Digital Commons Network^™

Dynamical Grouping In Complex Systems, Zhenyuan Zhao

Open Access Dissertations

Quantifying the behavior of complex systems arguably presents the common ¡°hard¡±problem across the physical, biological, social, economic sciences. Individual-based or agent-based models have proved useful in a variety of different real world systems: from the physical, biological, medical domains through to social and even financial domains. There are many different models in each of these fields, each with their own particular assumptions, strengths and weaknesses for particular application areas. However, there is a lack of minimal model analysis in which both numerical and analytic results can be obtained, and hence allowing different application domains to be analyzed on a common …

Sustainable Composite Systems For Infrastructure Rehabilitation, Francisco J. De Caso Y Basalo

Open Access Dissertations

The development of composite materials by combining two or more constituents with improved mechanical properties, when compared to either of the constituents alone, has existed since biblical times when straw or horse hair was mixed with clay or mud to produce bricks. During the second half of the twentieth century, modern composites known as fiber reinforced polymers (FRP) - consisting of a reinforcing phase (fibers) embedded into a matrix (polymeric resin or binder) - were developed to meet the performance challenges of space exploration and air travel. With time, externally-bonded FRP applications for strengthening of reinforced concrete (RC) structures gained …

Optimum Design Of Renewable Energy Systems By Using Deterministic And Probabilistic Approaches, Yi Hu

Open Access Dissertations

This work consists of the study for optimum design of the renewable energy systems. Different renewable energy systems including two solar energy systems, one wind turbine system and one fuel cell system have been optimized by using different optimization or robust techniques. The multi-objective optimum designs of flat plate and compound parabolic concentrator solar collector systems by using deterministic and probabilistic approaches are considered. Three objectives are considered in the optimization problem formulation: maximization of the annual average incident solar energy, maximization of the lowest month incident solar energy and minimization of the cost. The game theory methodology is used …

Development Of A Methodology To Attain High Levels Of Storage Proteins In Cassava Tuberized Roots And Its Implications, Mohammad Abhary

Dissertations

Cassava (Manihot esculenta Crantz.) is a member of the Euphorbiaceae family, cultivated in the tropics and subtropical areas as a staple food crop for more than 700 million people around the world. The starchy storage roots of cassava are rich in calories and deficient in all other nutrients, cassava meals has the lowest of all sources of dietary protein. Severe protein deficiencies and malnutrition problems are common among those who rely on cassava as their daily meal. Although cassava is ranked the fifth most important crop in the world, the research on this crop is very limited. Among the limited …

Evaluation Real-Time Data Warehousing Challenges From A Theoretical And Practical Perspective, Dale Hargens

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

The concept of real-time data warehousing has grown in popularity in recent years as organizations demand access to critical pieces of data in real-time to produce analytics and make business decisions to gain competitive advantage. Real-time data warehousing systems differ substantially from traditional data warehousing systems, thus, presenting a unique set of organizational and operational challenges. The basis for the research was to investigate whether adequate information is available regarding the organizational and operational challenges of real-time data warehousing and whether that information is available to the database community. This exploration was done by gathering primary research, conducting a case …

Caesked: A Class Scheduler For Wmu Students, Chris Fruin, Jerry Grochowski

Computer Science Senior Projects

Scheduling classes is a tedious process for WMU students. CAESked, a class scheduling web application, was created to ease this process. The programming languages PHP and JavaScript were used to build a solution which integrates WMU data for upcoming courses into a web application. With features including a weekly calendar, a campus map, and class information all in one place, CAESked provides students with an easy to use tool for adding classes to their schedule.

Ua5/1 University Attorney - Property File, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Unprocessed property files created by the University Attorney. This record group is unprocessed and must be reviewed for potential restricted materials before access is granted. Please contact the University Archivist prior to your visit.

Ua4/2 Academic Budgets & Administration - Correspondence/Subject File, Wku Archives

WKU Archives Collection Inventories

Correspondence and subject files created by the office of Academic Budgets & Administration and its reporting offices:

• Academic Budgets
• Manager of Academic Resources
• PIE Grants Coordinator

Unh Space Physicist Honored As American Geophysical Union Fellow, David Sims

Media Relations

No abstract provided.

