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Frequency Response Approximation Methods Of The Dissipative Model Of Fluid Transmission Lines, John King May 2006

Frequency Response Approximation Methods Of The Dissipative Model Of Fluid Transmission Lines, John King

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

This thesis introduces an accurate and efficient method of obtaining a linear approximation for a nonlinear model of a complete fluid transmission line system using Matlab® Signal Processing Toolbox and Symbolic Math Toolbox programs. This technique is then packaged in a Graphical User Interface program to streamline the process of analyzing a total system. The method of approximating the frequency response of a fluid transmission line with a rational polynomial transfer function using the Matlab® 'invfreqs' least squares curve fitting algorithm has already been introduced. This research improves the technique by applying the 'invfreqs' command to a total system rather …

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Planning Cities For The Other Percent Of The Residents: Impacts On The Elderly And Disabled Community, Kellie D. Foster May 2006

Planning Cities For The Other Percent Of The Residents: Impacts On The Elderly And Disabled Community, Kellie D. Foster

Planning Theses - Archive

The urban environment has evolved in the time since the Second World War. Advances in technology have been a catalyst for numerous urban problems; urban sprawl, poverty and a shortage of low to moderate-income housing, for example. When addressing these issues, city planners often neglect the needs of the disabled community. This is cause for concern because society is aging and due to advancements in medicine, the disabled population is growing exponentially. The focus of this thesis is the roll urban design and city planning has in the issues that plague the disabled community by examining both physical design and …

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Evolving Telephone Policy: Universal Service, Phyllis Irene Behrens May 2006

Evolving Telephone Policy: Universal Service, Phyllis Irene Behrens

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

Important public policy decisions are commonly made that depend upon short, medium, and long term time periods to achieve success or widespread adoption. Universal Service and telephone penetration among underserved residential consumer groups are useful cases for studying the rate of change for adopting public policies. Telephone subscribership and its related socio-economic elements are examined using the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56) and the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. SS 151 et seq.). Theoretical foundations include the legislation, regulatory policy, and other telephone developments. Findings conclude that: (1) the diffusion of telephones, telephone services, …

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Evolving Telephone Policy: Universal Service, Phyllis Irene Behrens May 2006

Evolving Telephone Policy: Universal Service, Phyllis Irene Behrens

Public Affairs Dissertations - Archive

Important public policy decisions are commonly made that depend upon short, medium, and long term time periods to achieve success or widespread adoption. Universal Service and telephone penetration among underserved residential consumer groups are useful cases for studying the rate of change for adopting public policies. Telephone subscribership and its related socio-economic elements are examined using the Telecommunications Act of 1996 (Pub. L. 104-104, 110 Stat. 56) and the Communications Act of 1934 (47 U.S.C. SS 151 et seq.). Theoretical foundations include the legislation, regulatory policy, and other telephone developments. Findings conclude that: (1) the diffusion of telephones, telephone services, …

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Regional Prioritization Of Corridors For Traffic Signal Retiming, Sasanka Bhushan Pulipati May 2006

Regional Prioritization Of Corridors For Traffic Signal Retiming, Sasanka Bhushan Pulipati

Civil Engineering Theses - Archive

Every three to four years, the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) funds signal retiming projects to improve air quality in the Dallas-Fort Worth region. As sufficient funds are not available to retime all signals in the region at the same time, the retiming must be completed in phases. To optimize the impact of the retiming projects, the candidate corridors must be rank ordered or prioritized. NCTCOG applies a ranking model, which uses variables like delay, number of stops and system type, a dummy variable based on centralized control. The weighting for each factor is based on expert input …

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Mr Susceptibility Weighted Imaging And Its Clinical Applications, Nandita R. Shetty May 2006

Mr Susceptibility Weighted Imaging And Its Clinical Applications, Nandita R. Shetty

