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Comparison Of The Electrochemical Properties Of Ethanol In Perchloric Acid And Ionic Liquids, Sandra Felix-Balderrama

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1-Ethyl-3-Methylimidazolium Tetrafluroborate (EMImBF₄) and 1-Ethyl-3-Methylimidazlium Bis(trifluoromethanesulfonyl)imide (EMImTFSI) ionic liquids were synthesized and characterized in order to study the electrochemical oxidation of ethanol in these ionic liquids on a platinum surface electrode.

It was found that pure EMImBF₄ exhibits an electrochemical window of 4.4 V,while EMImTFSI exhibits an electrochemical window of 5.0 V.

Electrochemical study of ethanol in perchloric acid showed that the oxidation of ethanol strongly depends on the concentration of ethanol and on the temperature of the solution. The poisoning of the platinum electrode only depends on the concentration of ethanol. At a low concentration of …

Cationic Exchange Reactions Involving Dilithium Phthalocyanine, Morgan M. Hart

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Dilithium phthalocyanine (Li₂Pc) consists of an aromatic macrocycle possessing a doubly negative charge and two Li⁺ counterions. One Li⁺ ion is easily displaceable while the other remains coordinated to the phthalocyanine ring. The displaceable Li⁺ cation can be exchanged with other cations, such as a singly charged tetra-alkyl ammonium cation, by using several variations of a general procedure. It has been demonstrated that tetraalkylammonium lithium phthalocyanines (TAA-LiPcs) can be successfully and reproducibly synthesized with yields ranging from 54.5% up to 64.3%. All TAA-LiPcs demonstrated poor solubilities from approximately <0.2 mg/mL to 5 mg/ml in the solvents tested (with the exception of tetrapropylammonium lithium phthalocyanine and tetrahexylammonium lithium phthalocyanine). All of the TAA-LiPcs synthesized were dark-purple in color, with the exception of tetraheptylammonium lithium phthalocyanine and tetraoctylammonium lithium phthalocyanine. These two compounds were dark - blue in color. Melting points varied greatly from >370.4°C to 157.9°C and depended greatly upon …

Type I Error Rates And Power Estimates For Several Item Response Theory Fit Indices, Bradley R. Schlessman

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Despite frequent use of the adjusted chi-square to degrees of freedom ratio (χ2/df) test for Item Response Theory fit (Drasgow, Levine, Tsien, Williams. and Mead, 1995), there remains a lack of empirical testing of the statistic's Type I error rates and power. The present study compared the adjusted χ2/df test to two other commonly used IRT fit statistics. The other fit indices examined were S-χ2 (Orlando and Thissen, 2000) and χ2* (Stone's, 2000). This study also addressed misfit based on the possibility that the item responses analyzed were created based on a different response process than that assumed by the …

Semantics Enriched Service Environments, Karthik Rajagopal Gomadam

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During the past seven years services centric computing has emerged as the preferred approach to architect complex software. Software is increasingly developed by integrating remotely existing components, popularly called services. This architectural paradigm, also called Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), brings with it the benefits of interoperability, agility and flexibility to software design and development. One can easily add or change new features to existing systems, either by the addition of new services or by replacing existing ones. Two popular approaches have emerged for realizing SOA. The first approach is based on the SOAP protocol for communication and the Web Service …

A Software Framework For The Design, Testing And Deployment Of Control Systems For Autonomous Robotics, Duane Stanley Bolick Jr.

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Simulation and control of robotic agents are common enough tasks among computer science and engineering researchers that there exists a large variety of software applications, toolkits, and programming frameworks designed to facilitate such research. The intent of this project is to provide an autonomous robotics simulation and control framework with sufficiently useful tools and reference implementations so as to be immediately useful to basic users, as well as easily understood and extended by software developers and robotics researchers.

