Digital Commons Network^™

Cyberpsychology And Virtual Reality: Is An Update Necessary, Ibpp Editor

International Bulletin of Political Psychology

This article explores the notion that something called "human nature" may be changing in an era of significant information technology developments.

Public Perceptions Of The Midwest’S Pavements - Minnesota - Executive Summary, David Kuemmel, Richard Robinson, Robert J. Griffin, Ronald C. Sonntag, James K. Giese

Transportation Research Center: Public Perception of Midwest Pavements

This report summarizes Minnesota results of a five year, Pooled Fund study involving the Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota DOTs designed to 1) assess the public's perceptions of the departments’ pavement improvement strategies and 2) to develop customer-based thresholds of satisfaction with pavements on rural two lane highways in each state as related to the Departments’ physical indices, such as pavement ride and condition. The primary objective was to seek systematic customer input to improve the Departments’ pavement improvement policies by 1) determining how drivers perceive the departments’ pavements in terms of comfort and convenience but also in terms of other …

Tilted Bilayer Membranes As Simple Transmission Quarter-Wave Retardation Plates, R. M.A. Azzam, Fadi A. Mahmoud

Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications

A tilted bilayer membrane, which consists of two thin films of transparent optically isotropic materials of different refractive indices, can function as a transmission quarter-wave retarder (QWR) at a high angle of incidence. A specific design using a cryolite-Si membrane in the infrared is presented, and its tolerances to small shifts of wavelength, incidence angle, and film thickness errors are discussed. Some designs provide a dual QWR in transmission and reflection. Such devices provide simple linear-to-circular (and circular-to-linear) polarization transformers. Bilayer eighth-wave retarders without diattenuation are also introduced.

Effects Of External Electric Field On The Interfacial Properties Of Weakly Dipolar Fluid, V. B. Warshavsky, T. V. Bykov, Xiao Cheng Zeng

Xiao Cheng Zeng Publications

In the framework of modified mean-field density-functional theory, effects of a uniform electric field on the interfacial properties of a model dipolar fluid are studied. Both density and orientational order-parameter profiles of the planar vapor-liquid interface are obtained as a function of the field strength. For the dipolar fluids with reduced dipole moment μ₀^*0^*E*/T*!1) can shift the surface tension by few percent. We also find that the electric field actually reduces the thermodynamical surface tension but enhances the mechanical surface tension at the equimolar dividing surface. To detect these field effects on …

Video Indexing And Summarization Using Motion Activity, Kadir Askin Peker

Dissertations

In this dissertation, video-indexing techniques using low-level motion activity characteristics and their application to video summarization are presented. The MPEG-7 motion activity feature is defined as the subjective level of activity or motion in a video segment. First, a novel psychophysical and analytical framework for automatic measurement of motion activity in compliance with its subjective perception is developed. A psychophysically sound subjective ground truth for motion activity and a test-set of video clips is constructed for this purpose. A number of low-level, compressed domain motion vector based, known and novel descriptors are then described. It is shown that these descriptors …

Numerical Modeling And Optimization Of Waterjet Based Surface Decontamination, Konstantin Babets

Dissertations

The mission of this study is to investigate the high-pressure waterjet based surface decontamination. Our specific objective is to develop a practical procedure for selection of process conditions at given constraints and available knowledge. This investigation is expected to improve information processing in the course of material decontamination and assist in the implementation of the waterjet decontamination technology into practice. The development of a realistic procedure for processing of a chaotic and non-accurate information constitutes the main accomplishment of this study.

The research involved acquisition of representative information about removal of brittle, elastic and viscous deposits. As a result an …

Nonlinear Optical Properties Of Nano Structures, Mahesh U. Ajgaonkar

Dissertations

Nonlinear optical properties of nanoscale semiconductors had been a topic of intense research in recent years in attempts to realize all-optical communication systems. These semiconductor nanoclusters, in the range of 1-100nm are hosted in a dielectric material and are considered as a particular example of Conditional Artificial Dielectric (CAD). It has been reported that the dielectric properties of such materials will be greatly changed by light intensity.

Two main paths to realize nano semiconductor clusters are reported in this dissertation. The Pulsed Laser Deposition (PLD) technique is first described. Here we were investigating the effect of surface modification of nano …

Interference Suppression And Diversity For Cdma Systems, Xiaodong Cai

Dissertations

In code-division multiple-access (CDMA) systems, due to non-orthogonality of the spreading codes and multipath channels, the desired signal suffers interference from other users. Signal fading due to multipath propagation is another source of impairment in wireless CDMA systems, often severely impacting performance. In this dissertation, reduced-rank minimum mean square error (MMSE) receiver and reduced-rank minimum variance receiver are investigated to suppress interference; transmit diversity is applied to multicarrier CDMA (MC-CDMA) systems to combat fading; packet combing is studied to provide both interference suppression and diversity for CDMA random access systems.