Bioengineering Theses - Archive

Susceptibility Weighted Imaging (SWI) is a new T2* weighted Gradient Echo sequence that exploits the magnetic properties of tissues due to local inhomogeneities in the magnetic field. This technique was originally called 'High-Resolution Blood oxygen level dependent Venography' which, as the name suggests provides an increased visibility of the venous vasculature in the brain, including the minute vessels not seen on conventional imaging techniques. Since its potential is not restricted to venography, it was renamed 'Susceptibility Weighted Imaging ' due to its contrast mechanism being the susceptibility differences between two tissues. The essential feature in this technique is to tap …

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The Effects Of Parental Incarceration On Children: An Examination Of Delinquency And Criminality, School Performance And Alcohol And Drug Usage, Dionne Peniston May 2006

The Effects Of Parental Incarceration On Children: An Examination Of Delinquency And Criminality, School Performance And Alcohol And Drug Usage, Dionne Peniston

Criminology & Criminal Justice Theses - Archive

This study investigates the effects of parental incarceration on children and youth. The main objectives of this study are to validate previous research on delinquency and criminality, and poor school performance of youth whose parents have been under correctional supervision (jail or/and probation). In addition, this study aims to examine the prevalence of drug and alcohol use in this population. This study utilizes the data set from the Children at Risk Program. This program was a drug and delinquency prevention program that was implemented in 1992 to 1996. The electronic data set was obtained from the National Archive of Criminal …

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Fpga Prototyping For Fast And Efficient Verification Of Asic H.264 Decoder, Basavaraj Mudigoudar May 2006

Fpga Prototyping For Fast And Efficient Verification Of Asic H.264 Decoder, Basavaraj Mudigoudar

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

To improve compression efficiency, recent video compression standards such as H.264 use complex algorithms and various modes that demand more computational power. Consumer electronics industry requires a low power, compact and cost-effective implementation of video codec for most of the products. ASIC implementation of these video codecs is a logical choice to meet these requirements. Functional verification of an ASIC implementation consumes a major part of design cycle time and lot of resources. Because of large design, various modes and options, functional verification of an ASIC H.264 video codec is a challenging, resource intensive and time consuming process. In this …

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"The Curse Never Fell Upon Our Nation Till Now": History And Fear In Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, Michael Lynn Brittain May 2006

"The Curse Never Fell Upon Our Nation Till Now": History And Fear In Philip Roth's The Plot Against America, Michael Lynn Brittain

English Theses - Archive

In The Plot Against America, Philip Roth questions the common perception of historic "inevitability" by creating a counter-factual history, placing himself and his childhood family into a fictional World War II America. Through the novel's imaginary political and historical events, Roth's alternate American history (in which Charles Lindbergh is President) creates a powerful sense of fear that permeates the novel. In this paper, I examine Roth's use of history in The Plot by exploring the novel's blurring of alternate history, dystopia, "imagined autobiography," bildungsroman, and Holocaust genres. I also examine how the narrator (literally/fictionally Roth) conducts in the novel a …

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Simulation And Characterization Of Znse/Bete Resonant Tunneling Diode On Silicon, Moshe Davis May 2006

Simulation And Characterization Of Znse/Bete Resonant Tunneling Diode On Silicon, Moshe Davis

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

ZnSe/BeTe resonant tunneling diodes were grown on silicon with a ZnxBe1-xTe buffer layer using MBE (Molecular Beam epitaxy).These devices were processed and characterized. The devices showed multiple NDR (negative differential resistance) regions at room temperature with PVR (Peak to valley ratios) between 1.01 to 1.23. Variations to the structure were made in growth and their corresponding current-voltage characteristics were studied. The ZnSe/BeTe resonant tunneling diode showed asymmetrical current voltage characteristics for positive and negative biases. The sources of asymmetry were investigated during fabrication and with the help of simulations. The Al/ZnSe contact was confirmed to be ohmic contact when the …

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Real-Time Data Monitoring And Manipulation For Wireless Sensor Networks, Sankar Bhanu Gorthi May 2006

Real-Time Data Monitoring And Manipulation For Wireless Sensor Networks, Sankar Bhanu Gorthi

