Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Delineation Of Mass Movement Prone Areas By Landsat 7 And Digitial Image Processing, Shiloh Marie Howland

Theses and Dissertations

The problem of whether Landsat 7 data could be used to delineate areas prone to mass movement, particularly debris flows and landslides, was examined using three techniques: change detection in NDVI (Normalized Difference Vegetation Index), change detection in band 5, and the tasseled cap transformation. These techniques were applied to areas that had recently experienced mass movement: Layton, Davis County and Alpine, Spanish Fork Canyon and Santaquin, Utah County. No distinctive spectral characteristics were found with any of these techniques with two possible explanations: 1. That despite improved spatial resolution in Landat 7 over its predecessors and improved digital image …

An Algorithm For Clearing Combinatorial Markets, Josiane Domgang Nzouonta

Theses and Dissertations

It was recently shown possible to solve single item auctions without revealing any secret except for the solution. Namely, with vMB-share [4], the seller and the buyer only learn each other's identity and the selling price for a chosen M+1 pricing scheme. No trusted party was necessary. In this thesis, we show how vMB-share can be extended for the clearing of combinatorial negotiations with several items, buyers and sellers. We first show how the more general problem can be reduced to a virtual form, relatively similar to the single-item auctions. Then, some modifications in the cryptographic techniques of vMB-share are …

Effect Of Heavy Metals On Bacteria, Elena Vratonjic

Theses and Dissertations

Heavy metals have become devastating environmental contaminants due to their widespread use in the manufacture of electronics, plastics, batteries and dyes. The discharge of heavy metals into the environment has caused concern about their effects on the ecosystem. Many metals are essential for growth in small amounts. However, at higher concentrations heavy metals are toxic because they bind to organic compounds. This accounts for their effects on some important parts of the cell structure, like their ability to denature protein molecules. The initial objective of this study was to find out the growth rate of E.coli and M.roseus in the …

Generalized Residual Multiple Model Adaptive Estimation Of Parameters And States, Charles D. Ormsby

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops a modification to the standard Multiple Model Adaptive Estimator (MMAE) which allows the use of a new "generalized residual" in the hypothesis conditional probability calculation. The generalized residual is a linear combination of traditional Kalman filter residuals and "post-fit" Kalman filter residuals which are calculated after measurement incorporation. This modified MMAE is termed a Generalized Residual Multiple Model Adaptive Estimator (GRMMAE). The dissertation provides a derivation of the hypothesis conditional probability formula which the GRMMAE uses to calculate probabilities that each elemental filter in the GRMMAE contains the correct parameter value. Through appropriate choice of a single …

Schema Matching And Data Extraction Over Html Tables, Cui Tao

Theses and Dissertations

Data on the Web in HTML tables is mostly structured, but we usually do not know the structure in advance. Thus, we cannot directly query for data of interest. We propose a solution to this problem for the case of mostly structured data in the form of HTML tables, based on document-independent extraction ontologies. The solution entails elements of table location and table understanding, data integration, and wrapper creation. Table location and understanding allows us to locate the table of interest, recognize attributes and values, pair attributes with values, and form records. Data-integration techniques allow us to match source records …

Multienergetic External-Beam Pixe As A Means Of Stydying The Surface Enrichment Effect In Coins, Scott Evans Perry

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis paper examines the feasibility of using external-beam PIXE to study the surface enrichment effect in metal artifacts. By varying the energy of the incident proton beam, we penetrated the artifact's surface to different levels and were able to produce a depth profile of the elemental composition of the sample. In this study, the sample set we chose to examine consisted of ancient and modern coins. This paper first describes the surface enrichment effect and theoretically how PIXE can be used to study it. It then details the construction of the components of the external-beam setup. Many of the …

Characterization Of Environmentally Friendly Polymers: Amylopectin And Its Blends, Mohammad Osman Melibari

Theses and Dissertations

Biodegradable polymers are desirable for a variety of applications, such as in packaging, agriculture, and medicine. Its biological degradation by microorganisms accelerated the interest in biodegradable polymers during the last decades. Within this group of innovative environmentally friendly biodegradable polymers, starch or Amylpectin plays a predominant role, due to their potential biodegradability. This research was attempted to characterize Amylopectin to obtain its physio-chemical properties. In addition, characterizations were extended to include blends of Amylopectin and biodegradable diluents. Blends of Amylopectin with biodegradable diluents including Polycaprolactone, Poly(DL-lactide-co-glycolide), and Poly(3- hydroxybutyric acid) were prepared. The physical properties and the thermodynamic characteristics of …

Iteration Methods For Approximating The Lowest Order Energy Eigenstate Of A Given Symmetry For One- And Two-Dimensional Systems, Chad Everett Junkermeier

Theses and Dissertations

Using the idea that a quantum mechanical system drops to its ground state as its temperature goes to absolute zero several operators are devised to enable the approximation of the lowest order energy eigenstate of a given symmetry; as well as an approximation to the energy eigenvalue of the same order.

