Digital Commons Network^™

The Design Of A 24-Bit Hardware Gaussian Noise Generator Via The Box-Muller Method And Its Error Analysis, Lincoln Glauser

Theses

In regards to data transmission in communication systems, there is need for robust emulation of communication channels via Gaussian noise generation. Over time, larger sample sizes are desired to reach farther into the tail ends of the distribution and faster sample generation speeds are desired versus the software implementations. This paper proposes a Gaussian noise generator utilizing the Box-Muller method written in Verilog HDL targeting a 65nm ASIC process utilizing Synopsys Design Compiler. The design creates two 24-bit noise samples per clock cycle and each sample is accurate to one unit in the last place. A sample can represent up …

Displays Of Jealousy In Dogs, Cassandra D. Beck

Theses

Wolves (Canis Lupis) were domesticated into the common dog (Canis Familiaris) at least 15 thousand years ago. The domestication process changed wolves both physically and neurologically. Dogs now have a unique connection with humans, and display many of the same personality traits and cognitive deficits as humans do. Research by Harris and Prouvost (2014) has suggested that dogs can display jealous reactions. In this thesis, dogs were exposed to either a plastic Jack-O-Lantern stimulus or a plush dog stimulus and recorded their behavioral and physiological reactions to such stimuli. The results show that the majority of the differences in the …

Three-Dimensional Image Processing Of Identifying Toner Particle Centroids, Di Bai

Theses

Powder-based 3D printed products are composed of fine particles. The structure formed by the particles in the powder is expected to affect the performance of the final products constructed from them (Finney, 1970; Dinsmore, 2001; Chang, 2015; Patil, 2015). A prior study done by Patil (2015) demonstrated a method for determining the centroids and radii of spherical particles and consequently reconstructed the structure formed by the particles. Patil’s method used a Confocal Laser Scanning Microscope to capture a stack of cross-sections of fluorescent toner particles and Matlab image analysis tools to determine the particle centroid positions and radii. Patil identified …

The Design Of A Custom 32-Bit Risc Cpu And Llvm Compiler Backend, Connor Jan Goldberg

Theses

Compiler infrastructures are often an area of high interest for research. As the necessity for digital information and technology increases, so does the need for an increase in the performance of digital hardware. The main component in most complex digital systems is the central processing unit (CPU). Compilers are responsible for translating code written in a high-level programming language to a sequence of instructions that is then executed by the CPU. Most research in compiler technologies is focused on the design and optimization of the code written by the programmer; however, at some point in this process the code must …

Understanding High Resolution Aerial Imagery Using Computer Vision Techniques, Fan Wang

Theses

Computer vision can make important contributions to the analysis of remote sensing satellite or aerial imagery. However, the resolution of early satellite imagery was not sufficient to provide useful spatial features. The situation is changing with the advent of very-high-spatial-resolution (VHR) imaging sensors. This change makes it possible to use computer vision techniques to perform analysis of man-made structures. Meanwhile, the development of multi-view imaging techniques allows the generation of accurate point clouds as ancillary knowledge.

This dissertation aims at developing computer vision and machine learning algorithms for high resolution aerial imagery analysis in the context of application problems including …

A Dataset Of Gaze Behavior In Vr Faithful To Natural Statistics, Brendan John

Theses

Eye tracking technology is advancing swiftly and many areas of research have begun taking advantage of this. Existing eye trackers project gaze onto a 2D plane, whether it be the display of a head mounted virtual reality (VR) helmet or an image of a real life scene the user is in. This allows us to easily analyze what a viewer is looking at, but limits classification of gaze behaviors from this type of signal. Instead, a system that takes into account head movements within the same space as gaze velocity allows researchers to classify more advanced gaze behaviors such as …

The Effects Of Verbal Operant Training And Response Interruption And Redirection On Vocal Stereotypy, Casey Kaye Trasatti

Theses

Verbal operant training is a typical intervention for individuals with Autism Spectrum Disorder. Response Interruption and Redirection (RIRD) is a highly effective intervention for problem behavior and various forms of stereotypy. In this study verbal operant training was combined with RIRD to see if there was a bigger impact in decreasing vocal stereotypy. The participant was a 9-year old male, and the intervention was done across settings. The results showed that combined with intraverbal training and RIRD, vocal stereotypy decreased significantly in all settings. The results also indicate this is a highly effective treatment for vocal stereotypy when the function …

Quantifying The Rates And Spatial Distribution Of Recent Sedimentation Within The Hydrologically Connected Floodplains Of The Middle Mississippi River, Usa, Using Digital Elevation Models And Dendrogeomorphology, Julia Kay Ryherd

