Digital Commons Network^™

Assessing Ecological Correlates Of Avian Disease Prevalence In The Galapagos Islands Using Gis And Remote Sensing, Shane Robert Siers

Theses

In recognition of the potential consequences of pathogen introduction to the Galapagos Islands, the Saint Louis Zoo and the University of Missouri¿Saint Louis, in cooperation with the Galapagos National Park Service and the Charles Darwin Research Station, implemented an avian disease surveillance program in 2001, with the objective of identifying and monitoring for pathogens that pose risk for native bird populations. The purpose of this thesis is identify environmental factors that might influence the geographic distribution of avian pathogen infection, based on two data sets obtained as a result of these surveillance efforts: 1) seroprevalence data on 10 common poultry …

Modio - Interactive Sound Visualization, Kwon Hyouck Jin

Theses

The word “Modio” is a compound word of Motion and Audio, which I coined for this thesis. The intent of this thesis is an interactive installation project that will explore and convert musical elements into visual elements, which will lead to various responses to the change caused by users’ interaction.

East Meets West, Hiroshi Yamano

Theses

Describes the development of the artist's style in creating glass art over the past twenty-plus years, and talks of how his native Japanese culture has influenced his art. Also discusses themes within his current art, including fish in motion and Japanese flower arrangement.

Pbs Transition From Analog To Digital Tv Broadcasting: The Human Perspective, Carolyn Colborn

Theses

The purpose of this project is to examine a subset of Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) stations in how they made their transition to digital broadcasting to: 1. Identify candidate best practices for successfully transitioning from analog to digital broadcasting, 2. Make recommendations on how to educate the viewing audience on adapting, understanding, and utilizing Digital TV (DTV), and 3. Identify possible areas where further research might assist in a better understanding of how to manage change effectively.

Vehicle & Infrastructure Relationships In Hydrogen Transportation Networks: Development Of The H2vision Modeling Tool, Patrick Meyer

Theses

The political instability of acquiring oversea oil resources, the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and the desire for inexpensive energy have recently driven a shift of focus towards hydrogen energy. It has become increasingly evident that there are significant barriers facing the development of a hydrogen-based energy system – a system commonly referred to as the “hydrogen economy”. The small quantities of hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that have been deployed to date are not numerous enough to facilitate the growth of a substantial refueling infrastructure. Additionally, the underdeveloped and extremely limited infrastructure has imposed significant convenience costs upon consumers. …

Green Power In Green Spaces: Policy Options To Promote Renewable Energy Use In U.S. National Parks, Erin Green

Theses

The National Park Service (NPS) has a mission of sustainability: to conserve its resources for the enjoyment of future generations. The mission implies the use of sustainable technologies. In order to best make use of sustainable energy technologies, the NPS must have an understanding of the most significant barriers inhibiting such technologies’ use. The purpose of this research is to identify barriers to renewable energy technologies (RETs) at U.S. national parks located in the Pacific West Region (PWR), and to develop recommendations for appropriate policy interventions to address the barriers. A survey of energy managers representing the approximately 50 parks …

Preliminary Finite Element Modeling Of A Piezoelectric Actuated Marine Propulsion Fin, Andrew Streett

Theses

New technologies surrounding composite materials and autonomous underwater vehicle (AUV) design have led to numerous studies involving the marine propulsion for these AUVs. AUVs traditionally are classified as highly efficient, payload capable, and can be utilized as reconnaissance or surveillance vehicles. Undullatory and oscillatory propulsion devices have been conceived to replace the present propulsion technologies, of propellers, with highly maneuverable, efficient, and quiet propulsion systems. Undullatory and oscillatory propulsion has been around for centuries employed by aquatic life, but only recently have the mini-technologies been available to present such propulsion devices economically and with enough materials research as to mimic …

An Auditory Classifier Employing A Wavelet Neural Network Implemented In A Digital Design, Jonathan Hughes

