Digital Commons Network^™

Slow, Red-Green Counterphase (Parvo) And Fast, Black-White Magno) Snow In The Detection Of Scotomata In Primary Open-Angle Glaucoma, Rey Favis

Theses

No one knows why Primary Open Angle Glaucoma sufferers can detect their glaucoma induced blindspots by monocularly fixating on a mark in the center of a screen of television snow. An attempt was made to determine which of two pathways from retina to lateral geniculate nucleus is more involved in the detection of the blindspots. Previous studies demonstrated that the large diameter axon, magno cellular pathway is maximally stimulated by 30 Hertz high contrast black-white patterns. The small diameter axon, parvo cellular pathway is known from past research to be maximally stimulated by 12 Hertz red-green counterphase patterns. It was …

Low Temperature Synthesis And Characterization Of Lpcvd Silicon Dioxide Films Using Diethylsilane, Chakravarthy Srinivasa Gorthy

Theses

Diethylsilane (DES) has been used as a precursor to produce silicon dioxide films by low pressure chemical vapor deposition. These films were synthesized in the temperature range of 350 to 475°C thus allowing the use of the material as an intermetal dielectric or as a top layer passivation coating in microelectronic devices. In that process, the growth rate was observed to follow an Arrhenius behavior yielding an activation energy of 10 kcal/mol. The growth rate was also observed to increase with higher pressure and to vary as a function of the square root of the DES flow rate and O …

Processor Allocation Strategies For Modified Hypercubes, Nagasimha G. Haravu

Theses

Parallel processing has been widely accepted to be the future in high speed computing. Among the various parallel architectures proposed/implemented, the hypercube has shown a lot of promise because of its poweful properties, like regular topology, fault tolerance, low diameter, simple routing, and ability to efficiently emulate other architectures. The major drawback of the hypercube network is that it can not be expanded in practice because the number of communication ports for each processor grows as the logarithm of the total number of processors in the system. Therefore, once a hypercube supercomputer of a certain dimensionality has been built, any …

Irreversible Immobilization Of Heavy Metal, Hyoung-Seog Ko

Theses

Heavy metals are contaminants of both solid and liquid wastes. For example, the ash produced from the incineration of domestic or industrial wastes often contains substantial concentration of lead, mercury, cadmium and other heavy metals that make it a hazardous waste. These heavy metals in wastes are hazardous because they are mobile. Immobilization of the metals is an effective method of rendering the metals harmless, provided that immobilization is irreversible. This study focused on the heavy metal immobilization potential associated with the activities of anaerobic bacteria known as the dissimilatory sulfate reducers (Postgate, 1984). The sulfate-reducing bacteria produce sulfide and …

Expert System For Preventive Maintenance The Aluminum Extrusion Press And Related Equipment, E-Ping Lin

Theses

ESPM is an Expert System for Preventive Maintenance that provides the framework for application-specific equipment maintenance tools. The expert system for preventive maintenance and diagnosis was developed for the Aluminum Extrusion Press and Related Equipment. The system is built in VP-Expert and is implemented on a personal computer.

The expert system includes many characteristics of an expert system cell because it can be expanded easily by adding new information to its knowledge base or by changing the existing information. The expert system can be connected directly with a PC system through a VP-Expert software package and can interact with C …

Microwave Treatment Of Hazardous Wastes : Feasibility Studies - Operating Costs, Yongping Lu

Theses

Pilot plant studies have been carried out on a process for the remediation of soils contaminated with volatile organics (VOCs) and semi-volatile organics (SVOCs) by microwave-assisted steam distillation that had been developed in benchscale studies. The major concern had been that the process is based upon the use of electrical energy, and thus could not be competitive with fossil fuel based technologies like incineration. That concern was addressed in the pilot plant studies.

A pilot plant rated at 6 kW power and a cavity of approximately 60 cubic feet was used. In studies carried out on a water load it …

Clustering Algorithm For Local Area Network Design In A Cim Environment, A. C. Manjunath

Theses

Communication systems have come to be regarded as being one of the most important aspects in manufacturing enterprises in recent years. It continues to offer enormous potential for improving the efficiency of manufacturing enterprises through Computer Integrated Manufacturing (CIM). It is true however that this potential cannot be realized by developments on the communications front alone. Strategic and economic considerations in installing a communications system in a manufacturing environment is of vital significance.

This thesis, at the outset attempts to bring out some of the issues in the area of communications (research), specifically in relation to CIM. A perception of …

Design Of A Material Handling System For The Automatic Assembly Of A Shower Head, Irshad Meherally

Theses

The design of a Material Handling System for the Shower Head assembly is proposed. The working principle of complete automation and individual workstation is presented using "I-DEAS" software. Alternative equipments and their usage in the automation of the assembly is also proposed. Custom made fixtures, workcarriers, orienters, magazines, part feeders are designed for the assembly. Analysis of design for assembly in terms of cost and efficiency is performed by generating a Coding System Technique.

