Digital Commons Network^™

Improving The Process Of Laser Retinal Eye Surgery Using Electro Static Micro Mirrors, Narashiman Chakravarthy

Theses

This thesis describes an improved system for laser eye surgery. The system incorporates hardware based image matching and MEMS micromirrors for feedback control of laser positioning on the eye. Many benefits are described in this thesis, such as nulling out eye movement, tracking laser firing history, enabling precise control of laser firing locations and preventing firing accidents. The aim of this work is to frame this improved laser surgery concept and prove the principle of various components of the system. A featured accomplishment is the modeling and simulation of a prototype microcontroller using VHDL that may be incorporated as part …

Characterization And Mapping Of Crystal Defects In Silicon Carbide, Ejiro Emorhokpor

Theses

Silicon carbide (SiC) is a semiconductor with attractive properties, such as a wide bandgap (3. 26 eV), high dielectric strength, and high thermal conductivity that make it suitable for high power, highspeed electronic devices. A major roadblock to its wider application is the presence of defects, particularly micropipes and dislocations, in SiC wafers produced today and decreasing density of these defects is the most important challenge of the industry. The goal of this thesis was to design, build and test a system for detection and analysis of the defects in SiC wafers. The system is based on the reflection optical …

Wickedness In High Places : A Rhetorical Analysis Of The Film Hitler's Children, Alicia Pearlette James

Theses

The premise of this investigation is that propaganda works best when presented through a fictional work rather than through factual documents. The fact/fiction combination of the non-fiction book, Education for Death: The Making of the Nazi (1941) and the fictional feature-length film, Hitler's Children (1943) is used to illustrate how film propagandists use camera angles, lighting, music, dialogue, narration, storyline, footage from other films, and cinematic conventions to dramatize and emphasize several scenes from the book. Attention is also paid to scenes in the film that dramatize government war aims, as supplied by the Bureau of Motion Pictures of the …

An Application In Bioinformatics : A Comparison Of Affymetrix And Compugen Human Genome Microarrays, Milind Misra

Theses

The human genome microarrays from Compugen® and Affymetrix® were compared in the context of the emerging field of computational biology. The two premier database servers for genomic sequence data, the National Center for Biotechnology Information and the European Bioinformatics Institute, were described in detail. The various databases and data mining tools available through these data servers were also discussed. Microarrays were examined from a historical perspective and their main current applications-expression analysis, mutation analysis, and comparative genomic hybridization-were discussed. The two main types of microarrays, cDNA spotted microarrays and high-density spotted microarrays were analyzed by exploring the human genome microarray …

Low-Power Transceiver Design For Mobile Wireless Chemical Biological Sensors, Harshavardhan Reddy Sripuram

Theses

The design of a smart integrated chemical sensor system that will enhance sensor performance and compatibility to Ad hoc network architecture remains a challenge. This work involves the design of a Transceiver for a mobile chemical sensor. The transceiver design integrates all building blocks on-chip, including a low-noise amplifier with an input-matching network, a Voltage Controlled Oscillator with injection locking, Gilbert cell mixers, and a Class E Power amplifier making it as a single-chip transceiver. This proposed low power 2GHz transceiver has been designed in TSMC 0.35~lm CMOS process using Cadence electronic design automation tools. Post layout HSPICE simulation indicates …

Tracking The Path Of A Mobile Radioactive Source Using A Wireless Sensor Network, Nipa Shah

Theses

This report describes several experiments used to characterize and test a network of radiation sensors. The purpose of these tests is to assess the feasibility of using these sensors to detect and track radioactive sources in a large field, as in a battlefield or on a military campus. Simulated radiation measurements are used to compare the result of radiation detection accuracy in tracking the moving target and to find its path as early as possible. This is done via changing the number of sensing nodes deployed (deployment density), as well as the models of the detectors. This thesis describes algorithms …

Uber-Claws : Unsupervised Pattern Classification For Multi-Unit Extracellular Neuronal Burst Extraction, Rama Natarajan

Theses

To further an understanding of how a neuronal population generates patterns of rhythmic activity, the temporal dynamics of the group of neurons must be formalized. Essential to this pursuit, is the ability to reliably detect and separate the classes of single-unit neuronal activity from multi-unit extracellular signals recorded in a single channel. This study proposes a unified approach to automatically detect and classify single-unit bursts, and to observe the precise onset and offset of burst activity. Existing approaches to the problem fundamentally depend on the statistics of spike waveform variability, both extrinsic and intrinsic to the neuron. In contrast, the …