Theses

This thesis addresses the problem of classifying audio as either voice or music. The goal was to solve this problem by means of digital logic circuit, capable of performing the classification in real time. Since digital audio is essentially a discrete non-periodic timeseries, it was necessary to extract features from the audio which are suitable for classification. The discrete wavelet transform combined with a feature extraction method was found to produce such features. The task of classifying these features was found to be best performed by an artificial neural network. Collectively known as a wavelet neural network, the digital logic …

The Impact Of Homeland Politics On The National Identity Of Palestinians Reflected In The Diaspora, Mouna Marie Abraham

Theses

Homeland politics shaped Arab and Palestinian nationalism over the course of three political administrations in historic Palestine. Policy administered under the Ottoman Empire and the British Mandate directly affected the national identity of the indigenous population. Just before the creation of the State of Israel in 1948, 'Palestinian' came to refer to the Muslim and Christian majority, and excluded the Jewish minority, as a consequence of homeland politics. This study focuses on the impact of these policies on emigrants from Palestine under the Ottoman Authority, the British Mandate, and after the creation of the State ofIsrael in 1948. The political …

Manet Protocol Stack Testing Using Wireless Emulation Platform, Amish Rughoonundon

Theses

Wireless networks have become more important in today's world of hassle free communication. These networks have been used increasingly in critical applications in the medical field and in the army. The ability to remotely reprogram the devices has been especially important if a user did not have easy access to the device. Reprogramming required the ability to route the packet properly as well as reduce packet loss to a minimum. Such protocols would be used with critical applications and would need to be tested in an environment as close to the real one as possible. This thesis consisted of the …

Design And Development Of A Radiation Hardened Color Video Sensor Charge Injection Device Chip, Denis A. Baiko

Theses

Voltage response of an active CID pixel is analyzed in detail theoretically. The linearity of the photo-response is assessed in destructive and non-destructive read-out modes of operation. The theoretical findings are illustrated by experimental data obtained from a test chip fabricated in 0.18 [micron] process. The test chip contained over 2400 active CID pixel structures with different geometries. The analysis is shown to be in good agreement with the experimental results. The charge injection device, CID25, is presented. CID25 is a color video sensor compliant with the NTSC TV standard. It has 484 by 710 displayable pixels and is capable …

"No One At The Bridge", Jeffery J. Lester

Theses

Not Included

Potential Field Based Approach For Multi-Threat Containment With Cooperative Robots, Bhushan Mehendale

Theses

Target or threat containment is a process where a team of robots forms a particular formation around a target so that it gets engulfed in it. The robots under consideration run decentralized Swarm-Algorithms that make them cooperate with each other using their local sensing capabilities. Previous work in this area has dealt with robot formations and single threat containment where the target is either fixed or dynamic. In either case the same targets exist throughout the containment process. The challenge is to use such collaborative robots to contain multiple targets that appear at random times, and expire after some time. …

Zoom Techniques For Achieving Scale Invariant Object Tracking In Real-Time Active Vision Systems, Eric Nelson

Theses

In a surveillance system, a camera operator follows an object of interest by moving the camera, then gains additional information about the object by zooming. As the active vision field advances, the ability to automate such a system is nearing fruition. One hurdle limiting the use of object recognition algorithms in real-time systems is the quality of captured imagery; recognition algorithms often have strict scale and position requirements where if those parameters are not met, the performance rapidly degrades to failure. The ability of an automatic fixation system to capture quality video of an accelerating target is directly related to …

Transrectal Ultrasound Image Processing For Brachytherapy Applications, Varsha Sampath

Theses

In this thesis, we propose a novel algorithm for detecting needles and their corresponding implanted radioactive seed locations in the prostate. The seed localization process is carried out efficiently using separable Gaussian filters in a probabilistic Gibbs random field framework. An approximation of the needle path through the prostate volume is obtained using a polynomial fit. The seeds are then detected and assigned to their corresponding needles by calculating local maxima of the voronoi region around the needle position. In our experiments, we were able to successfully localize over 85% of the implanted seeds. Furthermore, as a regular part of …

Using Social Stories To Teach On-Task Behavior And Participation Skills With Children On The Autism Spectrum, Melanie Washburn

