Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Assessment Of The Status Of Harbor Porpoise (Phocoena Phocoena) In Oregon And Washington Waters, S. Osmek, J. Calambokidis, J. Laake, P. Gearin, R. Delong, J. Scordino, S. Jeffries, R. Brown

United States Department of Commerce: Staff Publications

The status of harbor porpoise, Phocoena phocoena, is reviewed for stocks in Oregon and Washington waters, and the adjacent transboundary waters of southern British Columbia, Canada, emphasizing the most recent data on their geographic range, population structure, distribution, population size, trends in abundance, and reproductive biology. This information is used to determine if the annual rate of incidental mortality and serious injury in gill-net fisheries from 1990-94 could be at a biologically significant level.

In the eastern North Pacific Ocean, harbor porpoise are found near the coast, generally in water depths of less than 200 m. Differences in harbor porpoise …

A Cscw Framework For Networked Multimodal Synthetic Environments, Chandrajit L. Bajaj, Fausto Berardini, Steven Cutchin, Raimund Merket

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Dynamic Scheduling Of Process Groups, Kuei Yu Wang, Dan C. Marinescu, Octavian F. Carbunar

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Pulse Coupled Neural Networks For The Segmentation Of Magnetic Resonance Brain Images, Shane L. Abrahamson

Theses and Dissertations

This research develops an automated method for segmenting Magnetic Resonance (MR) brain images based on Pulse Coupled Neural Networks (PCNN). MR brain image segmentation has proven difficult, primarily due to scanning artifacts such as interscan and intrascan intensity inhomogeneities. The method developed and presented here uses a PCNN to both filter and segment MR brain images. The technique begins by preprocessing images with a PCNN filter to reduce scanning artifacts. Images are then contrast enhanced via histogram equalization. Finally, a PCNN is used to segment the images to arrive at the final result. Modifications to the original PCNN model are …

Design And Prototype Of The Afit Virtual Emergency Room: A Distributed Virtual Environment For Emergency Medical Simulation, Brian W. Garcia

Theses and Dissertations

Due to the increasing complexity of emergency medical care, medical staffs require increasingly sophisticated training systems. Virtual environments offer a low cost means to achieve a widely usable yet sophisticated training capability. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has sponsored the Virtual Emergency Room (VER) project to develop a simulation system that enables emergency department personnel within level I and II emergency rooms to practice emergency medical procedures and protocols. The VER is a simulation facility that uses a distributed virtual environment architecture to enable real-time, multi-participant simulations. The potential advantages of this system include the ability to evaluate …

Analysis And Design Of Standard Telerobotic Control Software, Matthew L. June

Theses and Dissertations

The Robotics and Automation Center for Excellence (RACE) has defined an open telerobotics control architecture. This architecture, called the Unified Telerobotic Architecture Project (UTAP), is a proposed standard for all Air Force telerobotic systems. Implementation of UTAP will reduce the cost of robotic applications by increasing software modularity, portability, and reusability. This thesis continued the effort to prove the feasibility of UTAP. In December, 1995, 1st Lt Anchor implemented a portion of the UTAP specification on a PUMA robot. The UTAP-compliant controller exhibited some degradation in the system performance. However, the performance degradation was not fully measured. This thesis extended …

An Approach To Evaluate Software Effectiveness, Timothy J. Schalick

Theses and Dissertations

The Air Force Operational Test and Evaluation Center (AFOTEC) is tasked with the evaluation of operational effectiveness of new systems for the Air Force. Currently, the software analysis team within AFOTEC has no methodology to directly address the effectiveness of the software portion of these new systems. This research develops a working definition for software effectiveness, then outlines an approach to evaluate software effectiveness-- the Software Effectiveness Traceability Approach (SETA). Effectiveness is defined as the degree to which the software requirements are satisfied and is therefore application-independent. With SETA, requirements satisfaction is measured by the "degree of traceability" throughout the …

An Incremental Language Conversion Method To Convert C++ Into Ada95, Ding-Yuan Sheu

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis develops a methodology to incrementally convert a legacy object oriented C++ application into Ada95. Using the experience of converting a graphic application, called Remote Debriefing Tool (RDT), in the Graphics Lab of the Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT), this effort defined a process to convert a C++ application into Ada95. The methodology consists of five phases: (1) reorganizing the software application, (2) breaking mutual dependencies, (3) creating package specifications to interface the existing C++ classes, (4) converting C++ code into Ada programs, and (5) embellishing. This methodology used the GNAT's C++ low level interface capabilities to support …

Hydrogeology And Stable Isotope Investigations Of A Landfill Impacted Site In Southwest Michigan, Eliot Anong Atekwana

Dissertations

The Cork Street landfill in the City of Kalamazoo is unlined and constructed in glacial drift material. Although water quality in some of the landfill monitoring wells is poor, the degree of the landfill’s influence to groundwater, wetlands and Davis Creek located downgradient of the landfill is unknown. The objective of this study is to evaluate the degree of the landfill’s impact in this region through hydrologic and stable isotope analysis.

