Digital Commons Network^™

Robustness And Control Of A Magnetically Levitated Transportation System, Grzegorz Oleszczuk

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

Electromagnetic suspension of Magnetic Levitation Vehicles (Maglev) has been studied for many years as an alternative to wheel-on rail transportation systems. In this work, design and implementation of control systems for a Maglev laboratory experiment and a Maglev vehicle under development at Old Dominion University are described. Both plants are modeled and simulated with consideration of issues associated with system non-linearity, structural flexibility and electromagnetic force modeling. Discussion concerning different control strategies, namely centralized and decentralized approaches are compared and contrasted in this work. Different types of electromagnetic non-linearities are considered and described to establish a convenient method for modeling …

Development Of A Nonlinear Estimator-Based Model Of Pilot Performance During Brownout Conditions, Karl Ulrich Schultz

Mechanical & Aerospace Engineering Theses & Dissertations

During conditions of visual occlusion, pilots are forced to rapidly adapt their scan to accommodate the new observable states via instruments rather than the visual environment. During this transition, the provision of aircraft state information via other than visual modalities improves pilot performance presumably through the increase in situational awareness provided immediately following the visual occlusion event.

The Tactile Situational Awareness System (TSAS) was developed to provide continuous position information to the pilot via tactile rather than visual means. However, as a low-resolution display, significant preprocessing of information is required to maximize utility of this new technology.

Development of a …

Group Key Management In Wireless Ad-Hoc And Sensor Networks, Mohammed A. Moharrum

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

A growing number of secure group applications in both civilian and military domains is being deployed in WAHNs. A Wireless Ad-hoc Network (WARN) is a collection of autonomous nodes or terminals that communicate with each other by forming a multi-hop radio network and maintaining connectivity in a decentralized manner. A Mobile Ad-hoc Network (MANET) is a special type of WARN with mobile users. MANET nodes have limited communication, computational capabilities, and power. Wireless Sensor Networks (WSNs) are sensor networks with massive numbers of small, inexpensive devices pervasive throughout electrical and mechanical systems and ubiquitous throughout the environment that monitor and …

Assimilating Non-Probabilistic Assessments Of The Estimation Of Uncertainty Bias In Expert Judgment Elicitation Using An Evidence Based Approach In High Consequence Conceptual Designs, Colin K. S. Barrows

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

One of the major challenges in conceptual designs of complex systems is the identification of uncertainty embedded in the information due to lack of historic data. This becomes of increased concern especially in high-risk industries. This document reports a developed methodology that allows for the cognitive bias, estimation of uncertainty, to be elucidated to improve the quality of elicited data. It consists of a comprehensive literature review that begins by defining a 'High Consequence Conceptual Engineering Environment' and identifies the high-risk industries in which these environments are found. It proceeds with a discussion that differentiates risk and uncertainty in decision-making …

Effects Of Elevated Atmospheric Co₂ On Scrub-Oak Root Carbon Pools And Soil Microbial Processes, Alisha Lea Pagel Brown

Biological Sciences Theses & Dissertations

The levels of atmospheric CO₂ are rising and this affects the growth of plants and the ecosystems in which they reside. Plants take up additional C from the atmosphere and have potential to sequester C in the soil. I investigated the sequestration of C belowground and the microbial processes that control C retention in the soil. This study was conducted in a Florida scrub-oak ecosystem, where CO₂ levels have been elevated to twice ambient since 1996 in open top chambers. There were eight replicates of ambient CO₂ chambers and eight replicates of twice-ambient CO₂ levels. The …

Template-Based Metadata Extraction For Heterogeneous Collection, Jianfeng Tang

Computer Science Theses & Dissertations

With the growth of the Internet and related tools, there has been a rapid growth of online resources. In particular, by using high-quality OCR (Optical Character Recognition) tools it has become easy to convert an existing corpus into digital form and make it available online. However, a number of organizations have legacy collections that lack metadata. The lack of metadata hampers not only the discovery and dispersion of these collections over the Web, but also their interoperability with other collections. Unfortunately, manual metadata creation is expensive and time-consuming for a large collection, and most existing automated metadata extraction approaches have …

Age Validation And Reproductive Biology Of Bluefish, Pomatomus Saltatrix, Along The East Coast Of United States, Eric Robillard

OES Theses and Dissertations

I describe a new preparation technique that increases readability of otoliths, along with criteria for the interpretation of otolith microstructure of bluefish, Pomatomus saltatrix, collected from Florida to New York during 2001-2003 (n = 2652). I validated annulus formation in otoliths for ages 1 to 8 using marginal increment analysis and thus extended validation by four years to include the preponderance of age classes in the catch. Although otoliths are typically superior for ageing, bluefish are routinely aged with scales; thus a side-by-side comparison of otoliths versus scales is necessary before otoliths can supplant scales. When compared, precision …

A Dyadic Composition To Foster Virtual Team Effectiveness: An Experimental Study, Gamze Karayaz

Engineering Management & Systems Engineering Theses & Dissertations

The importance of effectiveness for virtual teamwork continues to gain momentum as technology and globalization of work accelerate. The implementation of virtual teams provides one approach to enhance competitiveness, overcoming the disadvantages of space and time differences through collaborative technologies. The influence of structure to virtual team performance has not been clearly established in the literature. The purpose of this research study was to investigate the effectiveness of a dyad structured approach for virtual teams using a quasi-experimental research design.