Migration From A Waterfall/Non Sei Cmm Compliant Process To A Rup/Sei Cmm Compliant Process, Chad Amos Chamberlin

Theses and Dissertations

Software Life Cycle processes play a key role in the successful development of software products. Software processes continue to evolve as the field of software development progresses toward being a true engineering discipline. This theses has two objectives: (1) To apply software engineering knowledge gained during the pursuit of this degree toward the design and development of a complete, Software Engineering Institute (SEI) Capability Maturity Model (CMM) compliant process for the design phase of the software lifecycle. (2) To evaluate a Waterfall Lifecycle Model vs. an Iterative Lifecycle Model and compare SEI CM compliant processes to non-SEI CM compliant process …

A Machine Learning Approach To Detecting Attacks By Identifying Anomalies In Network Traffic, Matthew Vincent Mahoney

Theses and Dissertations

The current approach to detecting novel attacks in network traffic is to model the normal frequency of session IP addresses and server port usage and to signal unusual combinations of these attributes as suspicious. We make four major contributions to the field of network anomaly detection. First, rather than just model user behavior, we also model network protocols from the data link through the application layer in order to detect attacks that exploit vulnerabilities in the implementation of these protocols. Second, we introduce a time-based model suitable for the bursty nature of network traffic: the probability of an event depends …

Broadening And Shifting Of Atomic Strontium And Diatomic Bismuth Spectral Lines, Jeremy C. Holtgrave

Theses and Dissertations

The objective of this research is to study the effects of noble gases on atomic strontium and diatomic bismuth visible transitions, Specifically, this research seeks to determine if the line broadening and, in the case of atomic strontium, line shifting rates of these transitions in the presence of noble gases depend on the total angular momenta of the energy states involved. It has been known for more than a century that atomic and molecular spectral lines are broadened and shifted by perturbing species. While a considerable body of theoretical work has been accomplished on this topic over the years, only …

Pair Programming To Facilitate The Training Of Newly-Hired Programmers, Mark Anthony Poff

Theses and Dissertations

Pair programming is touted by some software professionals as a style which allows developers to produce superior code in less time, and with fewer defects, than code produced by individuals. However, the acclaim for the pair methodology is not universal; some see it was a waste of effort which produces marginal improvements. Reported experiments which obtain quantitative results have typically been performed in an educational environment, and may not reflect actual workplace conditions. This thesis reports on an experiment using pair programing in an industrial setting. Its goal is to determine if this programming style can be used to increase …

A Taxonomy Of E-Commerce Risks And Failures, Giridharan Vilangadu Vijayaraghavan

Theses and Dissertations

Imagine being asked to test an e-commerce website. If you haven't tested one before, where would you start? What experience would you draw on? Where would you look for more information? Even very experienced testers have blind spots when they try to generate test ideas for an application that they have not tested. This thesis presents a simple outline that will help you generate test ideas and limit your blind spots. The outline is the result of about 18 months of research on classifying e-commerce related failures and risks. The result has 45 top-level categories and 700+ examples of errors …

Strategies For Testing Web Applications From The Client Side, Lawrence Thaddeus Prevatte Iii

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is presented on the testing of computer software designed to operate over the World Wide Web. A fault model to guide Web software testing is developed, the components of Web software applications and their interfaces to each other are defined, and strategies to test Web software are discussed. The approach taken is to simplify the concepts of testing Web software to aid in a methodical treatment of the techniques required to conduct meaningful tests using a minimum amount of testing resources, conducting the tests from the client side of the Web application during the “ready for users” or …

Design And Implementation Of Exception Handling With Zero Overhead In Functional Languages, Ramon Zatarain Cabada

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation considers the implementation of exception handling specifically for functional languages. Some implementations incur overhead for using exception handling even when no exceptions are raised. We show the results of some experiments with the SML of New Jersey and OCAML compilers, two well-known compilers for functional languages. Imperative languages avoid this overhead by using tables, but the approach does not easily transfer to compilers using continuation passing style (CPS). This dissertation proposes an approach that works with CPS compilers like SML of New Jersey. We first present an experiment where programs in SML are written with and without exception …

Kiosk Engine: A Platform Independent Solution For Multimedia Kiosks, Manish Satish Shah

