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A Visualization Of A New Conceptual Sustainable Building Using Green Materials, Tzu-Fang Tseng Sep 2012

A Visualization Of A New Conceptual Sustainable Building Using Green Materials, Tzu-Fang Tseng

Theses

The project was inspired by a 9-story building constructed from plastic bottles, which was hailed as a spectacular showpiece for the Taipei International Flora Expo. This building weighs 50 percent less than a conventional structure. It is reconfigurable, energy saving and very low in CO2. The main intent of the project is to utilize a surreal story in an animation to illustrate the concept of reusing hundreds of thousands of old bottles around the world is a new green method of building which is one way to protect our planet. The resulting product is a short film that can be …

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Three-Dimensional Quantification And Visualization Of Vascular Networks In Engineered Tissues, Mohammed Yousefhussien Sep 2012

Three-Dimensional Quantification And Visualization Of Vascular Networks In Engineered Tissues, Mohammed Yousefhussien

Theses

Three-dimensional textural and volumetric image analysis holds great potential in understanding the image data produced by multi-photon microscopy. In this thesis, a tool that provides quantitative textural and morphometric analyzes of vasculature in engineered tissues, alongside with a fast three-dimensional volume rendering is proposed. The investigated 3D artificial tissues consist of Human Umbilical Vein Endothelial Cells (HUVEC) embedded in collagen exposed to two regimes of ultrasound standing wave fields under different pressure conditions. Textural features were evaluated over the extracted connected region in our samples using the normalized Gray Level Co-occurrence Matrix (GLCM) combined with Gray-Level Run Length Matrix (GLRLM) …

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Structure-Miscibility Relationships In Weakly Interacting Polymer Blends, Theresa Hendrick Sep 2012

Structure-Miscibility Relationships In Weakly Interacting Polymer Blends, Theresa Hendrick

Theses

In the present research, the relationship between blend miscibility and constituent polymer structure was established. This work examines a series of blends of polyesters (PE's) and polycarbonates (PC's) having systematic variations in aliphatic and aromatic structural group content to establish how miscibility and phase behavior depend on polymer structure. The blends were prepared by solution blending and precipitating, while the polymer blend miscibility and phase behavior were characterized through differential scanning calorimetry (DSC). The glass transition temperatures (Tg) of the individual polymers and blends were measured. The polyesters and polycarbonates explored in this research were 4MC-PC (Tg = 135.2°C), BPA-TMC-PC …

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Process Parameter Modeling For Nanocrystalline Ceria Based Thin Films Prepared Via Aerosol Jet Printing, Sundaresan Balasubramanian Aug 2012

Process Parameter Modeling For Nanocrystalline Ceria Based Thin Films Prepared Via Aerosol Jet Printing, Sundaresan Balasubramanian

Theses

Solid Oxide Fuel Cells (SOFCs) are becoming a popular choice for meeting energy requirements of the present day due to their high efficiency and reformation capabilities. SOFCs are made of ceramic oxides with well-defined physical and thermal properties enabling a high operating temperature range (600-800°C). Efficiency of a SOFC is typically well represented by its output voltage. Resistances across various compo- nents of the SOFC viz. anode, electrolyte and cathode diminish the maximum output voltage thus directly affecting the efficiency of the fuel cell. Each of the layers in a SOFC has generic as well as specific re- quirements warranting …

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Tracking Of Various Targets In The Infrared And Issues Encountered, Kyle Ausfeld Aug 2012

Tracking Of Various Targets In The Infrared And Issues Encountered, Kyle Ausfeld

Theses

The use of a computer to track objects has been a subject of interest for a few decades. The applications these algorithms may be applied to span a large number of fields; anything from homeland security to the study of animal behavior. In particular, visible tracking has been around the longest and has the largest library of algorithms available. Algorithms such as Mean Shift have become a standard for testing algorithms against. However, algorithms such as Mean Shift may work well for visible video data, infrared video data presents some issues beyond many visible algorithms. Infrared video gives certain advantages …

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Hyperspectral Imaging And Association Phenomenology Of Pedestrians In A Cluttered Urban Environment, Jared Herweg Aug 2012

Hyperspectral Imaging And Association Phenomenology Of Pedestrians In A Cluttered Urban Environment, Jared Herweg

Theses

Remote hyperspectral imaging (HSI) has shown promise in several applications such as object detection and tracking. Typically research has focused on large objects, such as vehicles, for tracking due to the spatial resolution of current operational HSI systems. This research seeks to extend the utility of applying HSI to human pedestrian detection using the reflective solar spectral range between 400 - 2500 nm. A phenomenological investigation of a novel scheme to differentiate between pedestrians is studied. By applying the basics of detection theory, this research focuses on being able to differentiate between pedestrians, as well as background materials. Specifically, this …