As such, this document describes the implementation of a general networking toolkit, an autonomous robotics extension framework, and an autonomous robotics simulator …

The Role Of Nucleotide Signaling In The Regulation Of Icl,Swell In Human 1321n1 Astrocytoma Cells, Ian C. Wenker

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Swollen cells expel osmolytes to decrease volume in a process referred to as Regulatory Volume Decrease, or RVD. The plasma membrane current ICl,swell is ubiquitously expressed in mammalian cells and contributes significantly to RVD. In a variety of cell types, activation of ICl,swell is enhanced by nucleotide signaling. In this study, we used human astrocytoma cells to examine whether nucleotide signaling is necessary or sufficient for ICl,swell activation. Three clones of the 1321N1 human astrocytoma cell line were used for voltage clamp recordings. One clone was transfected with P2Y1 receptors, another with P2Y2 receptors and a third was devoid of …

Graphical User Interface (Gui) To Study Different Reconstruction Algorithms In Computed Tomography, Shital K. Abhange

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Computed tomography (CT) imaging relies on computational algorithms to reconstruct images from projections gathered from the CT scan. Depending on the scanner geometry, different types of reconstruction algorithms can be used. To study these different types of reconstruction algorithms in a user-friendly way, a software tool was built. The aim of the thesis was to provide a software platform to access a number of previously implemented reconstruction algorithms with ease and minimal knowledge of the reconstruction code. The goal was accomplished by building a Graphical User Interface (GUI) using MATLAB 7.7.0 (R2008b). In addition to creating mathematical objects and invoking …

Linking Plume Spreading To Hierarchical Stratal Architecture, Ramya Ramanathan

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A new form of the Lagrangian-based model for macrodispersion of inert (non-reactive) solutes is presented. The model is based on a hierarchical expression of the spatial covariance of log-permeability representing a hierarchy of stratal unit types with a corresponding hierarchy of permeability subpopulations. The covariance expression representing the hierarchy of unit types is a linear sum of terms corresponding to the probability of transitioning across stratal unit types of different scales, and these terms are directly related to quantifiable geometric attributes of the hierarchical stratal architecture. The new macrodispersion model is also a linear sum of terms, with different integral …

Burst Scheduling, Grooming And Qos Provisioning In Optical Burst-Switched Networks, Yuqi Fan

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The demand of network capacity has been increasing steadily with more users than ever connected to the Internet through broadband access and the popularity of video based applications, such as YouTube. Optical wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) networks are expected to form the next-generation backbone network and to fulfill the insatiable appetite for bandwidth.

Wavelength routed WDM optical networks offer the granularity of switching at a fiber, waveband, or a wavelength level. The finest granularity offered is at a wavelength level by provisioning lightpaths for different clients/services. All-optical packet switching is still deemed technically infeasible and its competitiveness as a backbone …

Localization And Surveillance Using Wireless Sensor Network And Pan/Tilt Camera, Pratikkumar U. Desai

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The ever growing challenges in hostile environments, health care and warzone require accurate indoor localization and surveillance. The de facto localization technique using GPS has poor indoor performance due to the complexity of the indoor environment. Other Radio frequency based indoor localization techniques are unable of accurate localization due to multipath fading.

In this thesis, a system consisting of Cricket wireless sensor motes, a camera and a Pan/Tilt gimbal is proposed to solve the indoor localization and surveillance problems. The system is easy to deploy, is cost effective and gives accurate results. The Crickets motes use the Time Difference of …

Conservation Genetics Of A Near Threatened Freshwater Mussel Species (Lampsilis Cardium) And Improved Prospects For Recovery: How Nuclear And Mitochondrial Dna Analyses Inform Natural History And Conservation, Chad D. Ferguson

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Freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionidae) are among the most imperiled organisms in North America. While there is an urgent need for effective conservation planning and management of these organisms, important basic biological information is lacking. This research characterizes levels of genetic diversity and population structure in the Near Threatened (IUCN) freshwater mussel Lampsilis cardium in populations from Twin Creek (southwest Ohio), Little Darby and Big Darby Creeks (central Ohio), and Little Muskingum River (eastern Ohio) and assesses the extent to which regional geological events explain population structuring. Data from the congener Lampsilis ovata from Clinch River (Tennessee) are included for comparison. …

Using Morphometrics, Phylogenetic Systematics And Parsimony Analysis To Gain Insight Into The Evolutionary Affinities Of The Calymenidae Trilobita, Alex J. Chestnut

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The most common trilobite in the Silurian carbonates of Ohio - especially the Springfield Dolomite - is a species that has been assigned to at least five genera over the past 100 years. This trilobite has been variously referred to as Calymene celebra, Apocalymene celebra, Flexicalymene celebra, Gravicalymene celebra, and Sthenarocalymene celebra. Reexamination of the species "Calymene" celebra through parsimony and morphometric analysis was conducted to properly place this calymenid species within the correct genus. What compounds the confusion is that the characters used to seperate the genera within the family Calymenidae, and therefore create the basis for the argument …

