Digital Commons Network^™

A Communications Modeling System For Swarm-Based Sensors, Brian A. Kadrovach

Theses and Dissertations

Today's information age has exploded the amount of data available to decision makers at all levels of the control hierarchy. The miniaturization and proliferation of sensor technology has enabled extensive detection and monitoring and advances in computational capabilities have provided for embedded data analysis and the generation of information from raw data. Additionally, with the miniaturization of mechanical systems it is possible to provide platforms for sensor suites that are capable of mobility and limited autonomy. Swarming or bio-emergent behavior problems, provides a robust scalable mechanism for organizing large numbers of mobile sensor platforms. However, the mobility dynamics of swarm …

Toys And Cartoons: The Correlation Between Animated Properties And Toy Products, John Diego Hernandez

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract available.

Influence Of Aluminum Ion On The Anaerobic Treatment Of A Poultry Slaughterhouse Wastewater, Julio Alberto Martinez

Theses and Dissertations

The influence of Al 3+ on the anaerobic treatment of a poultry slaughterhouse wastewater was studied in this work. The soluble COD (SCOD), volatile acid (VA) concentrations, and methane yield values were measured and compared for zero, 15, and 40 ppm Al 3+ runs. Methane yields of 55.4, 144.2, and 215.4 ml CH4/g. COD for zero, 15, and 40 ppm Al 3+ concentrations, respectively, were observed. Furthermore, SCOD and VAs were not detectable in the reactor that was seeded with 40 ppm Al 3+. It was concluded that inhibitory effects of long chain fatty acids (LCFAs) on aceticlastic methanogens were …

Surface Characterization Of Rh-Co, Ru-Co And Pd-Co Bimetallic Catalysts, Sajeev Moorthiyedath

Theses and Dissertations

Methanation of CO2, a greenhouse gas component, using bimetallic catalysts is considered. Rh, Pd and Ru were combined separately with Co on silica support to form bimetallic catalysts with 5 % metal loading and atomic ratio to Co equal to 1. Pore volume of the silica was measured using physisorption analysis. The unreduced catalyst samples were characterized using XPS, TPR and SEM-EDS. XPS results showed low Rh, Pd, Ru and Co concentrations at the surface for the three bimetallic catalysts. The oxidation states of metals detected by XPS supported the likely presence of metals in their oxide form. Detection of …

Solubility Studies On The Na - F - Po4 System In Sodium Nitrate And In Sodium Hydroxide Solutions, Dinesh Kumar Selvaraj

Theses and Dissertations

The thesis investigates the solubility of various sodium salts present in the waste tanks at the Hanford nuclear site. The experiments were conducted in different concentrations of caustic and in water at 25°C and 50°C. The results obtained from these studies will be used to improve existing databases for the Environmental Simulation Program (ESP, available from OLI Systems, Inc.), thereby increasing its accuracy in predicting waste behavior under high ionic strength conditions. Experiments were performed on the following systems: 1) NaF - NaNO3 - NaOH, 2) Na3PO4 - NaNO3 - NaOH, 3) NaF - Na3PO4 - 1m NaNO3 - NaOH, …

The Design And Evaluation Of A Continuous Photocatalytic Reactor Utilizing Titanium Dioxide In Thin Films Of Mesoporous Silica, Transito Lynne Macias

Theses and Dissertations

Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is an established photocatalyst utilized for the photo-oxidation of organics in wastewater. Aqueous suspensions of TiO2 require separation and re-suspension steps to be used on an industrial scale. A method of immobilizing TiO2 within the mesoporous structure of silica has been developed at the University of Alabama. The objective of this thesis was to design and evaluate a bench-scale, continuous, photocatalytic reactor utilizing these films. This was accomplished in two phases of work: (1) batch reactions and (2) continuous reactions. The batch reactor was a one-liter standard photochemical reactor from Ace Glass. The continuous photocatalytic reactor designed …

A Survey Of The Effectiveness Of Mandatory Treatment For Domestic Violence Offenders, Jeanne J. Lemay

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

Concentrated Hog Feeding Operations And The Animal Rights Movement: A Website Diagnostic Frame Analysis, Venita M. Quamme

Theses and Dissertations

The volume of online texts designating hog concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) as problematic serves to illustrate an emerging social problem. The purpose of this exploratory study was to investigate how five online animal advocate organizations present hog CAFOs as problematic, and warranting intervention. The units of study include: The Animal Welfare Institute, Farm Sanctuary, Humane Farming Association, Humane Society of the United States, and People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals. Together, they represent an integral part of the animal rights movement, a descriptive label that does not imply consensus regarding animal “rights.”