Theses

Social stories are written and individually tailored to provide individuals with autism with accurate social information to address their deficit areas (Gray, 2000). The purpose of this study was to assess the effectiveness of a social story intervention in increasing socially desirable behavior with two young boys diagnosed with Autism Spectrum Disorder (ASD). The following dependent variables were considered: (la) body and eye contact, (lb) staying on the topic, and (2) disruptive and perseverative behavior in the classroom. For both participants, there was an increase in social appropriate behavior and a decrease in disruptive behavior over the course of eight …

Thin/Cambered/Reflexed Airfoil Development For Micro-Air Vehicles At Reynolds Numbers Of 60,000 To 150,000, Michael Reid

Theses

Previous micro-air vehicle research has addressed thin/cambered/reflexed airfoils on an application specific basis, relying heavily on the shape characteristics of previously designed airfoils. The motivation of the current research is to determine the relationship that exists between thin/cambered/reflexed airfoil performance and the defining airfoil shape parameters to improve future airfoil designs. An emphasis is placed on the effect each airfoil shape parameter has on the overall airfoil performance and the effect of the interdependence of each shape parameter. Maximum coefficient of lift, stall angle of attack, maximum coefficient of lift/coefficient of drag and the angle of attack at which it …

A Theoretical Eye Model For Uncalibrated Real-Time Eye Gaze Estimation, Justin Hnatow

Theses

Computer vision systems that monitor human activity can be utilized for many diverse applications. Some general applications stemming from such activity monitoring are surveillance, human-computer interfaces, aids for the handicapped, and virtual reality environments. For most of these applications, a non-intrusive system is desirable, either for reasons of covertness or comfort. Also desirable is generality across users, especially for humancomputer interfaces and surveillance. This thesis presents a method of gaze estimation that, without calibration, determines a relatively unconstrained user’s overall horizontal eye gaze. Utilizing anthropometric data and physiological models, a simple, yet general eye model is presented. The equations that …

Design And Fabrication Of Silicon On Insulator Optical Waveguide Devices, Eric Harvey

Theses

In this thesis we present design, fabrication and testing of several photonic devices on a silicon-on-insulator (SOI) substrate. The historical developments in micro-optic technology including problems it has faced and its current state of maturity is outlined. The most recent integration trends of electronics and optics, particularly the transition of micro-optics to silicon on insulator platform will be reviewed. With this foundation in silicon photonics several rib waveguide structures including directional couplers, WDM couplers, y-branches and MMI splitters are designed, simulated, and fabricated on an SOI substrate. Beam propagation method (BPM) was used in the modeling of these devices. Computation …

A Sub 1v Bandgap Reference Circuit, Ashish Digvadekar

Theses

This thesis proposes a novel technique for a low supply voltage temperature-independent reference voltage. With the scaling of supply voltages, the threshold voltages don’t scale proportionally and thus low supply reference circuits have replaced the conventional bandgap reference circuit. The first chapter of this work discusses the conventional bandgap references (The Widlar and Brokaw references). The terminology used in the bandgap world is introduced here. The second chapter investigates the existing low supply voltage reference circuits with their advantages and the limitations. A table discussing all the investigated circuits is provided towards the end of the chapter as a summary. …

Food Habits Of A Re-Introduced River Otter (Lontra Canadensis) Population In Western New York- Annual Diet, Temporal And Spatial Variation In Diet And Prey Selection Conclusions, Melissa Skyer

Theses

River otters were re-introduced to Western New York by the Department of Environmental Conservation between 1995 and 2000. The success of this population relies heavily on the availability of suitable prey. Diet was investigated via frequency of prey occurence in scats from 2004-2006. Overall diet was comprised mostly of fish and crayfish. The major fish taxa were Centrarchidae (sunfish), Cyprinidae (carp), and Salmonidae (trout); less common were Esocidae (pike and Castostomidae (sucker). All fish species combined ocurred at 100% frequency during the winter and spring months, but declined during the summer and fall. Sunfish prey were at their highest frequency …