Site characterization using geophysical surveys and specific conductance measurements indicates highly conductive shallow groundwater probably attributable to groundwater contamination. Hydrologic evaluation of this region shows that groundwater flows towards …

Statistical Graphics: Applications To The R And Gr Methods In Linear Models, Mei Huang Wang

Dissertations

Statistical graphics combine statistics and graphics together to visually display analytical statistical results. They present information in a way that is very easy to understand and, furthermore, they frequently reveal information that is hidden from numerical summaries. Our purpose of this study is to explore the field of statistical graphics by investigating their application to statistical methods in the context of the R and GR methods in linear models. We consider the problems of score selection, R-diagnostics, and comparison of the R- and GR-fits.

We have developed a user friendly program which uses dynamic graphics and a user interface to …

An Inline Optical Electron Polarimeter, K. W. Trantham, Timothy J. Gay, R. J. Vandiver

Timothy J. Gay Publications

The design and operation of a simple inline optical electron polarimeter is presented. It is based on exchange excitation of ground state neon atoms. The electron polarization is determined from the degree of circular polarization of the subsequent 2p⁵3p ³D₃→2p⁵3s ³P₂ (6402 Å) fluorescence. This device can characterize both longitudinally and transversely polarized electron beams in a nondestructive fashion, and is inexpensive and easily constructed.

Molecular Articulation In Response To Interactive Atomic Forces In Docker, Todd R. Kellett

Theses and Dissertations

Molecular docking aids in the design of materials supporting the current and future needs of the warfighter by simulating the real-world results of combining molecules. Specifically, it supports research and development in novel non-linear optical materials for laser-hardening and other advanced optical applications. Potential uses for these materials range from personnel and optical system laser protection to holographic information displays. DOCKER, our baseline docking system, minimizes the computational overhead of the simulation by modeling the molecules as rigid objects. This simplification can cause DOCKER's solutions to disagree with the real-world results, because molecules flex as they react to one another …

The Development Of A Scenario Translator For Distributed Simulations, Heon-Gyu Park

Theses and Dissertations

There exists a variety of simulation generation and analysis products which have differing purposes and functions designed to simulate a real military battlefield. Due to the particular purpose of each simulation it is impractical to use one scenario of a simulation directly with another simulation without a translator since there is no standard scenario format. In the current environment interoperability between simulations is becoming more important in large scale simulations and distributed exercises. The Scenario File Translator (SFT) provides an easy and accurate way to create a scenario from a heterogeneous simulation. The SFT can load and save the three …

Integrity Of Digraphs, Robert Charles Vandell

Dissertations

The vertex-integrity of a digraph D, denoted I(D), is defined to be the minimum over aIII subsets X of the vertex set of D for the quantity IXI + m(D - X), w here IXI is the number of vertices in X and m(D - X) is the maximum order of a strong component in the digraph D - X. In a like manner, the arc-integrity of the digraph D, denoted I’(D), is defined to be the minimum over all subsets Y of the arc set of D for the quantity IYI + m(D - Y), where IYI is the …

Gender Discourse In Small Learning Groups Of College-Level Developmental Mathematics Students, Allen W. Emerson

Dissertations

This study was motivated by the question as to whether women’s and men’s membership in different gender communicative cultures gives rise to gender differentiated ways of talking that are implicated in the failure of a mixed-sex group to achieve good mathematical discourse when women and men sit face to face engaged in various mathematical tasks. If so, in what ways and to what effect is gender discourse implicated in the failure of a mixed-sex group to achieve good mathematical discourse?

Models of feminine and masculine discourse styles based on the theory of communicative cultural difference, as well as a model …

Selective Excitation And Structure In The Continuum, C. E. Carroll, Foek T. Hioe

Physics Faculty/Staff Publications

We show that efficient transfer of molecules or atoms from one bound state to another is possible via the continuum in some cases, using two overlapping laser pulses. The structure of the continuum determines the pulse delay, laser frequencies, and laser intensities that should be used. We present simple formulas that relate the optimum values of pulse intensities, pulse separation, and detuning; these estimates can be used as a guide. More detailed calculations give quantitative results for two specific potentials.