Theses

The construction of levees along the Mississippi River [MR], beginning in the mid-to-late nineteenth century, have isolated the river along many segments from its floodplain. Sediment from the river is currently deposited in the hydrologically connected floodplain [HCF], the area between the channel margin at low water and the levees. Researchers have studied the amount and rates of sediment deposition along the Upper and Lower Mississippi River segments from the headwaters to Pool 22 and from the Ohio River to the delta; however, no such assessments have been undertaken along the Middle Mississippi River [MMR]. This study attempts to fill …

Hyperspectral Spectroscopy For Detection Of Charcoal Rot (Macrophomina Phaseolina) Toxin Effect On Soybean (Glycine Max) Seedlings, Ameer H.A. Al-Ahmadi

Theses

The objective of this study was to test the potential of using hyperspectral spectroscopy to detect the effect of the charcoal rot (Macrophomina phaseolina) toxin in soybean (Glycine max) seedlings and to discover the most sensitive spectral range to that effect. This study consists of two experiments. The first experiment used one cultivar of soybeans called “Pharaoh” with two levels of treatment (control and toxin-treated). Hyperspectral data were collected during five measurement events. Four analytical methods were used including one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA), Jeffries Matusita distance (JM distance), principal component analysis (PCA), and spectral angle mapper (SAM). The ANOVA …

Her Eyes, Stephanie Clark

Theses

Her Eyes is an animated graduate thesis film that is 13 minutes and 25 seconds in length. Through the course of the film, the audience witnesses several years of the main character, Sam Peterson’s, daily life as he suffers from Alzheimer’s disease. As Sam continues to try and live his life unaffected by the disease, he comes to the realization that his sole dependent, Helen, his granddaughter, has changed roles from being under his care, to his sole caretaker. From this realization, Sam comes to the harsh decision to protect his granddaughter’s future, valuing the time in which he can …

Fabrication Of Silicon Photonic Devices Using I-Line Lithography, Sanjna Lakshminarayanamurthy

Theses

Silicon Photonics is a promising new technology for realizing efficient, high performance interconnects. There is a growing need for educating future engineers on how to design, fabricate, package and test silicon photonic circuits. Silicon photonic processing for an educational institution with i-line lithography capabilities is demonstrated and the thesis elaborates on the fabrication process used for realizing passive photonic devices and circuits (i.e. waveguides, interferometric structures and fiber chip grating couplers). The process is realized in a CMOS compatible environment which has been in use since 1986 to teach microelectronic engineering. And is now also being used to support the …

Public Artifacts, Empirical Vulnerability And Descriptive Metaphysics, Blake Davenport

Theses

Herein I argue that Amie Thomasson’s account of public artifacts is empirically vulnerable. I first identify the descriptive claims that feature in Thomasson’s argument and then outline an experimental framework in which the accuracy of those claims can be evaluated. I conclude with some brief remarks on the possible implications of my approach for Thomasson’s account, and some thoughts on whether an experimental approach to evaluating projects in descriptive metaphysics might be valuable more broadly.

Androgyny, Yu-Chi Chien

Theses

Cognition is a mental activity during which information is received through perception and judgment. From birth people gradually construct their own cognitive understanding of the world. Predecessors often transmit their own past experiences to others in order to efficiently build up the values that they think are correct. For constructing cognition easily and rapidly, predecessors tend to generalize and simplify the information so that others can readily understand and judge, but it is often distorted and doesn’t express the full meaning inside.

People have the ability to explore their own answer for everything. However, after the process of simplifying information …

Instruments Of Generation, Bradley Dunn

Theses

This Thesis is a study into possible outcomes on products from recent trends in business culture, virtual and physical tools, and marketing and sales.

We will first look at our changing economic and political systems. The situations provide insight into the way goods are produced, by whom they are produced, and the general mood of consumers insights. From there we will consider how changing tools and strategies may lead to similar changes in how we design. And finally we will consider research in customer choice in a world of abundance.

My own explorations into different product sets will attempt to …

Preserving The Spatial Information Of Accessible Uml Class Diagrams For The Visually Impaired, Silva Hekmat Matti

Theses

One of the aspects that still needs to be fully accessible to persons with Visual Impairments or Blindness is programming and software engineering as a profession. UML diagrams are still an area to be improved when it comes to accessibility: How to make these diagrams more available? What kind of representation is more proper and efficient? This exploratory research suggests a scheme to navigate UML class diagram, with focus on presenting spatial information with related alternative text. In this research we try to find whether the suggested methodology is helping programmers and students with visual impairment in identifying and reading …

The Nature Of God & Predestination In John Davenant's Dissertatio De Praedestinatione Et Reprobatione, Jonathan Roberts

Theses

This paper is an exposition and defense of John Davenant's critique of the lapsarian understanding of the ordering of God's decrees. I evaluate Davenant's use of theology proper in his critique of said debate and contend that if Davenant is correct about divine simplicity and divine immutability, his critique of lapsarianism is successful.

