Digital Commons Network^™

Towards Stronger Coulomb Coupling In An Ultracold Neutral Plasma, Mary Elizabeth Lyon

Theses and Dissertations

Ultracold neutral plasmas are created by photoionizing laser-cooled atoms in a magneto-optical trap (MOT). Due to their large electrical potential energies and comparatively small kinetic energies, ultracold plasmas fall into a regime of plasma systems which are called “strongly coupled.” A priority in the field of ultracold plasmas is to generate plasmas with higher values of the strong coupling parameter Γ, which is given as the ratio of the nearest-neighbor Coulomb potential energy to the average kinetic energy. The equilibrium strong coupling in ultracold plasmas is limited by the ultrafast relaxation of the ions due to spatial disorder in the …

Recursive-Ransac: A Novel Algorithm For Tracking Multiple Targets In Clutter, Peter C. Niedfeldt

Theses and Dissertations

Multiple target tracking (MTT) is the process of identifying the number of targets present in a surveillance region and the state estimates, or track, of each target. MTT remains a challenging problem due to the NP-hard data association step, where unlabeled measurements are identified as either a measurement of an existing target, a new target, or a spurious measurement called clutter. Existing techniques suffer from at least one of the following drawbacks: divergence in clutter, underlying assumptions on the number of targets, high computational complexity, time-consuming implementation, poor performance at low detection rates, and/or poor track continuity. Our goal is …

Analysis And Compression Of Large Cfd Data Sets Using Proper Orthogonal Decomposition, Trevor Jon Blanc

Theses and Dissertations

Efficient analysis and storage of data is an integral but often challenging task when working with computation fluid dynamics mainly due to the amount of data it can output. Methods centered around the proper orthogonal decomposition were used to analyze, compress, and model various simulation cases. Two different high-fidelity, time-accurate turbomachinery simulations were investigated to show various applications of the analysis techniques. The first turbomachinery example was used to illustrate the extraction of turbulent coherent structures such as traversing shocks, vortex shedding, and wake variation from deswirler and rotor blade passages. Using only the most dominant modes, flow fields were …

Investigation Of A New Method Of Estimating Acoustic Intensity And Its Application To Rocket Noise, Benjamin Young Christensen

Theses and Dissertations

An alternative pressure-sensor based method for estimating the acoustic intensity, the phase and amplitude gradient estimation (PAGE) method, is presented. This method is similar to the finite-difference p-p (FD) method, in which the intensity is estimated from pressure measurements made using an array of closely spaced microphones. The PAGE method uses the same hardware as the FD method, but does not suffer from the frequency-dependent bias inherent to the FD method. Detailed derivations of the new method and the traditional FD method are presented. Both methods are then compared using two acoustic fields: a plane wave and a three monopole …

Slice—N—Dice Algorithm Implementation In Jpf, Eric S. Noonan

Theses and Dissertations

This work deals with evaluating the effectiveness of a new verification algorithm called slice--n--dice. In order to evaluate the effectiveness of slice--n--dice, a vector clock POR was implemented to compare it against. The first paper contained in this work was published in ACM SIGSOFT Software Engineering Notes and discusses the implementation of the vector clock POR. The results of this paper show the vector clock POR performing better than the POR in Java Pathfinder by at least a factor of two. The second paper discusses the implementation of slice--n--dice and compares it against other verification techniques. The results show that …

Measurement And Modeling Of Fire Behavior In Leaves And Sparse Shrubs, Dallan R. Prince

Theses and Dissertations

Wildland fuels and fire behavior have been the focus of numerous studies and models which provide operational support to firefighters. However, fuel and fire complexity in live shrubs has resulted in unexpected and sometimes aggressive fire behavior. The combustion of live fuels was studied and modeled, and the results were assimilated into a shrub-scale fire behavior model which assumes fire spread by flame-fuel overlap. Fire spread models have usually assumed that radiation heat transfer is responsible for driving fire spread, but that assumption is a topic of continuing debate, and appears to contradict some experimental observations. A convection-based shrub-scale fire …

