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2011

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Lifetime Characteristics Of Magnet Wire Mw 16-C Under Ac, Dc Voltages, And High Temperatures, Manasi Pramod Gadre Dec 2011

Lifetime Characteristics Of Magnet Wire Mw 16-C Under Ac, Dc Voltages, And High Temperatures, Manasi Pramod Gadre

Theses and Dissertations

Polyimide is one of the most heat resistant polymers with high electric breakdown strength, good mechanical properties, and chemical resistance. Polyimide is used in severe environmental condition. Polyimide is commonly applied as electrical insulation in a fine gauge of invertered motor windings and in high voltage coils of encapsulated fly-back transformers. The wire insulation may be exposed to multi-stresses like ac, dc high voltages, temperatures etc. In this thesis, magnet wire insulation properties under multiple stresses are studied under ac, dc voltages and high temperatures. Accelerated degradation test is used to do study of Life -time characteristics of Magnetic wire …


Machine Learning Driven Model Inversion Methodology To Detect Reniform Nematodes In Cotton, Pavan Kumar Palacharla Dec 2011

Machine Learning Driven Model Inversion Methodology To Detect Reniform Nematodes In Cotton, Pavan Kumar Palacharla

Theses and Dissertations

Rotylenchulus reniformis is a nematode species affecting the cotton crop and quickly spreading throughout the southeastern United States. Effective use of nematicides at a variable rate is the only economic counter measure. It requires the intraield variable nematode population, which in turn depends on the collection of soil samples from the field and analyzing them in the laboratory. This process is economically prohibitive. Hence estimating the nematode infestation on the cotton crop using remote sensing and machine learning techniques which are cost and time effective is the motivation for this study. In the current research, the concept of multi-temporal remote …


Peripheral Visual Cues And Their Effect On The Perception Of Egocentric Depth In Virtual And Augmented Environments, James Adam Jones Dec 2011

Peripheral Visual Cues And Their Effect On The Perception Of Egocentric Depth In Virtual And Augmented Environments, James Adam Jones

Theses and Dissertations

The underestimation of depth in virtual environments at mediumield distances is a well studied phenomenon. However, the degree by which underestimation occurs varies widely from one study to the next, with some studies reporting as much as 68% underestimation in distance and others with as little as 6% (Thompson et al. [38] and Jones et al. [14]). In particular, the study detailed in Jones et al. [14] found a surprisingly small underestimation effect in a virtual environment (VE) and no effect in an augmented environment (AE). These are highly unusual results when compared to the large body of existing work …


The Beacon - Vol 10 No. 7 - December 9, 2011, Merrimack College Dec 2011

The Beacon - Vol 10 No. 7 - December 9, 2011, Merrimack College

The Beacon

The Beacon - the student newspaper of Merrimack College. Volume 10, Number 7 - December 9, 2011. 12 pages


2011-12-09, Board Of Regents, Murray State University Dec 2011

2011-12-09, Board Of Regents, Murray State University

Board of Regents Meeting Minutes

No abstract provided.


Reduction In Wick Drain Effectiveness In Typical Utah Clays, Gabriel M. Smith Dec 2011

Reduction In Wick Drain Effectiveness In Typical Utah Clays, Gabriel M. Smith

Theses and Dissertations

Consolidation theory states that decreasing the spacing of prefabricated vertical drains will decrease the time required to achieve primary consolidation. Previous field tests have shown that there exists a "critical" drain spacing, which is the point at which further spacing decrease does not decrease the time of primary consolidation. This "critical" spacing is thought to be due to disturbance effects from installation of the drains. Previous studies have found that the "critical" drain spacing may be dependent upon soil layering and drain and mandrel dimensions. Thin, interbedded clay layers have been found to be affected greatly due to the smear …


Strength Of Concrete Masonry Prisms Constructed With Non-Traditional Grout And Type-M Mortar, Scott Michael Watterson Dec 2011

Strength Of Concrete Masonry Prisms Constructed With Non-Traditional Grout And Type-M Mortar, Scott Michael Watterson

Theses and Dissertations

The Concrete Masonry Association of California and Nevada in conjunction with Brigham Young University devised a masonry prism testing scheme to aid in the determination of whether prisms constructed with grouts possessing high levels of supplemental cementitious materials could meet minimum masonry compressive strength requirements. ASTM standards, identical to that of concrete, place restrictions on quantities, by weight, of supplemental materials that can replace ordinary Portland cement. For an all fly ash replacement, up to 40% of Portland cement can be replaced while up to 70% can be replaced by a fly ash-slag combination. Research is focused on class F …


The Murray Ledger And Times, December 9, 2011, The Murray Ledger And Times Dec 2011

The Murray Ledger And Times, December 9, 2011, The Murray Ledger And Times

The Murray Ledger & Times

No abstract provided.


