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2011

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Articles 17131 - 17160 of 17236

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The Sociology Of Landowner Interest In Restoring Fire-Adapted, Biodiverse Habitats In The Wildland-Urban Interface Of Oregon's Willamette Valley Ecoregion, Max Nielsen-Pincus Jan 2011

The Sociology Of Landowner Interest In Restoring Fire-Adapted, Biodiverse Habitats In The Wildland-Urban Interface Of Oregon's Willamette Valley Ecoregion, Max Nielsen-Pincus

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

In many parts of the world, the combined effects of wildfire, climate change, and population growth in the wildland-urban interface pose increasing risks to both people and biodiversity. These risks are exemplified in western Oregon’s Willamette Valley Ecoregion, where population is projected to double by 2050 and climate change is expected to increase wildfire risk. Restoring elements of the region’s historic fire-adapted prairie, savanna, and woodland habitats may help to reduce future wildfire risk and help conserve the region’s threatened biodiversity. We report on a mail survey (n = 939) examining the socio-demographic factors influencing private landowners’ likelihood of restoring …

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Finding Haystacks With Needles: Ranked Search For Data Using Geospatial And Temporal Characteristics, Veronika Margaret Megler, David Maier Jan 2011

Finding Haystacks With Needles: Ranked Search For Data Using Geospatial And Temporal Characteristics, Veronika Margaret Megler, David Maier

Computer Science Faculty Publications and Presentations

The past decade has seen an explosion in the number and types of environmental sensors deployed, many of which provide a continuous stream of observations. Each individual observation consists of one or more sensor measurements, a geographic location, and a time. With billions of historical observations stored in diverse databases and in thousands of datasets, scientists have difficulty finding relevant observations. We present an approach that creates consistent geospatial-temporal metadata from large repositories of diverse data by blending curated and automated extracts. We describe a novel query method over this metadata that returns ranked search results to a query with …

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A Comparative Case Study Analysis Of Administrators Perceptions On The Adaptation Of Quality And Continuous Improvement Tools To Community Colleges In The State Of Michigan, Ted Mattis Jan 2011

A Comparative Case Study Analysis Of Administrators Perceptions On The Adaptation Of Quality And Continuous Improvement Tools To Community Colleges In The State Of Michigan, Ted Mattis

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to determine whether community college administrators in the state of Michigan believe that commonly known quality and continuous improvement tools, prevalent in a manufacturing environment, can be adapted to a community college model. The tools, specifically Six Sigma, benchmarking and process mapping have played a critical role in improving performance in the manufacturing sector. In 2008, the Obama administration made restoration of America's educational prominence a campaign promise and committed to the development of the American Graduation Initiative, a $12 billion plan to reform U.S. community colleges to be executed over the next decade. …

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Quality System For A Distance Doctoral Consortium: Determination And Analysis Of Specific Indicators, Mark R. Chandler Jan 2011

Quality System For A Distance Doctoral Consortium: Determination And Analysis Of Specific Indicators, Mark R. Chandler

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The problem for this research was that there were no identified and confirmed quality system model attributes for a successful online technology management doctoral consortium. The research extended existing research, and utilized a delphi panel to develop the attributes of a quality system model for a successful online doctoral consortium. The attributes of a quality system were developed by a three round delphi procedure and were used to develop a survey to determine perceived quality system differences among faculty, Ph.D. graduates, and current Ph.D. students associated with the Indiana State University (ISU) at Terre Haute Technology Management Ph.D. Consortium program. …

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An Experimental Study On Reducing The Formation Of Dross When Cutting 1018 Hr Steel Using A Cnc Plasma Cutter, Michael E. Devore Jan 2011

An Experimental Study On Reducing The Formation Of Dross When Cutting 1018 Hr Steel Using A Cnc Plasma Cutter, Michael E. Devore