The Evolution Of Fear Ecology: A Fruit Fly (Drosophila Melanogaster) Perspective, Itachi Mills

Theses

Several mechanisms underlie how evolutionary lineages respond to predation pressures or predation risk. Further mechanisms link evolutionary predation responses to how animals forage, or find mates. However, gaps remain in our understanding about how predation and foraging interact in an evolutionary context.

In my first chapter, I elaborate on how predation and foraging relate in to one another in ecological, evolutionary and behavioral contexts. I start out with an overview of fear ecology. Then, I outline how trade-offs influence the evolution of morphological, chemical and behavioral responses to predation. I further elaborate on how these trade-offs influence reproduction. Finally, I …

Efficient Error Detection Architectures For Low-Energy Block Ciphers With The Case Study Of Midori Benchmarked On Fpga, Anita Aghaie

Theses

Achieving secure, high performance implementations for constrained applications such as implantable and wearable medical devices is a priority in efficient block ciphers. However, security of these algorithms is not guaranteed in presence of malicious and natural faults. Recently, a new lightweight block cipher, Midori, has been proposed which optimizes the energy consumption besides having low latency and hardware complexity. This algorithm is proposed in two energy-efficient varients, i.e., Midori64 and Midori128, with block sizes equal to 64 and 128 bits. In this thesis, fault diagnosis schemes for variants of Midori are proposed. To the best of the our knowledge, there …

Application Of Audible Signals In Tool Condition Monitoring Using Machine Learning Techniques, Achyuth Kothuru

Theses

Machining is always accompanied by many difficulties like tool wear, tool breakage, improper machining conditions, non-uniform workpiece properties and some other irregularities, which are some of major barriers to highly-automated operations. Effective tool condition monitoring (TCM) system provides a best solution to monitor those irregular machining processes and suggest operators to take appropriate actions. Even though a wide variety of monitoring techniques have been developed for the online detection of tool condition, it remains an unsolved problem to look for a reliable, simple and cheap solution. This research work mainly focuses on developing a real-time tool condition monitoring model to …

An Experimental Study On Pool Boiling Performance Enhancement And Effect Of Aging, Aniket M. Rishi

Theses

The miniaturization of electronic devices requires advanced thermal management techniques. The two-phase heat transfer process offers more effective and sustainable approach compared to the presently used single-phase cooling techniques. The boiling heat transfer is a two-phase cooling technique, that dissipates a high heat flux while maintaining the low surface temperature thereby, offering an efficient heat transfer mechanism compared to the single-phase process. Furthermore, the surface enhancement techniques such as micro/nano porous coatings help to maintain the low surface temperature thus improving the overall heat transfer performance. Electrodeposition is a simple technique that enhances this performance by creating the porous structure …

Automated Flight Planning For Roof Inspection Using A Face-Based Approach, Paul Sponagle

Theses

The rapid proliferation of consumer small unmanned aerial systems (sUASs) has expanded ownership to include amateurs and professionals alike. These platforms in combination with numerous open source and proprietary applications tailored to gather aerial imagery and generate 3D point clouds and meshes from aerial imagery, have made 3D modeling available to anyone who can afford an entry-level sUAS. These flight plans force the sensor to remain at greater distances from their targets, resulting in varying spatial resolution of sloped surfaces. The work described here explains the development of a variety of 3D automated flight plans to provide vantage points not …

Minimization Of Energy Costs Considering Demand Charge Under Time Of Use And Real Time Pricing Policies, Jose Carlos Batista Abikarram

Theses

Industries are aware of the costs of high electricity consumption and its impact on the environment. Therefore, significant focus is given on how to reduce the consumption of electricity to lower both the carbon footprint and the cost of electricity. There are two ways of reducing manufacturing electricity costs. One consists of reducing the total demand by having more efficient machines, and the other focuses on minimizing costs in response to pricing structures set by energy companies. These pricing structures change depending on several factors including geographic location. In parts of the United States these structures consist of both a …

Galactic Building Blocks: Searching For Dwarf Galaxies Near And Far, Andrew Lipnicky

Theses

The prevailing model of structure formation that describes how matter is distributed throughout the Universe is known as the Lambda Cold Dark Matter paradigm. A key component of this paradigm is dark matter, which has so far gone undetected in laboratory experiments but is inferred from a wide variety of astrophysical observations. Although the Cold Dark Matter paradigm is extremely successful on large scales, there are significant differences between what computer simulations predict and what we observe on galaxy scales. The purpose of the work presented in this Dissertation is to address some of the issues surrounding the current structure …

