Digital Commons Network^™

An Investigation Into Temperature Trending In Railroad Tapered Roller Bearings Through Vibration Monitoring Techniques, Rafael Kristian Maldonado

Theses and Dissertations - UTB/UTPA

A series of laboratory experiments have been conducted at The University of Texas-Pan American to investigate the cause of bearing “temperature trending.” A combination of theoretical and experimental studies has identified potential sources for the abrupt changes in temperature often seen in railroad bearings. Previous studies suggest the possibility of vibration induced roller misalignment as the root cause for temperature trending. Subsequent research conducted by the UTPA team was designed to provide evidence through vibration monitoring techniques for the proposed hypothesis. To that end, a dynamic bearing tester was used to run four bearings at various speeds and loads experienced …

Synthesis, Characterization And Applications Of One-Dimensional Metal Oxide Nanostructures, Alexander Charles Santulli

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Nanomaterials have been of keen research interest, owing to their exciting and unique properties (e.g. optical, magnetic, electronic, and mechanical). These properties allow nanomaterials to have many applications in areas of medicine, alternative energy, catalysis, and information storage. In particular, one-dimensional (1D) nanomaterials are highly advantageous, owing to the inherent anisotropic nature, which allows for effective transport and study of properties on the nanoscale. More specifically, 1D metal oxide nanomaterials are of particular interest, owing to their high thermal and chemical stability, as well as their intriguing optical, electronic, and magnetic properties. Herein, we will investigate the synthesis and characterization …

Computationally Efficient Methods For Shift-Variant Image Restoration In Two And Three Dimensions, Shekhar Bangalore Sastry

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Shift-variant image restoration or image deblurring is useful in many applications including Machine Vision, Image Processing, 3D Microscopy, medical image analysis, etc. Currently, several shift-variant restoration approaches exist. However, they are either computationally expensive or inaccurate leading to poor image quality. This thesis proposes and investigates computationally efficient techniques that produce high quality restoration, even in the presence of noise. The methods presented here are general in that they are not limited to certain types of kernels to be computationally efficient. Detailed analysis and computational algorithms for implementing the methods are provided. This thesis addresses blurring in linear shift-variant imaging …

Party Identification, Values, Risk Perceptions And Public Opinion On Climate Change, Jacob Sohlberg

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

While the scientific debate over climate change has been settled, the U.S. public is profoundly divided. Some people view climate change as a huge problem that needs to be resolved, whereas others dismiss it as non-issue. It is vital that we understand what is driving attitudes on this issue since climate change is likely to alter our world in multiple, mostly negative, ways. In this dissertation, I rely on experiments, surveys and content analysis to examine the relative merits of two broad perspectives on what is driving public opinion on climate change. One perspective centers on the role of party …

Functional Analysis Of Poliovirus Protein 2catpase In Viral Rna Replication And Encapsidation Using Alanine Scanning Mutagenesis, Chunling Wang

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Polypeptide 2CATPase is one of the most thoroughly studied but least understood proteins in the life cycle of poliovirus. Within the protein, multiple functional domains, important for uncoating, host cell membrane alterations, RNA replication and encapsidation have previously been identified. In this study, charged to alanine scanning mutagenesis was used to generate conditional-lethal mutations in hitherto uncharacterized domains of the 2CATPase polypeptide, particularly those possibly involved in morphogenesis. Adjacent or clustered charged amino acids (2-4), scattered along the 2CATPase coding sequence, were replaced with alanines. RNA transcripts of mutant poliovirus cDNA clones were transfected into HeLa cells. Subsequently, ten lethal, …

A Measurement Of Electrons From Heavy Quarks In P+P Collisions At [Square Root Of]S = 200 Gev, Harry W. Themann

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider (RHIC) at BNL offers a unique opportunity in that it is capable of colliding protons and nuclei, including asymmetric collisions of different species. Open heavy quarks, that is charm or bottom not forming bound $c\bar{c}$ or $b\bar{b}$ pairs are important probes of the Quark Gluon Plasma at the Relativistic Heavy Ion Collider at BNL. They are formed at the initial collision of the nuclei and thus any effect to their transverse momentum spectra or azimuthal distribution can only come from their interaction with the matter created in the collision. One of the most powerful techniques …

Flannery O'Connor: Revelations Of The Displaced Soul, Rose M. Tomasi

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Flannery O'Connor's thematic paradigm incorporates spiritual overtones, irony and black comedy into her works. The characters appear to possess displaced souls that require some type of spiritual and moral awareness through a shocking intervention. This paper provides an analysis of the introspective development that occurs within the characters; and I will examine the process in which the characters seem to come to shocking revelations about their flawed view of life. Furthermore, an investigation of the protagonist's journey from selfishness to self-awareness will demonstrate the human flaws and weakness in their lives. The circumstances surrounding these outcomes is tragic, yet they …

