Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Automated Transforms Of Software Models: A Design Pattern Approach, Brandon Adam Gump

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In the realm of software development, projects are plagued by continuous maintenance at the source code level as well as tedious transformations from formal specifications to source code. Such work consumes a large amount of time only to create complicated, un-intelligible, and un-reusable code that is completely detached from initial design rational. To cope with these problems, The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Wide Spectrum Object Modeling Environment (AWSOME) was designed to generate specifications that can be transformed into abstract designs and finally into source code. The specifications are written in the AFIT Wide-spectrum Language (AWL) and parsed in …

Eco-Epidemiological Analysis For Screening-Level Ecological Risk Assessment: A Geographic Information Systems Approach, Katherine E. Kapo

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The identification and prioritization of multiple watershed stressors and the corresponding development of optimal management strategies remains a challenge in ecological risk assessment. Eco-epidemiological analysis of archival environmental spatial databases integrates available biological, physical and chemical information to generate hypotheses based on stressor-response data relationships. A geographic information systems-based technique incorporating Bayesian weights-of-evidence analysis and weighted logistic regression (WOE/WLR) developed for and currently utilized in minerals exploration was extrapolated to the eco-epidemiological analysis of aquatic ecosystem data. Case studies within state of Ohio (USA) and England and Wales were conducted to demonstrate a method proof-of-concept in the context of various …

Semantics Enriched Service Environments, Karthik Rajagopal Gomadam

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During the past seven years services centric computing has emerged as the preferred approach to architect complex software. Software is increasingly developed by integrating remotely existing components, popularly called services. This architectural paradigm, also called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), brings with it the benefits of interoperability, agility and flexibility to software design and development. One can easily add or change new features to existing systems, either by the addition of new services or by replacing existing ones. Two popular approaches have emerged for realizing SOA. The first approach is based on the SOAP protocol for communication and the Web Service …

A Lab To Stemulate Undergraduate Students Into Science, Technology, Engineering And Mathematics Majors, Nicole Lynn Speelman

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The central focus is the development and implementation of a research/lab module for first year chemistry courses. Electrochemical techniques are utilized to study oxidation and reduction reactions of neurotransmitters with a poly(2,2'-Bithiophene) modified electrode. The goal is to excite students about chemistry and encourage them to continue studies in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) during their undergraduate education. The lab module was created for Project REEL (Research Experiences to Enhance Learning) and will be illustrated with results typically obtained by students. The experiment is inquiry-based, which includes challenging questions students have to do collaboration and research to answer, as …

A Comparison Of Physical And Electrochemical Properties Of Two Ionic Liquids Containing Different Cations: 1-Butyl-1-Methyl-Pyrrolidinium Beti And 1-Butyl-3-Methyl-Imidazolium Beti, Edward Nelson Kennedy

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A novel ionic liquid, 1,1-butyl-methyl-pyrollidinium bis-pentafluoroehthanesulfonylamide (BMPyrrBeti) was synthesized and characterized. Its physical and electrochemical properties compared to a similar ionic liquid containing the imidazolium cation, 1-methyl-3-butyl-imidizolium bis-pentafluoroehthanesulfonylamide (BMImBeti). The two ionic liquids contain the same anion, bis((pentafluoroethane)sulfonyl)imide (Beti), and the same two alkly group substituents (a methyl and a butyl group). The two ionic liquids differ only by the cation component, and the connectivity of the two substituents (1,1 for the former, and 1,3 for the latter).

The following physical properties of BMPyrrBeti were measured and compared to the same properties of BMImBeti: conductivity, viscosity, absorption and desorption of …

Conservation Genetics Of A Near Threatened Freshwater Mussel Species (Lampsilis Cardium) And Improved Prospects For Recovery: How Nuclear And Mitochondrial Dna Analyses Inform Natural History And Conservation, Chad D. Ferguson

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Freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionidae) are among the most imperiled organisms in North America. While there is an urgent need for effective conservation planning and management of these organisms, important basic biological information is lacking. This research characterizes levels of genetic diversity and population structure in the Near Threatened (IUCN) freshwater mussel Lampsilis cardium in populations from Twin Creek (southwest Ohio), Little Darby and Big Darby Creeks (central Ohio), and Little Muskingum River (eastern Ohio) and assesses the extent to which regional geological events explain population structuring. Data from the congener Lampsilis ovata from Clinch River (Tennessee) are included for comparison. …

A Software Framework For The Design, Testing And Deployment Of Control Systems For Autonomous Robotics, Duane Stanley Bolick Jr.