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

The growth of Wireless Sensor Network research has brought about the need for tools to help developers rapidly develop applications for various platforms. In the pursuit of these capabilities, this work deals with the design of a graphical approach to development of Wireless Sensor Network applications for implementation in the LabVIEW Graphical Development Environment. The work done also covers the implementation and development of the Sound and Vibration Toolkit for LabVIEW. The implementation of these tools in developing a novel test-bed at the Distributed Intelligence and Automation Laboratory at the ARRI at UT Arlington is also shown. This work is …

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Structural Similarity Based Image Quality Assessment: Pooling Strategies And Applications To Image Compression And Digit Recognition, Xinli Shang May 2006

Structural Similarity Based Image Quality Assessment: Pooling Strategies And Applications To Image Compression And Digit Recognition, Xinli Shang

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

This thesis studies a recently proposed perceptual image similarity measure: the structural similarity (SSIM) index. Although still in its early stage, the SSIM index has demonstrated superior performance in a large number of tests as compared to the currently most widely used image distortion/quality measures, the mean squared error (MSE) and the peak signal-to-noise-ratio (PSNR). This motivates us to further investigate the SSIM method and extend it to other image processing and pattern recognition applications. Specifically, three topics have been studied in this thesis: spatial pooling strategies for perceptual image quality assessment, structural similarity-guided perceptual image compression, and handwritten digit …

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Design And Hardware Implementation Of A Soft-Switched Converter For Fuel Cell Applications, Shiju Wang May 2006

Design And Hardware Implementation Of A Soft-Switched Converter For Fuel Cell Applications, Shiju Wang

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

The focus of this thesis is to design a DC-DC quasi-soft switched boost converter suitable for fuel cell applications. Study of electrical output characteristics of fuel cells was necessary for this purpose. A number of experiments were conducted to study the steady-state and transient response of fuel cell system under various load dynamics. The results of these findings were necessary for the next phase of the project which was to design a reliable and high-performance regulated DC-DC converter. The design goals were realized with a soft-switching boost converter (implementation of zero voltage switching (ZVS) and zero current switching (ZCS) schemes) …

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Design Of An Enhanced Translinear Variable Floating Resistor And Its Application In A Vga, Nithya Jagannathan May 2006

Design Of An Enhanced Translinear Variable Floating Resistor And Its Application In A Vga, Nithya Jagannathan

Electrical Engineering Theses - Archive

An improved current controlled floating resistor is designed based on translinear loops for application in a Variable Gain Amplifier (VGA). This work compares the use of two different devices and evaluates the difference based on the model parameters and circuit performance. The different architectures employed clearly demarcate the performance variations. The translinear variable resistor exhibits a dynamic range greater than 60 mV. The resistance value lies in the range of 3 K? to few Ohms. A Current Feedback Operational Amplifier (CFOA) is also designed to have an f -3dB of 250 MHz. The CFOA together with the variable resistor in …

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Antecedents And Effects Of Perceived Age Discrimination Against Employees Under 40, Eileen Kwesiga May 2006

Antecedents And Effects Of Perceived Age Discrimination Against Employees Under 40, Eileen Kwesiga

Management Dissertations - Archive

Over the past decade, much of the organizational literature has used age-associated stereotypes and the age context of jobs to explain the occurrence of age discrimination against older workers (e. g., Cleveland & Landy, 1983; Cleveland & Shore, 1992; Goldberg, Finkelstein, Perry & Konrad, 2004; Gordon, Rozelle & Baxter, 1988b; Rosen & Jerdee, 1976). However, legislation covering age discrimination and most of the management literature has overlooked the existence, significance, and effects of age discrimination against younger employees. Because previous age diversity research has overwhelmingly focused on older workers, younger workers are an important group about whom we know little. …

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An Empirical Test Of The Situational Leadership® Model In Japan, Riho Yoshioka May 2006