Introduction To The Development Of A Radio Astronomy System At Brigham Young University, Daniel Robert Blakley

Theses and Dissertations

The intent of this project was founded upon the need to train students in the techniques of radio astronomy with the purpose of establishing a radio telescope in order to teach the principles and practice of radio astronomy.This document describes the theory, research, to establish the 1st generation radio telescope system within the Department of Physics and Astronomy at Brigham Young University. Included are introductions to: (1) The nature of star forming regions in the spiral arm structure of the galaxy, H I (the hydrogen spin-flip transition) and OH MASERS, (2) The of terminology used with the system components and …

Discovery Of An Allosteric Site On Furin, Contributing To Potent Inhibition: A Promising Therapeutic For The Anemia Of Chronic Inflammation, Andrew Jacob Gross

Theses and Dissertations

Release Date: October 2017

Anemia of chronic inflammation (ACI) is a condition that develops in a setting of chronic immune activation. ACI is characterized and triggered by inflammatory cytokines and the disruption of iron homeostasis. Hepcidin, a small peptide hormone, is the master regulator of iron homeostasis, and rapidly responds to iron supply and demand. Under conditions of chronic inflammation, hepcidin is elevated, and alters the way that iron is absorbed and disrupted throughout the body, resulting in disrupted iron homeostasis through inhibition of the iron exporter protein ferroportin. Anemia arises when insufficient erythropoietic activity combined with inadequate iron supply …

Articulated Spine For A Robot To Assist Children With Autism, Brandon M. Norton

Theses and Dissertations

Autism spectrum disorder (ASD) affects about 1.5 million individuals in the US alone. The consequences of ASD affect families, caregivers, and social structures. This thesis adds to a growing group of people performing research on mitigating the effects of autism through robotics. Children with ASD tend to interact with robots more easily than with other humans. The goal of robotic therapy is not to help children interact with robots, but to generalize the behavior to humans. An articulated spine is a key to human emotional expression through shaping, weight shifting, and flow. Despite this importance, this feature is all but …

Passive Force On Skewed Bridge Abutments With Reinforced Concrete Wingwalls Based On Large-Scale Tests, Kyle Mark Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Skewed bridges have exhibited poorer performance during lateral earthquake loading when compared to non-skewed bridges (Apirakvorapinit et al. 2012; Elnashai et al. 2010). Results from small-scale laboratory tests by Rollins and Jessee (2012) and numerical modeling by Shamsabadi et al. (2006) suggest that skewed bridge abutments may provide only 35% of the non-skewed peak passive resistance when a bridge is skewed 45°. This reduction in peak passive force is of particular importance as 40% of the 600,000 bridges in the United States are skewed (Nichols 2012). Passive force-deflection results based on large-scale testing for this study largely confirm the significant …

Bioinformatic Solutions To Complex Problems In Mass Spectrometry Based Analysis Of Biomolecules, Ryan M. Taylor

Theses and Dissertations

Biological research has benefitted greatly from the advent of omic methods. For many biomolecules, mass spectrometry (MS) methods are most widely employed due to the sensitivity which allows low quantities of sample and the speed which allows analysis of complex samples. Improvements in instrument and sample preparation techniques create opportunities for large scale experimentation. The complexity and volume of data produced by modern MS-omic instrumentation challenges biological interpretation, while the complexity of the instrumentation, sample noise, and complexity of data analysis present difficulties in maintaining and ensuring data quality, validity, and relevance. We present a corpus of tools which improves …

Tectonics Of Saturn's Moon Titan And Tsunami Modeling Of The 1629 Mega-Thrust Earthquake In Eastern Indonesia, Yung-Chun Liu

Theses and Dissertations

Chapter 1-2:The Cassini RADAR mapper has imaged elevated blocks and mountains on Titan we term ‘ridges’. Two unresolved problems regarding Titan's surface are still debated: what is the origin of its ridges and was there tectonic activity on Titan? To understand the processes that produced the ridges, in this study, (1) we analyze the distribution and orientation of ridges through systematic geomorphologic mapping and (2) we compare the location of the ridges to a new global topographic map to explore the correlation between elevation and ridges and the implications for Titan's surface evolution. Globally, the orientation of ridges is nearly …