This research investigated four questions related to the influence of structure on virtual team effectiveness related to task performance, communication …

Constitutional Tipping Points: Civil Rights, Social Change, And Fact-Based Adjudication, Suzanne B. Goldberg

Faculty Scholarship

This Article offers an account of how courts respond to social change, with a specific focus on the process by which courts "tip" from one understanding of a social group and its constitutional claims to another. Adjudication of equal protection and due process claims, in particular, requires courts to make normative judgments regarding the effect of traits such as race, sex, sexual orientation, or mental retardation on group members' status and capacity. Yet, Professor Goldberg argues, courts commonly approach decisionmaking by focusing only on the 'facts" about a social group, an approach that she terms 'fact-based adjudication." Professor Goldberg critiques …

Caves And Speleogenesis At Blomstrandsøya, Kongsfjord, W. Spitsbergen, Stein-Erik Lauritzen

International Journal of Speleology

Blomstrandsøya, at Kongsfjord (78° 57’N), Spitsbergen, is within the high arctic, a completely permafrozen zone. The bedrock consists of Paleozoic marbles and has yielded a surprising amount of karst features. Early phases of hydrothermal, possibly Caledonian, speleogenesis and subsequent Devonian karstification with redbed deposits is well documented. 62 active seacaves, and more than 30 relict karst caves were found in the coastal cliffs and in escarpment faces around the island. All caves have very limited extent; they are either quite short, like most of the active sea caves, or they are soon choked by frozen sediments and ground ice after …

The Distribution Of Diatom Flora In Ice Caves Of The Northern Yukon Territory, Canada: Relationship To Air Circulation And Freezing, Bernard Lauriol, Clément Prévost, Denis Lacelle

International Journal of Speleology

In the late 1980’s and early 1990’s, various media in karst environments in the Northern Yukon Territory were examined for their diatom content. Cryogenic cave calcite powders, grus and various ice formations (ice plugs, ice stalagmites and floor ice) were collected from three freezing caves and one slope cave to make an inventory of the diatom content, and to explain the spatial distribution of the diatoms within the caves. The results show that approximately 20% of diatoms in the caves originate from external biotopes and habitats (e.g., river, lake, stream), with the remaining 80% of local origin (i.e., from subaerial …

Investigations Into Social Game Theory, Stephen Bryce Harper

Theses and Dissertations

Investigations into Social Game Theory is a document that describes my two-year exploration of the ritual encapsulated in our societal framework. It discusses the thoughts and processes that accompanied the three bodies of work that led to the creation of my final thesis exhibition.

The Flood Frog: An Autonomous Wireless Device For Flood Detection And Monitoring, Valerio Plessi

Masters Theses

"Accurate real time monitoring is gaining critical importance in a broad range of domains. Of particular interest to this research is the development of monitoring and detection systems for environmental and structural phenomena. Transportation infrastructures, in particular bridges, provide examples for both categories. Flooding of low water bridges is one example of rapidly evolving environmental phenomena, while stress and vibration are structural phenomena in need of monitoring.

Early warning and advanced preparation for emergency are two of the most effective lines of defense against catastrophic events, where real time monitoring can facilitate containment and recovery efforts. The operating environment of …

The Relationship Of Undergraduate Cognitive Development And Academic Advising Preference At Two Small, Private, Liberal Arts Colleges, Vicki Van Vark Edelnant

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Though developmental advising has been widely accepted for some time, some recent studies have questioned whether this approach to advising is universally appropriate. The primary purposes of this study were to determine what, if any, relationship exists between students' preference for academic advising approach and either their level of cognitive development or their gender.

One hundred seventy-three students at two small, private, liberal arts colleges completed the Academic Advising Inventory (AAI) to assess their advising preferences and the Measure of Epistemological Reflection (MER) to measure cognitive development levels. A correlation coefficient of scores on the AAI and the MER indicated …

Students At A Chinese Radio And Television University: Reasons For Participation, And Perceptions Of Their Status As Students And The Quality Of Their Learning, Huiping Ding

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this case study was to investigate students' participation in distance education and perceptions of their status as students and the learning achieved within the context of a radio and television university in the North of China. This study focused on the students who had completed a two-year college program and been promoted to a four-year bachelor's degree program. Data was collected and analyzed from observations, interviews and document reviews.

