Digital Commons Network^™

General Parallel-Leg Mechanism : Position Analysis, Hans Buus Gangwar

Theses

This thesis proposes to analytically express the positions of the legs (each leg has a length and two spin orientations) for a parallel leg mechanism in terms of a single variable. The only limitations imposed are the leg bases are all on the same reference plane and the tool orientation is normal to the mobile upper plate. This is done for a parallel leg mechanism having any number of legs. The variable chosen is the first leg's vertex position on the upper plate.

The state space is the space the configuration can occupy. By looking at a planar slice of …

Post-Cracking Tensile Properties Of Advanced Cementitious Materials And Ductility Of High Performance Concrete Beams, Wonsiri Punurai

Theses

In present direct tension tests, the complete stress-deformation curves, the resulting energy dissipated by damage, and the fracture energy of different types of cementitious composites, namely plain concrete, high strength concrete, normal fibrous concrete, high strength fibrous concrete, are studied and a ductility factor is calculated. It has been found that with the increasing strength of concrete due to the addition of the pozzoians such as silica fume and fly ash and when changing from normal strength to high strength, concrete ductility decreases. However, when fibers are combined with these matrices, concrete ductility increases. It is because of ductile steel …

Intelligent Process For Uasb Reactors, Sita Mohan

Theses

The Upflow Anaerobic Sludge Blanket (UASB) reactor is widely used for the anaerobic treatment of concentrated municipal / industrial wastewaters and sludges. Ability to handle high organic loading rates and cost effectiveness are often the most cited merits of the UASB process. Numerous mathematical models have been developed to describe the process and mechanistic phenomena in these systems. However, evidence in the literature of these models having been applied, either as control or diagnostic tools is limited. The use of intelligent process control mechanisms can greatly ease problems associated with operating these reactor systems.

The objective of this study is …

Late Deflation Study : Hemodynamic Effects Of Iab Timing In Humans, Manal Morcos

Theses

Conventional IABP timing deflates 100% of the balloon volume before the onset of left ventricular ejection and has been well established in the literature as a safe and effective method. Yet, recent studies suggest that deflation of the IAB at or near the onset of systole improve myocardial efficiency (Kern, 1999, 1129). To test whether deflation of the JAB at a later deflation time reduces left ventricular workload and enhances coronary perfusion, four timing methods were evaluated in 20 patients: T₁ (100% JAB volume deflated before onset of ejection), T₂ (60% IAB volume deflated before and 40% volume …

Automatic Categorization Of Abstracts Through Bayesian Networks, William Ramirez

Theses

This thesis presents a method for assigning abstracts of Artificial Intelligence papers to their area of the field. The technique is implemented by the use of a Bayesian network where relevant keywords extracted from the abstract being categorized, are entered as evidence and inferencing is made to determine potential subject areas. The structure of the Bayesian network represents the causal relationship between Artificial Intelligence keywords and subject areas. Keyword components of the network are selected from precategorized abstracts. The work reported here is part of a larger project to automatically assign papers to reviewers for Artificial Intelligence conferences. The process …

Development And Testing Of A Simulated Closed Loop Drug Delivery System For Chf Patients Under Milrinone Administration, Runa Shah

Theses

The purpose of this thesis project is the development and testing of a simulated closed loop drug delivery (CLDD) system that consists of a pharmacokinetic, physiological, and feedback-controlling model. The focus of this study is on the control of milrinone inflision to maintain cardiac output at desired setpoint range for patients suffering from congestive heart failure (CHF). The simulated CLDD system is written in VisSim dynamic simulation language for an IBM-compatible PC.

Milrinone pharmacokinetics are represented by a three compartment model. The physiological model consists of the cardiovascular system model linked to the pharmacodynamic submodel of milrinone. The feedback-controlling model …

A Study Of Platinum, Palladium, Bismuth, Copper, And Silver For The Potentiometric Determination Of Chlorine, Maria A. Gottwald

Theses

This research was undertaken to determine which metals would be suitable to be used as electrodes for the determination of the concentration of chlorine in aqueous solutions at various pH levels. Platinum, palladium, bismuth, copper and silver electrodes were constructed and tested to determine their applicability for measuring the concentration of chlorine in drinking water, waste water treatment plant effluent, and swimming pools. Buffer solutions were used which varied in pH from 7 to 8, and in cHorine concentration from 0 to 10 ppm. In addition, the potential variation over time was observed for each electrode in the solutions.

Platinum, …

A Study Of Sound Attenuation Using Sonic Energy Focussed At An Artificial Soil Fracture, Minhaz Bootwala

Theses

Several laws have been passed over the past two decades to control contamination and to remediate already existing contaminated sites. There are a large number of these sites and several ex-situ and in-situ techniques have been developed to decontaminate these sites. These techniques can be quite expensive, especially the ex-situ clean-up operations, and there has always been a need for cheap, quick remediation methods.