Design Of An Fpga-Based Parallel Simd Machine For Power Flow Analysis, Tirupathi Rao Kunta

Theses

Power flow analysis consists of computationally intensive calculations on large matrices, consumes several hours of computational time, and has shown the need for the implementation of application-specific parallel machines. The potential of Single-Instruction stream Multiple-Data stream (SIMD) parallel architectures for efficient operations on large matrices has been demonstrated as seen in the case of many existing supercomputers. The unsuitability of existing parallel machines for low-cost power system applications, their long design cycles, and the difficulty in using them show the need for application-specific SIMI) machines. Advances in VLSI technology and Field-Programmable Gate-Arrays (FPGAs) enable the implementation of Custom Computing Machines …

Soft Fault Detection Using Mibs In Computer Networks, Sachin Arora

Theses

To improve network reliability and management in today's high-speed communication system, a statistical anomaly network intrusion detection system (NIDS) has been investigated, for network soft faults using the Management Information Base (Mm) traffic parameters provided by Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP), for both wired and wireless networks. The work done would be a contribution to a system to be designed MIB Anomaly Intrusion Detection, a hierarchical multi-tier and multiobservation-window Anomaly Intrusion Detection system. The data was derived from many experiments that had been carried out in the test bed that monitored 27 MIB traffic parameters simultaneously, focusing on the soft …

The Consolidation Analysis Of A Clay Layer In The City Of Belem Do Para, Brazil, John Bezerra Jr.

Theses

In this study, an analysis was done on a particular clay layer found in the city of Belem do Para, Brazil. Various soil tests were conducted including a consolidation analysis. Data were gathered and analyzed in order to obtain a better understanding of how the soil responds under certain loading conditions. There have been no previous studies done on this material and so when it has been encountered in the field geotechnical engineers provide the safest, but not necessarily best design method possible. In the case of large buildings, piles are driven past this material to competent sand. There have …

Labview-Controlled Stimulus Presentation On A Monitor For Smooth Pursuit Eye Movement Experiments, Florence Bautista Chua

Theses

Smooth pursuit is an example of how movements in the visual world guide involuntary oculomotor movements. A current system to study eye movements uses an oscilloscope screen. A computer screen offers many advantages: a greater visual field, the use of shapes, 32 bits of colors, and increased timing accuracy. To control stimulus display on a computer monitor, instrumentation was developed in LabVIEW. Initial studies supported a draw/redraw to erase method for stimulus presentation. An experiment compared the computer monitor to the oscilloscope. Indeed, the monitor display was an improvement over the oscilloscope for vision research.

Fresh Kills Dumped : A Policy Assessment For The Management Of New York City's Residential Solid Waste In The Twenty-First Century, Aaron William Comrov

Theses

New York City ceased disposing of its daily residential solid waste output within its municipal borders in March 2001 when the Department of Sanitation completed its phase-down of the Fresh Kills landfill on Staten Island. The closure of this facility has, for the first time in history, stripped New York City of its waste management selfsufficiency, created a situation in which municipal officials are reliant on private firms and other governmental jurisdictions for disposal services, and contributed to deteriorating fiscal, environmental, political, economic, social and practical conditions.

Consequent and concurrent to this predicament, a multitude of alternative policies have been …

Data Recording And Analysis Of American Sign Language, Robert Michael Demarco

Theses

American Sign Language (ASL) is a form of communication that is used by the Deaf. It consists of hand shapes and gestures to express words and phrases. Translators on the market today consist of interpreting a simple form of ASL known as finger spelling. In order to develop a more effective translator, instrumentation was developed utilizing a Flock of Birds and Cyberglove system to record in hand shapes and movements in a LabVIEW environment. Experimentation done included reading in data and subjectively analyzing the data recorded for accuracy. Initial results have show that the instrumentation worked and data was recorded …

The Illusion Of Science : Images Of Science On Stage, Preethi Ganapathy

Theses

Science has long been regarded as a process of thinking, of pursuing the truth. This quest traditionally has been reserved for an elite group of thinkers, since at least the time of Aristotle, who was considered as the undisputed authority on philosophical truth, including that which we call science. The Scientific Revolution challenged Aristotle's authority and paved the way for the new method of evaluating scientific truths developed by Bacon, Descartes, and Galileo. Science became, over time, a process of inquiry open to all social and economic classes and accessible to all. In the twentieth century, the role of science …

Fpga Implementation Of A Cholesky Algorithm For A Shared-Memory Multiprocessor Architecture, Satchidanand G. Haridas

Theses

Solving a system of linear equations is a key problem in the field of engineering and science. Matrix factorization is a key component of many methods used to solve such equations. However, the factorization process is very time consuming, so these problems have traditionally been targeted for parallel machines rather than sequential ones. Nevertheless, commercially available supercomputers are expensive and only large institutions have the resources to purchase them or use them. Hence, efforts are on to develop more affordable alternatives. This thesis presents one such approach.

