Digital Commons Network^™

Thermochemistry And Kinetics In Pyrolysis And Oxidation Reaction Of Oxygenate Chlorocarbons, Neopentane, And Ortho-Xylene, Hongyan Sun

Dissertations

Thermochemical properties of chlorinated alcohols, chlorinated hydroperoxides and corresponding alkoxy, hydroxy alkyl radicals, peroxy and hydroperoxy alkyl radicals are determined by ab initlo and density functional calculations for modeling and optimization of complex chemical processes for combustion or incineration of chlorinated hydrocarbons. The entropy and heat capacities from vibrational, translational, and external rotational contributions are calculated by statistical mechanics, and the hindered rotational contributions to S^°₂₉₈ and C_p(T)'s are calculated by using direct integration over energy levels of the internal rotational potentials. The values of ΔH_f^°₂₉₈ are determined using isodesmic reactions …

Design And Evaluation Of A List Gathering Tool In A Web-Based Collaborative Environment, Yuanqiong Wang

Dissertations

This research focuses on how to build a "list" structure to combine individual items of information into some sort of structure that converts the individual items of information into a structure of knowledge relative to the problem. Software was designed to provide relationships among and comparisons of the contributions in a "list" structure, so that individual members of a group process will be able to understand the contributions of information made by the group as a whole.

A List Gathering Tool was designed and implemented, which is one component in a Web-based Social Decision Support System (SDSS) Toolkit. Then, a …

Design And Evaluation Of A Voting Tool In A Collaborative Environment, Zheng Li

Dissertations

This dissertation researchdesigned, implemented, and evaluated a Web-based Dynamic Voting Toolfor small group decision-making in a collaborative environment.

In this dissertation, theliterature on voting tools in current GDSS research is presented. Variousvoting theories and methods are analyzed, and the advantages and weaknessesare compared, so as to gain a better understanding of how to apply thesedifferent voting methods to diverse decision-making situations. A briefoverview of scaling theories is also given, with an emphasis on Thurstone'sLaw.

The basic features of someweb-based voting tool implementations are reviewed along with a discussionof the pros and cons of Intemet voting. A discussion of Human DynamicVoting …

Understanding The Origins Of Metastability In Thin Film Growth; Tantalum And The Early Group Vb-Vib Metals, Neme Okechukwu Nnolim

Dissertations

Tantalum (Ta) is a metal that is highly prized for its applications in a variety of industries, including the microelectronics industry, where it is largely used in thin film modifications in order to achieve various electronic, magnetic and structural capabilities in solid-state devices. Ta frequently forms metastable phases, including the well-known ß-phase, during the preparation of thin Ta films by standard film deposition methods such as sputtering and electro-deposition. In order to gain insight into Ta metastable phase formation, the Bain transformation mechanism is studied for Ta and the neighboring body centered cubic (bcc) transition metals in Groups 5 and …

Method For Theoretically Determining The Locus And Location Of The Transmission Zeros In Microwave Filter Networks, Keehong Um

Dissertations

This dissertation presents a theoretical investigation of a practical method to determine quantitatively the locations and loci of complex transmission zeros (TZ's) of positively and negatively cross-coupled RF or microwave bandpass filter networks.

Bandpass filters can be effectively designed by adjusting the locations of TZ's in the complex s-domain. To locate TZ's, this practical method uses chain matrices for subsystems (discrete parts of the network) of the filter network, and can be extended to other types of filters with cross-coupled sections.

An important result is that a complex doublet, triplet and/or quadruplet, (one-, two-, or four-pairs) of TZ's are shown …

Spearman Rank Regression, Jason C. Parcon

Dissertations

The main purpose of this dissertation is to obtain an estimate of the slope parameter in a regression model that is robust to outlying values in both the x - and Y-spaces. The least squares method, though known to be optimal for normal errors, can yield estimates with infinitely large MSE's if the error distribution is thick-tailed. Regular rank-based methods like the Wilcoxon method are known to be robust to outlying values in the Y -space, but it is still grossly affected by outlying values in x -space.

This dissertation derives an estimate of the slope from an estimating …

Inroads Toward Contemporary Latina Literature: Poetry And Criticism, Adela Josefina Najarro

Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Job Satisfaction, Leadership Styles, And Teaching Practices Among Cnmi Public Elementary School Teachers, Charles J. Algaier Edd

Dissertations

This study investigated whether teacher leadership styles and teaching practices influenced teacher job satisfaction among public elementary school teachers in the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. The study answered the following questions: (1) what is the level of job satisfaction among public elementary school teachers in the CNMI; (2) to what extent do CNMI teachers fall into the personal leadership style categories of transactional or transformational; (3) to what extent do CNMI public school teachers prefer either didactic or constructivist teaching practices; (4) to what extent do demographic factors, preferred leadership styles, and preferred teaching practices affect the degree …

Parallel Simulation Of Microflows By Dsmc And Burnett Equations, Yichuan Fang

Dissertations

The primary objective of this dissertation is to numerically simulate and study the heat transfer and flow characteristics in fluidic microelectromechanical system (MEMS). In typical microfluidic MEMS applications, the ratio of the gas mean-free-path to the characteristic length scale, or the Knudsen number, can be large. The traditional mathematical models of continuum fluid based on the Navier-Stokes equations may become invalid because of their constitutive relations of viscous stress and heat flux.