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Lasing Behavior Of An Active Nim-Pim Dc With Different Coupling Coefficients, Abdulaziz Atwiri Aug 2012

Lasing Behavior Of An Active Nim-Pim Dc With Different Coupling Coefficients, Abdulaziz Atwiri

Theses

Metamaterials is a class of materials that do not exist naturally. This kind of material has interesting properties that differ from subclass to another and are researched for its numerous potential usages. One of these subclasses is negative index materials (NIMs). This subclass has special properties that make its refractive index negative. Trying to take advantage of this property in photonic structures has led to many new and interesting photonic structures that can be used in industry. One application that makes use of NIMs properties is the NIM-PIM DC. NIM-PIM DC, which is a photonic structure that is made of …

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Using Gis Databases To Simulate Night Light Imagery, Joshua Zollweg Aug 2012

Using Gis Databases To Simulate Night Light Imagery, Joshua Zollweg

Theses

The Digital Imaging and Remote Sensing Image Generation (DIRSIG) model and other image simulators provide the ability to utilize detailed, artificial scenes to generate spectrally and spatially realistic simulated imagery. Simulated imagery is useful in a myriad of ways, such as sensor modeling, algorithm performance assessment, and others. Actually making synthetic scenes, however, is often a time consuming process, requiring the manual placement of the many objects required to define the scene. This is particularly true for scenes of large spatial extent. Proposed is a technique to generate large-area night scenes for DIRSIG. This is accomplished by using freely available …

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Multisensor Mems For Temperature, Relative Humidity, And High-G Shock Monitoring, Daniel Smith Aug 2012

Multisensor Mems For Temperature, Relative Humidity, And High-G Shock Monitoring, Daniel Smith

Theses

The use of MEMS (micro-electro-mechanical system) sensors in multiple applications of environmental monitoring help to fill the need of a small scale, low power monitoring and sensing applications. In this design, the use of single-die multiple MEMS sensors to monitor ambient temperature, relative humidity, and accelerative high-g shock were developed and tested. In addition to the sensors, signal conditioning circuits were developed for outputting the sensor data into a microcontroller to analyze and process the signals into useful information for human operators to analyze. The three sensors were fabricated using a bulk micro-machined process on 100mm silicon wafers developed in …

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A Signal Processing Approach For Preprocessing And 3d Analysis Of Airborne Small-Footprint Full Waveform Lidar Data, Jiaying Wu Aug 2012

A Signal Processing Approach For Preprocessing And 3d Analysis Of Airborne Small-Footprint Full Waveform Lidar Data, Jiaying Wu

Theses

The extraction of structural object metrics from a next generation remote sensing modality, namely waveform light detection and ranging (LiDAR), has garnered increasing interest from the remote sensing research community. However, a number of challenges need to be addressed before structural or 3D vegetation modeling can be accomplished. These include proper processing of complex, often off-nadir waveform signals, extraction of relevant waveform parameters that relate to vegetation structure, and from a quantitative modeling perspective, 3D rendering of a vegetation object from LiDAR waveforms. Three corresponding, broad research objectives therefore were addressed in this dissertation. Firstly, the raw incoming LiDAR waveform …

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Cancer Biotherapy Resource, Preety Priya Aug 2012

Cancer Biotherapy Resource, Preety Priya

Theses

`Cancer Biotherapy' - as opposed to cancer chemotherapy- is the use of macromolecular, biological agents instead of organic chemicals or drugs to treat cancer. Biotherapy is a treatment modality that blocks the growth of cancer cells by interfering with specific, targeted molecules needed for carcinogenesis and tumor growth instead of simply interfering with rapidly dividing cells as in chemotherapy1. In light to the much higher selectivity of biological agents than chemical agents for cancer cells over normal cells, there is a much less toxic side effect in biotherapy as compared to chemotherapy. As solid tumor cancer continues to be analyzed …

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Subpixel Temperature Estimation From Single-Band Thermal Infrared Imagery, Sarah Paul Aug 2012

Subpixel Temperature Estimation From Single-Band Thermal Infrared Imagery, Sarah Paul

Theses

Target temperature estimation from thermal infrared (TIR) imagery is a complex task that becomes increasingly more difficult as the target size approaches the size of a projected pixel. At that point the assumption of pixel homogeneity is invalid as the radiance value recorded at the sensor is the result of energy contributions from the target material and any other background material that falls within a pixel boundary. More often than not, thermal infrared pixels are heterogeneous and therefore subpixel temperature extraction becomes an important capability. Typical subpixel estimation approaches make use of multispectral or hyperspectral sensors. These technologies are expensive …