The Effects Of Twist On Pressure Through A Teflon Vascular Prosthesis, Steven Alfred Olivieri

Theses

A closed loop fluid system was developed which mimics the flow curve in the human circulatory system in order to test the effects of pressure drop and flow velocity on artificial arterial implants. This device consists of a piston pump connected to a microcomputer controlled servo-motor. Fluid (in this case distilled water) flows through transparent Tygon tubing to a test chamber. The prosthetic tube is placed in the fluid but is attached through a specially constructed chamber. The pressure across the implant can be measured for different conditions. System compliance was generated by using flexible tubing in the return loop …

New Algorithms For Mid-Crack Codes In Image Processing, Wai-Tak Wong

Theses

The chain code is a widely-used description for a contour image. Recently, a mid-crack code algorithm has been proposed as another more precise method for image representation. New algorithms using this new mid-crack code for image representation, restoration, and skeletonization are developed. The efficiency and accuracy can be increased obviously.

Firstly, the conversion of a binary image with multiple regions into the mid-crack codes is presented. A fast on-line implementation can be achieved using tables look-up. The input binary image may contain several object regions and their mid-crack codes can be extracted at the same time in a single-pass row-by-row …

A New Method To Optimize The Satellite Broadcasting Schedules Using The Mean Field Annealing Of A Neural Network, Youyi Yu

Theses

This thesis reports a new method for optimizing satellite broadcasting schedules based on the Hopfield neural model in combination with the mean field annealing theory. A clamping technique is used with an associative matrix, thus reducing the dimensions of the solution space. A formula for estimating the critical temperature for the mean field annealing procedure is derived, hence enabling the updating of the mean field theory equations to be more economical. Several factors on the numerical implementation of the mean field equations using a straightforward iteration method that may cause divergence are discussed; methods to avoid this kind of divergence …

Effect Of 2,3-Butanedione Monoxide On Whole-Cell Potassium Channel Currents In Rat Single Myocytes, Youliang Zhou

Theses

The patch clamp technique is a simple procedure which can isolate ion channels on cell membranes. Our previous data have shown that 2,3-Butanedione Monoxime (BDM) could inhibit the calcium current by dephosphorylation of the channel. In this study, the effect of BDM on the potassium channels were investigated with the whole-cell recording method in single myocytes enzymatically isolated from the left ventricle of 3-4 months old rats. Superfusion of myocytes with BDM elicited a dose dependent decrease of the outward transient potassium current. BDM with concentrations of 5, 20 and 50 mM reduced the maximal peak potassium current by 7.3 …

Kinetic Measuremenmt Of Decomposition Of Aniline, 2,4-Dichlorophenol And 1,2,4-Trichlorophenol Using A Calorimetric Method, Ming-Chin Chang

Theses

Biological treatment techniques for detoxification of toxic organic compounds have been studied and applied for many years. There are many research and commercial applications proving that the biological method is more economic and efficient than the other treatment methods.

The traditional biomass measurements are time-consuming tasks. Researchers have intended to develop a simpler, faster, and also accurate method for determining the bioactivity. This study has tried to use the microcalorimetric method to monitor the energy productions from the degradation of aniline, 2,4-Dichlorophenol and 1,2,4-Trichlorobenzene. Thereafter, by utilizing the data obtained from the present study, it was possible to compute kinetic …

Measurement Of Vocs Pollution From Recycling Petroleum Contaminated Soils In Hot Mix Asphalt Concrete, Yaoqing Chen

Theses

The petroleum contaminated soils (PCSs) due to leaking underground storagetanks are required to be removed and isolated in a designated area for proper treatment. Recently, a technique of recycle has been developed to incorporate PCSs into hot mixing asphalt (HMA) as a partial substitute for stone aggregate; the mixture then was used for road paving.

This study focuses on the estimation of the emission of volatile organic compounds from the process of mixing asphalt with PCSs and the contamination of ground water by paving the asphalt mixture made with PCSs. Eleven volatile organic compounds and total non-methane organic compounds emitted …

Improvement Of Light Collection Efficiency By Laser-Induced Patterning The Surface Of Schottky-Barrier Solar Cells, Kejia Fang

Theses

In order to achieve maximum light collection efficiency in silicon made solar cells, reflectivity of the silicon surface must be reduced to as low level as possible. In the past, researchers have concentrated on coating the Si surfaces with anti-reflection coatings. Another approach was to form textures on the Si wafers to capture further the light impinging on the solar cells.

Theoretical studies, which were based on ray tracing approach, revealed that some geometrical patterns are better capturing the light than others. In this work, different geometrical surface configurations on a Cu/n-Si Schottky-barrier solar cell have been investigated. The configurations …

Disinfection Of Wastewater Using Ultraviolet Radiation, David L. Klemm

Theses

The disadvantages associated with the use of chlorine for disinfection, in conjunction with improvements in ultraviolet radiation disinfection technologies have led to the recent increased use of ultraviolet radiation to provide disinfection of effluents from wastewater treatment plants. The theory of ultraviolet radiation and the engineering design of the ultraviolet disinfection system are discussed in depth.