Identification Of Potential Protein Biomarkers Of Low Level Kidney Degradation, Christopher Lee Woolard

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The purpose of this research was the identification of potential dose-dependent and time-dependent serum protein biomarkers of low level kidney degradation in a rat model. Potential biomarkers were evaluated based on differential protein expression between control and dosed samples in rat serum. Proteins of interest demonstrated upregulation at a minimum 1.5 fold increase in protein concentration control versus dosed sample. In order to identify common biomarkers of kidney decrement, three nephrotoxins were chosen to target specific locations of the kidney: 1) D-Serine, which causes necrosis of the proximal straight tubules, 2) Puromycin, an antibiotic that degrades the Glomerular Basement Membrane …

Output Impedance In Pwm Buck Converter, Gregory A. Cazzell

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In this paper, a method is presented to design a minimum order compensator for a PWM buck converter with voltage-mode control that will reduce the closed-loop output impedance to match a specific transfer function. The transfer function for the compensator is rigorously developed. It is shown that a third-order compensator is sufficient to achieve a closed-loop output impedance represented by a first-order transfer function. The method is applied to an example, in which the hardware of the dc-dc converter is realized and tested to verify compliance to system requirements.

On The Satisfaction Of Modulus And Ambiguity Function Constraints In Radar Waveform Optimization For Detection, Lee Kenneth Patton

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We consider the design of radar systems that are capable of using knowledge of their interference environment to dynamically design transmit waveforms that afford optimum signal-to-interference-plus-noise ratio while satisfying modulus and ambiguity function constraints. We begin by establishing the inextricable nature of modulus constraints in the waveform optimization problem. We then extend the state of the art in waveform optimization to accommodate these constraints. This is done by solving a secondary optimization problem using the method of alternating projections. We demonstrate that this approach can be a computationally efficient alternative to dynamic programming methods. We then consider the multiple-target detection …

Improving Remote Homology Detection Using A Sequence Property Approach, Gina Marie Cooper

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Understanding the structure and function of proteins is a key part of understanding biological systems. Although proteins are complex biological macromolecules, they are made up of only 20 basic building blocks known as amino acids. The makeup of a protein can be described as a sequence of amino acids. One of the most important tools in modern bioinformatics is the ability to search for biological sequences (such as protein sequences) that are similar to a given query sequence. There are many tools for doing this (Altschul et al., 1990, Hobohm and Sander, 1995, Thomson et al., 1994, Karplus and Barrett, …

Effective Simulation And Optimization Of A Laser Peening Process, Gulshan Singh

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Laser peening (LP) is a surface enhancement technique that has been applied to improve fatigue and corrosion properties of metals. The ability to use a high energy laser pulse to generate shock waves, inducing a compressive residual stress field in metallic materials, has applications in multiple fields such as turbomachinery, airframe structures, and medical appliances. In the past, researchers have investigated the effects of LP parameters experimentally and performed a limited number of simulations on simple geometries. However, monitoring the dynamic, intricate relationships of peened materials experimentally is time consuming, expensive, and challenging.

With increasing applications of LP on complex …

Quantum Chemical Investigations Of Nucleophilic Aromatic Substitution Reactions And Acid Dissociations Of Aliphatic Carboxylic Acids, David Henry Schory

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Quantum chemical analysis was used to examine nucleophilic aromatic substitution reactions of fluorinated benzophenones, diphenyl sulfones, and triphenylphosphine oxides. Some experimental results for these compounds were contrary to conventional wisdom, which holds that calculated atomic charges for the aromatic sites and ¹³C-NMR and ¹⁹F-NMR chemical shifts should allow prediction of the preferred sites for aromatic substitution. Density functional theory (B3LYP/6-31+G*//RM1) and semi-empirical (RM1) quantum chemical calculations were employed to study the intermediates in the reaction pathways in order to identify the preferred paths for aromatic substitution. In most cases studied para substitution pathways had the lower energy intermediates …

Sub-Mm Wave Imaging And Waveguiding Techniques For Non-Destructive Materials Evaluation, Izaak Vincent Kemp