Fault-Tolerant Design Of Rf Front-End Circuits, Tejasvi Das

Theses

The continuing trends of scaling in the CMOS industry have, inevitably, been accompanied by an ever-increasing array of process faults and fabrication complexities. The relentless march towards miniaturization and massive integration, in addition to increasing operating frequencies has resulted in increasing concerns about the reliability of integrated RF front-ends. Coupled with rising cost per chip, the fault-tolerant paradigm has become pertinent in the RFIC domain. Two main reasons have contributed to the fact that fault-tolerant solutions for circuits that operate in the GHz domain have not been realized so far. First, GHz signals are extremely sensitive to higher-order effects such …

Inspiration, Wan-Chun Lee

Theses

Not Included

Shinies, Seth Mccaughey

Theses

Not Included

The Winner, Sheng Jin

Theses

A descriptive narration of a project to create a 3-D animated action-adventure film set near the end of the Tang dynasty in China, featuring both human warriors and reptile warriors. Includes detailed discussion of the techniques used for character and environment design. Also includes storyboard, screen shots, and a DVD of the film.

Modification Of A Longitudinal Load Cell Balance And An Experimental Study Of Winglet Effects On Stall For Application To Micro Air Vehicles, Aaron J. Grilly

Theses

Interest in Micro Air Vehicles (MAVs) has increased in recent years. The ability of small craft to fly covert surveillance missions or carry some other sensory payload while providing real-time information has sparked the growth of research in the field. The Rochester Institute of Technology has the capacity to facilitate MAV research. RIT's subsonic wind tunnel is capable of obtaining the low-speed flow to obtain the testing Reynolds numbers of 75,000 to 200,000. This research focused on the repair work of the longitudinal piezoelectric load cell balance. The balance had not been maintained properly and needed many repairs. Once modifications …

0.35um Implementation Of An Experimental Mixed Signal Image Compression Circuit, Reema Divatia

Theses

Switched-current is an analog, discrete in time, signal processing technique that is fully compatible with any digital CMOS technology. This means that analog circuits can be realized together with digital components on a single chip without any additional technological processes. In designs implemented using the switched-current technique, the individual circuit elements interact by the means of currents, which allows to reduce voltage swings and thus power consumption. This work investigated the implementation of a low power mixed signal image compression system in TSMC 0.35um technology. The major components of this system were two dimensional discrete cosine transform processor, analog to …

Dem Simulated Floor Pressure Induced By A Granular Column, Shawn A. Chester

Theses

At the end of the 19th century, H. A. Janssen discovered that the bottom floor pressure in a cylindrical container of granular material asymptotes exponentially to a value less than the weight of the material i.e., the pressure becomes independent of the fill height of the column. This phenomenon is investigated using discrete element simulations of inelastic, frictional spheres in a cylindrical vessel having a particle-to-cylinder diameter ratio at approximately 13.3 or 26.6, with varying bed heights in both cases. The axial pressure profile and the load experienced by a piston that is supporting the granular column are computed. In …

Earthshine : Photometry, Modeling, And Spectral Observations, Jeffrey Patrick Hickey

Theses

The Earthshine group has been making sustained observations of the Earthshine from Big Bear Solar Observatory in California since late 1998. There have also been intermittent observations from 1994-5. High and low resolution Earthshine spectral observations have also been under taken at Palomar Observatory since 1999. The group has re-invigorated and modernized a nearly forgotten way of measuring the Earth's albedo, and hence its energy balance, previously studied by Danjon (and his followers) for about twenty-five years early in the last century, using their observations of the Earthshine from France. This is an overview paper covering observations, reductions, simulations, and …

Fpga-Based Implementation Of Parallel Graph Partitioning, Mohammad Kharashgeh

Theses

Graph partitioning is a very important application that can be found in numerous areas, from finite element methods to data processing and VLSI circuit design. Many algorithms have been developed to solve this problem. Of special interest is multilevel graph partitioning that provides a very efficient solution. This method can also be parallelized and implemented on various multiprocessor architectures. Unfortunately, the target of such implementations is often unavailable high-end multiprocessor systems. Here a parallel version of this method for an in-house developed multiprocessor system is implemented on an FPGA. The system designed provides a cost-effective solution.

The design is based …