Perceptions Of Effective Instruction In Community Colleges: A Student View, Stephen Kent Biermann

Dissertations

ABSTRACT Stephen K. Biermann PERCEPTIONS OF EFFECTIVE INSTRUCTION IN COMMUNITY COLLEGES: A STUDENT VIEW This qualitative study was designed to identify key elements of effective instruction as perceived by community college students. Since the majority of research pertaining to effective instruction has been primarily conducted using a quantitative format, it is important to consider other methodologies for future research. The use of qualitative research helped capture student dialogue in its fullest, unhindered by the constraints of a survey tool or scale. The students involved in the study voluntarily participated in either individual interviews or focus groups and commented upon various …

Universality Of Non-Ohmic Shunt Leakage In Thin-Film Solar Cells, Sourabh Dongaonkar, J. D. Servaites, G. M. Ford, S. Loser, R. M. Gelfand, H. Mohseni, Hugh Hillhouse, R. Agrawal, M. A. Ratner, T. J. Marks, Mark S. Lundstrom, Muhammad A. Alam

Other Nanotechnology Publications

We compare the dark current-voltage (IV) characteristics of three different thin-film solar cell types: hydrogenated amorphous silicon (a-Si:H) p-i-n cells, organic bulk heterojunction (BHJ) cells, and Cu(In, Ga)Se-2 (CIGS) cells. All three device types exhibit a significant shunt leakage current at low forward bias (V < similar to 0.4) and reverse bias, which cannot be explained by the classical solar cell diode model. This parasitic shunt current exhibits non-Ohmic behavior, as opposed to the traditional constant shunt resistance model for photovoltaics. We show here that this shunt leakage (I-sh), across all three solar cell types considered, is characterized by the following common phenomenological features: (a) voltage symmetry about V = 0, (b) nonlinear (power law) voltage dependence, and (c) extremely weak temperature dependence. Based on this analysis, we provide a simple method of subtracting this shunt current component from the measured data and discuss its implications on dark IV parameter extraction. We propose a space charge limited (SCL) current model for capturing all these features of the shunt leakage in a consistent framework and discuss possible physical origin of the parasitic paths responsible for this shunt current mechanism. (C) 2010 American Institute of Physics. [doi:10.1063/1.3518509]

Sidescan Sonar Image Processing:Correcting Brightness Variation And Patching Gaps, Yet-Chung Chang, Shu-Kun Hsu, Ching-Hui Tsai

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Sidescan sonar data are typically presented as gray level images. However, sidescan images often show striking variations in brightness. These variations, caused by the sonar beam pattern and the constantly changing attitude of the towfish, make the images difficult to read as pictures of the seabed. This reduces the utility of the images for marine geologists. In this paper, the effects of the sonar beam pattern across the swath are corrected using a normalization process based on the average signal intensity for each grazing angle. Noise along the track, which is generally caused by changes in the attitude of the …

The Sensitivity Analysis Of A Mems Microphone With Different Membrane Diameters, Cheng-Ta Yang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

In MEMS capacitive microphone design, it is very critical to get highest yielding rate and sensitivity as the two major factors dominate structure design of microphone. The centralpost MEMS microphone is introduced in this paper to differentiate from traditional fixed membrane boundary microphone since the construction is simple and only few masks are required in the process so that the yielding can be greatly enhanced. Thus, it is necessary to find the relationship between the sensitivity and dimension of the diameter of the membrane. The main research steps described in this paper include using CoventorWarer to develop one analysis model …

The Application Of E-Technology For Marine Information Service, Lien-Kwei Chien, Tsung-Shen Feng, Chieh-Cheng Yen, Beng-Chun Lee, Heng-Wen Chang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The purpose of this study is to establish the multi-function querying system by applying e-technology in marine data. Subjects tendency technology is new concept in system designing process of this study which originate from simulation language that was replace the structural technology. We also investigate the statistical characteristics of ocean waves and surges over Taiwan waters by cluster and return period analysis. Marine drifter track analysis and search area determination system were also analysis and import to GIS querying system. In order to make the locations of the near shore ships and sailing data could be easily convey through wireless …

Stability Assessment For The Undersea Gas Pipeline, Wen-Chien Tseng, Lien-Kwei Chien, Sheng-Tse Chuang, Pei-Chi Tsai, Ya-Ting Hsu, Ting-Ting Lu, Chu-Kuan Lin

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

In general, the activities of harbour district, coastal construction and re-transportation of tide and current are all possible to influence the stability of research area and sediment environment in nearshore area. It indicates that status of deposit property of seabed and variability of sediment environment are important factors to stability and safety for the path of undersea gas pipeline. An assessment procedure and approach for the prediction of the wave-induced and earthquake-induced liquefaction potential and erosion potential are proposed for marine engineering practice. The soil sample of this study is obtained from deposit zone of gas pipeline of seabed in …

A New Calibration Method For Low Cost Mems Inertial Sensor Module, Sheng-Chih Shen, Chia-Jung Chen, Hsin-Jung Huang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