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Simulation and control of robotic agents are common enough tasks among computer science and engineering researchers that there exists a large variety of software applications, toolkits, and programming frameworks designed to facilitate such research. The intent of this project is to provide an autonomous robotics simulation and control framework with sufficiently useful tools and reference implementations so as to be immediately useful to basic users, as well as easily understood and extended by software developers and robotics researchers.

As such, this document describes the implementation of a general networking toolkit, an autonomous robotics extension framework, and an autonomous robotics simulator …

Linking Plume Spreading To Hierarchical Stratal Architecture, Ramya Ramanathan

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A new form of the Lagrangian-based model for macrodispersion of inert (non-reactive) solutes is presented. The model is based on a hierarchical expression of the spatial covariance of log-permeability representing a hierarchy of stratal unit types with a corresponding hierarchy of permeability subpopulations. The covariance expression representing the hierarchy of unit types is a linear sum of terms corresponding to the probability of transitioning across stratal unit types of different scales, and these terms are directly related to quantifiable geometric attributes of the hierarchical stratal architecture. The new macrodispersion model is also a linear sum of terms, with different integral …

Burst Scheduling, Grooming And Qos Provisioning In Optical Burst-Switched Networks, Yuqi Fan

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The demand of network capacity has been increasing steadily with more users than ever connected to the Internet through broadband access and the popularity of video based applications, such as YouTube. Optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks are expected to form the next-generation backbone network and to fulfill the insatiable appetite for bandwidth.

Wavelength routed WDM optical networks offer the granularity of switching at a fiber, waveband, or a wavelength level. The finest granularity offered is at a wavelength level by provisioning lightpaths for different clients/services. All-optical packet switching is still deemed technically infeasible and its competitiveness as a backbone …

Using Morphometrics, Phylogenetic Systematics And Parsimony Analysis To Gain Insight Into The Evolutionary Affinities Of The Calymenidae Trilobita, Alex J. Chestnut

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The most common trilobite in the Silurian carbonates of Ohio - especially the Springfield Dolomite - is a species that has been assigned to at least five genera over the past 100 years. This trilobite has been variously referred to as Calymene celebra, Apocalymene celebra, Flexicalymene celebra, Gravicalymene celebra, and Sthenarocalymene celebra. Reexamination of the species "Calymene" celebra through parsimony and morphometric analysis was conducted to properly place this calymenid species within the correct genus. What compounds the confusion is that the characters used to seperate the genera within the family Calymenidae, and therefore create the basis for the argument …

A System For Incorporating Time-Based Event-Condition-Action Rules Into Business Databases, Christina Marie Steidle

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Human beings handle time-based events continuously; however the passage of time does not play an active part in most business systems because they are typically driven by interaction from human users or other systems. In order to take an action based upon the passage of time it is necessary to build a framework which will monitor the progression of time and a way to define what events the system should be waiting for. This thesis describes such a system, and shows that the system performs as specified. With this system business users are able to build event-condition-action rules using a …

Improving Remote Homology Detection Using A Sequence Property Approach, Gina Marie Cooper

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Understanding the structure and function of proteins is a key part of understanding biological systems. Although proteins are complex biological macromolecules, they are made up of only 20 basic building blocks known as amino acids. The makeup of a protein can be described as a sequence of amino acids. One of the most important tools in modern bioinformatics is the ability to search for biological sequences (such as protein sequences) that are similar to a given query sequence. There are many tools for doing this (Altschul et al., 1990, Hobohm and Sander, 1995, Thomson et al., 1994, Karplus and Barrett, …