Research Universities As Engines Of Economic Growth: How Do Research Universities Impact Regional Economic Growth?, Stephanie Arnette Pink Dec 2011

Research Universities As Engines Of Economic Growth: How Do Research Universities Impact Regional Economic Growth?, Stephanie Arnette Pink

Theses and Dissertations

As a result of the 2008-2010 economic crisis as well as continuing efforts to redevelop and revitalize local economies, public administrators across America are challenged with the task of developing methods to sustain their economies. According to Florida (2002) economic growth today is contingent upon a locality’s ability to attract a certain group of people, particularly those of the “creative class”. Furthermore, Florida et al., (2006), assert that universities are key contributors to regional development in their ability to attract creative class individuals into a community. Contrary to the assertion that the creative class is a prerequisite for economic growth, …


Nuclear Phenomena In Covariant Density Functional Theory, Hazem Abusara Dec 2011

Nuclear Phenomena In Covariant Density Functional Theory, Hazem Abusara

Theses and Dissertations

In this dissertation, covariant density functional theory has been applied to a variety of nuclear phenomena in the ground and excited states of rotating and non-rotating nuclei. It has been applied for the interpretation of excited superdeformed bands in 154Dy using the effective alignmentmethods. The properties of the predicted hyperdeformed nuclei at high spin in the Z = 40−58 region were investigated and the spins at which such configuration become yrast were defined. The moments of inertia, the role of single-particle energies and necking degree of freedom have also been studied. It also predicted that 107Cd is the best nucleus …


Dual-Fueling Concepts: A Comparison Of Methane And Propane As Primary Fuels With Biodiesel And Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel As Separate Pilot Fuels, Nicholas Thane Shoemaker Dec 2011

Dual-Fueling Concepts: A Comparison Of Methane And Propane As Primary Fuels With Biodiesel And Ultra-Low Sulfur Diesel As Separate Pilot Fuels, Nicholas Thane Shoemaker

Theses and Dissertations

The goal of this thesis is to examine dualueling concepts using two different types of primary fuel, methane and propane; as well as two different pilot fuels, ultra-low sulfur diesel (ULSD) and biodiesel (B100). Experiments were performed using a 1.9 liter, turbocharged, 4 cylinder diesel engine at 1800 rev/min with ULSD and B100 being injected as a pilot fuel directly into the combustion chamber, at different brake mean effective pressures (BMEP), and percent energy substitutions of propane and methane. Brake thermal efficiency (BTE) and emissions (NOx, THC, CO, CO2, O2 and smoke) were also measured and analyzed. Maximum PES was …


Power Supply On Chip Dc-Dc Converter Identification Using Black-Box Modeling Techniques, Charles Craig Bilberry Dec 2011

Power Supply On Chip Dc-Dc Converter Identification Using Black-Box Modeling Techniques, Charles Craig Bilberry

Theses and Dissertations

With recent developments in power conversion technologies and market trends that are driving those technologies toward further miniaturization and greater integration, the need for verifying an empirically based modeling methodology for proprietary power converters such as Power Supply on Chip (PwrSoC) products has risen significantly. This need motivates the investigation of black-box models which require little or no knowledge of the internal workings of a system, for those areas of industry adopting PwrSoC technology as a point-of-load solution. This thesis reports a black-box modeling method tailored to accommodate but not limited to the requirements of a specific commercially available PwrSoC …


Evaluating Workstation Design Guidelines And Their Effects On The Obese Population, Michael Andre Hamilton Dec 2011

Evaluating Workstation Design Guidelines And Their Effects On The Obese Population, Michael Andre Hamilton

Theses and Dissertations

Functional limitation, postural stability, and muscle recruitment of different categories of obesity were evaluated while performing an assembly workstation task. Three workstations, those designed for the 5th, 50th, and 95th percentile workers based on anthropometric data tables, were included in the study. Functional limitation was measured using electro-goniometers and the maximum frontal functional reach (MFFR) evaluation to measure the difference in joint angles, forces plates were used to study the differences in postural stability, and EMG was used to evaluate the muscle recruitment of the soleus, frontal deltoid, and trapezius muscles. Also, a regression analysis was performed to evaluate if …