A Computational Hybrid Method For Self-Intersection Free Offsetting Of Cad Geometry, Garrett Clark Bodily

Theses and Dissertations

Surface offsetting is a valuable tool used in Computer Aided Design (CAD). An offset surface is a collection of points that are at a constant distance from another surface. An offset surface is created in CAD by selecting a surface and then specifying the distance that the surface is to be offset. If a surface is selected and a distance of D is specified, then the resulting offset surface should always be distance D from the original surface. The surface offset tool can be used for many applications. Modeling of composites or other layered manufacturing processes rely heavily on offset …

Paterae On Io: Geologic Mapping Of Tupan Patera And Experimental Models, Megan Carolee Decker

Theses and Dissertations

Paterae cover approximately 2% of the surface of Io, Jupiter’s volcanically active moon. To understand the formation of these volcano-tectonic depressions we created a geologic map of a key region and compared this map with experimental models for Io paterae. Our mapping region is Tupan Patera, a patera that has experienced recent activity and is a detected hot spot. We identified four primary types of geologic materials: plains, patera floors, flows, and diffuse deposits. We constructed an experimental model to test previous suggestions that paterae may form as volatiles in the silicate crust are vaporized by rising magma, creating instability, …

Assessing The Archaeological Resources Of Mormon Nauvoo With Three-Dimensional Geophysical Imaging, John H. Mcbride

Journal of Undergraduate Research

The principal objective of the project was to provide BYU students with the experience of exploring Nauvoo using ground-penetrating radar (GPR) in order to gain a better appreciation of early Mormon history from a geophysical and archaeological perspective. The objective was met by carrying out two field seasons in Nauvoo. In addition, the grant partially funded a field expedition to the LDS Far West Burying Grounds and Hawn’s Mill sites in Missouri in order to perform surveying work analogous to that performed in Nauvoo. Additional funding for this project was provided by the LDS Church History Department, which allowed more …

Perceptions And Influences Behind Teaching Practices: Do Teachers Teach As They Were Taught?, Stephanie Elizabeth Cox

Theses and Dissertations

Schools face the problem of recruiting and retaining students in Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) degrees. One reason that students leave STEM fields is because their introductory classes are too hard or not engaging. These introductory classes are typically taught using a lecture-heavy, instructor-centered approach, contrary to current evidence based pedagogy. Many who call for teacher reform put the blame on the way teachers are educated, which is often not student-centered, citing that because ‘teachers teach the way they were taught,’ current education is also not student-centered. The idea that ‘teachers teach the way they were taught’ is commonly …

A Position Analysis Of Coupled Spherical Mechanisms In Action Origami, Landen A. Bowen, L. A. Baxter, Spencer P. Magleby, Larry L. Howell

Faculty Publications

Origami has been previously utilized in design to create deployable systems. Action origami, origami designed to move, has the ability to deploy to a larger state and have motion in the deployed state. The majority of action origami achieves motion through coupled systems of spherical mechanisms. An origami vertex, the point at which folds converge, is shown to be equivalent to a spherical change-point mechanism. A position analysis of an origami vertex is presented, resulting in a relationship between input and output angles as well as the path of the coupler link. A method for analyzing coupled systems of repeated …

Autocompletion Without Static Typing, Nicholas Mckay Shelley

Theses and Dissertations

Code completion systems act both as a way to decrease typing and as a way to easily access documentation, both implicit and explicit. The former is typically done by completing known variable or function names, while the latter is done by providing a list of possible completions or by providing convenient views of or access to documentation. Because static type information makes these goals possible and feasible for qualifying languages, many improvements to completion systems are focused on improving the order of results or trimming less-valuable results. It follows that almost all validation techniques for this work have focused on …