Results of the study identified many reasons for students' participation at the radio and television university to pursue their higher education. The primary reason for most was their …

The Varieties Of Aesthetic Disinterestedness, Norman Kreitman

Contemporary Aesthetics (Journal Archive)

Disinterestedness, a comparatively recent concept in aesthetics, is commonly held to be one of the characteristics of an appropriate response to art, but can be understood in a number of senses. Three varieties are distinguished: a strong form which confines attention exclusively to the internal relations of the work of art; a moderate variety which links internal and external features of the work but solely within the cognitive domain; and a weak form which permits the appreciator to draw on a wide range of external referents but proscribes purely idiosyncratic responses. An illustration is given of the confusion which can …

New Explorations In Culture And Crime: Definitions, Theory, Method, Kenneth B. Nunn

University of Florida Journal of Law & Public Policy

No abstract provided.

Volatility Clustering, Leverage Effects, And Jump Dynamics In The Us And Emerging Asian Equity Markets;, Elton Daal, Atsuyuki Naka, Jung-Suk Yu

Department of Economics and Finance Working Papers, 1991-2006

This paper proposes asymmetric GARCH-Jump models that synthesize autoregressive jump intensities and volatility feedback in the jump component. Our results indicate that these models provide a better fit for the dynamics of the equity returns in the US and emerging Asian markets, irrespective whether the volatility feedback is generated through a common GARCH multiplier or a separate measure of volatility in the jump intensity function. We also find that they can capture several distinguishing features of the return dynamics in emerging markets, such as, more volatility persistence, less leverage effects, fatter tails, and greater contribution and variability of the jump …

Survey Research In Finance: Views From Journal Editors, H. Kent Baker, Tarun K. Mukherjee

Department of Economics and Finance Working Papers, 1991-2006

We survey editors from 15 "core" and 35 "non-core" finance journals to learn their views about specific issues involving survey research. Based on responses from 25 editors, none of their journals has an established policy involving the publication of survey research. The evidence shows that survey-based manuscripts typically go through the same review process as other manuscripts. However, editors of "core" versus "non-core" journals have mixed views about the role that survey research should play in the finance literature. The editors provide their views about the strengths and weaknesses of survey research as well as topic areas that would benefit …

Fuzzy-Neural Cost Estimation For Engine Tests, Edit J. Kaminsky, Holly Danker-Mcdermott, Freddie Douglas

Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications

This chapter discusses artificial computational intelligence methods as applied to cost prediction. We present the development of a suite of hybrid fuzzy-neural systems for predicting the cost of performing engine tests at NASA’s Stennis Space Center testing facilities. The system is composed of several adaptive network-based fuzzy inference systems (ANFIS), with or without neural subsystems. The output produced by each system in the suite is a rough order of magnitude (ROM) cost estimate for performing the engine test. Basic systems predict cost based solely on raw test data, whereas others use preprocessing of these data, such as principal components and …

Performance And Spectral Analysis Of Q2psk And Ce Q2psk Systems In Ideal Bandlimited Channels, Milton I. Quinteros, Edit J. Kaminsky, Kenneth V. Cartwright

Electrical Engineering Faculty Publications

The authors present theoretical performance analysis and simulation results for Quadrature-Quadrature Phase Shift Keying (Q2PSK), Constant Envelope (CE) Q2PSK, and trelliscoded 16D CEQ2PSK in ideal bandlimited channels of various bandwidths. The performance of receivers with and without channel estimation is reported. Spectral analysis is presented for each system, in addition to MSK and expanded uncoded 16D CEQ2PSK. We show that the effects of bandlimiting are most severe for Q2PSK. Knowledge of the channel information aids 4D CEQ2PSK the least. Only 6.8 dB of SNR is needed for the TCM system for a bit error rate of 10−5 for the narrowest …

Modeling Of The Cardiovascular System With Integrated Finite Element And Electrical Analog Methods, Rumei Dong

Open Access Dissertations

In this study, a model of the cardiovascular system was developed by integrating a finite element model of the left ventricle (LV) with an electrical analog model of the circulatory system. The integrated model related the regional LV wall impairment with its overall hemodynamic consequences. The model and simulation system was completely implemented in customized C++ software. Applications of the model for studying cardiovascular dynamics and surgical ventricular restoration were demonstrated. A finite element method was applied to a two-dimensional (2D) long-axis slice of the LV wall. The three-dimensional (3D) LV geometry was interpolated from two LV slices, one representing …