Theses and Dissertations

In today's fast paced life saving time is the first priority of every business organization and presenting information visually is a highly desirable and the easiest way to impressively communicate to people. For that purpose, there are interactive devices called kiosks, which display multimedia data on a display and are quite often attached to other input/output hardware like keyboard, mouse, printer, etc. Most of today's kiosks are custom made and are designed for specific set of target platform. The task of creating a kiosk can turn out to be difficult and fairly time consuming. The aim of this thesis is …

Protecting Sensitive Credential Content During Trust Negotiation, Ryan D. Jarvis

Theses and Dissertations

Keeping sensitive information private in a public world is a common concern to users of digital credentials. A digital credential may contain sensitive attributes certifying characteristics about its owner. X.509v3, the most widely used certificate standard, includes support for certificate extensions that make it possible to bind multiple attributes to a public key contained in the certificate. This feature, although convenient, potentially exploits the certificate holder's private information contained in the certificate. There are currently no privacy considerations in place to protect the disclosure of attributes in a certificate. This thesis focuses on protecting sensitive credential content during trust negotiation …

Sandwich Theorem And Calculation Of The Theta Function For Several Graphs, Marcia Ling Riddle

Theses and Dissertations

This paper includes some basic ideas about the computation of a function theta(G), the theta number of a graph G, which is known as the Lovasz number of G. theta(G^c) lies between two hard-to-compute graph numbers omega(G), the size of the largest lique in a graph G, and chi(G), the minimum number of colors need to properly color the vertices of G. Lovasz and Grotschel called this the "Sandwich Theorem". Donald E. Knuth gives four additional definitions of theta, theta_1, theta_2, theta_3, theta_4 and proves that they are all equal.

First I am going to describe the proof of the …

Ontology-Based Extraction Of Rdf Data From The World Wide Web, Timothy Adam Chartrand

Theses and Dissertations

The simplicity and proliferation of the World Wide Web (WWW) has taken the availability of information to an unprecedented level. The next generation of the Web, the Semantic Web, seeks to make information more usable by machines by introducing a more rigorous structure based on ontologies. One hinderance to the Semantic Web is the lack of existing semantically marked-up data. Until there is a critical mass of Semantic Web data, few people will develop and use Semantic Web applications. This project helps promote the Semantic Web by providing content. We apply existing information-extraction techniques, in particular, the BYU ontologybased data-extraction …

Spacecraft Charging At Geosynchronous Altitudes: Current Balance And Critical Temperature In A Non-Maxwellian Plasma, Jose T. Harris

Theses and Dissertations

Spacecraft charging threatens to disable spacecraft components and adversely impact any satellite function. Electrostatic charge, and especially discharge, can hinder the proper operation of, or destroy, spacecraft components, thereby rendering the spacecraft ineffective or inoperative. The level of charging is dependent on the particle energy (speed) distribution. Current spacecraft design and material provide limited protection against the dangers of electrostatic discharge, and active measures such as beam emission are also employed.

Transient Analysis And Applications Of Markov Reward Processes, Jeffrey A. Sipe

Theses and Dissertations

In this thesis, the problem of computing the cumulative distribution function (cdf) of the random time required for a system to first reach a specified reward threshold when the rate at which the reward accrues is controlled by a continuous time stochastic process is considered. This random time is a type of first passage time for the cumulative reward process. The major contribution of this work is a simplified, analytical expression for the Laplace-Stieltjes Transform of the cdf in one dimension rather than two. The result is obtained using two techniques: i) by converting an existing partial differential equation to …

Characterization Of Chlorinated Solvent Degradation In A Constructed Wetland, Nathan D. Clemmer

Theses and Dissertations

Widespread chlorinated ethene contamination of aquifers coupled with high costs of current treatment technologies demand innovative remediation solutions. Wetlands, maintaining anaerobic and aerobic zones promoting the complete degradation of chlorinated ethenes such as Tetrachloroethylene (PCE), could be the answer. This thesis characterized the chlorinated solvent contamination levels in three strata of an upward flow constructed wetland. Analysis of samples was accomplished by purge-and-trap gas chromatography. Water quality parameters, Dissolved Oxygen (DO), Oxidation Reduction Potential (ORP), pH, Conductivity, and Temperature, were also measured in monitoring wells with a water monitoring sonde. After removing data outliers caused by short-circuiting flow, PCE concentrations …

The Generalizability Of Private Sector Research On Software Project Management In Two Usaf Organizations: An Exploratory Study, Michael R. Garman

Theses and Dissertations

Project managers typically set three success criteria for their projects: meet specifications, be on time, and be on budget. However, software projects frequently fail to meet these criteria. Software engineers, acquisition officers, and project managers have all studied this issue and made recommendations for achieving success. But most of this research in peer reviewed journals has focused on the private sector. Researchers have also identified software acquisitions as one of the major differences between the private sector and public sector MIS. This indicates that the elements for a successful software project in the public sector may be different from the …