In the procedures used to explore …

Coronary Artery Disease And Noncardiac Surgery: Considerations In Anesthesia Nursing, Michelle L. Maund

Theses and Dissertations

The issue addressed in this paper was the concept of patients with coronary artery disease going for non-cardiac surgery, including anesthesia considerations during surgery. The exploration of anesthesia considerations in patients with a history of coronary artery disease is important, because the nurse anesthetist needs to: a) be aware of the incidence of coronary artery disease, b) be knowledgeable regarding the pathophysiology involved in coronary artery disease to assist in prompt diagnosis and treatment of ischemia, c) plan and carry out an appropriate anesthetic plan during surgery, d) be knowledgeable in the treatment of a patient who suffers a myocardial …

Phylogeography And Population Structure Of The Prairie Skink (Eumeces Septentrionalis), Gregory S. Fuerst

Theses and Dissertations

The geographical and geneological limits of species are firmly rooted in historical and current processes. Phylogenetic studies focus on the historical aspect and examine character states to estimate ancestor-descendent relationships. The number of described species in the world has been estimated at 1.4 to 1.8 million and other estimates suggest that as many as 30 million species may exist (May, 1990; Wilson, 1992). Phylogenetic studies provide the information needed to delimit and classify these species based on their historical relationships. Studies on species population structure focus on the current and historical processes acting on a species. These studies use a …

Nicotine Effects On Attention: Implications For Adhd Therapy, Dmitri V. Poltavksi

Theses and Dissertations

A self-medication theoiy of substance abuse has been proposed to account for high prevalence of cigarette smoking in adults with attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). It has been suggested that in smokers with ADHD nicotine might attenuate some of the symptoms of the disorder, especially inattentiveness. Animal research and human studies using non-ADHD smokers and non-smokers have produced mixed evidence on the cognitive effects of nicotine with the most consistent finding of improved sustained attention in a variety of vigilance tasks. Few existing studies examining the effects of nicotine in ADHD adults have provided further support to the hypothesis of ameliorating …

Self-Assessed Dakota Language Fluency And Suggested Strategies For Language Revitalization On The Spirit Lake Nation, Ruth Ellen De Larios

Theses and Dissertations

This study provides a background of the status of the Dakota language as it is spoken on the Spirit Lake Nation in northeast North Dakota. The study examined Dakota language fluency, environments where the language is used, and suggested strategies for revitalization. In order to determine the aforementioned, a brief Survey for Grant for Revitalization of Tribal Languages (Survey) was implemented. This assessment of community fluency and interest was essential to obtaining an Administration for Native Americans grant to develop a language revitalization effort that came to be known as the Dakota la UnspepHLanguage Preservation Program.

The Survey for Grant …

The Rise And Fall Of Programmed Instruction: Informing Instructional Technologists Through A Study Of The Past, Jason K. Mcdonald

Theses and Dissertations

Instructional technologists have recently been called upon to examine the assumptions they hold about teaching and learning, and to consider how those assumptions can affect their practice of the discipline. This thesis is an examination of how the assumptions instructional technologists hold can result in instructional materials that do not accomplish the original goals the developers set out to achieve. I explored this issue by examining the case study of programmed instruction, an educational movement from the mid-20th century that promised to revolutionize education but never lived up to its potential. Programmed instruction was heavily influenced by the assumptions of …

Awara Phonology, Edward C. Quigley

Theses and Dissertations

Awara is a Papuan language of Papua New Guinea spoken in the Finisterre Mountain Range. Though it has been mentioned in papers written about the Finisterre-Huon languages and about the Wantoat language (another language in the Wantoat family), the Awara sound system has not been described in depth.

This paper describes the Awara phonemic inventory, autosegmental features, morphophonemic processes, and implications for the Awara orthography. The analysis is presented within the framework of rules-based Generative Phonology.

Interesting aspects of the language shown here are 1) prenasalized voiced stops, 2) complex, phonemes /kw/, /ŋw/ and /gw/, 3) non--universal morphophonemic processes such …

Pocahontas Reclaimed: The Powhatans' Theatrical Rebuttal To Disney's Revisionist Myth, Barbara E. Gardner

Theses and Dissertations

This study compares the content of play The One Called Pocahontas to the Walt Disney film Pocahontas. The author examined the accepted history of the Powhatan woman known as Pocahontas in relation to the "infotainment" provided by both the play and the movie. The study examines the objections to the Walt Disney movie Pocahontas and poses them as motivating factors for the Powhatan tribe's decision to use theatre to respond to the inaccuracies they perceived in the movie. The primary research methods of the study include an analysis of existing literature and internet sites about Pocahontas, an interview with …