An Empirical Test Of The Situational Leadership® Model In Japan, Riho Yoshioka

Public Affairs Theses - Archive

Since the collapse of the "bubble economy" in the early 1990s, Japanese companies have been struggling with financial difficulty, and have been forced to change their structure, strategies, and management systems. The trend of learning and importing successful American management theories and systems expanded to Japanese society. The Situational Leadership® model, developed by Hersey and Blanchard, is an example of this phenomenon. However, many cross-cultural studies propose that Japanese society has a different culture and values from American society. Therefore, by focusing on Situational Leadership®, this study examined whether models developed in the United States are suitable for Japanese companies. …

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Effects Of Religiosity And Rebt On Substance Abuse And Mental Health, Jesse Sias May 2006

Effects Of Religiosity And Rebt On Substance Abuse And Mental Health, Jesse Sias

Social Work Theses - Archive

The purpose of this thesis is to explore the impact of a Rational Emotive Behavior Therapy (REBT)-based treatment program on subjects levels of risk for alcohol and drug abuse as measured by the Substance Abuse Questionnaire (SAQ). This will be done while controlling for level of religiosity. The researcher will identify any association between different mental disorders as measured by the Millon Clinical Multi-axial Inventory-III (MCMI-III) and levels of religiosity. This study will focus on two dimensions of religiosity importance of religion and frequency of religious service attendance as reported by the participants.

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When Black Is White: The Social Construction Of Race At Predominantly Black And White Colleges., Louwanda Evans May 2006

When Black Is White: The Social Construction Of Race At Predominantly Black And White Colleges., Louwanda Evans

Sociology & Anthropology Theses - Archive

The intended purpose of this project is to examine the social construction of race for Black students attending predominantly Black and Predominantly White colleges. Previous research has examined the experiences of Black students at the college level, but few have attempted to understand the meaning of "Blackness" within these settings. From the perspective of social construction, in-depth interviews were conducted with twenty African American students attending two major universities located in the state of Texas. In this study, several emerging similarities and difference were discovered and discussed concerning what being Black means to students in these contexts. The data takes …

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Effects Of Legitimacy, Agency, And Business Risk On Board Structure In Initial Public Offering Firms: The Moderating Impact Of Ceo Incentive Alignment, Ceo Power, And Stock Market Conditions, Yousuf Hamed Al-Busaidi May 2006

Effects Of Legitimacy, Agency, And Business Risk On Board Structure In Initial Public Offering Firms: The Moderating Impact Of Ceo Incentive Alignment, Ceo Power, And Stock Market Conditions, Yousuf Hamed Al-Busaidi

Business Administration Dissertations - Archive

Board structure is generally seen as a means for acquiring resources, monitoring managerial behaviors, and enhancing firm legitimacy. Further, it is believed that the capacity of the board of directors to accomplish the above would improve with increasing outsider ratio, separation of CEO/chairman positions, and increasing board size. Previous studies found that an independent board plays an essential role in the long-term success of the firm. The role of the board is even more crucial during the firm's transformation from a privately held to a public company (i.e., Initial Pubic Offering). This study investigated the influence of IPO firms' risk …

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Place Attachment: An Investigation Of Environments And Outcomes In A Service Context, Elisabeth Deanne Brocato May 2006

Place Attachment: An Investigation Of Environments And Outcomes In A Service Context, Elisabeth Deanne Brocato

Business Administration Dissertations - Archive

Place attachment refers to the process of human-place bonding; the bonding process includes both physical and social ties formed within an environment. This dissertation engages in a detailed investigation of the dimensions of place attachment within a service environment by drawing on literature from human ecology, environmental psychology, sociology, services research and various other disciplines. The research seeks to establish place attachment as a multidimensional construct consisting of affective attachment, place identity, place dependence, and social bonds. These dimensions are first investigated through a place attachment scale development process. The construct of place attachment is further investigated in a services …

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Generalization Of Widely Linear Filtering Concepts For Equalization And Interference Suppression In Pam/Qam Systems, Kiran Kumar Kuchi May 2006