The work presented here is an implementation of a parallel version of the …

Chat And Instant Messaging : The Risks Of Secondary Orality, Gregory P. Kohn

Theses

The synchronous nature of chat and instant messaging (IM) make them unique among computer-enabled communications technologies in that their real-time exchange of data allows for rich media experiences, even though users can only use text symbols to trade messages. Chat and IM are also important in that they enable secondary orality, or the merger of the most beneficial aspects of orally-based cultures with the well-documented benefits of print and text. Where print in the modem day has fostered contemplative behavior and inward thought among human beings, chat and IM breathe vitality into print and, in a sense, allow print to …

Graphical User Interface For Improved Laser Eye Surgery, Venkata K. Kuruganti

Theses

This thesis develops a system for laser eye surgery that is a significant improvement over existing technology. The new system uses image matching and MEMS micromirrors to introduce feedback control, automation and record keeping to the laser surgery process, eliminating the unwanted effects of eye movement during surgery and introducing a wide range of other benefits. It is expected that this improvement can be implemented as an addition to existing systems as well as a foundation for new tools, perhaps even remote, internet enabled ones.

The basic components of the new system are described and demonstrated, including image matching between …

Feedback Algorithm For Switch Location : Analysis Of Complexity And Application To Network Design, Yuriy S. Polyakov

Theses

An accelerated feedback algorithm to solve the single-facility minisum problem is studied with application to designing networks with the star topology. The algorithm, in which the acceleration with respect to the Weiszfeld procedure is achieved by multiplying the current Weiszfeld iterate by an accelerating feedback factor, is shown to converge faster than the accelerating procedures available in the literature. Singularities encountered in the algorithm are discussed in detail. A simple practical exception handling subroutine is developed. Several applications of the algorithm to designing computer networks with the star topology are demonstrated. Applications of the algorithm as a subroutine for multi-switch …

Spatio-Temporal Correlation Models For Indoor Mimo Channels, Kaustubha Raghukumar

Theses

Accurate modeling of the spatio-temporal cross-correlation between the subchannels of a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) channel is an important prerequisite of multi-element antenna system design. In this thesis, a new model for indoor MIMO channels is proposed, and a closed form expression for the spatio-temporal cross-correlation function is derived. This new analytical correlation expression includes many physical parameters of interest such as the angle-of-arrivals at the base station and the user, the associated angle spreads, and other parameters, in a compact form. Comparison of this model with narrowband indoor MIMO data collected at Brigham Young University exhibits the utility of the …

Intrusion Detection System For Ad Hoc Mobile Networks Using Neighborhood Watch Theory, Ramani Rajagopalan

Theses

This study describes several experiments to simulate and study temperature sensor networks. The ultimate goal of this study is to accurately predict a temperature sensor failure in a sensor network, using Network Neighborhood Watch theory. Simulated temperature measurements are used to compare the results of accuracy, and quickness in detecting a failure in a malfunctioning sensor node. This is done by changing the intervals between temperature sampling, by considering different rates of temperature raise, as well as varying the number of nodes in the network neighborhood (deployment density). The thesis studies the threshold for temperature sensor failure by computing a …

Comparative Studies Of Network Traffic In Actual And Emulated Wireless Networks, Curtis Salley Jr.

Theses

Wireless networks are becoming more popular in all types of environments from home office, to business infrastructure, to mobile computing. As more of these networks flourish, so does the attraction for hackers. The thesis examines the bandwidth of wireless networks and the effects of intrusions in three different scenarios. First, it looks at a wireless network that is connected to a wired infrastructure. Next, the thesis examines a wireless ad hoc network and how bandwidth plays a valuable part in the communication with neighboring nodes. And finally, the thesis attempts to simulate a wireless network by using a bandwidth configuration …

Reduction Of False Positives In Fault Detection System Using A Low Pass Data Filter, Ranjit Salunkhe

Theses

Network traffic is bursty in nature and exhibits the property of self-similarity, the degree of which is measured by the Hurst parameter. Now, in any network there is always the possibility of the occurrence of fault traffic that can be caused due to faults or malfunction of a network component. Fault Detection Systems that check for traffic anomalies can trigger off an alert on the detection of any traffic behavior that deviates from normal. Such deviation is usually caused when a fault occurs. But in network traffic sudden bursts may occur due to the inherent behavior of a network application. …