Evaluation Of The Mountain Wave Forecast Model's Stratospheric Turbulence Simulations, Mark S. Allen

Theses and Dissertations

Stratospheric turbulence (Stratoturb) is a well-known hazard to aircraft in flight. Forecasting mountain waves, specifically the breaking of these waves, is necessary to accurately predict the presence of Stratoturb. The Air Force Weather Agency (AFWA) requested a product with the capability of forecasting Stratoturb at 30, 50, and 70 mb using model data currently available, To facilitate their request, the Mountain Wave Forecast Model (MWFM) was acquired from the Naval Research Laboratory. MWFM turbulence forecasts generated twice daily over East Asia, using the AVN and MM5 models for initialization, were compared to S' layer turbulence analyses from the Rawinsonde Observation …

Implementing An Information Retrieval And Visualization Framework For Heterogeneous Data Types, Andrew J. Kowalchuk

Theses and Dissertations

In today's information focused world, there is no lack of entities focused on information gathering. However, there is still a widespread epidemic of information starvation in the Department of Defense (DoD). This starvation is attributed to the lack of interoperability between information gatherers and information consumers. To alleviate this problem, the DoD has put forth a vision of a Joint Battlespace Infosphere (JBI). This research proposes a framework for sharing and finding resources in a JBI. The framework uses an extensible metadata specification, agent technology, and the Control of Agent Based Systems (CoABS). It provides several tools for publication and …

Distributed Control Of A Swarm Of Autonomous Unmanned Aerial Vehicles, James T. Lotspeich

Theses and Dissertations

With the increasing use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV)s military operations, there is a growing need to develop new methods of control and navigation for these vehicles. This investigation proposes the use of an adaptive swarming algorithm that utilizes local state information to influence the overall behavior of each individual agent in the swarm based upon the agent's current position in the battlespace. In order to investigate the ability of this algorithm to control UAVs in a cooperative manner, a swarm architecture is developed that allows for on-line modification of basic rules. Adaptation is achieved by using a set of …

Quantum Mechanical Calculations Of Monoxides Of Silicon Carbide Molecules, John W. Roberts Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

Modern semiconductor devices are principally made using the element silicon. In recent years, silicon carbide (SiC), with its wide band-gap, high thermal conductivity, and radiation resistance, has shown prospects as a semiconductor material for use in high temperature and radiation environments such as jet engines and satellites. A limiting factor in the performance of many SiC semiconductor components is the presence of lattice defects formed at oxide dielectric junctions during processing. Recent theoretical work has used small quantum mechanical systems embedded in larger molecular mechanics structures to attempt to better understand SiC surfaces and bulk materials and their oxidation. This …

Performance Evaluation And Analysis Of Effective Range And Data Throughput For Unmodified Bluetooth Communication Devices, Timothy F. Kneeland

Theses and Dissertations

The DoD and the Air Force continually seek to incorporate new technology in an effort to improve communication, work effectiveness, and efficiency. Office devices utilizing Bluetooth technology simplify device configuration and communication. They provide a means to communicate wirelessly over short distances thereby eliminating the need for different vendor specific cables and interfaces. One of the key concerns involved in incorporating new communication technology is security; the fundamental security concern of wireless communication is interception. Studies focusing on IEEE 802.11b have shown vulnerability zones around many DoD installations that reflect the ranges at which wireless communications using the 802.11b standard …

Optimizing An In Situ Bioremediation Technology To Manage Perchlorate-Contaminated Groundwater, Mark R. Knarr

Theses and Dissertations

Combining horizontal flow treatment wells (HFTWs) with in situ biodegradation is an innovative approach with the potential to remediate perchlorate-contaminated groundwater. A technology model was recently developed that combines the groundwater flow induced by HFTWs with in situ biodegration processes that result from using the HFTWs to mix electron donor into perchlorate-contaminated groundwater. A field demonstration of this approach is planned to begin this year. In order to apply the technology in the field, project managers need to understand how contaminated site conditions and technology design parameters impact technology performance. One way to gain this understanding is to use the …

Antecedents And Outcomes Of End User Computing Competence, David A. Case

Theses and Dissertations

The tremendous proliferation of end user computing (EUC) in the workplace over the past few decades is cause for concern in public and private organizations. Computer use has moved from individuals working with "dumb" terminals in centralized networks to individuals operating personal computers, just as powerful as yesterday's mainframe. The end user has had to evolve and will continue evolving as well; from someone with low level technical skills to someone with a high level of technical knowledge and information managerial skills. Because EUC continues growing more sophisticated, end users must not only maintain a level of competence, but prepare …