Generalization Of Widely Linear Filtering Concepts For Equalization And Interference Suppression In Pam/Qam Systems, Kiran Kumar Kuchi

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

In PAM/QAM transmission systems, standard Minimum Mean Square Error (MMSE) linear (LE) or Decision Feedback Equalization (DFE) equalization methods are often used to suppress the detrimental effects inter-symbol and/or co-channel interference (ISI/CCI) effects of the channel. In this thesis we show the benefits of a new signal processing concept called Widely Linear (WL) filtering for equalization applications in wireless systems. In particular, we introduce generalized WL MMSE/MMSE-DFE equalization structures for both PAM systems that use real constellations and QAM (that use complex modulation alphabets) with multiple antennas and multiple co-channel interferers. In this thesis we first show that WL equalizers …

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Design And Fabrication Of Optically-Pumped Guided-Mode Resonance Surface-Emitting Lasers, Preston Phillip Young May 2006

Design And Fabrication Of Optically-Pumped Guided-Mode Resonance Surface-Emitting Lasers, Preston Phillip Young

Electrical Engineering Dissertations - Archive

This dissertation describes the design and fabrication of guided-mode resonance (GMR) structures and their applications to laser devices. These include tunable Ti:Sapphire lasers as well as semiconductor lasers with integrated light emitting layers. The resonance characteristics of GMR structures are determined by the designed and fabricated waveguide-grating parameters. The primary tool for the design and simulation analysis of GMR devices is rigorous coupled-wave analysis (RCWA). This numerical method is used to provide diffraction efficiency calculations as well as simulations of the electric fields within GMR structures. RCWA-based field analysis is used to design an optically pumped GMR surface-emitting laser (GMR-SEL) …

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A Novel Approach In The Detection Of Obstructive Sleep Apnea From Electrocardiogram Signals Using Neural Network Classification Of Textural Features Extracted From Time-Frequency Plots, Mohammad Alabed May 2006

A Novel Approach In The Detection Of Obstructive Sleep Apnea From Electrocardiogram Signals Using Neural Network Classification Of Textural Features Extracted From Time-Frequency Plots, Mohammad Alabed

Bioengineering Theses - Archive

Sleep-Disordered Breathing (SDB) is estimated to have a prevalence of 5% in middle-aged population. The population is widely thought to be under diagnosed, since the present method to detect and diagnose SDB, Nocturnal Polysomnography (NPSG), is still expensive and not accessible by most. SDB has been shown to affect the productivity and degree of life of the patient, and to have a high correlation with obesity and cognitive heart failure (CHF). Cheap and accessible means to screen the population for SDB are greatly pursued. This work presents an automatic algorithm to detect obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) events in 15-minute clips. …

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Influence Of Polymer Surface Chemistry On The Recruitment Of Stem Cells In Mice, Shwetha Kamath May 2006

Influence Of Polymer Surface Chemistry On The Recruitment Of Stem Cells In Mice, Shwetha Kamath

Bioengineering Theses - Archive

The most troublesome biological response to the implantation of bloodcontacting biomaterials is inflammation, which thereby-sets in motion a cascade of adverse host responses. If devices for therapy and drug delivery could be developed that prevent such responses from occurring altogether, a new generation of "stealth" biomaterials would be born. Such was the motivation of this project, which sought to investigate using mouse subcutaneous implantation model, the implant mediated host tissue responses to surfaces differing in their functionalities. During the course of a previous study in our laboratory, we accidentally discovered the presence of stem cells and their accumulation at the …

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Characterization Of A Noninvasive, In Vivo, Microscopic Hyperspectral Imaging System For Microvascular Visualization., Bhavesh Shah May 2006

Characterization Of A Noninvasive, In Vivo, Microscopic Hyperspectral Imaging System For Microvascular Visualization., Bhavesh Shah