Stable Conflict Resolution Styles And Commitment: Their Roles In Marital Relationship Self-Regulation, Rebecca Suzanne Boyd

Theses and Dissertations

Gottman's (1994a) three stable conflict resolution styles (CRSs), validating, volatile, and avoidant, are different on several dimensions, yet all are predictors of good marital satisfaction. Despite the CRSs equality in marital satisfaction and stability research, teaching couples a validating style is often explicitly more preferential in therapeutic settings. Relationship self-regulation (RSR), described as relationship “work”, is also a strong predictor of relationship satisfaction. Identifying the CRS environment in a relationship that most contributes to the practice of RSR can inform clinical and couple relationship education interventions. Based on its success in improving marital satisfaction in therapeutic settings, a validating CRS …

Improved Computer-Generated Simulation Using Motion Capture Data, Seth A. Brunner

Theses and Dissertations

Ever since the first use of crowds in films and videogames there has been an interest in larger, more efficient and more realistic simulations of crowds. Most crowd simulation algorithms are able to satisfy the viewer from a distance but when inspected from close up the flaws in the individual agent's movements become noticeable. One of the bigger challenges faced in crowd simulation is finding a solution that models the actual movement of an individual in a crowd. This paper simulates a more realistic crowd by using individual motion capture data as well as traditional crowd control techniques to reach …

Mathematical Telling In The Context Of Teacher Interventions With Collaborative Groups, Brandon Kyle Singleton

Theses and Dissertations

Teacher telling is underrepresented in the mathematics education reform literature and deserves additional scrutiny. This case study examined a skilled teacher's telling practices during a university mathematics content course for pre-service elementary teachers. I identified telling practices through discourse analysis, attending to the presence of mathematics and the contribution of new structure or ideas from the teacher. The teacher utilized seven unique types of mathematical telling while supporting collaborative group work on tasks. The study identified subtle telling, implicit telling, and explicit telling. The results suggest that mathematical telling is an integral part of the teacher's role in inquiry-based instruction …

Ontosoar: Using Language To Find Genealogy Facts, Peter Lindes

Theses and Dissertations

There is a need to have an automated system that can read family history books or other historical texts and extract as many genealogy facts as possible from them. Embley and others have applied traditional information extraction techniques to this problem in a system called OntoES with a reasonable amount of success. In parallel much linguistic theory has been developed in the past decades, and Lonsdale and others have built computational embodiments of some of these theories using Soar. In this thesis we introduce a system called OntoSoar which combines the Link Grammar Parser using a grammar customized for family …

Laser-Induced Fluorescence Imaging Of Calcium And Barium Ion Beams In The Second Vacuum Stage Of A Commercial Inductively Coupled Plasma Mass Spectrometer, Alisa Jane Edmund

Theses and Dissertations

Inductively coupled plasma-mass spectrometers (ICP-MS) have become the workhorses of many analytical labs over the past few decades. Despite the instruments' high sensitivities and low detection limits there is still a demand for improvements in several aspects of their performance. One area of improvement is in the understanding of "space charge effects" Space charge effects are classified as problems associated with the ion beam. Problems are created when the mutual repulsions of the ions make consistent focusing of the ion beam difficult. This is particularly problematic with samples containing a low concentration analyte contained within a high salt solution matrix, …

Necessary And Sufficient Conditions For State-Space Network Realization, Philip E. Paré Jr.

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis presents the formulation and solution of a new problem in systems and control theory, called the Network Realization Problem. Its relationship to other problems, such as State Realization and Structural Identifiability, is shown. The motivation for this work is the desire to completely quantify the conditions for transitioning between different mathematical representations of linear time-invariant systems. The solution to this problem is useful for theorists because it lays a foundation for quantifying the information cost of identifying a system's complete network structure from the transfer function.