Quantum Chemical Investigations Of Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution Reactions And Acid Dissociations Of Aliphatic Carboxylic Acids, David Henry Schory

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Quantum chemical analysis was used to examine nucleophilic aromatic substitution reactions of fluorinated benzophenones, diphenyl sulfones, and triphenylphosphine oxides. Some experimental results for these compounds were contrary to conventional wisdom, which holds that calculated atomic charges for the aromatic sites and ¹³C-NMR and ¹⁹F-NMR chemical shifts should allow prediction of the preferred sites for aromatic substitution. Density functional theory (B3LYP/6-31+G*//RM1) and semi-empirical (RM1) quantum chemical calculations were employed to study the intermediates in the reaction pathways in order to identify the preferred paths for aromatic substitution. In most cases studied para substitution pathways had the lower energy intermediates …

Sub-Mm Wave Imaging And Waveguiding Techniques For Non-Destructive Materials Evaluation, Izaak Vincent Kemp

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Sub-mm wave technology (also known as Terahertz/THz) is a rapidly developing field of electro-optics which has great potential in a variety of applications. Generally defined as the band of the electro-magnetic spectrum with frequencies spanning from 300 GHz to 30 THz, sub-mm waves are non-ionizing and are capable of passing through a wide range of dielectric substances making them well suited for imaging purposes such as non-destructive materials evaluation (NDE). Because of their high sensitivity to metals and ability to penetrate surface obscurants such as paint, oil, and epoxy sub-mm waves are capable of imaging corrosion damage on metallic surfaces …

Semantic And Role-Based Access Control For Data Grid Systems, Vineela Muppavarapu

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A Grid is an integration infrastructure for sharing and coordinated use of diverseresources in dynamic, distributed virtual organizations (VOs). A Data Grid is an architecture for the access, exchange, and sharing of data in the Grid environment. Distributed data resources can be diverse in their formats, schema, quality, access mechanisms, ownership, access policies, and capabilities. In recent years, several organizations have started utilizing Grid technologies to deploy data-intensive and/or computation-intensive applications. As more and more organizations are sharing data resources and participating in Data Grids, the complexity and heterogeneity of the systems is increasing constantly, but their management techniques are …

Design And Performance Analysis Of A Secure Proces-Sor Scan-Sp With Crypto-Biometric Capabilities, Raghudeep Kannavara

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Secure computing is gaining importance in recent times as computing capability is increasingly becoming distributed and information is everywhere. Prevention of piracy and digital rights management has become very important. Information security is mandatory rather than an additional feature. Numerous software techniques have been proposed to provide certain level of copyright and intellectual property protection. Techniques like obfuscation attempt to transform the code into a form that is harder to reverse engineer. Tamper-proofing causes a program to malfunction when it detects that it has been modified. Software watermarking embeds copyright notice in the software code to allow the owners of …

Lithiation Reactions Of 3-(4-Chlorophenyl)Sydnone And 3-(4-Methylphenyl)Sydnone, Nigel Ngonidzashe Chitiyo

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Ortho-iodophenyl sydnones are key intermediates in Sonogashira coupling reactions and the resulting ortho alkynyl sydnones are useful precursors to functionalized sydnonquinolines. In this work, three synthetic routes leading to the synthesis of these versatile intermediates were explored.

Lithiation reactions of 3-(4-chlorophenyl) sydnone and 3-(4-methylphenyl) sydnone followed by trapping with iodine electrophiles yielded the expected disubstituted species 3-(4-chloro-2-iodophenyl)-4-iodosydnone and 3-(4-methyl-2-iodophenyl)-4-iodosydnone in yields ranging from 14% to 75%. Subsequent reduction with sodium sulfite removed the iodine at the C-4 position in both species yielding the ortho iodophenyl sydnones in 80% and 85% yield, respectively.

