Digital Commons Network^™

Analysis And Optimization Methods Of Graph Based Meta-Models For Data Flow Simulation, Jeffrey Harrison Goldsmith

Theses

Data flow simulation models are often used for the modeling and analysis of complex dynamic systems. Although traditional analysis methods such as design of experiments or optimization methods can be applied directly to data flow simulation models, applying these techniques to complex systems with large numbers of controllable inputs and performance measures may not be able to be completed in an acceptable amount of time. This research focuses on the development of optimization and analysis methods applied to graph-based meta-models of data flow simulation models. The goal of this research is to create a method that can efficiently determine the …

Event-Driven Molecular Dynamics Simulations Of Protein Mixtures, Marek Cyran

Theses

The structure of liquids is central to their thermodynamic properties and is described in a probabilistic manner. The structure is a consequence of the forces between the molecules and may be investigated with the use of many techniques. One of these techniques is the use of computer simulation, and in particular the techniques are called Monte Carlo Statistical Thermodynamic simulation, and Molecular Dynamics. In this thesis we construct a program that is capable of carrying out Event-Driven Molecular Dynamics simulation of mixtures of particles that have stepwise constant pair potential energies. We have implemented our simulation for the case of …

Identification Of Disease Resistance Networks In Maize Involved In Resistance To Aspergillus Flavus And To Aflatoxin Accumulation, Aparna Natarajan

Theses

Aspergillus flavusis a filamentous fungusthat causes an ear and kernel rot in maize (Zea mays L.). It produces a toxic secondary metabolite, aflatoxin, on the colonized maize kernels. Aflatoxin is a carcinogen to humans and animals. The toxin is also an immunosuppressant and causes aspergillosis in immune compromised individuals. Therefore, the presence of aflatoxin in food is strictly regulated by governmental agencies. Contaminated food leads to severe loss in profit and in marketable yield. There has been extensive research to investigate resistance of maize toA. flavus. Certain lines of maize exhibit increased resistance to A. flavus and aflatoxin accumulation compared …

Improved Approximations For Flows Of Thin Films, Christine Elizabeth Lowry

Theses

Film flow equations are simplified equations for modeling the flow of thin liquid films. They are ordinary differential equations in terms of the film thickness. Typically, the boundary-layer approximation to the Navier-Stokes equation is employed, a velocity profile is assumed, and conservation of momentum then yields a film equation. Surface tension is usually important in which case the film equations are third order. Existing film equations are adequate when the substrate is not moving and when the substrate is moving in the absence of inertial effects. These equations are deficient in the important case of a moving substrate when inertia …

Stereoscopic Particle Image Velocimetry Analysis Of Healthy And Emphysemic Acinus Models, Emily Jean Berg

Theses

Inhaled particles reaching the alveolar walls have the potential to cross the blood gas barrier and enter the blood stream. Pulmonary dosimetry, however, is not well understood. Numerical and experimental studies shed some light on the mechanisms of particle transport, but realistic geometries have not been investigated. In order to accurately predict particle deposition, the characteristics that affect deposition need to be understood. This includes, but is not limited to, fluid flow, lung morphology, breathing conditions, and particle concentration. Various geometries have been used for research, but very few are close representations to in vivo geometry. Most studies have used …

Relating Multimodal Imagery Data In 3d, Karl C. Walli

Theses

This research develops and improves the fundamental mathematical approaches and techniques required to relate imagery and imagery derived multimodal products in 3D. Image registration, in a 2D sense, will always be limited by the 3D effects of viewing geometry on the target. Therefore, effects such as occlusion, parallax, shadowing, and terrain/building elevation can often be mitigated with even a modest amounts of 3D target modeling. Additionally, the imaged scene may appear radically different based on the sensed modality of interest; this is evident from the differences in visible, infrared, polarimetric, and radar imagery of the same site. This thesis develops …

Validation Of 3d Radiative Transfer In Coastal-Ocean Water Systems As Modeled By Dirsig, Jacqueline Amy Speir

Theses

The radiative transfer equation (RTE) is a mathematical description of radiative gains and losses experienced by a propagating electromagnetic wave in a participating medium. Except for an isotropic lossless vacuum, all other volumes have the potential to scatter, absorb and emit radiant energy. Of these possible events, the global scattering term is the greatest obstacle between a radiative transfer problem and its solution. Historically, the RTE has been solved using a host of analytical approximations and numerical methods. Typical solution models exploit plane-parallel assumptions where it is assumed that optical properties may vary vertically with depth, but have an infinite …

Refinement Of The Method For Using Pseudo-Invariant Sites For Long Term Calibration Trending Of Landsat Reflective Bands, Clifton R. Anderson