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Sub-mm wave technology (also known as Terahertz/THz) is a rapidly developing field of electro-optics which has great potential in a variety of applications. Generally defined as the band of the electro-magnetic spectrum with frequencies spanning from 300 GHz to 30 THz, sub-mm waves are non-ionizing and are capable of passing through a wide range of dielectric substances making them well suited for imaging purposes such as non-destructive materials evaluation (NDE). Because of their high sensitivity to metals and ability to penetrate surface obscurants such as paint, oil, and epoxy sub-mm waves are capable of imaging corrosion damage on metallic surfaces …

A Study Of Hardware Efficient Recombination Variants In A Mini Population Genetic Algorithm, Shiva Satya Ramesh Varma Bhupathiraju Venkata

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Evolvable Hardware is an emerging sub-field of evolutionary computation in which evolutionary algorithms are employed to create designs for hardware devices. Recent work has combined continuous time recurrent neural networks with the Mini Population (Minipop) Evolutionary Algorithm to create self-configuring device controllers. Standard Minipop eschews recombination operators due to the belief that they increase the size of an algorithm's on chip implementation without adding significant search power for finding neural network controllers. The focus of this thesis is to challenge that thinking by testing a number of hardware efficient recombination operators against two benchmark problems. We consider variants that recombine …

Design And Performance Analysis Of A Secure Proces-Sor Scan-Sp With Crypto-Biometric Capabilities, Raghudeep Kannavara

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Secure computing is gaining importance in recent times as computing capability is increasingly becoming distributed and information is everywhere. Prevention of piracy and digital rights management has become very important. Information security is mandatory rather than an additional feature. Numerous software techniques have been proposed to provide certain level of copyright and intellectual property protection. Techniques like obfuscation attempt to transform the code into a form that is harder to reverse engineer. Tamper-proofing causes a program to malfunction when it detects that it has been modified. Software watermarking embeds copyright notice in the software code to allow the owners of …

Lithiation Reactions Of 3-(4-Chlorophenyl)Sydnone And 3-(4-Methylphenyl)Sydnone, Nigel Ngonidzashe Chitiyo

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Ortho-iodophenyl sydnones are key intermediates in Sonogashira coupling reactions and the resulting ortho alkynyl sydnones are useful precursors to functionalized sydnonquinolines. In this work, three synthetic routes leading to the synthesis of these versatile intermediates were explored.

Lithiation reactions of 3-(4-chlorophenyl) sydnone and 3-(4-methylphenyl) sydnone followed by trapping with iodine electrophiles yielded the expected disubstituted species 3-(4-chloro-2-iodophenyl)-4-iodosydnone and 3-(4-methyl-2-iodophenyl)-4-iodosydnone in yields ranging from 14% to 75%. Subsequent reduction with sodium sulfite removed the iodine at the C-4 position in both species yielding the ortho iodophenyl sydnones in 80% and 85% yield, respectively.

A surprising result was the discovery that careful …

Autopilot Development For An Rc Helicopter, Mark C. Arlinghaus

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The development of an autopilot system for an RC helicopter presents interesting challengesfrom both a hardware and controls standpoint. The system detailed in this thesis utilizes a 13 state Extended Kalman Filter (EKF) to fuse sensor data and provide a position/velocity/attitude estimate. A novel, state of the art hybrid PID/LQR controller is developed and compared with a full state Linear Quadratic Regulator (LQR). The hybrid controller uses a proportional position, PID velocity outer loop coupled with an inner loop LQR for attitude control. The entire system is developed and implemented in hardware to produce a functional autopilot. The unit was …

Semantic And Role-Based Access Control For Data Grid Systems, Vineela Muppavarapu

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A Grid is an integration infrastructure for sharing and coordinated use of diverseresources in dynamic, distributed virtual organizations (VOs). A Data Grid is an architecture for the access, exchange, and sharing of data in the Grid environment. Distributed data resources can be diverse in their formats, schema, quality, access mechanisms, ownership, access policies, and capabilities. In recent years, several organizations have started utilizing Grid technologies to deploy data-intensive and/or computation-intensive applications. As more and more organizations are sharing data resources and participating in Data Grids, the complexity and heterogeneity of the systems is increasing constantly, but their management techniques are …

Dynamic Kernel Function For High-Speed Real-Time Fast Fourier Transform Processors, Yu-Heng George Lee

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The fast Fourier transform (FFT) plays a critical role in many modern applications, such as acoustics, optics, telecommunications, wireless sensor networks, location sensing, patient monitoring, speech, signal detection, and image processing. The input dynamic range, data throughput rate, frequency resolution, bandwidth, design flexibility, hardware consumption, and power requirements for the various applications are vastly different, leading to significant research focusing on different aspects of FFT performance improvement.