In this study, the direct simulation Monte Carlo (DSMC) method and the conventional Burnett equations are applied to model the microflows in microchannels from molecular and continuum point …

Understanding On Concepts Of Force Of Thai Freshmen, Chokchai Usawinchai

Dissertations

The central concept of Newtonian mechanics is force. Without this concept, the students would find the rest of mechanics very difficult to master. Based on this hypothesis, the understandings and misconceptions of Newtonian mechanics were investigated.

Three hundred eighteen Thai freshmen participated in this study. The freshmen were divided into two groups according to their high school locations, Bangkok and other cities of Thailand. The Force Concept Inventory was used to probe the freshmen's understandings and misconceptions. The SPSS and EXCEL programs were used to analyze the data. The translation of the FCI into Thai and its subsequent validation is …

A Comparison Of Different Schemes For Selecting And Estimating Score Functions Based On Residuals, Ali A. Al-Shomrani

Dissertations

In a linear model when the errors follow a normal distribution, least squares methodology is most powerful. However, when the assumption of normality of the error distribution is not met then there exist methods which are more powerful than least squares methods. Rank-based methods form one such class. These methods depend on the selection of a score function [varphi]( u ). The correct choice of [varphi] leads to an optimal (efficient) analysis, but its selection depends on the error distribution which is not known.

In this thesis, we explore different schemes for score selection. Some of these schemes are functions …

Cellular Proliferation, Death And Histology In Gambusia Affinis Livers After Exposure To 2-Aminofluorene And Benzidine, Susan J. Lentz

Dissertations

A fundamental need exists for aquatic animals in the biomonitoring of aquatic ecosystems for environmental carcinogens. G. affinis, a small fish species, is selected for this study due to its hardiness, non-migratory nature, geographic diversity and ability to develop tumors. Molecular tools for cellular proliferation and death are examined for use with G. affinis. Additionally, these tools are used to investigate the early carcinogenic effects of 2-aminofluorene and benzidine, both individually and combined, on G. affinis livers.

Antibodies to proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA), p53, cleaved caspase-3 and cleaved poly(ADP-ribose) polymerase (PARP) were examined for use in G. …

New Graphical Approach On The Analysis Of Experimental Data, Suha Sari

Dissertations

This study presents a new graphical method to identify significant effects in factorial experiments. The proposed methods are obtained for the different cases in which the design can be of full factorial or fractional factorial and the factor levels can be pure or mixed.

We focus on the different decomposition methods, for example orthogonal components system and orthogonal contrast method, to make use of the chisquare plot which requires that the sums of squares are of the same degrees of freedom. Examples and simulations illustrating the different cases of the procedure are presented.

Image Morphological Processing, Vijayalakshmi Gaddipati

Dissertations

Mathematical Morphology with applications in image processing and analysis has been becoming increasingly important in today's technology. Mathematical Morphological operations, which are based on set theory, can extract object features by suitably shaped structuring elements. Mathematical Morphological filters are combinations of morphological operations that transform an image into a quantitative description of its geometrical structure based on structuring elements. Important applications of morphological operations are shape description, shape recognition, nonlinear filtering, industrial parts inspection, and medical image processing.

In this dissertation, basic morphological operations, properties and fuzzy morphology are reviewed. Existing techniques for solving corner and edge detection are presented. …

Fully Nonlinear Interfacial Waves In A Bounded Two-Fluid System, Lyudmyla Leonidivna Barannyk

Dissertations

We study the nonlinear flow which results when two immiscible inviscid incompressible fluids of different densities and separated by an interface which is free to move and which supports surface tension, are caused to flow in a straight infinite channel. Gravity is taken into consideration and the velocities of each phase can be different, thus giving rise to the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability. Our objective is to study the competing effects of the Kelvin-Helmholtz instability coupled with a stably or unstably stratified fluid system (Rayleigh-Taylor instability) when surface tension is present to regularize the dynamics. Our approach involves the derivation of two-and …

Optimization For Source Localization And Geoacoustic Inversion In Underwater Acoustics, Urmi Ghosh-Dastidar

Dissertations

Matched-field inversion techniques are widely used for source localization and geoacoustic parameter estimation. These inversion methods correlate the received data with modeled data and find the model parameters which provide the maximum correlation. However, when a large number of unknown parameters is involved, many modeled data need to be generated and correlated with the observed data and thus, matched-field inversion can be computationally intensive. An optimization process applied to matched-field inversion is often required to accelerate the inversion process.