This study investigates the attenuation of sound used in the in situ remediation technique coupling Sonic Energy with Pneumatic Fracturing and Vapor Extraction. Preliminary attenuation studies were performed in the laboratory with a microphone made at …

Editing Mpeg2 Video In Compressed Domain, Ren Egawa

Theses

As MPEG2 becomes the heart of most digital video applications, the need to edit an MPEG2 bitstream video in compressed domain has increased. To realize this need, two major technical issues must be resolved: decoder buffer and segment extraction.

In the decoder buffer issue, the edited stream must ensure that the buffer would not overflow or underfiow as the result of the editing. This thesis invented a mathematical model that could describe the editing task and predict the editing effect on the buffer. Based on this model, the thesis then built a method to edit a stream safely. This method …

Measurement Of Microcarrier Weighted Floc Using The Environmental Electron Microscope, Viriya Vithayaveroj

Theses

Utilizing the concept of coagulation in conjunction with the sediment enhancement by microcarrier, the microcarrier process has been demonstrated in a laboratory investigation as an effective and economic operation in removing colloidal particles in an aquatic system. The microcarrier, an inert aluminum silicate particulate (Ottawa Sand) of 53 to 75 micrometers in diameter was used in this study. The interaction between the flocs and the microcarriers plays an important role in the mixing process. The principal objective of this study is to examine the structural interaction between the flocs and the microcarrier.

The study was designed into two stages, the …

A Visualization System For Information Retrieval And Mining In High Dimensional Databases, Xinhuan Zheng

Theses

In this thesis, we present a search engine capable of giving good heuristic answers to the queries on a structural database. A structural database holds structural objects, e.g., protein secondary and tertiary structures, 3D molecules, phylogenetic trees, neuroanatomical networks, parse trees, CAD/CAM parts, and XML documents. Answering queries on such databases often requires solving variants of the graph isomorphism or subisomorphism problems. We also describe a graphic user interface which interacts with users to facilitate visualizing query results. We use 3D molecules (graphs) as illustrating examples, though our prototype is able to handle many other different types of structural data.

Segregation And Flow Characterization In Vibrated Hopper, Thottiam P. Ravichandran

Theses

Experiments and numerical simulation studies were carried. out on vertically vibrated wedge-type hoppers containing binary mixtures for the present research. The studies focussed on segregation analysis of the hopper discharge and the characterization of flow pattern of the binary mixtures in sealed hoppers, over wide ranges of frequency and amplitude of acceleration to determine the effect of these parameters.

The results of segregation study show that vibration promotes segregation of the binary mixtures. However, increase in frequency was found to make the contents of segregated discharge more uniform. Also, increase in wedge angle seemed to help in reducing segregation.

The …

Investigation Of The Relevance Of Heart Rate Variability Changes After Heart Transplantation, Sheeba Arnold

Theses

Heart transplantation has become an established treatment for end-stage heart disease. However, the shortage of donor organs is a major problem and long-term results are limited by allograft rejection. Heart rate variability (HRV) has emerged as a popular noninvasive research tool in cardiology. Analysis of HRV is regarded as a valid technique to assess the sympathovagal balance of the heart. The primary goal of this study was to investigate the relevance of heart rate variability changes after heart transplantation. It was found that spectral analysis of HRV is useful in detecting rejection episodes. Heart transplantation leaves the donor heart denervated. …

Analysis Of Clustering Algorithms For Spike Sorting Of Multiunit Extracellular Recordings, Jayesh Rege

Theses

Various techniques have been considered in the past to identify distinct spike shapes from mulitunit extracellular recording. These techniques involve adaptive filtering techniques or template matching techniques or hierarchical clustering techniques. In this investigation, we have used Principal Component Analysis followed by various clustering techniques to identify distinct spike shapes. The amplitude filter is used to separate spikes from background neuronal activity. The correlation matrix of the spike data is used to compute principal component wave forms. Each spike is thus represented by the coefficients of principal components. Then, We have used agglomorative hierarchical clustering algorithm to perform the initial …

A Thumb On The Scale : Biological Determinism And The Essays Of Stephen Jay Gould, Kevin F. Ryan

Theses

Biological determinism is a field of scientific theory that attributes human behavior, relationships, and social structures predominantly to hereditary and biological rather than cultural and environmental influences. In almost twenty-five years of published essays, the Harvard evolutionary biologist, Stephen Jay Gould, has sounded an alarm that biological determinism-through its scientific rationalization of slavery, eugenic sterilization, Nazi atrocity, and more subtle forms of injustice perennially poses a real and dangerous threat to humanity. This thesis explores the career-long anti-hereditarian thread permeating Gould's published works on evolutionary history and the history of science. Gould's assertions regarding the cultural embeddedness of science are …

Translating Cyberculture : An Analysis Of American And Brazilian Cultural Differences Evidenced In The Translation Of A Popular Computer Text, Angela M. Ferrao

Theses

This thesis examines the translation of a popular American computer book and its translation into Brazilian Portuguese to determine whether current discourses on computers and technology are being literally translated or culturally adapted for their target audience. The selected text adopts a humorous approach to learning new software applications and replaces complicated technical explanations with culturally-bound examples that are inextricably tied to American attitudes toward technology.