Modeling And Optimization Of Nano-Enhanced Polymer Composite Structures Under Uncertainty, Mohammad Rouhi Dec 2011

Modeling And Optimization Of Nano-Enhanced Polymer Composite Structures Under Uncertainty, Mohammad Rouhi

Theses and Dissertations

The primary goal of this research is to investigate the mechanical reinforcing efficiencies of carbon nanofibers in a thermoset polymer material (vinyl ester), considering the presence of the three-dimensional interphase region between nanofiber and matrix, as well as the waviness of the nanofibers. The elasticity-driven response (buckling) and energy absorption efficiency (crush performance) of the structures made of those composites are investigated. The structural/material optimization problem is solved for both buckling and energy absorption. Due to the nondeterministic nature of the influential parameters (fiber, matrix, and interphase geometric and material properties) on the overall properties of the composite, this study …


Functional Characterization Of The Ocfc Gene And Optimization Of Medium Components And Culture Condition For Occidiofungin Production By Burkholderia Contaminans Strain Ms14, Kuan-Chih Chen Dec 2011

Functional Characterization Of The Ocfc Gene And Optimization Of Medium Components And Culture Condition For Occidiofungin Production By Burkholderia Contaminans Strain Ms14, Kuan-Chih Chen

Theses and Dissertations

he 56-kb ocfC gene cluster is required for occidiofungin production by Burkholderia contaminans strain MS14. However, the function of the ocfC gene remains unknown. Sequence analysis showed the putative protein encoded by ocfC shares significant identities to glycosyltransferase. Plate bioassays showed that occidiofungin production by the ocfC mutant (ocfC::nptII) was significantly reduced as compared with strain MS14. The occidiofungin produced by the ocfC mutant is xyloseree, which suggests the ocfC gene encodes a xylosyltransferase to add a xylose to the peptide backbone. Single variant optimization of culture condition and medium compositions was also performed in this study. The results indicated …


Activated Sludge As Renewable Fuels And Oleochemicals Feedstock, Emmanuel Durante Revellame Dec 2011

Activated Sludge As Renewable Fuels And Oleochemicals Feedstock, Emmanuel Durante Revellame

Theses and Dissertations

The utilization of activated sludge as feedstock for biofuel and oleochemical production was investigated. Initial studies included optimization of biodiesel production from this feedstock through in situ transesterification. Results of these studies indicated that activated sludge biodiesel is not economically viable. This was primarily due to relatively low yields and the high economics of feedstock dewatering. Strategies to increase biofuel yield from activated sludge were then evaluated. Bacterial species present in activated sludge are known to produce a wide variety of lipidic compounds as carbon and energy storage material and as components of their cellular structures. In addition to lipidic …


Added Critical Flashover Voltage By Fiberglass Crossarm To 15 Kv Polymer Suspension Insulator, Shravani Talabathula Dec 2011

Added Critical Flashover Voltage By Fiberglass Crossarm To 15 Kv Polymer Suspension Insulator, Shravani Talabathula

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis is based on the investigative studies performed on fiberglass crossarm, which will be used in the distribution line structures as an additional insulation component. Lightning impulse voltage tests were conducted on the fiberglass crossarm alone to determine its critical flashover (CFO) voltage, and also the critical flashover voltage of 15 kV polymer suspension insulator plus the fiberglass crossarm. The Added CFO voltage of the fiberglass crossarm to the insulator was determined with polymer suspension insulator as the primary insulation component and the fiberglass crossarm as the secondary insulation component. Added CFO voltage was evaluated for 1 ft through …


An Economic Analysis Of Health, Savings, And Labor In Relation To Gender, Comfort Febisola Ricketts Dec 2011

An Economic Analysis Of Health, Savings, And Labor In Relation To Gender, Comfort Febisola Ricketts

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation is divided into five chapters consisting of three short essays that concentrate on economic analysis of health, savings and labor. The first essay is aimed at investigating the influence of increased work hours on individuals’ health and how this may differ between males and females. It is expected that increased hours of work will have a negative impact on health but this impact may be stronger for females. In the second essay, the relationship between individuals’ health and savings behavior is analyzed. Healthy individuals are expected to be more productive, earn higher incomes, and have lower medical expenditures …


Ann-Based Fault Classification And Location On Mvdc Cables Of Shipboard Power Systems, Naveen Kumar Chanda Dec 2011

Ann-Based Fault Classification And Location On Mvdc Cables Of Shipboard Power Systems, Naveen Kumar Chanda