Theses

The long term calibration history of the Landsat 5 TM instrument has recently been defined using a time series of desert sites in Northern Africa. This correction is based on the assumption that the atmosphere is invariant and the reflectance of each site is approximately constant and Lambertian over time. As a result, the top of the atmosphere reflection is assumed constant when corrected for variations in the solar elevation angle and earth-sun distance. While this is true to first order and is the basis for all current temporal calibration, there are multiple known sources of residual error in the …

Fusing Small-Footprint Waveform Lidar And Hyperspectral Data For Canopy-Level Species Classification And Herbaceous Biomass Modeling In Savanna Ecosystems, Diane Sarrazin

Theses

The study of ecosystem structure, function, and composition has become increasingly important in order to gain a better understanding of how impacts wrought by natural disturbances, climate, and human activity can alter ecosystem services provided to a population. Research groups at Rochester Institute of Technology and Carnegie Institution for Science are focusing on characterization of savanna ecosystems and are using data from the Carnegie Airborne Observatory (CAO), which integrates advanced imaging spectroscopy and waveform light detection and ranging (wLiDAR) data. This component of the larger ecosystem project has as a goal the fusion of imaging spectroscopy and small-footprint wLiDAR data …

A Systems Level Characterization And Tradespace Evaluation Of A Simulated Airborne Fourier Transform Infrared Spectrometer For Gas Detection, Aaron Weiner

Theses

The remote sensing gas detection problem is one with no straightforward solution. While success has been achieved in detecting and identifying gases released from industrial stacks and other large plumes, the fugituve gas detection problem is far more complex. Fugitive gas represents a far smaller target and may be generated by leaking pipes, vents, or small scale chemical production. The nature of fugitive gas emission is such that one has no foreknowledge of the location, quantity, or transient rate of the targeted effluent which requires one to cover a broad area with high sensitivity. In such a scenario, a mobile …

Analysis And Design Of An Intra-Coaxial Reflected-Power Telemetry System, Jeffrey Kemp

Theses

Failures of connectors used in radio frequency (RF) systems cost the telecom industry, mainly cellular phone providers, billions of dollars annually. This cost is incurred because the integrity of the connectors cannot currently be monitored in-system and failure results in catastrophic signal loss. The Smart Connector project aims to solve this problem by designing a connector with the capability to sense and report its own integrity. An integrated sensor chip has been developed that mounts on a molded inter-connect device inside of a coaxial cable connector. The current prototype system uses a direct connection to the chip to send the …

The Relation Of Elementary Students’ Academic Self-Concept Of Reading To Grade Level, Achievement, And Teacher Perceptions, Jessica M. Diehl

Theses

The present study examined the relationships among grade level, students' reading achievement, teacher perceptions of student ability, and students' reading self-concept beliefs. Spearman correlations and independent samples t-tests were used to determine the relationships, if any, among these variables. Results revealed significant relationships between student and teacher perceptions of reading ability and students' actual reading achievement. A significant difference was also found between first and fifth grade students with respect to reading competency beliefs. Implications of the findings are discussed.

Concept Mapping: A Visual Learning Strategy Benefiting Post-Secondary Deaf And Hard Of Hearing Accounting Students, Michael E. Kane

Theses

Conventional wisdom in the world of academics holds that concept maps are tools useful only for science classes. Not so! Concept maps – also known as advanced organizers, graphic organizers, concept trees, visual maps, flowcharts, diagrams and mind-mapping – can be meaningful strategies for students who learn about technical accounting aspects discussed in the business classroom. Many educators promote concept maps – a component of visual learning – as an ideal teaching and learning strategy in the classroom due to its visual nature of organizing information and indicating relationships within that information.

Action research involving concept maps was conducted in …

Historic Thermal Calibration Of Landsat 4 Tm Through An Improved Physics Based Approach, Jonathan Miller

Theses

This work is intended to establish the calibration of the Thematic Mapper (TM) sensor, thermal band (band 6) aboard the Landsat 4 Spacecraft. Due to multiple organizations having operational control of the spacecraft and a lack of historical calibration data, a physics based approach will be used to calibrate the thermal data recorded over water during the operational lifetime of the spacecraft, which spanned 1983-1993. Using historical data from weather station observations, Radiosonde instruments, and moored weather buoys owned and operated by the National Data Buoy Center (NDBC), a ground truth comparison can be calculated and propagated through the atmosphere …

Assessment Of Healthcare Waste Management In The Uae With Emphasis On Radioactive Waste, Maryem Ahmad Joan Al-Dahiri

Theses

During coastline cleaning campaign carried out in the UAE in 1993, various amounts of waste classified as medical waste were identified. As a result, public concern has been raised concerning the handling and disposal of medical waste in the country. Despite that, little work has been conducted to assess medical waste management in the UAE and no published work has been found that assesses the management of radioactive medical waste. The main objective of this research was to assess the process of implementation of medical waste management applied at major hospitals in the UAE in comparison with the guidelines established …