All-Inclusive List of Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Many manufacturers who cut metal use plasma arc cutting as part of their manufacturing process. Plasma cutters use electricity and pressurized gas to produce a temperature of up to 50,000 ºF at the cutting tip. These plasma cutters can rapidly cut through metals as much as 12 inches thick. The use of computer numerical controlled (CNC) plasma cutters allow manufacturers to rapidly cut even very intricate and detailed flat parts. This process is a tremendous improvement over traditional torch cutting, saw cutting, or other machining processes for producing near net shapes. It is faster and less expensive than most of …

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Towards Fpga Hardware In The Loop For Qca Simulation, Alan Olson Jan 2011

Towards Fpga Hardware In The Loop For Qca Simulation, Alan Olson

Theses

As transistors begin to hit raw physical limits and performance barriers, other technologies are being researched to potentially replace conventional integrated circuit technology. Quantum-dot Cellular Automata (QCA) is one such technology which executes computations using coulomb interactions and quantum-mechanical effects. Part of this research is pursuant to the design of circuits which exploit QCA technology and take advantage of what it has to offer. These circuits must be simulated to ensure their functionality and help prove the viability of QCA. These simulations, like many scientific computing applications, can take a long time to complete; hours or days, depending on their …

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The Bricks That Build The Clicks: Newsroom Investments And Newspaper Online Performance, Yihui Tang, Shrihari Sridhar, Esther Thorson, Murali K. Mantrala Jan 2011

The Bricks That Build The Clicks: Newsroom Investments And Newspaper Online Performance, Yihui Tang, Shrihari Sridhar, Esther Thorson, Murali K. Mantrala

Faculty Articles, Papers, and Other Scholarship

As the world embraces the Internet for media consumption, the concept of a hybrid newspaper—a printed newspaper with a companion Web site—is becoming more prevalent. Many hope that online advertising revenue (OAR) will help newspapers make up for losses in print (offline) revenue. However, there is little research that has empirically investigated whether and how investment in the “bricks” (i.e., the newsroom staff and resources that produce news content) will help to build “clicks” (i.e., more online visitors and, subsequently, OAR). This article examines the issue via an econometric analysis of 12 years of longitudinal data from a hybrid newspaper. …

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Symmetric Spaces, Se-Jong Kim Jan 2011

Symmetric Spaces, Se-Jong Kim

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

We first review the basic theory of a general class of symmetric spaces with canonical reflections, midpoints, and displacement groups. We introduce a notion of gyrogroups established by A. A. Ungar and define gyrovector spaces slightly different from Ungar's setting. We see the categorical equivalence of symmetric spaces and gyrovector spaces with respect to their corresponding operations. In a smooth manifold with spray we define weighted means using the exponential map and develop the Lie-Trotter formula with respect to midpoint operation. Via the idea that we associate a spray with a Loos symmetric space, we construct an analytic scalar multiplication …

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Advanced Linear Identification Techniques For Signal Processing And Digital Video Broadcasting, Xiaoyu Feng Jan 2011

Advanced Linear Identification Techniques For Signal Processing And Digital Video Broadcasting, Xiaoyu Feng

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Linear identification technique is to linearly embed a piece of unique information into digital media data for the purpose of satisfying specific demands such as identification, annotation, and copyright, etc. We need to consider the quantity and the quality of identification data to be embedded as well as the corresponding interference to the original subject signal. However, there exist no generalized computationally-efficient optimization techniques for linear identification up to now. Therefore, in this dissertation work, we try to theoretically investigate the advanced linear identification techniques and combat the tradeoff problems between the quality of the embedded identification data and the …

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Application Of Satellite Remote Sensing Imagery To Bridge Scour Evaluation, Xiaoyan Zhao Jan 2011

Application Of Satellite Remote Sensing Imagery To Bridge Scour Evaluation, Xiaoyan Zhao

LSU Master's Theses

The overall goal of this research is to evaluate the applicability of the existing HEC-18 method to Louisiana bridges that are mostly situated on cohesive soils and hence to develop a more reliable design method for scour depth and scour rate prediction. Pier research in sandy soils and cohesive soils shows that the sandy soils are known to erode particle by particle, while cohesive soils usually erode in clumps rather than individual particles, which is caused by from the different bonding mechanisms between sandy soils and cohesive soils. Because the bonding in cohesive soils is so complex, the prediction of …