The reduced-rank MMSE receiver that uses a reduced-rank estimated covariance …

Object Detection And Activity Recognition In Digital Image And Video Libraries, Ibrahim Burak Ozer

Dissertations

This thesis is a comprehensive study of object-based image and video retrieval, specifically for car and human detection and activity recognition purposes. The thesis focuses on the problem of connecting low level features to high level semantics by developing relational object and activity presentations. With the rapid growth of multimedia information in forms of digital image and video libraries, there is an increasing need for intelligent database management tools. The traditional text based query systems based on manual annotation process are impractical for today's large libraries requiring an efficient information retrieval system. For this purpose, a hierarchical information retrieval system …

Numerical Studies Of Newtonian And Viscoelastic Fluids, Felix J. Alcocer

Dissertations

The direct numerical simulation (DNS) approach is used to understand the flow behavior of Newtonian and viscoelastic fluids in porous materials, four-to-one contraction and the flow of a Newtonian fluid past an airfoil.

In simulations the viscoelastic fluid is modeled by the finitely extensible nonlinear elastic (FENE) dumbbell and Oldroyd-B models. The finite element method (FEM) is used to discretize the flow domain. The DNS results show that the permeability of a periodic porous medium depends on the wavelength used for arranging particles in the direction of flow. Specifically, it is shown that for a given particle size and porosity …

A Study And Some Experimental Work Of Digital Image And Video Watermarking, Tsui-Feng Liu

Theses

The rapid growth of digitized media and the emergence of digital networks have created a pressing need for copyright protection and anonymous communications schemes. Digital watermarking (or data hiding in a more general term) is a kind of steganography technique by adding information into a digital data stream. Several most important watermarking schemes applied to multilevel and binary still images and digital videos were studied. They include schemes based on DCT (Discrete Cosine Transform), DWT (Discrete Wavelet Transform), and fractal transforms. The question whether these invisible watermarking techniques can resolve the issue of rightful ownership of intellectual properties was discussed. …

Development And Application Of A Computer Simulation Tool For Ecological Risk Assessments, Haiyi Lu

Theses

In an effort to improve tools in ecological risk assessment (ERA), an ERA software tool was developed and applied. Based on a preliminary evaluation of existing ecorisk models, the relative deficiencies were identified and included the need for a user-friendly interface, an interactive database management system (DBMS), and a comprehensive evaluation of exposure pathways. In this research, Visual Basic (VB) 6.0 and Microsoft SQL server were selected for developing the Windows-based interface and local DBMS, respectively. For the exposure estimate, Yuma and Aberdeen Proving Grounds were identified as baseline ecosystems. Terrestrial and aquatic plant and animal receptor selection was based …

Reactive Media For Chromium Reduction Under Alkaline Conditions For Use In Permeable Reactive Barriers, Sachin V. Apte

Theses

The purpose of this study was to select the appropriate reactive media for chromate reduction to treat groundwater (high pH) with permeable reactive barriers. The study addresses groundwater contamination for three chromium refining sites located in Hudson County, New Jersey. The use of iron (Fe⁰) as a reactive medium was studied and found to be insufficient for use in permeable reactive barriers because of the high pH conditions of groundwater at these sites. Pyrite and iron (Fe⁰)-pyrite mixtures were studied as viable reactive media by considering their passivation kinetics, reductive capacities and solubility properties.

Column experiments …

Public Perceptions Of The Midwest's Pavements - Iowa - Executive Summary, Robert J. Griffin, David A. Kuemmel, Richard Robinson, Ronald C. Sonntag, James K. Giese

Transportation Research Center: Public Perception of Midwest Pavements

This report summarizes Iowa results of a five year, Pooled Fund study involving the Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota DOTs designed to 1) assess the public's perceptions of the departments’ pavement improvement strategies and 2) to develop customer-based thresholds of satisfaction with pavements on rural two lane highways in each state as related to the Departments’ physical indices, such as pavement ride and condition. The primary objective was to seek systematic customer input to improve the Departments’ pavement improvement policies by 1) determining how drivers perceive the departments’ pavements in terms of comfort and convenience but also in terms of other …

Public Perceptions Of The Midwest’S Pavements - Wisconsin - Executive Summary, David Kuemmel, Richard Robinson, Robert J. Griffin, Ronald C. Sonntag, James K. Giese

Transportation Research Center: Public Perception of Midwest Pavements

This report summarizes Wisconsin results of a five year, Pooled Fund study involving the Wisconsin, Iowa, and Minnesota DOTs designed to 1) assess the public's perceptions of the departments’ pavement improvement strategies and 2) to develop customer-based thresholds of satisfaction with pavements on rural two lane highways in each state as related to the Departments’ physical indices, such as pavement ride and condition. The primary objective was to seek systematic customer input to improve the Departments’ pavement improvement policies by 1) determining how drivers perceive the departments’ pavements in terms of comfort and convenience but also in terms of other …