Impact Of Traffic On Ambient Air Quality In Al Ain City – Uae, Saleh Mohamed Al Saqaf Bani Hashim

Theses

Road traffic is considered a major source of air pollution in congested areas. The number of vehicles in Al Ain city has increased over the last seven years due to population and economic growth. The rapid growth in motor vehicles in Al Ain could contribute to an increased level of urban air pollution that may threaten human health, damage ecosystems and influence climate. No study has been conducted to assess the effects of roadway traffic on air quality in the city of Al Ain. Such study will further be useful as a baseline for future planning and development of the …

Modification Of An Asynchronous Dexterous Hand Movement Decoder For Hardware Implementation, Adam Kevin Bosen

Theses

One of the goals of modern prosthetics research is to provide natural, neurologically driven control of a prosthetic device, preferably in a portable format. Previously, an algorithm for asynchronously decoding individuated finger and wrist movements from recordings of neural activity in the primary motor cortex was developed by Aggarwal et al. and implemented in software. The first objective of this work was to determine what effect simplifying Aggarwal's algorithm by using linear Artificial neural networks instead of nonlinear ones would have on movement detection and classification accuracy. The simplified algorithm developed in this work was demonstrated to achieve movement detection …

Web-Based Portfolio Assessment : An Open Source Solution For Platform Design, Regina Collins

Theses

Summative assessments of student writing performance have been instrumental in the evaluation of student ability and analysis of educational programs. One method used to perform summative assessments of writing performance in post-secondary education is through the evaluation of student portfolios. Using an evidence-centered design approach, NJIT faculty researchers have developed rubrics to measure the acquired skills of students. Classroom instructors from the department meet periodically to score the students' portfolios containing constructed responses to predetermined writing tasks. The paper-based assessments are then manually key-stroked into Microsoft Excel for storage, with the scores then analyzed in SPSS and SAS.

This thesis …

Type-1 Diabetes Risk Prediction Using Multiple Kernel Learning, Paras Garg

Theses

This thesis presents an analysis of multiple kernel learning (MKL) for type-1 diabetes risk prediction. MKL combines different models and representation of data to find a linear combination of these representations of the data. MKL has been successfully been implemented in image detection, splice site detection, ribosomal and membrane protein prediction, etc. In this thesis, this method was applied for Genome-wide association study (GWAS) for classifying cases and controls.

This thesis has shown that combined kernel does not perform better than the individual kernels and that MKL does not select the best model for this problem. Also, the effect of …

Design Of Drug Delivery Strategies Based On Well-Stirred Experiments, Kumud Kanneganti

Theses

Drugs are generally administered to the human body via injections (IV) or through other paths such as the buccal, nasal routes. The main consideration when designing a medication schedule is to maintain a therapeutic level of the drug in the body during the course of treatment. To achieve this goal, when IV drug therapy is selected, particular importance has to given to the dose to be injected and how to maintain the concentration of the pharmaceutical active ingredient (API) in the body between a Minimum Toxic Concentration (MTC) and a Minimum Effective Concentration (MEC). This therapeutic range varies with the …

A Study Of Probability Distributions Of Dct Coefficients In Jpeg Compression, Gopal Thirumalai Narayanan

Theses

The Discrete Cosine Transform (DCT) used in JPEG compression has shown excellent energy compaction properties that rival that of the ideal Karhunen-Loève Transform. Lossy compression in JPEG is achieved by distorting 8x8 block DCT coefficients through quantization. It has been shown in literature that DC block DCT coefficients are Gaussian probability distributed and AC block DCT coefficients are Generalized Normal probability distributed.

In this investigation, three probability density models for individual modes of non- quantized AC block DCT coefficients are evaluated and are used as basis for the derivation of probability distributions for quantized block DCT coefficients. The suitability of …

Study Of Methods To Predict Voltage Collapse, Niki Patel

Theses

One of the problems that must be addressed for a secure power system operation is the voltage collapse problem. The ever increasing size and connectivity of the power grid have lead to making the problem more multifarious. Widespread blackouts, similar to the one that occurred in the northeast in August 2003, could result from failure to address the problem.

This thesis presents an overview of the voltage collapse problem and reviews some existing methods to calculate voltage collapse indicators.

Thevenin and Maximum Power Transfer Theorems are used to provide indicators of the proximity of the system to voltage collapse. The …

Air Piston Approach To Wave Power Generation, Arun Ramadass

Theses

Scientists have calculated that, by tapping just 0.2% of the energy produced by the world's oceans we can provide for all the worlds current energy needs. It is generally accepted that a combination of traditional energy production methods, (oil, coal, gas, nuclear) mixed with a combination of renewable energy production approaches is the future in providing for an increasingly energy hungry world. Wind, solar and biomass have moved into the public arena only in the last few years.