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Video Game Huds: Information Presentation And Spatial Immersion, James Babu Aug 2012

Video Game Huds: Information Presentation And Spatial Immersion, James Babu

Theses

Researchers have analyzed various aspects of the video game experience; however, analysis of how the presentation of game status information affects the player's sense of immersion into the virtual environment has not been explored. This study aims to discover how feelings of immersion are affected by diegetic, or environmentally based, methods of presenting the player's status versus non-diegetic methods. Avid gamers were told to play two games, one diegetic based interface and the other a non-diegetic interface, to see how their spatial immersion experiences differed between the two designs. In addition to the use of questionnaires to evaluate the level …

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Assembly, Annotation, And Polymorphic Characterization Of The Erysiphe Necator Transcriptome, Jason Myers Aug 2012

Assembly, Annotation, And Polymorphic Characterization Of The Erysiphe Necator Transcriptome, Jason Myers

Theses

The objectives of this study were to develop a transcriptomic reference resource and to characterize polymorphism between isolates of Erysiphe necator (syn. Uncinula necator), grape powdery mildew. The wine and fresh fruit markets are economically vital to many countries worldwide, and E. necator infection can cause severe crop damage and subsequent financial loss. Most of the publicly available sequence data for Erysiphales are from research done on Blumeria graminis f. sp. hordei, barley powdery mildew, which occupies a distinct clade within the Erysiphales. We obtained 641,601 sequencing reads from a Roche 454–FLX next–generation sequencer (RNA–Seq) and performed multiple assemblies using …

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Sustainability Of Coni Alloy In Nanostructured Environment Through Thermogravimetric And Corrosion Studies, Xu Chen Aug 2012

Sustainability Of Coni Alloy In Nanostructured Environment Through Thermogravimetric And Corrosion Studies, Xu Chen

Theses

The interaction of atomized Co, Ni and CoNi with multi-walled carbon nanotubes has been studied by thermogravimetric analysis (TGA) and electrochemical polarization studies. The composites of the above materials have been prepared in different atomic ratios and investigated for examining the spin polarization. The composites have also been sintered at 500O to 1000 oC in argon atmosphere. The uncomposited metals showed thermal oxidations by TGA in air. The characteristic values for atomized Co, Ni and CoNi are 360oC, 500oC and 500oC respectively. The composited materials showed no thermal oxidations when there is sufficient amount of spin polarizing agent; the spin …

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World Trade Center Health Effects, Erin Neill Aug 2012

World Trade Center Health Effects, Erin Neill

Theses

The author worked with the World Trade Center Medical Monitoring and Treatment Program to create part of a public health education campaign to advertise the existence of the program and to explain World Trade Center health effects. World Trade Center Dust contained particles of many sizes, and it caused irritation to the body's tissues resulting in aerodigestive disorders like World Trade Center Cough, Sinusitis, Bronchitis, Rhinitis and Tracheo-Laryngitis. At the completion of this project, 2 posters, 1 brochure, 4 fact sheets and an interactive web site were created. One of the posters designed was used to promote program awareness amongst …

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Ultra Shiny, Beccy Feather Aug 2012

Ultra Shiny, Beccy Feather

Theses

Ultra Shiny; what could be more compelling to a crow, or a hypnotized, dazed supermarket consumer? This thesis will discuss my theories regarding package design, advertising techniques, glitz, pizzazz and pyrotechnics from the sublime to the ridiculous, as a legitimate strategy for art making, both utterly sincere and ironic.

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Evaluation Of The Press Calibration Methods By Simulation, Yi Wang Aug 2012

Evaluation Of The Press Calibration Methods By Simulation, Yi Wang

Theses

Press calibration is an approach to adjust the behavior of ink, paper, and press with the use of a CTP platemaking system to achieve a specified reference printing condition. Reference printing condition defines a common color space for color image data exchange between various output devices. The advantage of a reference printing condition is to improve color image quality and reduce cost and time. Corner points of the color gamut, TVI curves, and grey reproduction are the three significant elements in a reference printing condition, which make them essential in press calibration. There are usually two press runs in press …

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An Investigation Of Ink Usage In Offset Process Printing, Jiayi Zhou Aug 2012

An Investigation Of Ink Usage In Offset Process Printing, Jiayi Zhou

Theses

With the trend of sustainable printing in the print industry, reducing ink usage is considered a win-win solution for printers who are seeking sustainable printing strategies, and in the meantime, a way of cutting costs. This research focuses on ink-saving strategies for process printing using color management technology in the prepress stage. Two ink-saving methods are discussed in this research. First method is reducing the AIC (Average Ink Coverage) in graphic design. A case study is carried out and verifies the rule that high AIC requires more ink usage than low AIC does. However AIC and ink usage are not …