Reply To Comment By Cristina Archer And Mark Jacobson On ‘‘Evaluation Of A Wind Power Parameterization Using Tower Observations’’, Steven Lazarus, Jennifer Bewley

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

The Lazarus and Bewley [2005] (hereinafter referred to as LB05) evaluation of the Archer and Jacobson [2003] (hereinafter referred to as AJ03) methodology was designed to examine various sensitivities of a wind power parameterization that was applied globally to estimate 80-m wind power. AJ03 has since been updated in a sequence of papers which has, in part, resulted in a reduction of their original power estimates due to some changes in their basic equations. The motivation for the LB05 work can be found in AJ03’s Figure 3 which indicates annual wind power estimates of class 6 and 7 effectively collocated …

Transport Of Spring Floodwater From Rivers Under Ice To The Alaskan Beaufort Sea, Matthew B. Alkire, John H. Trefry

Ocean Engineering and Marine Sciences Faculty Publications

Spring floods carry Alaskan river water north to a frozen Beaufort Sea. A plume of water from the Sagavanirktok River (SR) was identified and traced by measuring salinity, d18O, and dissolved silica in discrete water samples collected beneath landfast ice in the coastal Alaskan Beaufort Sea from late May to early June 2004 during high river flow. An Optimum Multiparameter analysis was used to calculate the fractions of SR water from the measured geochemical parameters. The SR plume followed the northwestward flowing local circulation and moved ~17 km north and ~15 km west under ice from the river mouth. The …

Semiotic Modeling: Relevance To Trumpet Performance And Musical Interpretation Using Paul Hindemith's Sonata For Trumpet And Piano, Craig David Heinzen

LSU Major Papers

This paper is about the use of semiotics for the purpose of improving technical efficiency and musical interpretation in brass performance. Semiotics is the study of signs. The field is rooted in linguistics and logic, but has widened its influences to musicology and music theory in the last several decades. This paper constructs a model which simplifies music performance. The model has two components that address physical demands and musical analysis. The first component is a mathematically-based visual representation of the air stream used in brass performance. The second component of the model uses a reductive analysis. This analysis is …

Pendant ^{13}C Nmr Spectroscopy Applied To Ch_N Groups, Azmi̇ Gençten, İrfan Şaka, Sedat Gümüş

Turkish Journal of Physics

Polarization enhancement nurtured during attached nucleus testing (PENDANT) NMR spectroscopy gives signals of quaternary carbon atoms in addition to signals indicative of CH, CH_2 and CH_3 groups. In this study, using product operator theory, analytical description of PENDANT NMR spectroscopy for CH_n (IS_n, I = 1/2, S = 1/2, n = 0, 1, 2, 3) spin systems are presented. Simulation and experimental results of PENDANT NMR spectroscopy are also presented. Theoretical results are found to be in exact agreement with the simulation results and in good agreement with the experimental ones.

Ramifications Of Lineland, Daniel Grumiller, Rene Meyer

Turkish Journal of Physics

A non-technical overview on gravity in two dimensions is provided. Applications discussed in this work comprise 2D type 0A/0B string theory, Black Hole evaporation/thermodynamics, toy models for quantum gravity, for numerical General Relativity in the context of critical collapse and for solid state analogues of Black Holes. Mathematical relations to integrable models, non-linear gauge theories, Poisson-sigma models, KdV surfaces and non-commutative geometry are presented.

Equivariant Localization For Susy Quantum Mechanics, Levent Akant

Turkish Journal of Physics

We apply equivariant localization to supersymmetric quantum mechanics and show that the partition function localizes on the instantons of the theory. Our construction of equivariant cohomology for SUSY quantum mechanics is different than the ones that already exist in the literature. A hidden bosonic symmetry is made explicit and the supersymmetry is extended. New bosonic symmetry is the square of the new fermionic symmetry. The D term is now the parameter of the bosonic symmetry. This construction provides us with an equivariant complex together with a Cartan differential and makes the use of localization principle possible.

Plane Symmetric Solutions Of Gravitational Field Equations In Five Dimensions, A. N. Aliev, Hakan Cebeci̇, Teki̇n Dereli̇

Turkish Journal of Physics

We present the effective field equations obtained from a generalized gravity action with Euler-Poincaré term and a cosmological constant in a D dimensional bulk space-time. A class of plane-symmetric solutions that describe a 3-brane world embedded in a D=5 dimensional bulk space-time are given.

Charges In Ads Spacetimes, İbrahi̇m Güllü, Bayram Teki̇n

Turkish Journal of Physics

We give a review of our recent work on conserved charges in cosmological spacetimes. We compute the mass and the angular momenta of various solutions in D dimensions. This is an extended version of a talk given by B. Tekin. The original material can be found in the related papers in our references.