The proposed patented device (US Patent No.: 7,468,563) Ocean Wave Energy Converter harnesses the energy of ocean waves by continually raising and …

A Comparison Of Software Engines For Simulation Of Closed-Loop Control Systems, Sanket D. Nikam

Theses

A wide array of control system design and simulation software engines is available in market. It includes MATLAB-Simulink, LabVIEW, Maple-MapleSim, Scilab-Scicos, VisSim and Mathematica-Control Professional Suite (CPS). Among all of them MATLAB-Simulink is dominant and widely used software engine. The main aim of this study is to implement different state space control methods for non-linear Furuta pendulum system in each one of them and to compare performance against MATLAB-Simulink.

Different parameters like learning curve, interoperability, flexibility, control design tools, documentation and tech support are considered for efficiency comparison. It is shown that MapleSim has multi-body intuitive physical modeling (acausal) approach …

Stochastic And Deterministic Dynamics Investigation Of The Microstructure Of Granular Materials, Vishagan Ratnaswamy

Theses

Granular materials are ubiquitous in one's daily life. They can be found in the cereal you eat, the sugar you put in your coffee or the sand you walk on in the beach. The study of granular materials has a rich history dating back to the 17th century where Kepler studied the packing of particles. The compaction of granular materials is a problem that is studied by using theory, experiments and simulations. While these studies have yielded some important results, there still are many details about the mechanisms of granular compaction that are unknown.

In this thesis, the density relaxation …

Exploiting The Concept Of Hysteresis In Ankle Dysfunction And Ankle Strengthening, Akshay Narendra Pujara

Theses

The ankle joint is an important part of the body which is responsible for normal gait cycle. Dorsiflexion, plantar flexion, inversion and eversion are four types of movements controlled by the ankle joint. All these movements are controlled by the ligaments and the muscles associated with the ankle. Disorders of these ligaments and muscles leads to ankle dysfunction.

The hysteresis concept was employed to determine if there is any ankle dysfunction. A recently developed device, the Ankle Torsion Monitor (AnTm) was employed to evaluate the viscoelasticity and stiffness of the ankle joint. The greater the hysteresis loop area (HLA) the …

Automation Of Anatomic Torsion Monitor For Evaluation And Improvement Of Low Back Dysfunction, Vishal Kumar Singh

Theses

The existing Anatomical Torsion Monitor (ATM) to evaluate mechanical stiffness and viscoelasticity of the low back suffers from various inherent defects. This has to be replaced by an improved device. Also the existing ATM cannot provide oscillations to the low back.

The main objective is to automate the existing ATM for evaluating the low back immediately using objective methods. The specific objective is to provide oscillations for improving the low back dysfunction.

The laser platform and the target chart for recording the readings are dispensed with the existing ATM. Instead, the ultrasound transducers are attached to the pads to record …

An Integer Linear Programming Formulation For Tiling Large Rectangles Using 4 X 6 And 5 X 7 Tiles, Grant Dietert

Theses

We consider the problem of tiling large rectangles using smaller rectangles with the prescribed dimensions 4 x 6 and 5 x 7. Problem B-3 on the 1991 William Lowell Putnam Examination asked "Does there exist a natural number L such that if m and n are integers greater than L, then an m x n rectangle may be expressed as a union of 4 x 6 and 5 x 7 rectangles, any two intersect at most along their boundaries?" Narayan and Schwenk showed in 2002 that all rectangles with length and width at least 34 can be partitioned into 4 …

Taking The Punch: Utilizing Unfortunate Circumstances To Reexamine Personal Identity, David Schnuckel

Theses

In this Thesis I will discuss my current body of work in regards to my interest in the essence of human fallibility and its role within personal transformation. In referencing historical glass, contemporary craft, and popular culture I discuss the virtues of crafting the mishap and of utilizing imagery within a sculptural context. The investigation questions what establishes personal identity and finds answers by reexamining my own within my studio practice.

Rank Numbers For Graphs With Paths And Cycles, Jacqueline Mcclive

Theses

A coloring of a graph, G, is an assignment of positive integers to the vertices of the graph with one number assigned to each vertex, so that adjacent vertices are assigned different numbers. A k-ranking of a graph is a coloring that uses {1, 2, ..., k} with the requirement that every path between any two vertices labeled with the same number contains a vertex with a higher label. The rank number of a graph, denoted [chi]r(G), is the smallest k such that G has a k-ranking. In this paper we seek rank numbers for four specific families of graphs. …