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Hardware Neuromorphic Learning Systems Utilizing Memristive Devices, Michael Soltiz Aug 2012

Hardware Neuromorphic Learning Systems Utilizing Memristive Devices, Michael Soltiz

Theses

As the efficiency of neuromorphic systems improves, biologically-inspired learning techniques are becoming more and more appealing for various computing applications, ranging from pattern and character recognition to general purpose reconfigurable logic. Due to their functional similarities to synapses in the brain, memristors are becoming a key element in the hardware realization of perceptron-based learning systems. By pairing memristive devices with a perceptron-based neuron model, previous work has shown that an efficient and low area neural logic block (NLB) can be developed. However, the use of a simple threshold activation function has limited the set of learnable functions for a single …

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Reconfigurable Rram-Based Computing: A Case Study For Reliability Enhancement, Matthew Catanzaro Aug 2012

Reconfigurable Rram-Based Computing: A Case Study For Reliability Enhancement, Matthew Catanzaro

Theses

Emerging hybrid-CMOS nanoscale devices and architectures offer greater degree of integration and performance capabilities. However, the high power densities, hard error frequency, process variations, and device wearout affect the overall system reliability. Reactive design techniques, such as redundancy, account for component failures by mitigating them to prevent system failures. These techniques incur high area and power overhead. This research focuses on exploring hybrid CMOS/Resistive RAM (RRAM) architectures that enhance the system reliability by performing computation in RRAM cache whenever CMOS logic units fail, essentially masking the area overhead of redundant logic when not in use. The proposed designs are validated …

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Power Analysis Attacks On The Sha-3 Candidate Grøstl, Garrett Smith Aug 2012

Power Analysis Attacks On The Sha-3 Candidate Grøstl, Garrett Smith

Theses

Side-channel attacks refer to a particular form of cryptanalysis in which sensitive data is revealed through information extracted from the physical implementation of a cryptosystem. An unprotected device may leak details related to operations performed on secret information through unintended inputs and outputs known as side-channels. Examples of side-channel information include power consumption, operation timing, or any other intelligence-bearing signal. Unlike traditional cryptanalytic methods, such as linear and differential cryptanalysis, side-channel attacks may be used to break cryptographic systems with no known weaknesses in the algorithm's mathematical structure. Many of these attacks may also be performed using relatively cheap and …

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Design And Analysis Of A Uhf Transmission Line Coupler For Telemetry And Power Harvesting In A Passive Sensor System, Jean-Jacques Delisle Aug 2012

Design And Analysis Of A Uhf Transmission Line Coupler For Telemetry And Power Harvesting In A Passive Sensor System, Jean-Jacques Delisle

Theses

The intra-coaxial transmission line coupler TXC is a four port device designed to harvest power from a host coaxial transmission line and to provide telemetry for remote sensing applications via the same host transmission line. Seven different TXC structures were designed and fabricated to study the effects of varying specific geometric features on the electrical characteristics of the TXC. Each TXC structure was tested using a RF vector network analyzer and analyzed using a commercially available finite-element numerical simulator. Two main observations resulted from the study: 1) the resonant frequency depends mainly on the value of the tuning capacitor and …

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Synthesis And Characterization Of Ionic Liquid Monomers And Polymers Derived From 2-Substituted-1,3-Dialkyl-4(5)-Vinylimidazolium Salts, Fan Yang Aug 2012

Synthesis And Characterization Of Ionic Liquid Monomers And Polymers Derived From 2-Substituted-1,3-Dialkyl-4(5)-Vinylimidazolium Salts, Fan Yang

Theses

In the present research, 1-butyl-2,3-dimethyl-4-vinylimidazolium trifluoromethane sulfonate (triflate) was synthesized and polymerized. This is the first report of the synthesis and polymerization of this ionic liquid monomer. The resulting polymer was characterized by NMR, GPC and thermal analysis (DSC and TGA). The number average molecular weight of the polymer was around 39,600 g/mol (PD = 1.75). The polymer was ion-exchanged to create the trifluoromethyl sulfonylimide (TSFI) and hexafluorophosphate (PF6-) polymer derivatives. Poly(1-butyl- 2,3-dimethyl-4-vinylimidazolium triflate) and poly(1-butyl-2,3-dimethyl-4-vinylimidazolium TFSI) were characterized by TGA and all the three polymers were characterized by DSC. The TGA showed that poly(1-butyl-2,3-dimethyl-4-vinylimidazolium triflate) and poly(1-butyl-2,3-dimethyl -4-vinylimidazolium TFSI) …