In this work, tabu is applied to matched-field inversion for source localization and environmental parameter estimation. Tabu is a global optimization …

High Pressure Effects On Electron Transport And Structure Of Colossal Magnetoresistive Materials, Congwu Cui

Dissertations

Pressure effects on the electronic, magnetic properties and structure of several typical colossal magnetoresistive manganites, La_0.60Y_0.07Ca_0.33MnO₃, Pr_1-xCa_xMn0₃ (X = 0.25, 0.30, 0.35), Nd_1-xSr_xMnO₃ (x = 0.45, 0.50), were explored through high pressure resistivity and structure measurements. It was shown that pressure up to ~7 GPa induces more complicated charge, spin and lattice state changes than in the low pressure range explored previously. In La_0.60Y_0.07Ca_0.33MnO₃, pressure induces a local atomic structure transformation at a critical …

Pharmacophore Derivation Using Discotech And Comparison Of Semi-Emperical, Ab Initio And Density Functional Comfa Studies For Sigma 1 And Sigma 2 Receptor-Ligands, Dawoon Jung

Dissertations

This study describes the development of pharmacophore and CoMFA models for sigma receptor ligands. CoMFA studies were performed for 48 bioactive sigma 1 receptorligands using [H³ ](+) pentazocine as the radioligand, for 30 PCP derivatives for sigma 1 receptor-ligands using [³H](+)SK-F 10047 as the radioligand and for 24 bioactive sigma 2 receptor-ligands using the radioligand [H³](+)DTG in the presence of pentazocine. Distance Comparisons (DISCOtech) was used as the starting point for CoMFA studies. The conformers, derived by DISCOtech were optimized using AMi, or HF/3-21G* in Gaussian 98. The optimized geometries were aligned with the pharmacophore, …

Nonlinear Optical Properties Of Novel Nanostructured Ion Implanted Laser Ablated Silicon Using Femtosecond Pulse Excitation, Elaine Nicole Lalanne

Dissertations

The study of the nonlinear optical properties of novel nanostructured ion implanted and laser ablation of Silicon is motivated by the need for materials that exhibit large values of the real part of the third order nonlinear susceptibility (χ⁽³⁾_Re). This property is essential for light controlled phase or refractive index modulation at low power, where the optical properties are used for optical switching devices. Previous nanosecond (ns) measurements indicated values of-2.8 x 10 ^-5; esu ( γ = 532 nm) for χ⁽³⁾_Re.

The characterization of nonlinear optical properties of the samples was studied …

Image Enhancement Techniques Applied To Solar Feature Detection, Artur J. Kowalski

Dissertations

This dissertation presents the development of automatic image enhancement techniques for solar feature detection. The new method allows for detection and tracking of the evolution of filaments in solar images. Series of H-alpha full-disk images are taken in regular time intervals to observe the changes of the solar disk features. In each picture, the solar chromosphere filaments are identified for further evolution examination. The initial preprocessing step involves local thresholding to convert grayscale images into black-and-white pictures with chromosphere granularity enhanced. An alternative preprocessing method, based on image normalization and global thresholding is presented. The next step employs morphological closing …

New Full Wave Theory For Plane Wave Scattering By A Rough Dielectric Surface - The Fictitious Current Method, Byung-Tae Yoon

Dissertations

A new full wave method for scattering of plane waves from a rough dielectric surface is developed. This new theory begins by postulating a zero-order field solution which does not satisfy Maxwell's source-free field equations. The zero-order field, however, is made to satisfy Maxwell's source equations. This is done by introducing a fictitious volume current distribution. Since the original problem does not possess a volume current distribution, its introduction represents a measure of the error in the postulated zero-order solution. To improve this solution, the fictitious volume current distribution is cancelled by the introduction of a second fictitious current distribution, …

Application Of Adaptive Optics To The Spectroscopic Investigation Of Small-Scale Solar Structures, Klaus Hartkorn

Dissertations

We study bright points, umbral dots and the G-band using a two-dimensional spectrometer and an Adaptive Optics system, which allows us to record high-resolution dopplergrams and residual intensity images. We find evidence that bright points are smaller than 120 km in diameter. Bright points are situated exclusively in regions of enhanced G-band brightness and do not show a change in their shape or a displacement in their position of more than 120 km horizontally over a height range from 0 km to 320 km above photospheric level T = 1. We do not find velocity differences of more than 100 …

Development Of A Multivariate Logistic Model To Predict Bicycle Route Safety In Urban Areas, Cheryl Allen-Munley

Dissertations

In response to the renewed appreciation of the benefits of bicycling to the environment and public health, public officials across the nation are working to establish new bicycle routes. During the past two decades, a number of methods have been endorsed for the selection of "suitable" bicycle routes. These methods are limited in that they do not explicitly address bicycle safety nor do they reflect urban conditions.