Sub-Segment Based Transport Layer Protocol For Wireless Medium, Som Sengupta

Theses

This thesis discusses the techniques to improve the TCP over wireless. The loss-intensive wireless communication results in high retransmission rates to recover lost packets and bandwidth consumption. In addition, the retransmitted segments have significant chance of being dropped. To make the retransmission process more granular, large segments at the transport layer (540 bytes, by default) can be subdivided into smaller sub-segments. This document introduces a split TCP based solution and describes how to produce a series of smaller-sized segments that share the same transport layer header. A new header format is introduced to support the transmission of smaller segments …

Sparse Matrix Product Implementation On Field Programmable Gate Arrays (Epgas), Amit Mahendra Sheth

Theses

If dense matrix multiplication algorithms are used with sparse matrices, they can result in a large number of redundant calculations, as numerous elements in sparse matrices are zero valued, thus available resources and time may be wasted. The algorithm discussed here aims to take advantage of the sparseness of the matrices by multiplying only nonzero elements.

The NIOS development board from Altera is used for implementing the above algorithm. First a sequential program in the C programming language is downloaded onto the FPGA and run by the NIOS soft-processor. Then the same board is also used for a parallel implementation …

Towards Digital Library Service Integration, Prateek Shrivastava

Theses

Digital Library Service Integration (DLSI) aims to provide a systematic approach in integrating the services and collections of National Science and Digital Library. The National Science and Digital Library collections can share the services among themselves in a totally integrated environinent. Collections as such will require no change to plug into the DLSI architecture. Collections will keep using the services of NSDL in the similar manner as before. These services will in turn pass few parameters to the services of DLSI. With the help of these parameters, wrappers will fetch the details and priority of the users. These wrappers will …

Detecting Malfunction In Wireless Sensor Networks, Pablito C. Lake

Theses

The objective of this thesis is to detect malfunctioning sensors in wireless sensor networks. The ability to detect abnormality is critical to the security of any sensor network. However, the ability to detect a faulty wireless sensor is not trivial. Controlled repeatable experiments are difficult in wireless channels. A Redhat Linux. 7.0 Wireless Emulation Dynamic Switch software was used to solve this problem.

Six nodes were configured with a node acting as a base station. The nodes were all part of a cell. This means that every node could communicate with all other nodes. A client-server program simulated the background …

Hop-Limited Routing For Multihop Cellular Networks, Cem Dincer

Theses

In recent years, conventional cellular systems have experienced evolution in fields of data oriented services. During this period, the requirement for high data-rate stimulated new research proposals, which resulted in a new architecture: Multihop Cellular Networks (MCN), where multihop structure enables mobile stations to forward packets from other mobile stations to the base station on the uplink, and in turn, forward packets to other mobile stations from the base station on the downlink. In this thesis, a new routing algorithm is introduced for MCNs in order to limit the number of hops between the base station and the mobile stations …

Implementation Of Cyclic Exercise Protocol On Two Study Groups - Aids And Insomnia, Ujwala G. Kalambur

Theses

Traditional exercise regimens are based on maintaining a prolonged increase in heart rate, followed by a single recovery period. The Cyclic Exercise Protocol is a novel protocol that is designed to create a series of parabolic waves of exercise and recovery. This study involves the implementation of this exercise protocol on two study groups namely AIDS and Insomnia. This exercise protocol involves short bursts of exercise lasting for 60 seconds or less followed by a period of complete aerobic recovery. The underlying principle of this exercise protocol is that rest, recovery and the body's natural rhythm are important to fitness …

Special Olympics Participation In School Age Children With Mental Retardation And Its Effects On Self-Esteem, Megan Lococo

Theses

A comprehensive review of the literature and interviews with local experts has found a paucity of research on the self-esteem of school-age children with mental retardation. Long (1995), Zic & Igric (2001) and Siperstein & Leffert (1997) found lower self-esteem in self-report measures completed by mentally retarded children and adults. However, the psychometric properties of selfesteem self-report measures have been questioned repeatedly, finding insufficient reliability and validity when applied to mentally retarded populations (Finlay & Lyons, 2001; Widaman et al., 1992). The purpose of this study is twofold; the first goal is to determine the average self-esteem for mentally retarded …

Environmental Graphic Design Program For The 220th Anniversary Of Rochester, New York, Nataya Brahmacupta

Theses

None provided.