Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

An Alternative Sensor Fusion Method For Object Orientation Using Low-Cost Mems Inertial Sensors, Joshua Lee Bouffard

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis develops an alternative sensor fusion approach for object orientation using low-cost MEMS inertial sensors. The alternative approach focuses on the unique challenges of small UAVs. Such challenges include the vibrational induced noise onto the accelerometer and bias offset errors of the rate gyroscope. To overcome these challenges, a sensor fusion algorithm combines the measured data from the accelerometer and rate gyroscope to achieve a single output free from vibrational noise and bias offset errors.

One of the most prevalent sensor fusion algorithms used for orientation estimation is the Extended Kalman filter (EKF). The EKF filter performs the fusion …

Monomial Characters Of Finite Groups, John Mchugh

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

An abundance of information regarding the structure of a finite group can be obtained by studying its irreducible characters. Of particular interest are monomial characters – those induced from a linear character of some subgroup – since Brauer has shown that any irreducible character of a group can be written as an integral linear combination of monomial characters. Our primary focus is the class of M-groups, those groups all of whose irreducible characters are monomial. A classical theorem of Taketa asserts that an M-group is necessarily solvable, and Dade proved that every solvable group can be embedded as a subgroup …

Quantifying Cultural Changes Through A Half-Century Of Song Lyrics And Books, Robert Bruce Woodward Iii

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Music is an ever-changing cultural reflection. It is deeply integrated into our society, ubiquitous

in movies, television shows, restaurants, sport venues, churches and a plethora of

other places. This thesis proposes that we consider the lyrics in popular music, as determined

by Billboards Hot 100 chart, as a natural medium to analyze the changes in culture

over the past half-century. Using this collection of lyrics, we analyze the change in relative

frequency of individual words over time, and compare to works of literature. Furthermore,

we use the ranking in the Top 100 as a metric with which to explore the …

Connecting Every Bit Of Knowledge: The Structure Of Wikipedia’S First Link Network, Mark Ibrahim

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

Apples, porcupines, and the most obscure Bob Dylan song'is every topic a few clicks from Philosophy? Within Wikipedia, the surprising answer is yes: nearly all paths lead to Philosophy. Wikipedia is the largest, most meticulously indexed collection of human knowledge ever amassed. More than information about a topic, Wikipedia is a web of naturally emerging relationships. By following the first link in each article, we algorithmically construct a directed network of all 4.7 million articles: Wikipedia's First Link Network.

Here we study the English edition of Wikipedia's First Link Network for insight into how the many inventions, places, people, objects, …

Uncommon Numerical Instability In The Method Of Characteristic Applied To Hyperbolic Equations, Zihao Deng

Graduate College Dissertations and Theses

This thesis presents the stability analysis of the numerical method of characteristic (MoC) that is applied to hyperbolic partial differential equations (PDEs). Simple Euler method, Modified Euler method and Leapfrog method are used for numerical integration along the characteristics. The corresponding MoC schemes are referred to as MoC-SE, MoC-ME, and MoC-LF respectively.

We discovered and explained two unusual phenomena. First, certain non-periodic boundary condition (b.c.) could eliminate the numerical instability for some schemes such as the MoC-ME, where the instability exists for periodic b.c. However, it is commonly believed that

if von Neumann analysis, i.e., assuming periodic b.c., predicts numerical …