Theses and Dissertations

Uninterrupted power supply is an important requirement for electric ship since it has to confront frequent travel and hostilities. However, the occurrence of faults in the shipboard power systems interrupts the power service continuity and leads to the severe damage on the electrical equipments. Faults need to be quickly detected and isolated in order to restore the power supply and prevent the massive cascading outage effect on the electrical equipments. This thesis presents an Artificial Neural Network (ANN) based method for the fault classification and location in MVDC shipboard power systems using the transient information in the fault voltage and …


Body Centric Antennas For Wireless Cardiac Monitoring, Travis Ann Nylin Dec 2011

Body Centric Antennas For Wireless Cardiac Monitoring, Travis Ann Nylin

Theses and Dissertations

The overwhelming prevalence of cardiac related deaths is the motivation behind this thesis to develop body centric antennas for wireless cardiac monitoring. Cardiac monitoring can diagnose a number of conditions including: arrhythmia, ischemia, premature atrial complexes, abnormal sinus rhythms, heart blocks, atrial fibrillation, and more. A body centric antenna operating within the ISM band (2.4-2.48GHz) has been designed, simulated, and tested. The simulation and testing indicate low mutual coupling between antennas of varying distances has been achieved. In addition, the simulation and testing indicate that a thin layer of skin over the test subject further reduces mutual coupling.


Characterization Of Reclaimed Asphalt And Performance Based Evaluation Of Its Use In Recycled Mixtures, Jesse David Doyle Dec 2011

Characterization Of Reclaimed Asphalt And Performance Based Evaluation Of Its Use In Recycled Mixtures, Jesse David Doyle

Theses and Dissertations

Reclaimed asphalt pavement (RAP) is a valuable resource that can be recycled into new asphalt mixtures. In recent years, the continued rise of raw material costs has generated considerable interest in increasing RAP usage. Warm mix asphalt (WMA) is a modern development in the asphalt industry that can potentially help increase RAP usage and achieve adequate mixture performance. The purpose of this dissertation is to: 1) develop a method to characterize the absorbed, inert and effective bituminous components in RAP; and 2) evaluate performance of high RAP-WMA mixtures for various pavement applications including airfield surfaces, highway surfaces and highway bases. …


Cross-Entropy Approaches To Software Forensics: Source Code Authorship Identification, James Thomas Stinson Dec 2011

Cross-Entropy Approaches To Software Forensics: Source Code Authorship Identification, James Thomas Stinson

Theses and Dissertations

Identification of source code authorship can be a useful tool in the areas of security and forensic investigation by helping to create corroborating evidence that may send a suspected cyber terrorist, hacker, or malicious code writer to jail. When applied to academia, it can also prove a useful tool for professors who suspect students of academic dishonesty, plagiarism, or modification of source code related to programming assignments. The purpose of this dissertation is to determine whether or not cross-entropy approaches to source code authorship analysis will succeed in predicting the correct author of a given piece of source code. If …


Study Of Excited Superdeformed Bands In 154dy And High-Spin Spectroscopy Of 171hf, Qurant Ul Ann Ijaz Dec 2011

Study Of Excited Superdeformed Bands In 154dy And High-Spin Spectroscopy Of 171hf, Qurant Ul Ann Ijaz

Theses and Dissertations

The first project in this dissertation involves the search for and the study of excited superdeformed (SD) rotational bands in 154Dy. The data was obtained from an experiment at the 88-inch cyclotron of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory via the fusion evaporation reaction 122Sn(36S, 4n) and using the Gammasphere spectrometer array to probe the high-spin states in 154Dy. With the help of large Compton-suppressed spectrometers such as GAMMASPHERE in the USA and EUROBALL in Europe, superdeformed nuclei have been identified in several regions of the chart of nuclides including 151Dy, 153Dy, 154Dy and 155Dy. The 154Dy nucleus, located in the …


The 3d Dynamics Of The Cosserat Rod As Applied To Continuum Robotics, Charles Rees Jones Dec 2011

The 3d Dynamics Of The Cosserat Rod As Applied To Continuum Robotics, Charles Rees Jones

Theses and Dissertations

In the effort to simulate the biologically inspired continuum robot’s dynamic capabilities, researchers have been faced with the daunting task of simulating—in real-time—the complete three dimensional dynamics of the the “beam-like” structure which includes the three “stiff” degrees-ofreedom transverse and dilational shear. Therefore, researchers have traditionally limited the difficulty of the problem with simplifying assumptions. This study, however, puts forward a solution which makes no simplifying assumptions and trades off only the real-time requirement of the desired solution. The solution is a Finite Difference Time Domain method employing an explicit single step method with cheap right hands sides. The cheap …