A surprising result was the discovery that careful …

Conducting Polymer Matrix Poly(2,2'-Bithiophene) Mercuric Metal Ion Incorporation, Rachel Michele Kingdom

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The synthesis of poly(2,2'bithiophene) was carried out utilizing the Epsilon 2000 cyclic voltammeter. In order to incorporate the mercuric ion into the polymer matrix, the polymer was grown on an Iridium Oxide conductive glass, immersed into a solution of 0.005M HgSO4 for 15 minutes. The mercuric ion became covalently bonded to the sulfur from the polymer. The comparison of the bare platinum electrode in a solution of 0.005M pyrocatechol to the modified poly(2,2'-bithiophene) polymer was ran at a scan rate of 100mVs-1. This gave a direct comparison of oxidation/reduction peak potentials. As seen, the modified poly(2,2'-bithiophene) polymer with the mercuric …

Tailoring The Degree Of Branching In Hyperbranched Poly (Arylene Ether Sulfone)S And Poly(Arylene Ether Ketone)S Prepared Via An A2 + Bb'b" Approach, Shravanthi Raghavapuram

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The synthesis and characterization of hyperbranched poly(arylene ether)s with tailored degrees of branching has been explored via an A₂+B₃ approach. The reactivity of the individual electrophilic sites towards nucleophilic aromatic substitution, NAS, of the BB'B" monomers 4, 3', 5'-trifluorophenyl sulfone, 1 and 4, 3', 5'-trifluoro benzophenone, 2 were studied. The concentration, temperature and solvent conditions had an effect on the degree of branching, DB, in 1 and 2 and were probed via ¹³C and ¹⁹F NMR spectroscopy as well as a series of model reactions employing p-cresol 16, which acts as the nucleophile. Soluble, …

A Cryptanalysis Methodology For The Reverse Engineering Of Encrypted Information In Images, Allan Anthony Rwabutaza

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Security is an important issue related to the storage and communication of data and information. In data and information security, cryptography and steganography are two of the most common security techniques. On one hand, there is cryptography, which is the secret communication between two parties by message scrambling on the sender's side and message unscrambling on the receiver's side so that only the intended receiver gets the secret message. On the other hand, there is steganography, which is the hiding of information in a medium in such a way that no one other than the sender or the intended receiver …

The Continuity Of High-Permeability Zones In Sedimentary Deposits, Arijit Guin

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Cubic lattice models were used to represent sedimentary deposits and their role as georeservoirs. The percolation of high-permeability zones was studied using both analytical and simulation approaches. The analytical approach was developed for single-scale sedimentary architecture. The approach showed that percolation is affected by cluster spatial correlation and by lattice size. It showed that correlation affects both high-permeability and low-permeability clusters equally, and thus correlation does not likely affect the percolation threshold for infinite lattices. On finite lattices, the analysis showed that the effect of correlation on lowering the percolation threshold can be understood through the truncation of low-permeability cluster-size …

Electronic To Vibrational Energy Transfer From Cl* (2P1/2) To Ch4 And Cd4, Brian R. Munson

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Electronic-to-vibrational (E-V) energy transfer is a significant kinetic channel in the collisional quenching of spin-orbit excited chlorine atoms, Cl^* (²P_1/2, 882 cm^-1), by molecular collision partners. In the present study Cl^* atoms are prepared in the presence of CH₄ or CD₄, under pseudo first-order conditions, by photolysis of ICl at 532 nm with a pulsed Nd:YAG laser. Quenching of Cl^* by CH₄ or CD₄ results in E-V excitation of the ν4 asymmetric bending mode as observed by infrared (IR) fluorescence from the vibrationally excited products. Time-resolved …

Computational Analysis Of Metabolomic Toxicological Data Derived From Nmr Spectroscopy, Benjamin J. Kelly

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Nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy is a non-invasive method of acquiring metabolic profiles from biofluids. The most informative metabolomic features, or biomarkers, may provide keys to the early detection of changes within an organism such as those that result from exposure to a toxin. One major difficulty with typical NMR data, whether it come from a toxicological, medical or other source, is that it features a low sample size relative to the number of variables measured. Thus, traditional pattern recognition techniques are not always feasible. The "curse of dimensionality" is an important consideration in selecting appropriate statistical and pattern recognition …

Circulant Weighing Matrices, Alex James Gutman

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The existence status of previously open cases of circulant weighing matrices will be established using various techniques. The results fill in 52 missing entries in Strassler's Table of Circulant Weighing Matrices, which considers matrices of order 1 - 200 with weight k less than or equal to 100.