Algorithms For Adapting Materialised Views In Data Warehouses, Mukesh Mohania, Guozhu Dong

Kno.e.sis Publications

In this paper we consider the problem of materialised view adaptation in data warehouses. Materialised views are important in data warehousing where they are used to speed up query processing on large amounts of data. User requirements change over time, which may change the definitions of views dynamically. For such situations, the question arises whether the materialised views should be recomputed from scratch for every change in the definition or they should be obtained by adapting old materialised views. Changes to a view definition may be expensive, if the view is recomputed from scratch. Therefore, it is worthwhile to examine …

New Enantioselective Lewis Acid Catalysts, Mustafa Guzel

All Theses

Recently, many organic chemists have been ultimately interested in research in the synthesis of enantiomerically pure organics which are useful to synthesis of biologically active agents and prodrug substances. In the past decades, the new concepts in catalyst design unexpectedly explored the direction of natural product synthesis. In many cases, using enantioselective catalysts are the most suitable and efficient method into enantiopure systems.

Stars Classified As Constant In The General Catalogue Of Variable Stars, Ii, Edward G. Schmidt

Edward Schmidt Publications

Photometric observations have been made of 36 stars classified as CST or CST: in the General Catalogue of Variable Stars. Six of these stars are found to vary and three others were deemed possible variables. Of the certain variables, two (MR Her and TY Sge) are red pulsators, one (V1585 Cyg) is a rapid irregular variable, one is apparently a short period Cepheid-strip star (V432 Oph), one is an eclipsing binary (AQ Boo), and one is of uncertain type (V351 Cyg). The stars we have observed as MR Her and TY Sge are the same ones which were identified on …

An Efficient Collective Communication Library For Pvm, Chirapol Mathawaphan

Masters Theses

PVM enables the use of network of workstations for parallel and distributed computation. PVM provides the message-passing primitives which include those for point-to-point communication and collective communications. The current approaches for the collective communication operations in PVM use algorithms that do not exhibit good performance.

In this thesis, we develop new approaches to improve the performance of collective communication operations in PVM by using shared memory with IP broadcasting and IP multicasting mechanism. We have implemented these approaches and have run extensive tests. This report shows the comparison of the time used by current approaches and our approaches.

A Strategy For Distributed Relational Database Design, Ismail Omar Hababeh

Masters Theses

This thesis presents a strategy for the fragmentation and allocation of data in a distributed relational database. The strategy introduces a way to fragment and allocate data to accomplish the benefits of allocating each fragment independently for each site. Some fragments may be allocated to multiple sites in order to achieve some constraints such as availability, consistency, and integrity. The strategy is appropriate for different types of computers at various sites connected to a network, with different costs of retrieval, update, and communication.

To increase the system 1/0 performance, sites having similar communication costs are grouped into clusters to which …

L-Shell Resonant Electron Transfer And Excitation In Cu18-19+ + H2 Collisions, Jeffrey A. Wroblewski

Masters Theses

Measurements of L-shell resonant electron transfer and excitation (RTE) were conducted for 45-72 MeV Cu^18-19+ (Na-like and Ne-like, respectively) ions colliding with H₂ using the Western Michigan University EN tandem Van de Graaff accelerator. The RTE process involves an electron-electron interaction between the projectile and the target where electron capture occurs simultaneously with projectile excitation. In previous measurements involving RTE with subsequent L x-ray relaxation for Nb^q+ (q=28-31) ions, the magnitudes of the RTE cross sections were found to be nearly a factor of two smaller than theory. In the analogous electron-ion process of dielectronic recombination, measurements …

The Effect Of Chromium Compounds On The Mutagenic Rate Of Benzo[A]Pyrenediolepoxide In Human Fibroblasts, Yordanos Tesfai

Masters Theses

Cancer researchers are interested in identifying the environmental causes and synergistic influences of different chemical carcinogens in order to decrease the risk of cancer. There are numerous studies which have investigated the effect of individual carcinogens but relatively few in which a well defined mixture of chemicals have been used. The present study was performed to examine the effect of chromium compounds on benzo[a]pyrene diolepoxide (BPDE) induced cytotoxicity and mutagenicity in human fibroblasts. Cytotoxicity was measured by the ability to fonn colonies while selection of 6-thioguanine resistant mutants were used to study mutagenesis in human fibroblasts.