Wetlands On The Thousand Lake Mountain Mega-Landslide As Paleoclimate Proxies, Ryan Andros Shurtliff

Theses and Dissertations

The Windy Ridge mega-landslide in Wayne and Sevier Counties originated in Lates tPleistocene time as established by 14C ages on basal organic-rich clay and peat sediment from bogs that developed on the slide. The contact depth between bog and landslide was estimated using high-resolution seismic reflection to find the thickest sediment. Four bogs were cored at their depocenters, and organic material at the slide contact was used for age determinations. The oldest bog sediments ages are 10,600 ± 46, 10,556 ± 34, 12,511 ± 134, and 12,886 ± 91 calibrated years BP. Ages represent two sliding events. First, at the …

Connecting Galois Representations With Cohomology, Joseph Allen Adams

Theses and Dissertations

In this paper, we examine the conjecture of Avner Ash, Darrin Doud, David Pollack, and Warren Sinnott relating Galois representations to the mod p cohomology of congruence subgroups of the general linear group of n dimensions over the integers. We present computational evidence for this conjecture (the ADPS Conjecture) for the case n = 3 by finding Galois representations which appear to correspond to cohomology eigenclasses predicted by the ADPS Conjecture for the prime p, level N, and quadratic nebentype. The examples include representations which appear to be attached to cohomology eigenclasses which arise from D8, S3, A5, and S5 …

Are Undergraduate Gpa And General Gre Percentiles Valid Predictors Of Student Performance In An Engineering Graduate Program?, Larry L. Howell, Carl D. Sorenson, Matthew R. Jones

Faculty Publications

While both subjective measures and quantitative metrics play an important role in admissions decisions, quantitative metrics are amenable to critical analysis using the tools of academic analytics. The hypotheses that motivated this study are: 1. Can an applicant’s undergraduate grade point average (UGPA) and scores on the Graduate Records Examinations (GRE) be used to accurately predict the performance of the applicant in a graduate mechanical engineering program? 2. Is a single construct based on these quantitative predictive metrics a valuable tool in efficiently making admissions decisions? This study analyzed the relationship between quantitative predictive metrics, available at the time of …

Parent Reasons For Enrollment At One Dual-Language Chinese Immersion Elementary School Program, Aaron W. Andersen

Theses and Dissertations

While foreign language immersion programs have been increasing in number and popularity throughout the United States, their growth in the state of Utah has been particularly dramatic. Utah contains more foreign language immersion programs than any other state and is home to one-fourth of the nation's elementary school Chinese immersion programs. This descriptive study explored the reasons why parents of children enrolled in Utah's Long Hill Elementary School Chinese Immersion program chose to enroll their child. Long Hill Elementary's Chinese Immersion program is 4 years old, with over 200 children enrolled across 4 grade levels. A household survey was developed, …

An Application Of Geographical And Statistical Linked Data To Ecology: The Brazilian Cerrado Ontology Network And Qualitative Reasoning Models, Adriano Souza, Oscar Corcho, Paulo Salles, Luis Vilches-Blázquez

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

This work aims to link data about wood plant communities obtained from scientific studies about the Brazilian Cerrado biome, meteorological and environmental data, geographical information (maps) and Qualitative Reasoning (QR) conceptual models. An ontology network was developed in order to integrate data from different sources. Data Cube, AEMET, GeoSPARQL, and Time ontologies and QR formalism were used as general ontologies. In addition, two domain ontologies--Cerrado Concepts and Wood Plant Dynamics Ontology (Ccon) and Fire Ontology (Fire)--were developed to represent scientific knowledge about vegetation ecology focused on vegetation dynamics under different burning regimens. Datasets provided by Brazilian geovernment agencies and those …

With So Little Time, Where Do We Start? Targeted Teaching Through Analyzing Error Egregiousness And Error Frequency, Katie Fredrickson

Theses and Dissertations

Why do so many students confuse good writing with simply error-free writing, and what can writing instructors do about it? In order to answer this question, the present study first undertakes an exploration of the different meanings associated with grammar and how those definitions have influenced composition instruction. These influences range from an over-emphasis on grammar in the first half of the twentieth century to allowing it to disappear almost completely from the composition curriculum in the second half of the century. However, because research demonstrates that students over this same time period make errors in writing at a fairly …