An analysis of the translation reveals that the ideologies and social codes at work in the book threaten to impede the Brazilian reader's understanding due to the translator's failure to adapt the text for …

Experimental Ion Implantation System For Decaborane Ions, Vijay Babaram

Theses

Future generations of Si technology will require ultra shallow junctions (tens of nm) in the drain and source regions of MOS transistors. Fabrication of such shallow p-type junctions requires implantation of boron at ultra low energies (< 1 keV), below the limits of standard ion implantation technology. A proposed solution involves implantation of B₁₀H_x⁺ ions in which boron atoms carry less than 10% of the beam energy.

This thesis is a part of the feasibility study of this new technology. An experimental ion implantation system was designed and built at Ion Beam and Thin Film Lab, NJIT. The system was tested and the mass analyzing magnet was calibrated using argon ions. Decaborane ions, …

Integration Of Multi Lifecycle Assessment And Design For Environment Database Using Relational Moddel Concepts, Bhagyashree Suratran

Theses

Multi-lifecycle Assessment (MLCA) systematically considers and quantifies the consumption of resources and the environmental impact associated with a product or process. Design challenges posed by a multi-lifecycle strategy are significantly more complex than traditional product design. The designer must look forward in time to maximize the product's end-of-life yield of assemblies, parts and materials while looking backward to the world of existing products for feedstock sources for the current design. As MLCA and DEE share some common data items, such as, part geometry, material and manufacturing process, it is advantageous to integrate the database for MLCA and DEE. The integration …

A Study Of Factors Affecting Cardiovascular Reactivity, Andrew Gill Ventura

Theses

This pilot study was conducted to determine what affects the cardiovascular reactivity of different people. Variables such as the order of stress-inducing and relaxing activities, performing multiple tasks on different days, personality, familial history of diseases, and general health were investigated as to their effects, if any, on cardiovascular reactivity.

Ten healthy, normal male subjects, aged 18 - 33 years, volunteered to be subjected to studies on three experimental days, the first one being for gathering information. On the second and third days, the subjects performed the following activities: mental arithmetic, numeric repetition, 10 breaths-per-minute (bpm) paced-breathing, and normal breathing, …

To Who Or What Do We Owe Sustainable Development? A Search For An Ethical Framework For Sustainable Development, Mia Soderlund

Theses

This thesis focuses on the ethical dimension of sustainable development as described in the Bruntland report. According to this report, we do have certain moral obligations to future generations. This thesis asks whether traditional moral philosophy, such as utilitarian and contractarian theories, can justify moral obligations to future generations, and if they can serve as ethical frameworks for sustainable development.

The basic idea with sustainable development is to create a balance between society, the environment and the economy. If the environment is ascribed instrumental value, which is the case with traditional moral philosophy then there is no balance, because its …

A Comparison Of Field-Delineated Wetlands To The New Jersey Freshwater Wetland Maps, David P. Moskowitz

Theses

A comparison of the New Jersey Freshwater Wetland maps to field-delineated wetlands was undertaken to assess the accuracy of the Freshwater Wetland maps. The evaluation revealed substantial differences in the amount of wetland acreage on the Freshwater Wetland maps compared to field-verified wetlands. Forty study sites comprising 21,877 acres (8,854h) were evaluated. Of these, twenty-seven were overmapped (more wetland acreage than was field-verified), and thirteen were undermapped. Forty-three percent had mapping discrepancies at or above fifty percent; when modified land designations were included as wetlands, the number of sites at this threshold increased to fifty percent.

Paper copies of the …

To Believe Or Not To Believe, Julius Kim

Theses

None provided.

Home: A Rediscovery Of Cuba, Ernesto Perez

Theses

Not Included

The Myth Of Jewish Non-Resistance During The Holocaust Abraham Sutzkever: A Model Of Resistance, Revenge And The Discourse Of Consolation, Barbara Wind Morcheles

Theses

No abstract provided.

The Persistent Behavior And Physiological Effects Of Stress, Jeffrey S. Cerone

Theses

No abstract provided.

The Waste Land As Poetic Sermon: Eliot's Use Of The Jeremiad, Brian Zaleski

Theses

No abstract provided.

Transmitting The Memory Of The Holocaust: Challenges For Educators, Peppy S. Margolis

Theses

No abstract provided.

The Effectiveness Of Restraining Orders In Deterring Domestic Violence: A Study In The State Of New Jersey, La Keisha H. Jones Witzig

Theses

No abstract provided.

The History Of Asiatic Department: Boston Museum Of Fine Arts, Focused On The Far Eastern Arts, Hong-Eun Lee

Theses

No abstract provided.

Using Eye Tracking To Advance Learning Processes, Diane Kucharczyk

Theses

Eye movements and eye tracking are a part of imaging science that serves as a gateway to further understand cognitive processes. Human vision allows people to perceive a full visual field with the illusion of a high-resolution scene. However, the anisotropic retina only provides a small area called the fovea for high-resolution perception, while the majority of the visual field provides only low-resolution perception. Eye movements detected by the eye tracker are mostly executed to locate objects of one's attention on the fovea, in order to gain detailed information. These movements are meant to move the eye or stabilize the …