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Electromechanical Actuator Bearing Fault Detection Using Empirically Extracted Features, Rahulram Sridhar Aug 2012

Electromechanical Actuator Bearing Fault Detection Using Empirically Extracted Features, Rahulram Sridhar

Theses

Model parameter estimation when coupled with Principal Component Analysis (PCA) and Bayesian classification techniques form a potentially effective fault detection scheme for Electromechanical Actuators (EMAs). This work uses parameter estimation algorithms based on linear system identification methods, derives a novel feature extraction algorithm based on PCA and analyzes its performance through simulations and experiments. A Bayesian classifier is used to create well defined EMA health classes from the extracted features. Research contributions on fault detection in EMAs are significant because EMA faults and their detection are not yet well understood. Potential future applications - such as in primary flight control …

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Changes In Reading Behavior Among Ereader Adopters, Lingya Zhang Aug 2012

Changes In Reading Behavior Among Ereader Adopters, Lingya Zhang

Theses

As part of the digital publishing revolution, the advent of eReader devices has had a strong impact on the reading habits of ordinary people and the traditional publishing industry. This study investigated how people have changed their reading behavior with the rise of the eReader by analyzing the amount of reading of different material and their media preferences among different platforms. An online survey was designed to study the changes in reading habits of faculty and staff from the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT). On January 13th, 2011, an email with a survey link was sent through the RIT e-mail …

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High Pressure Coolant Effect On Pvd Coated Inserts During End Milling Of Ti-6al-4v, Arvind Sridharan Jul 2012

High Pressure Coolant Effect On Pvd Coated Inserts During End Milling Of Ti-6al-4v, Arvind Sridharan

Theses

Titanium alloys are being employed extensively in engineering and aerospace applications for their high strength to weight ratio, mechanical strength and ability to withstand high temperatures. Out of the different alloys of titanium available, the most commonly used alloy is Ti-6Al-4V. It is also called `Grade-5 titanium alloy' or `á+â titanium alloy'. High speed machining of titanium alloys generates high temperatures in the cutting zone, promoting accelerated tool wear and reducing the efficiency in metal cutting. Consequently, the ability of the coolant to remove heat from the cutting zone plays an increasingly important role in the economics of the process …

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Experimental Investigation Of Pool Boiling Performance With Ethanol And Fc-87 On Open Microchannel Surfaces, Ankit Kalani Jul 2012

Experimental Investigation Of Pool Boiling Performance With Ethanol And Fc-87 On Open Microchannel Surfaces, Ankit Kalani

Theses

The growing trend in miniaturization of electronics has generated a need for efficient thermal management of these devices. Boiling has the ability to dissipate large quantity of heat while maintaining a small temperature difference. Vapor chamber with pool boiling offers an effective way to provide cooling and maintaining temperature uniformity. The objective of the current work is to investigate pool boiling performance of ethanol and FC - 87 on microchannel surfaces. Ethanol is an attractive working fluid due to its better heat transfer performance and higher heat of vaporization compared to refrigerants, and lower boiling point compared to water. The …

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White-Light Optical Vortex Coronagraph, Prachyathit Kanburapa Jul 2012

White-Light Optical Vortex Coronagraph, Prachyathit Kanburapa

Theses

An optical vortex is characterized by a dark core of destructive interference in a light beam. One of the methods commonly employed to create an optical vortex is by using a computer-generated hologram. A vortex hologram pattern is computed from the interference pattern between a reference plane wave and a vortex wave, resulting in a forked grating pattern. In astronomy, an optical vortex coronagraph is one of the most promising high contrast imaging techniques for the direct imaging of extra-solar planets. Direct imaging of extra-solar planets is a challenging task since the brightness of the parent star is extremely high …

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Analysis Of The Environmental Impact On Remanufacturing Wind Turbines, Manuel Sosa Skrainka Jul 2012

Analysis Of The Environmental Impact On Remanufacturing Wind Turbines, Manuel Sosa Skrainka

Theses

To deliver clean energy the use of wind turbines is essential. In June 2011 there was an installed wind capacity equivalent to 211,000MW world-wide (WWEA, 2011). By the end of the year 2009 the U.S. had 35,100MW of wind energy installed capacity to generate electricity (AWEA, 2010). This industry has grown in recent years and is expected to grow even more in the future. The environmental impacts that will arise from the increased number of wind turbines and their end-of-life should be addressed, as large amounts of resources will be required to satisfy the current and future market demands for …

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