The operational history and records of two wastewater treatment plants that use ultraviolet radiation for disinfection were analyzed in an attempt to develop correlations on the factors that affect ultraviolet radiation disinfection efficiency and to investigate as to whether disinfection with ultraviolet radiation is …

Decomposition Of Geometric-Shaped Structuring Elements And Optimization On Euclidean Distance Transformation Using Morphology, Hong Wu

Theses

Mathematical morphology which is based on geometric shape, provides an approach to the processing and analysis of digital images. Several widely-used geometric-shaped structuring elements can be used to explore the shape characteristics of an object. In first chapter, we present a unified technique to simplify the decomposition of various types of big geometric-shaped structuring elements into dilations of smaller structuring components by the use of a mathematical transformation. Hence, the desired morphological erosion and dilation are equivalent to a simple inverse transformation over the result of operations on the transformed decomposable structuring elements. We also present a strategy to decompose …

An Embedded Controller-Based Fiber Optic Sensor For Use In Fresh Concrete, Zhaowu Zhang

Theses

The principle of refraction and reflection of light in optical fibers is applied to detection of air bubbles in a previous thesis. In the earlier work, a microcomputer was employed in acquisition and processing of air bubble data. In the present thesis, an embedded controller system is interfaced and programmed in order to replace the microcomputer. In this way, the system can be more easily integrated into field construction operations. Reflected light intensity signals are detected and analyzed by a microcontroller. The entrained percentage of air in concrete is displayed immediately. The signal can be transferred through a UART (Universal …

Thermal Oxidative Decomposition Of Chlorobenzene In A Tubular Flow Reactor, Jian Liu

Theses

The thermal reaction experiments of chlorobenzene decomposition were carried out in a tubular flow reactor in hydrogen and oxygen mixtures ranged from 1% to 5% at one atmosphere total pressure. Experiment temperatures were varied over a range of 590--640°C. Residence times ranged from 0.3 to 2.0 seconds.

It was found that the decomposition of chlorobenzene increased with both temperature and residence time. The oxidation of chlorobenzene occurred more rapidly when oxygen concentration was increased. 95% decomposition of chlorobenzene occurred at 620°C, O₂/H₂ = 5%, and two seconds residence time.

The major products were benzene and HCl, and …

Interactive Magazine Design, Raymond V. Carlson

Theses

None provided.

Presentationmaker Graphic Design Archive Module 3.2, Jane Settergren

Theses

None provided.

Jazzberry's Corporate Identity, Hyekyung Yoon

Theses

None provided.

A Journey To Happiness, Laura Bauer

Theses

This thesis represents a coming to terms with my feelings of being a victim of rape. The body of paintings that I completed communicates an active involvement on my part to use art as a healing process. By using abstract floral forms I have worked towards achieving a feeling of inner peace. I have realized that by expressing myself through my work I was able to confront my feelings of vulnerability but have also begun to develop and assert my feelings of stregnth. This paper reflects my ability to speak of the crime, and by looking at some of the …

Ocular Motility And Associated Eye Disorders, Mabel Eng

Theses

The purpose of my thesis is to create a multimedia interactive animation computer program about the movements of the eye. The intended audience will be medical students and first year residents in ophthalmology.

Sam, Frances Grau

Theses

None provided.

Muse As Artist: Selected Women Artists Past And Present, Jennifer R. Mantooth

Theses

The purpose of this thesis was to create an electronic book on the subject of women in the visual arts. The search for a paradigm in the design of such a "book" is currently being explored within the multimedia community of computer graphic designers. As new technology appears at an ever increasing rate, the need to disseminate information rapidly also increases. It is therefore imperative that graphic designers interject themselves into the process because it is through the designer that commmunication will flow to the prospective user. The quality of the design work will determine the quality of the communication.

Monster Spells, Amy Fossaceca

Theses

None provided.

Design Theory And Methodology, Carla Tedeschi

Theses

None provided.

Shifting Reality, Nancy Crosby

Theses

Let me begin by saying, I have been raised Catholic, and all of my life I have been influenced strongly by my beliefs. Because of my devotion to my faith, I have been bombarded by fantastic iconography and images which seem to proclaim the presence of not only an omnipotent being who reigns over all of mankind, but also, the existence of another realm or realms beyond this insignificant way station known as earth. Throughout the continual passing of time, humanity has vigorously tried to give face to the invisible manipulators who seem to influence their thoughts and actions. On …

Communications Sourcebook, Karin Vantine

Theses

In yesteryear a "Renaissance Man" represented the pinnacle of learning. He was a person who knew something about everything. Society had great respect for his diversity. Today, in our society, the "Renaissance Man" has been replaced by the specialist. It is almost impossible to be proficient in a multiple of differing fields due to the massive amounts of in-depth information, yet it is possible to be a well-rounded individual by simply taking complete advantage of the American educational system. Unfortunately, society is constantly stressing a specialization within one's own profession with a disregard for all other branches of learning. This …