The purpose of this research is to develop an objective bicycle route safety rating model based on injury severity. The model development was conducted using a logistic transformation of Jersey City's bicycle crash …

Investigation Of An Integrated Regional Environmental Watershed Methodology, Marshall R. Boggio

Dissertations

Recent public awareness of the environment has placed increased emphasis on the health and current state of the regional watershed. The watershed has been defined as that area in which water flowing across and beneath a given land surface drains into a specific stream or river, ultimately flowing through a single point or outlet on that stream or river. Since the processes involved are many and are analyzed in the literature on an individual basis, the current investigation attempts a more holistic approach by suggesting a methodology that integrates all elements of the hydrologic cycle. The investigation utilizes the area …

Time-Frequency Investigation Of Heart Rate Variability And Cardiovascular System Modeling Of Normal And Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (Copd) Subjects, Douglas Alan Newandee

Dissertations

A study has been designed to add insight to some questions that have not been fully investigated in the heart rate variability field and the cardiovascular regulation system in normal and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) subjects. It explores the correlations between heart rate variability and cardiovascular regulation, which interact through complex multiple feedback and control loops. This work examines the coupling between heart rate (HR), respiration (RESP), and blood pressure (BP) via closed-loop system identification techniques in order to noninvasively assess the underlying physiology.

In the first part of the study, the applications of five different bilinear time-frequency representations …

The Use Of Quality Indices For Successful Programs For Students With Emotional/Behavior Disorders In The State Of Michigan, Alice Brouwer Hoekstra

Dissertations

Recent research studies have determined that students with emotional and behavior disorders (EBD) are the most difficult to integrate into the general education environment. Students with EBD are most likely to be educated in separate settings and least likely to be found in traditional education environments. However, the mandate of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act reauthorized in 1997 (IDEA '97) and the Least Restrictive Environment (LRE) regulation indicates all educators, including administrators, have the responsibility to challenge teachers and schools to be more inclusive regarding students with EBD and to provide services that better support students in this setting. …

The Tragedy Of The Rivers: Building Authority Over The British Water Environment, Kevin B. Vichcales

Dissertations

"The Tragedy of the Rivers: Building Authority over the British Water Environment" examines the problem of rivers as common public resources in modern Britain. Viewed historically, the enduring problem of environmental pollution control in Britain has been the establishment of regulating authority over aspects of nature that are regarded simultaneously as economic resources, public utilities, and public amenities. Legislators, subject to pressure from industrial polluters, political parties, and advocates for environmental quality, sought at different times to locate authority at local, regional, national and extra-national levels. Each effort failed to resolve the issue of authority over the environment, because administrative …

The Extent To Which Teachers And Principals Perceive High Schools As Learning Organizations, Scott Kemple

Dissertations

The purpose of the study was to conduct an assessment of the culture and leadership of a sample of Michigan high schools as perceived by their teaching staff and principals.

The variables of culture and leadership are primary indicators of whether a school is viewed as a learning organization by the faculty, staff and administration of the school (Leithwood et al., 2001). Five primary questions were examined: (1) To what extent are high schools perceived as learning organizations by their principals? (2) To what extent are high schools perceived as learning organizations by their teachers? (3) Is there a difference …

Multiobjective Optimal Control Problems With Endpoint And State Constraints, Kirsty J. Eisenhart

Dissertations

In this thesis we consider nonsmooth multiobjective optimal control problems in terms of a general preference on [Special characters omitted.]. The optimal control problems considered involve differential inclusion, endpoint constraints and state constraints. No convexity assumption is needed on the differential inclusion. Examples of common preferences are given, and the idea of approximating a preference is introduced. Euler-Lagrange necessary conditions and a form of the maximum principle are developed for closed preferences (and those that can be approximated by closed preferences) in terms of the limiting subdifferential. As a consequence, this is the first result in the literature for lexicographical …

Student Ecosystems Problem Solving With Computer Simulation, Melissa A. Howse

Dissertations

Computer simulations, such as the BioQUEST Environmental Decision Making (EDM) program, represent a viable supplement or alternative to traditional science teaching approaches. This study concentrated on the manner in which knowledge is acquired and then disseminated through the use of the simulations. In addition, the study took into account the nature of science by revealing what notions of ecosystems and simulation were revealed when students encountered concepts imparted to them via this method. The following research questions guided this study: (1) What content knowledge do students use to solve ecology problems? (2) What procedural knowledge do students use to solve …