A Software Defined Radio Platform With Direct Conversion: Soprano, Shinichiro Haruyama, Robert H. Morelos-Zaragoza

Faculty Publications

A new software defined radio platform with multiport-based direct conversion is proposed, named SOPRANO (Software Programmable and Hardware Reconfigurable Architecture for Network). The main features of SOPRANO are a high-level design methodology for digital circuits, a new mixer-less direct conversion method, and software algorithms for multi-band and multi-mode operation. We built the first prototype SOPRANO 1.0, which was able to receive PSK and QAM signals with two different carrier frequencies at 2.45 GHz and 5.25 GHz by changing signal processing software.

Attenuation Of Sound In Concentrated Suspensions: Theory And Experiments, Ashok S. Sangani, Peter D. M. Spelt, Michael A. Norato, Margaret S. Greenwood, Lawrence L. Tavarides

Biomedical and Chemical Engineering - All Scholarship

Ensemble-averaged equations are derived for small-amplitude acoustic wave propagation through non-dilute suspensions. The equations are closed by introducing effective properties of the suspension such as the compressibility, density, viscoelasticity, heat capacity, and conductivity. These effective properties are estimated as a function of frequency, particle volume fraction, and physical properties of the individual phases using a self-consistent, effective-medium approximation. The theory is shown to be in excellent agreement with various rigorous analytical results accounting for multiparticle interactions. The theory is also shown to agree well with the experimental data on concentrated suspensions of small polystyrene particles in water obtained by Allegra …

Summer 2001, 90.9 Wmpg Fm

WMPG Program Guides

Newspaper format

Report Of The State Nuclear Safety Advisor Submitted To The Governor And 120th Legislature As Of January 15, 2001, Paula M. Craighead

Maine Collection

Report of the State Nuclear Safety Advisor submitted to the Governor and 120th Legislature As of January 15, 2001

Paula M. Craighead, State Nuclear Safety Advisor, Executive Department, Maine State Planning Office, Augusta, Maine, 2001.

Contents: Introduction and Executive Summary / I. Maine Yankee Decommissioning / II. Portsmouth Naval Shipyard (PNS) / III. Low-Level Radioactive Waste (LLRW) / IV. High Level Radioactive Waste / V. Transport Routes and Safety Response / VI. Shipments / VII. Status of Federal and State Legal and Administrative Proceedings / References and Resources / Glossary

On Interference Cancellation And Iterative Techniques, Ryuji Kohno, Robert H. Morelos-Zaragoza

Faculty Publications

Recent research activities in the area of mobile radio communications have moved to third generation (3G) cellular systems to achieve higher quality with variable transmission rate of multimedia information. In this paper, an overview is presented of various interference cancellation and iterative detection techniques that are believed to be suitable for 3G wireless communications systems. Key concepts are space-time processing and space-division multiple access (or SDMA) techniques. SDMA techniques are possible with software antennas. Furthermore, to reduce receiver implementation complexity, iterative detection techniques are considered. A particularly attractive method uses tentative hard decisions, made on the received positions with the …

Virtual Design Office: A Collaborative Unified Modeling Language Tool, Hara Totapally

Theses Digitization Project

Real-time conferencing and collaborative computing is a great way to make developers more effective. This project is a collaborative framework development comprising configurable client and server components.

Implementation Business-To-Business Electronic Commercial Website Using Coldfusion 4.5, Teerapong Euawatana

Theses Digitization Project

This project was created using ColdFusion 4.5 to build and implement a commercial web site to present a real picture of electronic commerce. This project is intended to provide enough information for other students who are looking for a guideline for further study and to improve their skills in business from an information management aspect.

World Wide Graphics, Alysha Marie Timmons

Theses Digitization Project

The scope of this project describes World Wide Graphics (WWG) a software package that provides instructors with the tools needed to present a web-based presentation to a group of students while having the ability of enhancing the prepared HTML slide with userdrawn graphics and highlighting.