The proposed dynamic kernel function uses an efficient fixed-point numerical representation of the twiddle factor and replaces the cumbersome multipliers with simple shift-and-add operations to enhance the data throughput rate for high-speed wideband …

Conducting Polymer Matrix Poly(2,2'-Bithiophene) Mercuric Metal Ion Incorporation, Rachel Michele Kingdom

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The synthesis of poly(2,2'bithiophene) was carried out utilizing the Epsilon 2000 cyclic voltammeter. In order to incorporate the mercuric ion into the polymer matrix, the polymer was grown on an Iridium Oxide conductive glass, immersed into a solution of 0.005M HgSO4 for 15 minutes. The mercuric ion became covalently bonded to the sulfur from the polymer. The comparison of the bare platinum electrode in a solution of 0.005M pyrocatechol to the modified poly(2,2'-bithiophene) polymer was ran at a scan rate of 100mVs-1. This gave a direct comparison of oxidation/reduction peak potentials. As seen, the modified poly(2,2'-bithiophene) polymer with the mercuric …

Automated Transforms Of Software Models: A Design Pattern Approach, Brandon Adam Gump

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In the realm of software development, projects are plagued by continuous maintenance at the source code level as well as tedious transformations from formal specifications to source code. Such work consumes a large amount of time only to create complicated, un-intelligible, and un-reusable code that is completely detached from initial design rational. To cope with these problems, The Air Force Institute of Technology (AFIT) Wide Spectrum Object Modeling Environment (AWSOME) was designed to generate specifications that can be transformed into abstract designs and finally into source code. The specifications are written in the AFIT Wide-spectrum Language (AWL) and parsed in …

Tailoring The Degree Of Branching In Hyperbranched Poly (Arylene Ether Sulfone)S And Poly(Arylene Ether Ketone)S Prepared Via An A2 + Bb'b" Approach, Shravanthi Raghavapuram

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The synthesis and characterization of hyperbranched poly(arylene ether)s with tailored degrees of branching has been explored via an A₂+B₃ approach. The reactivity of the individual electrophilic sites towards nucleophilic aromatic substitution, NAS, of the BB'B" monomers 4, 3', 5'-trifluorophenyl sulfone, 1 and 4, 3', 5'-trifluoro benzophenone, 2 were studied. The concentration, temperature and solvent conditions had an effect on the degree of branching, DB, in 1 and 2 and were probed via ¹³C and ¹⁹F NMR spectroscopy as well as a series of model reactions employing p-cresol 16, which acts as the nucleophile. Soluble, …

Interfacial Modification Of Microcellular Carbon: Influence Of Ceramic And Carbon Nanotube Coatings, Anil Kumar Karumuri

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Microcellular carbon is an emerging ultra lightweight and efficient thermal management material, which also has great potential as a reinforcement material for selected composites. However, these porous materials exhibit relatively low mechanical properties, and are susceptible to degradation in oxidizing environment. The scope of this research is to investigate surface modification approaches that can address these issues. Two specific objectives were: (1) to develop ceramic coatings to improve the survivability of carbon foams in high temperature applications, and (2) to develop and test modifications that can improve cellular composites involving carbon foam. It was seen that a mixed layer of …

The 4 X 4 Semantic Model: Exploiting Data, Functional, Non-Functional And Execution Semantics Across Business Process, Workflow, Partner Services And Middleware Services Tiers, Amit P. Sheth, Karthik Gomadam

Kno.e.sis Publications

Business processes in the global environment increasingly encompass multiple partners and complex, rapidly changing requirements. In this context it is critical that strategic business objectives align with and map accurately to systems that support flexible and dynamic business processes. To support the demanding requirements of global business processes, we propose a comprehensive, unifying 4 X 4 Semantic Model that uses Semantic Templates to link four tiers of implementation with four types of semantics. The four tiers are the Business Process Tier, the Workflow Enactment Tier, the Partner Services Tier, and the Middleware Services Tier. The four types of semantics are …