any long memory behavior in the response variable. As an alternative, we propose a long …

A Radial Basis Function Partition Of Unity Method For Transport On The Sphere, Kevin Aiton

Boise State University Theses and Dissertations

The transport phenomena dominates geophysical fluid motions on all scales making the numerical solution of the transport problem fundamentally important for the overall accuracy of any fluid solver. In this thesis, we describe a new high-order, computationally efficient method for numerically solving the transport equation on the sphere. This method combines radial basis functions (RBFs) and a partition of unity method (PUM). The method is mesh-free, allowing near optimal discretization of the surface of the sphere, and is free of any coordinate singularities. The basic idea of the method is to start with a set of nodes that are quasi-uniformly …