This paper presents a new calibration method to overcome the challenges of MEMS inertial sensors for underwater navigation. The MEMS inertial sensor module is composed of an accelerometer, a gyroscope and a circuit of signal process. For navigation estimation, it is easy to be influenced by errors which come from MEMS inertial sensors. In general, the sources of error can be categorized into two groups, deterministic type and stochastic type. The former primarily includes bias errors, misalignment and nonlinearity; the latter contains temperature effect and signal drifting. Subsequently, the linearity calibration is used to modify the deterministic error and the …

The Performance Of Indium Tin Oxide Films Deposited On Plastic Substrate Applied For Solar-Cell Buoy, Chien-Kun Wang, Jyh-Jier Ho, Sung-Jen Nien, Yuang-Tung Cheng, William Lee, Chih-Chiang Lu, Bao-Shun Yau, Hsing-Wang Tsai, Chung-Cheng Chang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

In this paper, we report the indium tin oxide (ITO) films deposited on the polyethyene terephthalate (PET) substrate, which surface is treated with detergent solution. The ITO films are deposited on room temperature by direct current (DC) magnetron sputtering from a ceramic target of a 90% In-10% Sn alloy. The deposited opto-electric ITO films on PET with detergent treatment are 83.4% average visible transparency, and 5.8 × 10-4 Ω-cm resistivity, respectively. And then, we use the spin coating to form the polymer solar cell. Under optimal conditions of surface treatment and film deposition, the experimental result shows 2.12% of the …

Signal Subspace Transformation For Direction-Of-Arrival Estimation Of Wideband Sources In Near Field, Lena Chang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

A novel adaptive signal subspace transformation for direction-of-arrival (DOA) estimation of wideband sources in the near-field is proposed in this paper. The method is composed of two transformations: signal subspace focusing (SSF) and far-field transformation (FFT). SSF aligns the signal subspaces for different frequencies in the bandwidth of the sources based on focusing matrices. FFT transforms the near-field steering vector to be the far-field steering vector with same direction-of-arrival (DOA) allocation. By the way, we simplify the location estimation of wideband sources in the near-field to be narrowband sources in the far field. The proposed method can track the DOAs …

Determining The Cyclic Strength Of Geomaterials Under Low Frequency Cyclic Loading With Acoustic Emission, Helsin Wang, Ta-Peng Chang, Ju-Jiang Hung

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Acoustic emission is traditionally regarded as an explicit measurable index for microcracking in geomaterials. An accelerative cracking point is first introduced based on the different characteristics of acoustic emission at stable fracture propagation stage. Accelerative cracking point is located between the fracture initiation strength and critical energy release point, a point causing a fatal uncontrolled fracture in materials. Microcracking dominates the real mechanical characteristics in the materials, not reflected on the conventional mechanical experimental results as the stress level beyond the accelerative cracking point at the stable fracture propagation stage. At this stage, non-stress-controlled fracture in materials could arise as …

Response Analysis Of Concrete Piles Subjected To Lateral Impact, Helsin Wang, Ta-Peng Chang, Jin-Jun Wang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

One-dimensional wave theory is assumed to interpret longitudinal waves impulse response or impact echo testing results in concrete piles. Transient flexural waves tests are alternatively introduced to evaluate piles where the tops are inaccessible for conventional longitudinal wave testing. The resulting interpretation for flexural waves based on one-dimensional wave theory is improper due to various velocities at low frequencies. In this research, treating a pile as a waveguide, three-dimensional wave theory provides the dispersion relation between phase flexural velocity and frequency. Using the resonance solutions and first-mode flexural wave curve is a simple and efficient method to find the resonant …

The Study On The Asymptotic Profile And The Flow Patterns In Front Of A Long Bubble Through A Circular Tube, Cheng-Hsing Hsu, Chia-Chuan Kuo, Ching-Chuan Chang, Kuang-Yuan Kung

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Department of Civil Engineering, Army Academy, Chung-Li, Taoyuang, Taiwan, R.O.C

An Algorithm For Predicting Attitudes Of Floating Bodies With Arbitrary Configurations In Liquids, Jiann-Lin Chen, Chun-I Chen, Li-Ming Chu

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

A robust and efficient algorithm is proposed to quasiunsteadily predict attitudes of floating bodies with arbitrary configurations. Numerical techniques for accuracy and computing time saving are addressed. A floating cylinder was modeled as a benchmark, by theoretical and experimental approaches, to validate the developed program. Attitudes of two kinds of floating bodies, which are a body composed of multiple objects and a submarine-like submersible, were simulated to show the feasibility of the present algorithm. Interestingly, the simulated results of a slender body, such as a cylinder or a submersible, show that the attitude variation is very sensitive to the longitudinal …