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"Math In A Can": Teaching Mathematics And Engineering Design, Ronald B. Narode Jan 2011

"Math In A Can": Teaching Mathematics And Engineering Design, Ronald B. Narode

Curriculum and Instruction Faculty Publications and Presentations

Using an apparently simple problem, "Design a cylindrical can that will hold a liter of milk," this paper demonstrates how engineering design may facilitate the teaching of the following ideas to secondary students: linear and non-linear relationships; basic geometry of circles, rectangles, and cylinders; unit measures of area and volume; solving systems of equations with at least two variables; minimization of area to control materials costs and to prevent heat exchange; packing geometry to minimize space for transportation and storage and for controlling for heat exchange; golden ratio as a design aesthetic; ergonomic factors in design including considerations of comfort …

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Application Of Scanning Probe Microscopy For New Physical Measurements And Studies Of Surface Chemical Reactions Of Materials At The Molecular Level, Stephanie Loletha Daniels Jan 2011

Application Of Scanning Probe Microscopy For New Physical Measurements And Studies Of Surface Chemical Reactions Of Materials At The Molecular Level, Stephanie Loletha Daniels

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Scanning probe microscopy (SPM) provides unique capabilities for surface visualization and measurements that reach atomic and molecular dimensions. My research focus is directed toward applying and developing new measurements for analytical and surface chemistry with SPM. Two distinct goals based on studies with atomic force microscopy (AFM) will be described within this dissertation. The primary goal was to develop and apply a new AFM imaging mode for ultrasensitive measurements of the superparamagnetic properties of proteins. Magnetic sample modulation (MSM)-AFM, has capabilities to investigate and map the magnetic response of nanomaterials with unprecedented spatial resolution. The second goal was to apply …

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Numerical Methods For The Study Of Super-Eddington Mass Transfer In Double White Dwarf Binaries, Dominic Carlo Marcello Jan 2011

Numerical Methods For The Study Of Super-Eddington Mass Transfer In Double White Dwarf Binaries, Dominic Carlo Marcello

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

We present a numerical method for the study of double white dwarf (DWD) binary systems at the onset of super-Eddington mass transfer. We incorporate the physics of ideal inviscid hydrodynamical flow, Newtonian self-gravity, and radiation transport on a three-dimensional uniformly rotating cylindrical Eulerian grid. Our new method conserves total energy to a higher degree of accuracy than recent smoothed particle hydrodynamics methods and our previous Eulerian grid based method. We present the results of verification tests and we simulate the first 20+ orbits of a binary system of mass ratio q=0.7 at the onset of dynamically unstable direct impact mass …

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Studies Of Inhomogeneous Superconducting States In Novel Materials, Robert Pearson Beaird Jan 2011

Studies Of Inhomogeneous Superconducting States In Novel Materials, Robert Pearson Beaird

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

I provide detailed studies of two types of novel superconducting systems. In the first, I examine the effect of thermal (Gaussian) magnetic fluctuations on the superconducting transition of paramagnetically-limited superconductors under a Zeeman magnetic field. I consider transitions into both the uniform and the modulated (Fulde-Ferrell-Larkin-Ovchinnikov) superconducting states. I derive the Landau free energy expansion in powers of the superconducting order parameter, allowing for competition between the magnetic fluctuations and the superconducting order. I determine the order of the transition at the upper critical field and find that the fluctuations drive the transition, usually second-order, to first order at intermediate …

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Blind Yield Detection In Steel Structure For Automatic Nondestructive Testing Using Ultrasonic Sensors, Hongting Zhang Jan 2011

Blind Yield Detection In Steel Structure For Automatic Nondestructive Testing Using Ultrasonic Sensors, Hongting Zhang