Hands-On Manipulative Use In Science Instruction, Bianca Lee Domenico

Theses and Dissertations

This study tested the use of physical manipulatives during science instruction – in conjunction with the traditional, textbook-oriented approach – and determines whether manipulatives create more significant learning experiences than text generates alone. The subject sample consisted of 20 third-grade students from a suburban New Jersey elementary school classroom. All subjects functioned at least on a third-grade level in all subjects with the exception of three students, who participated in the Talented and Gifted Program. Subjects from the experimental group and the control group completed a science content pretest of thirteen open-ended cognition questions. Both groups completed assigned activities, and …

Colorful Language: Lesson In Poetry, Sara Dudley

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Effect Of Character Education On Student Behavior, Cindy Patella

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine if character education addressed directly through lesson plans would have an effect on behavior of students when they are not under supervision of the classroom teacher. The researcher observed the students' social interactions in the experimental group and the control group in various settings in a pre and post observation period. Behavior was recorded on a behavior chart listing both positive and negative behaviors. There were 19 students in the experimental group and 22 students in the control group. The study found a slight positive change in behavior for those students in …

Polar Sea Ice Mapping For Seawinds, Hyrum Spencer Anderson

Theses and Dissertations

In recent years, the scientific community has expressed interest in the ability to observe global climate indicators such as polar sea ice. Advances in microwave remote sensing technology have allowed a large-scale and detailed study of sea ice characteristics. This thesis provides the analysis and development of sea ice mapping algorithms for the SeaWinds scatterometer. First, an in-depth analysis of the Remund Long (RL) algorithm for SeaWinds is performed. From this study, several improvements are made to the RL algorithm which enhance its performance. In addition, a new method for automated polar sea ice mapping is developed for the SeaWinds …

Collection Development Of Non-Christian Religious Holiday Books In Elementary School Libraries, Kelly Bigley Craig

Theses and Dissertations

While many Christian holiday books for children are widely reviewed and available from mainstream publishers, it is more difficult to find and evaluate books about non-Christian holidays. Elementary library collections may under-represent non-Christian religious books because of a lack of school library media specialists' personal knowledge about non-Christian holidays. This study surveyed school library media specialists through a written questionnaire about the variety and size of their library's current collection of non-fiction books about non-Christian religious holidays, and determined how school library media specialists approach collection development in this area. The sample and population consisted of 124 elementary public school …

Rzsweep: A New Volume-Rendering Technique For Uniform Rectilinear Datasets, Gautam Chaudhary

Theses and Dissertations

A great challenge in the volume-rendering field is to achieve high-quality images in an acceptable amount of time. In the area of volume rendering, there is always a trade-off between speed and quality. Applications where only high-quality images are acceptable often use the ray-casting algorithm, but this method is computationally expensive and typically achieves low frame rates. The work presented here is RZSweep, a new volume-rendering algorithm for uniform rectilinear datasets, that gives high-quality images in a reasonable amount of time. In this algorithm a plane sweeps the vertices of the implicit grid of regular datasets in depth order, projecting …

Manipulation Of Microbial Metabolic Pathways For The Reduction Of Sulfide Production, Charles David Zuller

Theses and Dissertations

A bacterial additives treatment experiment was conducted to assess the microbial and biochemical changes in stored swine manure. Nitrate salt was added to a slurry of swine waste collected from a waste storage pit to identify the effects of varying levels of nitrate upon the microbial community and the resulting metabolic changes. This research was an attempt to reduce the formation of odorous sulfur-containing compounds and to increase the formation of odorless nitrogen gas by manipulating the metabolic pathways in anaerobic decomposition of the organic matter within manure. Sulfide production from swine wastewater was reduced approximately 45 percent with the …

A Cooling, Heating, And Power For Buildings (Chp-B) Instructional Module, John David Hardy

Theses and Dissertations

An emerging category of energy systems, consisting of power generation equipment coupled with thermally-activated components, has evolved as Cooling, Heating, and Power (CHP). The application of CHP systems to buildings has developed into a new paradigm ? Cooling, Heating, and Power for Buildings (CHP-B). This instructional module has been developed to introduce undergraduate engineering students to CHP-B. In the typical ME curriculum, a number of courses could contain topics related to CHP. Thermodynamics, heat transfer, thermal systems design, heat and power, alternate energy systems, and HVAC courses are appropriate for CHP topics. However, the types of material needed for this …