Porosity And Permeability In Ternary Sediment Mixtures, Jason Dennis Esselburn

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Porosity and permeability were measured in mixtures of fine, medium, and coarse sand, where the volume fraction of each of the three components was systematically varied. The porosity varies non-linearly with the volume fractions, and can be modeled with a piecewise-linear approach. The permeability also varies non-linearly with the volume fractions. Permeability can be modeled with the Kozeny-Carman equation using a recursive approach for computing the representative grain size from those of the components in the mixture.

Investigation And Quantification Of Codon Usage Bias Trends In Prokaryotes, Amanda L. Hanes

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Organisms construct proteins out of individual amino acids using instructions encoded in the nucleotide sequence of a DNA molecule. The genetic code associates combinations of three nucleotides, called codons, with every amino acid. Most amino acids are associated with multiple synonymous codons, but although they result in the same amino acid and thus have no effect on the final protein, synonymous codons are not present in equal amounts in the genomes of most organisms. This phenomenon is known as codon usage bias, and the literature has shown that all organisms display a unique pattern of codon usage. Research also suggests …

Measuring The Permeability Of Open-Framework Gravel, James Thomas Ferreira Jr.

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Open-framework gravel has permeability, k, above the measurement range of most conventional constant-head permeameters used in laboratories. Here I addressed the challenge of measuring such high k by using a permeameter long enough that the differences in head across it were on the order of 10-3 m and therefore measurable. I collected data over the range from linear-laminar flow to non-linear, non-Darcian flow. In doing so, I verified that k was measured under Darcian flow. I measured k between 4,000 and 100,000 Darcies among experiments using different sediments.

Tyflos: A Wearable Navigation Prototype For Blind & Visually Impaired; Design, Modelling And Experimental Results, Dimitrios Dakopoulos

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The need for assistive devices has, had and will have a large merit in many engineering research arenas. This dissertation deals with the design, modeling, implementation and experimentation of the navigation component of a wearable assistive system for blind and visually impaired people, called TYFLOS (ΤΥΦΛΟΣ) which is the Greek word for "Blind".

The current prototype consists of two mini cameras attached to a pair of conventional eye-glasses, a 2D tactile display vibration array) which consists of 16 vibrating elements arranged in a 4x4 manner, attached to an elastic vest worn on the user's abdomen, a portable computer, an ear-speaker …

A Morphometric Analysis Of The Highly Variable Clypeasteroid, Periarchus Lyelli, Lauren Elizabeth Williamson

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The Late Eocene echinoid, Periarchus lyelli (Conrad, 1834), known for its wide geographic range, high abundance, and specific stratigraphic range, is an ideal example of a guide fossil. However, due to its highly variable test morphology, many have questioned if, in fact, this sand dollar is actually two or three distinct species that have been misclassified. A preliminary study on this subject has been performed on specimens from Mississippi, North Carolina and South Carolina (Williamson, 2006), showing significant separation in test shapes. Continuing previous research, this study analyzes the test shapes of P. lyelli over its entire North American geographic …

Bench-Scale Conversion Of Carbon Dioxide To A Hydrocarbon Fuel, Melissa L. Kennedy

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There is a growing concern about the effects of global warming that many believe is anthropogenically caused. As such, scientists are trying to uncover a viable alternative fuel source and establish a way to reduce atmospheric carbon dioxide levels. A potential solution that addresses both of these aspects would be to capture atmospheric carbon dioxide and convert it into a natural gas, in particular methane, which could be used as an energy source. A laboratory-scale experiment using 6 160 mL microcosms (3 with anaerobic wetland soil and 3 relatively soil free) and 2 7.2 L bioreactors was conducted to learn …