LSU Master's Theses

Detection of yield zones using nondestructive testing (NDT) technology for assessing the structural integrity of the existing steel buildings/bridges is extremely important. The average energy over the “effective echoes” (in “good” signal quality) is a robust feature for the yield detection in steel structures. Nevertheless, this average-energy feature extraction requires rigorous manual data-acquisition and human operation. Therefore, in this thesis, we make the first-ever attempt to design a totally-blind and automatic steel-structure yielddetection mechanism, which requires neither the a priori information about the signal nor the human effort in calibration, operation, or data analysis. This new scheme is built upon …

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Excluded-Minor Characterization Of Apex-Outerplanar Graphs, Stanislaw Dziobiak Jan 2011

Excluded-Minor Characterization Of Apex-Outerplanar Graphs, Stanislaw Dziobiak

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

It is well known that the class of outerplanar graphs is minor-closed and can be characterized by two excluded minors: K_4 and K_{2,3}. The class of graphs that contain a vertex whose removal leaves an outerplanar graph is also minor-closed. We provide the complete list of 57 excluded minors for this class.

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Fate Of Mississippi River Diverted Nitrate On Vegetated And Non-Vegetated Coastal Marshes Of Breton Sound Estuary, Christine M. Vanzomeren Jan 2011

Fate Of Mississippi River Diverted Nitrate On Vegetated And Non-Vegetated Coastal Marshes Of Breton Sound Estuary, Christine M. Vanzomeren

LSU Master's Theses

The Caernarvon Diversion meters Mississippi River water into coastal marshes of Breton Sound. Elevated levels of nitrogen in river water have sparked concerns that nutrient loading may affect marsh resilience and belowground biomass, as evidence from several marsh fertilization studies. These concerns resulted from observation that fresh and brackish Breton Sound marshes suffered extensive damage from Hurricane Katrina. The goal of this study is to determine the fate of nitrate (the dominant inorganic nitrogen form in the Mississippi River) in Breton Sound Estuary marshes. We hypothesized that most nitrate would be removed by denitrification and that nitrate loading would not …

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Temporal Changes In Quality Of Life And Environment In New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina, Danielle Johanna Larock Jan 2011

Temporal Changes In Quality Of Life And Environment In New Orleans After Hurricane Katrina, Danielle Johanna Larock

LSU Master's Theses

Understanding and assessing the spatial and temporal changes of quality of life and environment of a community is critical to its sustainable development, especially after a disaster strikes. This study explores an approach that integrates remote sensing with socioeconomic data to assess the temporal changes in quality of life and environment (QOL) using Orleans Parish as an example. Hurricane Katrina, which struck New Orleans in 2005, has had vast implications economically, socially, and environmentally for this city and the surrounding area. Empirically quantifying these concepts will help to rebuild the city more sustainably. This study investigated change in environmental quality …

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An Overview Of Green Jobs In The Louisiana Forest Sector, Ryan D. Olson Jan 2011

An Overview Of Green Jobs In The Louisiana Forest Sector, Ryan D. Olson

LSU Master's Theses

The term “green job” is a relatively new definition that defines employment activities that are likely to have occurred since the beginning of human existence. The push to identify, to quantify and to drive the growth of these jobs has recently been brought on by climate change and the depletion of Earth’s natural resources. According to the United States Department of Labor Bureau of Labor Statistics, green jobs are either (a) Jobs in businesses that produce goods or provide services that benefit the environment or conserve natural resources or (b) Jobs in which workers’ duties involve making their establishment’s production …

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Testing And Improving The Luminosity Relations For Gamma-Ray Bursts, Andrew Collazzi Jan 2011

Testing And Improving The Luminosity Relations For Gamma-Ray Bursts, Andrew Collazzi

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Gamma Ray Bursts (GRBs) have several luminosity relations where a measurable property of a burst light curve or spectrum is correlated with the burst luminosity. These luminosity relations are calibrated for the fraction of bursts with spectroscopic redshifts and hence the known luminosities. GRBs have thus become known as a type of "standard candle"; where standard candle is meant in the usual sense that their luminosities can be derived from measurable properties of the bursts. GRBs can therefore be used for the same cosmology applications as Type Ia supernovae, including the construction of the Hubble Diagram and measuring massive star …