Our results indicate that …

Rapid Method For Determination Of Iodine Numbers Of Vegetable Oils, Ondrej Hendl

Masters Theses

There is a great deal of interest by the public about the total unsaturation of fats and oils used in commercial products as an indication of nutritional value. Dealers in fats and oils are extremely interested in characterizing these products. The unsaturation is a guide to the expected stability of food additives, such as edible oils and foods in which they are used. Unsaturation is typically evaluated as an iodine number (IN), calculated for these additives based on their consumption of iodine through addition across the carbon-carbon double bonds. The classical titration method can typically take 45 minutes.

The investigation …

Side Chain Effect On Micellarly Catalyzed Hydrolysis Of Hydroxamic Acids In Perfluorooctanoic Acid Environment, A.C. Menik Fernando

Masters Theses

The side chain effect on micellar catalysis of hydroxamic acids with perfluorooctanoic acid as the reactive counterion surfactant in aqueous acetonitrile solution has been demonstrated in this thesis.

The rate constant-surfactant concentration profiles were used to estimate the critical micelle concentration and the second order rate constant for hydrolysis in the aqueous bulk phase.

The pseudo-phase ion exchange model satisfactorily explains the surfactant effect. The second order rate constants in the aqueous bulk phase show a direct relationship with steric substituent constants. The major influence of the change in micellar catalysis is the location in the micelle where the substrate …

A Depositional Analysis Of The Wymer Site, Berrien County, Michigan And Its Relationship To Post-Glacial Lake Levels In The Lake Michigan Basin, Kevin A. Kincare

Masters Theses

The Wymer site is an archeological site on the St. Joseph River floodplain 1.5 miles north of Berrien Springs, Michigan. Early and Middle Archaic cultural phases were found at the site. These sites are unusual in that their occurrence corresponds to low lake levels associated with Lake Chippewa and were assumed to occupy the now submerged shoreline areas.

A site evaluation was undertaken to examine the types of sediments and depositional structures. Trenches, grainsize analysis, ¹⁴C samples and valley topography were used to determine that the site was a point bar situated on a terrace above the modern floodplain. …

The Behlen Observatory Variable Star Survey, Iv, Edward G. Schmidt, Anil Seth

Edward Schmidt Publications

Finding charts, accurate coordinates, and light curves are presented for 106 variable stars including 6 which are newly discovered. Parameters descriptive of the light curves are tabulated including periods for 16 stars which lacked them. The periods from the General Catalog of Variable Stars for ten stars were found to be seriously in error. The classification of the stars is discussed. Revisions or refinements of the classifications from the General Catalogue of Variable Stars are suggested for 20 stars and classifications are given for 7 which were previously unclassified. 15%-23% of the Bailey type ab RR Lyrae stars show scatter …

A Chemical Pathway To The Formation Of Chlorinated Compounds During Combustion, Xiaodong Yang

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

Two reactions, the Deacon reaction and the chlorination of phenol, which are the postulated starting steps for the formation of chlorinated dioxins during the incineration of the refuse derived fuel, were investigated in this work. Reactions were conducted in a tube furnace, and the products were trapped and analyzed by gas chromatography/mass spectroscopy. It was shown that the Deacon reaction was favored at higher temperatures. The chlorination of phenol in vapor phase was found to begin at temperatures as low as 250°C and to be favored at higher temperatures. The ortho and para positions in the phenol ring are the …

Evaluation Of Constructed Wetlands For The Waste Management Of A Large Scale Swine Production Unit, Robert Sutton

Masters Theses & Specialist Projects

The effectiveness of using constructed wetlands to remove unwanted nutrients, increase dissolved oxygen while at the same time decreasing the biological oxygen demand, and to reduce the levels of the Fecal Coliform Bacteria from a swine operation was evaluated. The indicator of proper waste purification will be the result of testing for the following: ammonia nitrogen, nitrate nitrogen, total phosphorus, total suspended solids, dissolved solids, dissolved oxygen, biological oxygen demand, and Fecal Coliform Bacteria. The wetland was divided into nine connected cells that covered approximately 3.8 hectares. Material was loaded from an anaerobic holding lagoon on four separate occasions during …

Graphical Display Of A Missile Endgame Scenario, Joseph E. Moritz

Theses and Dissertations

Traditionally, computer programs to model and simulate air-to-air missile endgame engagements have focused on improving the underlying probability of kill models. This focus, however, understates the benefits of current computer graphics technology for visualization and direct manipulation of missile endgame parameters and building engagement understanding through real-time, three dimensional simulation of the endgame. Our research has been to develop a versatile simulation system to display the missile endgame parameters and allow graphical interaction with these parameters. This program also allows the user to view animated engagements of previously designed endgames. The current project scope is to provide user feedback of …