Basic Engineering Science --- A Systems, Accounting, And Modeling Approach, Donald E. Richards

Faculty Publications - Mechanical Engineering

This textbook is based on a different paradigm for organizing an engineering science core --- a systems, accounting and modeling approach --- that emphasizes the common, underlying concepts of engineering science. Although this approach is not new, as most graduate students have been struck by this idea sometime during their graduate education, its use as the organizing principle for an undergraduate curriculum is new. By focusing on the underlying concepts and stressing the similarities between subjects that are often perceived by students (and taught by faculty) as unconnected topics, this approach provides engineering students a foundational framework for recognizing and …

A Two-Stage Decoder For Pragmatic Trellis-Coded M-Psk Modulation Using A Symbol Transformation, Robert H. Morelos-Zaragoza, Advait Mogre

Faculty Publications

A two-stage decoding procedure for pragmatic trellis-coded modulation (TCM) is introduced. It applies a transformation from the received I-channel and Q-channel samples onto points in a two-dimensional (2-D) signal space that contains a coset constellation. For pragmatic TCM over M-PSK signal sets with ν coded bits per symbol, ν=1, 2, the signal points in the coset constellations represent cosets of a B/QPSK signal subset-associated with the coded bits-in the original M-PSK signal constellation. A conventional Viterbi decoder operates on the transformed symbols to estimate the coded bits. After reencoding these bits, the uncoded bits are estimated in a second stage, …

A Method Of Non-Data-Aided Carrier Recovery With Modulation Identification, Robert H. Morelos-Zaragoza, Kenta Umebayashi, Ryuji Kohno

Faculty Publications

A non-data aided carrier recovery technique using modulation format identification is proposed. This technique can also be interpreted as a modulation identification method that is robust against static phase and frequency offsets. The performance of the proposed technique is studied and analytical expressions derived for the mean acquisition time to detect lock in the cases of M-PSK, M=2,4,8, and 16-QAM modulation, with respect to frequency offset and signal-to-noise ratio. The results are verified with Monte Carlo simulations. The main advantage of the proposed method lies in its simpler implementation and faster lock detection, when compared to conventional methods.

The Role Of Mechanical Design In Mechatronics Education, John Gardner

Mechanical and Biomedical Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

A survey of Mechatronics course offerings around the United States shows a rich variety of approaches to this topic.[1] Indeed, it appears that a majority of Mechanical Engineering programs across the county offer some formal offering in this area and it seems clear that the vast majority of Mechatronics courses are offered through Mechanical Engineering departments. With the traditional emphasis on design skill in mechanical engineering, it would seem obvious that mechatronics courses would feature a major design component. Surprisingly, very few existing mechatronics courses (at least those reported in the literature) feature a strong emphasis on mechanical design. That …

U.S. Air Force Long-Range Strike Aircraft White Paper, United States Air Force

United States Air Force: Publications

As a result of DoD transformation plans and recent operational experience (Air War Over Serbia and Operation ENDURING FREEDOM) portions of the 1999 U.S. Air Force White Paper on Long Range Bombers have become outmoded. In October 2001, the Secretary of the Air Force directed an updated Long-range Strike Aircraft White Paper incorporating our new defense planning guidance. This document provides an update to the 1999 White Paper and reflects current decisions concerning bomber force structure and basing. While modification plans remain largely intact, the focus has been refined to support the Global Strike Task Force concept.

Biotransformation Of Ni-Substituted Hydrous Ferric Oxide By An Fe(Iii)-Reducing Bacterium, James K. Fredrickson, John M. Zachara, Ravi K. Kukkadapu, Yuri A. Gorby, Steven C. Smith, Christopher F. Brown

United States Department of Energy: Publications

The reductive biotransformation of a Ni²⁺-substituted (5 mol %) hydrous ferric oxide (NiHFO) by Shewanella putrefaciens, strain CN32, was investigated under anoxic conditions at circumneutral pH. Our objectives were to define the influence of Ni²⁺ substitution on the bioreducibility of the HFO and the biomineralization products formed and to identify biogeochemical factors controlling the phase distribution of Ni²⁺ during bioreduction. Incubations with CN32 and NiHFO were sampled after 14 and 32 d, and both aqueous chemistry and solid phases were characterized. By comparison of these results with a previous study (Fredrickson, J. K.; Zachara, J. M.; …

Dissimilatory Bacterial Reduction Of Al-Substituted Goethite In Subsurface Sediments, Ravi K. Kukkadapu, John M. Zachara, Steven C. Smith, James K. Fredrickson, Chongxuan Liu

United States Department of Energy: Publications

The microbiologic reduction of a 0.2 to 2.0 µm size fraction of an Atlantic coastal plain sediment (Eatontown) was investigated using a dissimilatory Fe(III)-reducing bacterium (Shewanella putrefaciens, strain CN32) to evaluate mineralogic controls on the rate and extent of Fe(III) reduction and the resulting distribution of biogenic Fe(II). Mössbauer spectroscopy and X-ray diffraction (XRD) were used to show that the sedimentary Fe (III) oxide was Al-substituted goethite (13–17% Al) that existed as 1- to 5-µm aggregates of indistinct morphology. Bioreduction experiments were performed in two buffers [HCO₃^‑; 1,4-piperazinediethansulfonic acid (PIPES)] both without and with 2,6-anthraquinone …