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Selection And Enumeration Of Low Epcam Expressing Breast Cancer Ctcs Using A High Throughput Microfluidic Device, Brandy Charon Snowden Jan 2011

Selection And Enumeration Of Low Epcam Expressing Breast Cancer Ctcs Using A High Throughput Microfluidic Device, Brandy Charon Snowden

LSU Master's Theses

Breast cancer cells overexpress EpCAM that can be used as a marker to select breast cancer CTCs from heterogeneous clinical samples, even when present in low abundance. This study used MDA-MB-231 cells which have a low expression level of EpCAM (1.7 x 103 binding sites per cell.3) Herein, we will report on the use of antiEpCAM antibodies immobilized onto the surface of a capture bed poised within a PMMA microchip that was fabricated into an HTMSU used for selection of breast cancer CTCs seeded into a buffer solution. The microchannel walls within the capture bed were UV modified for 5, …

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Effect Of Piezoelectric Actuation On Curved Beams And Single Lap Joints, Calicia Johnson Jan 2011

Effect Of Piezoelectric Actuation On Curved Beams And Single Lap Joints, Calicia Johnson

LSU Master's Theses

Piezoelectric materials have seen a significant usage increase over the past decade. They have been found to be effective as either sensors or actuators in smart structure applications, which allows them to act more as an adaptive system rather than a passive system. Piezoelectric materials are very effective transducers which convert mechanical energy into electrical energy, known as the direct piezoelectric effect or they have the ability to convert electrical energy to mechanical energy, known as the converse piezoelectric effect. The absence of additional mechanical parts, its lightweight and high strength to weight ratio is what make piezoelectric materials so …

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Wiggle Veil (Or, Love Needs Objects), Adrienne Lynch Jan 2011

Wiggle Veil (Or, Love Needs Objects), Adrienne Lynch

LSU Master's Theses

The six sculptural works that comprise my thesis exhibition emerged from a prolonged series of investigations into the intricately interconnected phenomenon of embodied experience in the world as we know it. These works explore the connections between mysteries in our inner and outer worlds, taking as inescapable fact the notion that our bodily vessels, in all their complexity and subtlety, are the vehicles through which we encounter the world. As such, this work posits embodiment as both frame and anchor for all knowledge and experience. These sculptures, made from ceramic materials and mixed media such as sugar, salt, string, and …

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Surface-Initiated Polymerization As A Novel Strategy Towards Preparation Of Organic Semiconducting Polymer Thin Films, Euiyong Hwang Jan 2011

Surface-Initiated Polymerization As A Novel Strategy Towards Preparation Of Organic Semiconducting Polymer Thin Films, Euiyong Hwang

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Organic semiconducting polymer thin films are core materials for organic electronics that are conventionally prepared by solution processing techniques. Despite having the advantage of easy and fast thin film manufacturing, solution techniques have intrinsic drawbacks, such as disordered and poor molecular organization in the film (often resulting in poor device performance), as well as insufficient stabilities of the films and resulting devices. To improve this situation, we designed a novel “bottom-up” fabrication of surface-immobilized organic semiconducting thin films through in situ polymerization. This new strategy will allow high degree of control over molecular organization which therefore results in improved free …

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A Comprehensive Study Of Dust Formation And Evolution In Core Collape Supernovae, Jennifer Erin Andrews Jan 2011

A Comprehensive Study Of Dust Formation And Evolution In Core Collape Supernovae, Jennifer Erin Andrews

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Detection of large amounts of dust in high redshift galaxies suggests that core collapse supernovae (CCSNe) may play a critical role in the dust budget of galaxies in the early universe, when galaxies are only a few hundred million years old. At an age of only 1Gyr, asymptotic giant branch (AGB) stars may not have had the time to become significant dust contributors, leaving CCSNe as an alternative explanation since they quickly evolve and return their material to the surrounding interstellar medium. For the past three years, I have been observing the CCSNe 2007it and 2007od with Gemini, Hubble Space …

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Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions In Louisiana At The Parish Scale, Quang Tran Jan 2011