An Overview Of Indoor Air Quality, Raymond Reese Yontz

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is designed to introduce beginning and experienced heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) engineers to common indoor air quality (IAQ) problems and solutions. The bulk of the work is a literature review of common pollutants, pollutant sources, HVAC equipment and systems, and remediation techniques. Pollutants covered include fungi, bacteria, dust mites, viruses, biofilms, microbiological volatile organic compounds (MVOC?s), volatile organic compounds (VOC?s), carbon dioxide, ozone, and radon. The HVAC systems covered are ventilation, direct expansion (DX), desiccant dehumidification, and system filters. The remediation techniques discussed are proper hygiene and maintenance, increased ventilation, humidity control, and proper selection of …

Chemical Oxidation Enhanced Bioremediation Of Polycyclic Aromatic Hydrocarbon Contaminated Sediments, Ian Kennedy Tiang Kwong Dieng

Theses and Dissertations

This study evaluated the effect of chemical oxidation on the bioremediation of polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) contaminated sediments. Sediments were treated in sequential steps: biotreatment, chemical oxidation, and biotreatment. The first biotreatment step was initiated via addition of nutrients, microbial seeds, co-metabolites, and/or Tween 80 (surfactant). The chemical oxidation step was conducted using Fenton?s Reagent, ozonation, and peroxone (combination of ozone and hydrogen peroxide). The objective was to enhance the PAHs bioavailability via oxidation of natural organic matter and transformation of Heavy PAHs into more biodegradable compounds. Biotreatment was reestablished as a final polishing step to further degrade remaining PAHs …

Parzsweep: A Novel Parallel Algorithm For Volume Rendering Of Regular Datasets, Lakshmy Ramswamy

Theses and Dissertations

The sweep paradigm for volume rendering has previously been successfully applied with irregular grids. This thesis describes a parallel volume rendering algorithm called PARZSweep for regular grids that utilizes the sweep paradigm. The sweep paradigm is a concept where a plane sweeps the data volume parallel to the viewing direction. As the sweeping proceeds in the increasing order of z, the faces incident on the vertices are projected onto the viewing volume to constitute to the image. The sweeping ensures that all faces are projected in the correct order and the image thus obtained is very accurate in its details. …

The Evaluation Of Chemical Reaction Dynamics Within Swine-Raising Facility: Implications To Odor Evolution And Assessment Of Abatement Strategies, Andrew Joseph Wynn

Theses and Dissertations

This research investigated the chemodynamics of the underdrains found at swine- raising facilities. The maintenance of aerobic conditions and introduction of aerobic bacteria to expedite the treatment process and control odor formation were investigated. A pilot-scale system that mimicked an industrial swine-raising facility was used in this study. Aeration and aeration with bacterial seed additions were evaluated against a standard pit recharge system, which served as the control. The effectiveness was measured using water quality testing, odor assessments by a human sensory panel, and air phase measurements of hydrogen sulfide and ammonia. The results indicated that both aeration and aeration …

Wavelet-Based Volume Rendering, Pujita Pinnamaneni

Theses and Dissertations

Various biomedical technologies like CT, MRI and PET scanners provide detailed cross-sectional views of the human anatomy. The image information obtained from these scanning devices is typically represented as large data sets whose sizes vary from several hundred megabytes to about one hundred gigabytes. As these data sets cannot be stored on one's local hard drive, SDSC provides a large data repository to store such data sets. These data sets need to be accessed by researchers around the world to collaborate in their research. But the size of these data sets make them difficult to be transmitted over the current …

The Simulation System For Propagation Of Fire And Smoke, Dmitry N. Shulga

Theses and Dissertations

This work presents a solution for a real-time fire suppression control system. It also serves as a support tool that allows creation of virtual ship models and testing them against a range of representative fire scenarios. Model testing includes generating predictions faster than real time, using the simulation network model developed by Hughes Associates, Inc., their visualization, as well as interactive modification of the model settings through the user interface. In the example, the ship geometry represents ex-USS Shadwell, test area 688, imitating a submarine. Applying the designed visualization techniques to the example model revealed the ability of the system …

Emerging Technologies In Architectural Visualization: Implementation Strategies For Practice, Nethra Mettuchetty Ram Mohan

Theses and Dissertations

Representation has always been a critical component in architectural practice and representational techniques have been evolving over time. The relatively recent advent of the digital media is revolutionizing architectural representation. Digital representation techniques are proving to be a more effective means of communicating the design to the client and the collaborative project team. The techniques are advancing so rapidly that it is becoming increasingly difficult to keep in pace with the digital acceleration and utilize these representation techniques in architectural practice. There is a wide difference between what is possible using digital architectural visualization and what is implemented in practice. …