Bioengineering Theses - Archive

Instrumentation with clinical implications for imaging the human oculus was developed, based upon the hyperspectral imaging modality. The novel, non invasive, microscopic multi-modal hyperspectral imaging system, which operates in the visible as well as near infrared region, is capable of generating images illustrating spatial distribution of oxyhemoglobin contributions. The device principally comprises of a liquid crystal tunable filter and a focal plane array detector that is integrated to the slit lamp microscope. A proof of principle clinical study involving ten healthy subjects was undertaken to image the microvascular structure within the dermal tissue within the near infrared region, however these …

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Design And Construction Of A Fast Spectrometer For Fourier Domain Optical Coherence Tomography, Manish Kankaria May 2006

Design And Construction Of A Fast Spectrometer For Fourier Domain Optical Coherence Tomography, Manish Kankaria

Bioengineering Theses - Archive

A fast spectrometer capable of operating at 27.8 KHz is designed and calibrated to work in the wavelength range of 700-900 nm, to perform Fourier Domain Optical Coherence Tomography (FD-OCT). The OCT system is based on fiber-based Michelson's interferometer set up utilizing the spectrometer at the detector end. In FD-OCT system no reference scanning is necessary and hence images can be acquired at a much faster rate without any penalty to signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). A broadband Ti- sapphire source is used as input to this interferometer. Data at the rate of 60 MHz is acquired from the spectrometer using a …

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Structural Optimization Using Femlab And Smooth Support Vector Regression, Divija Odapally May 2006

Structural Optimization Using Femlab And Smooth Support Vector Regression, Divija Odapally

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Theses - Archive

In recent years support vector machine (SVM) has been emerging as a popular tool for function approximation. Application of SVM for approximation of mathematical functions and complex engineering analysis has been represented by Palancz et al and Clarke et al, respectively. However the training of the original SVM involves the solution of a quadratic programming (QP) problem. This makes the application of SVM to large problem computationally expensive. To circumvent this difficulty, Lee et al developed a more efficient SVM formulation namely epsilon-SSVR which drastically improved the training efficiency of SVM. In this research the SSVR is used to build …

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Concept-Based Search Using Parallel Query Expansion, Rahul Rajiv Joshi May 2006

Concept-Based Search Using Parallel Query Expansion, Rahul Rajiv Joshi

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

We address the problem of irrelevant results for short queries on Web search engines. Short queries fail to provide sufficient context to disambiguate possible meanings associated with the search terms resulting in a set of irrelevant pages that the user has to filter through navigation and sometimes examination. First, we predict the potential concept topics, which are the domains for the search terms. This prediction is based on word occurrences and relationships observed in the various domains (categories) of a corpus. Next, we expand the search terms in each of the predicted domains in parallel. We then submit separate queries, …

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Ubca: A Utility Based Clustering Architecture For Peer-To-Peer Networks, Brent Lagesse May 2006

Ubca: A Utility Based Clustering Architecture For Peer-To-Peer Networks, Brent Lagesse

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

Use of the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architecture has recently spread in popularity. File sharing and ad hoc networks have contributed to the architecture's usage. P2P generates new challenges in scalability, fairness, and quality of service. Current solutions tend to fall into two main areas: incentives and system design. Incentive-based approaches appeal to the self-interested nature of peers by requiring service to the system in order to access resources. System design includes distributed hash tables and graph-theoretical based designs which have seen some success, but also result in new problems. We introduce a Utility-Based Clustering Architecture, UBCA, designed to address scalability, fairness, …

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Alternative Architectures For Improving Document Readability, Ankur Bora May 2006

Alternative Architectures For Improving Document Readability, Ankur Bora

Computer Science and Engineering Theses - Archive

A number of tools have been developed to improve the readability of documents. These tools assist users to make changes which result in an easy to read document. Most of these tools were developed for users who work independently with little interaction with other users. However, in recent years, because of the proliferation of Internet, there has been increased collaboration between users. A user may need to share his document repositories with others so that both can benefit. Another set of users may work with information from a specific domain. These domains may be located in different geographical areas. Some …

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