Effect Of Asphalt Emulsion On Surface Treated Flexible Pavements Using The Bending Beam Rheometer, Jason Michael Barham Dec 2011

Effect Of Asphalt Emulsion On Surface Treated Flexible Pavements Using The Bending Beam Rheometer, Jason Michael Barham

Theses and Dissertations

Chip and scrub seal treatments are common pavement preservation practices that use asphalt emulsions. Their performance has been studied for several years, yet many questions remain. The primary thesis objective was to study near surface behaviors of flexible pavements that are candidates for seal treatments. This study investigated the ability of the bending beam rheometer (BBR) to detect pavement surface changes due to the application of asphalt emulsion. Estimated stiffness and m-value data was recorded for three asphalt concrete mixtures using mixture beams approximately 120 mm long by 12 mm wide by 7.7 mm thick sawn from the surface of …


The Original Footloose: How President Murlin Pushed Back Against Traditional Depauw Methodism, Sam Spahn Dec 2011

The Original Footloose: How President Murlin Pushed Back Against Traditional Depauw Methodism, Sam Spahn

Student Research

No abstract provided.


Assessing The Effects Of Toxic Synthetic Organic Compounds On Activated Sludge Communities, Kristopher Michael Lightsey Dec 2011

Assessing The Effects Of Toxic Synthetic Organic Compounds On Activated Sludge Communities, Kristopher Michael Lightsey

Theses and Dissertations

The recent technological advances in environmental monitoring coupled with the increasingly stringent effluent requirements being placed on waste treatment systems makes it vital to have a more complete understanding of how specific compounds in waste streams can impact wastewater treatment processes. Since activated sludge processes are recognized as one of the most often applied technologies in wastewater treatment, this study assesses the impacts of select toxic synthetic organic compounds (SOCs) on the activated sludge communities in two types of wastewater treatment reactors: a completely-mixed activated sludge reactor (CMAS) and a sequencing batch reactor (SBR). Commonly applied activated sludge monitoring parameters, …


Detection And Classification Of Buried Radioactive Materials, Wei Wei Dec 2011

Detection And Classification Of Buried Radioactive Materials, Wei Wei

Theses and Dissertations

This dissertation develops new approaches for detection and classification of buried radioactive materials. Different spectral transformation methods are proposed to effectively suppress noise and to better distinguish signal features in the transformed space. The contributions of this dissertation are detailed as follows. 1) Propose an unsupervised method for buried radioactive material detection. In the experiments, the original Reed-Xiaoli (RX) algorithm performs similarly as the gross count (GC) method; however, the constrained energy minimization (CEM) method performs better if using feature vectors selected from the RX output. Thus, an unsupervised method is developed by combining the RX and CEM methods, which …


Development Of Sub Models For A Phenomenological Investigation Of Diesel Engine Combustion, Lu Qiu Dec 2011

Development Of Sub Models For A Phenomenological Investigation Of Diesel Engine Combustion, Lu Qiu

Theses and Dissertations

Various sub models of a multi-zone phenomenological model are developed by incorporating Dec’s conceptual model and Siebers’ mixing limited theory and validated with experiments. The spray penetration model, liquid length model and lift-off length model are verified with experiment data. The ignition delay model is then validated with experiment data at different injection timings and loads. The air entrainment model is based on Siebers’ jet theory. Sub models for the premixed heat release rate and diffusion burn rate are also included. The overall phenomenological model is at first used to match the motoring pressure curve. The important sub models are …


Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm For Optimal Operation Of Reconfigurable Distribution Grids, Wenqin Xue Dec 2011

Discrete Particle Swarm Optimization Algorithm For Optimal Operation Of Reconfigurable Distribution Grids, Wenqin Xue

Theses and Dissertations

Optimization techniques are widely applied in the power system planning and operation to achieve more efficient and reliable power supply. With the introduction of new technologies, the complexity of today’s power system increased significantly. Intelligent optimization techniques, such as Particle Swarm Optimization (PSO), can efficiently deal with the new challenges compared to conventional optimization techniques. This thesis presents applications of discrete PSO in two specific environments. The first one is for day-ahead optimal scheduling of the reconfigurable gird with distributed energy resources. The second one is a two-step method for rapid reconfiguration of shipboard power system. Effective techniques, such as …