Estimating Greenhouse Gas Emissions In Louisiana At The Parish Scale, Quang Tran

LSU Master's Theses

The estimation of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and removals from the atmosphere at the county scale is an interest to many local decision makers and scientists looking to plan, track, mitigate, or reduce concentrations at the local or regional level. This thesis presents a new approach in downscaling state-level emissions to contiguous county levels using the state of Louisiana as an example. Here, we applied the volume- preserving principle in an attempt to improve existing methods and fully characterize accurate GHG emissions at the county (i.e., parish) level. All six “Kyoto” GHG emissions related to sources and sectors were assessed …

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Utilizing Near-Infrared Spectroscopy To Detect Sodium Tripolyphosphate In Treated Penaeus Aztecus And Setiferus Shrimp, Alisa Marlene Todd Jan 2011

Utilizing Near-Infrared Spectroscopy To Detect Sodium Tripolyphosphate In Treated Penaeus Aztecus And Setiferus Shrimp, Alisa Marlene Todd

LSU Master's Theses

Applying sodium tripolyphosphate to shrimp may cause excess water absorption and has become a major concern to phosphate producers, the consumer and regulatory agencies, such as, the United States Food and Drug Administration. The objective of this study was to examine Near Infrared (NIR) spectroscopy as a nondestructive and rapid method of detecting shrimp treated with sodium tripolyphosphate solutions of varying concentrations and treatment times. Wild caught Penaeus setiferus and aztecus Louisiana gulf coast shrimp were submerged in distilled water, 2.5% sodium tripolyphosphate (STPP), and 5% sodium tripolyphosphate solutions for 30, 60, 120, 240, 480, 960, 1920 minute time intervals. …

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Influences Of Landscape Characteristics On The Nesting Ecology Of Female Wild Turkeys And Behavior Of Raccoons, Michael E. Byrne Jan 2011

Influences Of Landscape Characteristics On The Nesting Ecology Of Female Wild Turkeys And Behavior Of Raccoons, Michael E. Byrne

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

Nest predation is the principle source of reproductive failure in many bird species. Understanding nest predation requires knowledge of interactions between landscape characteristics, and the ecology and behavior of birds and local nest predators. I studied nesting ecology and multi-scale habitat selection of female wild turkeys and the habitat selection and searching behaviors of raccoons, an important nest predator, in a bottomland hardwood forest in Louisiana. My objective was to evaluate the relationships between habitat, wild turkey nest site selection, and raccoon foraging behavior. I used first-passage time (FPT) analysis on nightly foraging tracks of raccoons during the turkey nesting …

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Parameter Tuning And Experimental Results Of Power System Stabilizer, Bixiang Tang Jan 2011

Parameter Tuning And Experimental Results Of Power System Stabilizer, Bixiang Tang

LSU Master's Theses

Power system stabilizers (PSS) have been studied for many years as a method to increase power system stability. This thesis focuses on the tuning and structure of the power system stabilizer. Different types of power system stabilizers are reviewed. The one studied in this thesis is the integral of accelerated power stabilizer. The generator control system is introduced to illustrate the working environment of the PSS. The mathematic model of the generator, automatic voltage regulator and PSS are analyzed and the system transfer function in presence of the PSS is derived. Base on the transfer function, a new tuning method …

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Damage Detection And Identification In Fiber Reinforced Plastic Structural Members And Field Bridges Using Acoustic Emission Technique, Archana Nair Jan 2011

Damage Detection And Identification In Fiber Reinforced Plastic Structural Members And Field Bridges Using Acoustic Emission Technique, Archana Nair

LSU Doctoral Dissertations

With the increased use of fiber reinforced polymer (FRP) based structural systems for rehabilitation of existing and construction of new bridges there is a requirement for identification of critical components of these structural systems and the determination of critical damage thresholds in them. Of the many available non-destructive techniques (NDT), acoustic emission (AE) monitoring had been identified as one of the most popular techniques applicable for damage discrimination in composites. The current study aimed at using patterns in AE data for the identification of damage modes exhibited by composite structural systems. The extensive experimental program involved testing of two structural …

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