Fast Block Motion Estimation With Edge Alignment On H.264 Video Coding, Chi-Han Chuang, Chien-Hua Su, Shyi-Chyi Cheng

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

This paper presents a novel block matching scheme with edge alignment strategy on H.264 video coding, which uses multiple references and multiple block sizes for motion estimation in order to improve the rate-distortion performance. In H.264, the computational complexity is linearly dependent on the number of allowed reference frames and block sizes using the full exhaustive search. Many fast block-matching algorithms reduce the computational complexity of motion estimation by carefully designing the search patterns with different shapes or sizes which have significant impact on the search speed and distortion performance. However, the search speed and the distortion performance conflict often …

Investigation On Vibration Energy Flow Characteristics In Coupled Plates By Visualizaiton Techniques, Kai Li, Sheng Li, De-You Zhao

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The transmission and distribution of vibration energy flow in coupled plates are studied by the vibration intensity method together with visualization technique. Formulations for vibration intensity calculations and streamline representation, and the equations for energy flow are presented. The intensity vector, streamline map and energy distribution of coupled plates subject to a point force excitation are calculated and visualized to predict vibration energy transmission. The vibrational energy flows are very complex and dependent on the excitation frequencies, junction forms and boundaries. The energy sources, sinks, transmission paths and vortex fields are clearly shown with visualization technique. It is shown that …

Cooperation-Competition Model Of Transportation Construction Project From The Viewpoint Of Budget Allocation, Maw-Cherng Lin, Edward Ming-Yang Wu, Junn-Yuan Teng, Wen-Chih Huang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Department of Marine Engineering, National Taiwan Ocean University, Keelung 202, Taiwan.

Israel Oil Refineries Ltd. V. New Hampshire Insurance, Edna Arbel, Elyakim Rubinstein, Eliezer Rivlin

Translated Opinions

Facts: The Tel Aviv District Court granted a petition for the recognition of a judgment rendered by an English court, which had declared that an insurance policy issued by the respondent (New Hampshire Insurance) to an Israeli company, Oil Refineries Ltd. – the appellant – was void on the grounds that a substantial matter had not been disclosed to the issuer. The respondent brought the action in the English court after its sibling company (AIG Europe, which had underwritten the policy) had been served a third party notice in an Israeli proceeding brought against the appellant. The District Court …

Cityland – Vol. 7, No. 11, Center For New York City Law

CityLand - 2010

The December 2010 issue of CityLand highlights significant land use, zoning, and preservation developments across New York City. The City Council modified Extell’s Riverside Center proposal on the Upper West Side, increasing on-site affordable housing and school space. Supportive housing projects were approved in the East Village and Prospect Lefferts Gardens, with community concerns addressed through design revisions. The Board of Standards & Appeals granted variances for a three-building affordable housing project in East Tremont, Bronx, citing site constraints from an abandoned railway. Landmarks designated Paul Rudolph’s penthouse at 23 Beekman Place and two Federal-era rowhouses on Grand Street, while …

Volume 48, Number 17: December 15, 2010, University Of North Dakota

University Letter Archive

No abstract provided.

A Time-Domain Analysis Of Wave Force On Small-Scale Cylinders Of Offshore Structures, Bao-Lei Geng, Bin Teng, De-Zhi Ning

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

To get the accurate wave loads on the small-scale cylinders on the platforms, not only the incident wave but also the diffraction and radiation wave should be considered. By taking the wave diffraction from a fixed large-scale cylinder as an example, wave loads on small-diameter cylinders in the diffraction wave field are calculated by Morison formula in this paper. A time-domain numerical model on wave diffraction from large-scale structures is developed with a higher-order boundary element method (HOBEM). Then the velocity and acceleration of any water particle in the fluid domain can be produced from the solved diffraction potential. Results …

Improving The Emulsion Stability Of Sponge Cake By The Addition Of ?-Polyglutamic Acid, Yung-Shin Shyu, Wen-Chieh Sung

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The batter properties of sponge cake with the addition of γ-polyglutamic acid (PGA) at different levels (0.05, 0.1, 0.5 gkg-1, w/w) was evaluated. The viscosity, emulsion stability and foam stability increased at the addition of 0.5 gkg-1 PGA level. PGA caused significant declines in the differential scanning calorimetry (DSC) enthalpy, onset and peak temperatures of ice-melting transition of sponge cake. Sponge cakes manufactured with 0.5 gkg-1 PGA addition were in general lighter on crumb color and white index than the control. Scanning electron microscopy showed that sponge cake with the addition of 0.1 and 0.5 gkg-1 PGA exhibited microstructures having …