Factors Influencing Snap Benefit Acceptance Program Utilization Rates At Farmers Markets, Nicole Howley

Theses

The Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) run under the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food and Nutrition Service is the largest program aimed at addressing food access and hunger in the country. Since the conversion of benefit provision from physical "stamps" to Electronic Benefit Transfer cards (EBT cards), tracking and administering of benefits has become more efficient, but the change has also placed limits on farmers’ and farmers markets’ ability to accept these benefits as payment in exchange for affordable and nutritious food products. Within the past few decades, the federal government, states, cities, and farmers markets across the …

An Evaluation Case Study Investigating The Use Of Haptic Ultrasound Training Devices To Help Clinical Measurement Science Students Conceptualise Diagnostic Ultrasound, Jacinta Browne

Theses

The aim of this project was to investigate the use of a haptic ultrasound training device as a training aid to improve students’ learning, competency and confidence, in the conceptually and technically challenging area of diagnostic ultrasound imaging. The research question was investigated through the use of an evaluative case study using a mixed methods approach, with each method converging to ensure triangulation. The quantitative evaluations of the Multiple Choice Questions, psychometric manipulation test and direct observation of ultrasound scanning manipulation, demonstrated improvements of 12%, 29% and 94%, respectively between pre- and post-training performance. The qualitative evaluation of students’ confidence …

Comparing Economic, Environmental, And Social Effects Of Central Air Conditioner Size And Thermostat Schedule Interactions, Briana Elizabeth Amoroso

Theses

Selecting the capacity of a central air conditioning (AC) system is based on a long list of structural factors within a home, but is normally chosen without considering effects on stakeholders outside of the home. Energy use by residential air conditioners is relevant to consumers as an expense, but also to utilities as a contributor to peak demand and to society by the resultant carbon dioxide and other emissions. In this article, we investigate how size and operational patterns of central residential air conditioners interact with stakeholder benefits and costs. The case study analyzes energy use for systems sized from …

Ultra-Shallow Phosphorous Diffusion In Silicon Using Molecular Monolayer Doping, Astha Tapriya

Theses

Controlled doping of semiconductor material with high atomic accuracy and minimum defects in silicon is needed for next generation nanoscale and solar devices. The molecular monolayer doping (MLD) strategy is a novel technique based on the formation of self-assembled monolayer of dopant –containing molecule on surface of crystalline silicon, followed by rapid thermal annealing. MLD helps to form damage free junctions which are conformal. It is capable of nanometer scale control of dopant introduction and formation of ultra-shallow diffused profile. MLD can be used for conventional planar devices, FinFETs and nanowires, since both bottom-up and top-down approaches are feasible making …

Replace, Kyriani Hinkleman

Theses

The work featured in the collection RePlace consists of wearable art jewelry made primarily from found objects that were previously discarded. When the found components are collected, the purpose of their existence is shifted, and continues to change when the objects adopt a new meaning as jewelry. Preciousness of these materials is enhanced based on their emotional attachment to memories and their relationship to place and experiences. Focused on connecting a viewer to an experience and memory through wearable pieces, scenes and compositions were created by combining found objects with hand-fabricated structures.

By exploring materials foreign to traditional metalsmithing techniques, …

Symbolic And Visual Retrieval Of Mathematical Notation Using Formula Graph Symbol Pair Matching And Structural Alignment, Kenny Davila Castellanos

Theses

Large data collections containing millions of math formulae in different formats are available on-line. Retrieving math expressions from these collections is challenging. We propose a framework for retrieval of mathematical notation using symbol pairs extracted from visual and semantic representations of mathematical expressions on the symbolic domain for retrieval of text documents. We further adapt our model for retrieval of mathematical notation on images and lecture videos. Graph-based representations are used on each modality to describe math formulas. For symbolic formula retrieval, where the structure is known, we use symbol layout trees and operator trees. For image-based formula retrieval, since …

O’Whahsa’ - Protection, Comfort And Healing, Leah Shenandoah

Theses

Leah Shenandoah is an Oneida Nation multimedia artist, musician and scholar who conveys the concepts of protection, comfort and healing through music, sculpture, jewelry and fashion. On May 6, 2011, "O'whahsa'" which translates to "hood" in the Onya'ta:aka Oneida language, was presented at the Hungerford Building in Rochester, NY. Over 250 attendees witnessed a transcendental space consisting of: five sculptures made of fabric stretched over a welded steel rod armature-painted in a vibrant and impressionistic fashion; five sets of clothing and jewelry worn by Shenandoah and four dancers; smoke, fog, multi-colored lights and a 45-minute set of original songs written …