Synthesis Of Disulfide Iron Complexes, Jung-Chu Tsai

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Iron sulfur proteins are the most commonly known proteins in all living organisms. The active sites of some iron sulfur protein are clusters that are the polynuclear combinations of iron and sulfur atoms. Iron-sulfur clusters perform various biochemical abilities, for example, electron transfer. Iron-sulfur clusters can also act as redox and non-redox catalysts. Creating model metal centers which mimic the electronic configuration of the active sites and the interaction between proteins is still an issue today. We decided to design simple and benzene thiols that imitate the side arm of cysteine (-CH₂-SH-). Therefore, we developed the H_{3 …}

Programmable Control Of The Tandem Vandegraaff, Gregory Wille

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

The control system of the Tandem Van de Graaf (VDG) electrostatic accelerator was upgraded in situ, replacing analog control devices with digitally programmable devices, in order to make the control system more intuitive, automated, mobile, upgradable, and generally more user-friendly. The control replacement represents a change in mission focus from scientic research by a small number of highly skilled operators, to a new mission of education, outreach, and freelance precision measurement by a class of operators who are more numerous yet less highly trained. Design considerations and installation details are described within. | 44 pages

Heterogeneous Ice Nucleation From Laboratory-Generated And Field-Collected Aerosol Particles, Bingbing Wang

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Aerosol particles can serve as atmospheric ice nuclei (IN) and thus initiate ice formation resulting in the formation of cirrus and mixed&ndashphase clouds and thereby indirectly affect the global radiative budget, hydrological cycle, and climate. Atmospheric ice crystal formation by heterogeneous nucleation is poorly understood and poses one of the largest uncertainties in predicting future climate. Here I present a laboratory study on heterogeneous ice nucleation efficiency and water uptake by various types of laboratory&ndashgenerated and field&ndashcollected organic&ndashcontaining particles for temperatures and relative humidity typical of the troposphere and lower stratosphere. Laboratory&ndashgenerated Suwannee river standard fulvic acid (SRFA) and Leonardite …

Slaves, Trains, And Missionaries: British Moral Imperialism And The Development Of Precolonial East Africa, 1873-1901, Daniel Woulfin

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This dissertation explores the role of moral imperialism in the late nineteenth century expansion of the British Empire using East Africa as a case study. Moral imperialism, the ideology that argued that the British had a moral duty to "civilize, "Christianize, "uplift, and economically "develop" non-Europeans and their territories, has not been taken as seriously by historians as other factors for British expansion, namely economic arguments and strategic geopolitics by British officials. By applying Alan Lester's model of three categories of colonial discourse in nineteenth century South Africa: governmentality, humanitarianism, and settler capitalism to East Africa between 1873 and 1901, …

Cloud-Resolving Modeling Of Aerosol Indirect Effects In Idealized Radiative-Convective Equilibrium With Interactive And Fixed Sea Surface Temperature, Cheng-En Yang

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

This study aims to evaluate the impact of aerosol indirect effects (AIEs) on climate variations over tropical oceans through a three-dimensional cloud-resolving model, the System for Atmospheric Modeling, in idealized radiative-convective equilibrium (RCE). In RCE framework, the interactions among radiation, convection and surface fluxes are explicitly included while the effects of the large-scale circulation on convection are ignored. The AIEs on RCE are modeled by varying the number concentration of cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), served as a proxy for the aerosol amount in the environment, over a wide range starting from pristine maritime (50 cm-3) to polluted (1000 cm-3) conditions. …

Data-Adaptive Hierarchical Protocols For Wireless Sensor Networks And Health Monitoring Systems, Guofeng Hou

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Recent advances in micro-electro-mechanical systems (MEMS) technology, wireless communications, and digital electronics have enabled the development of low-cost, low-power wireless sensor nodes that are small in size and communicate untethered over short distances. Networking together hundreds or thousands of wireless sensor nodes allows users to accurately monitor a remote environment by intelligently combining data from the individual nodes. Such networks require robust wireless communication protocols that are energy efficient, data transmission efficient and support long network lifetime. In this Ph.D. dissertation, we analyzed and implemented the Low-Energy Adaptive Clustering Hierarchy (LEACH) protocol, a leading protocol architecture for wireless sensor networks. …

A Solid State Nmr And Exafs Study Of Manganese Oxide Minerals, Kellie Ann Aldi

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Though only a minor component of soils occurring as thin coatings on rocks and sediments, manganese oxide minerals are excellent sorbents of various cations and have a significant impact on the geochemical cycling of environmentally relevant cations such as Pb, Cd, Ni, Cu and Zn. The layered manganese oxide, birnessite, has been found to have the highest sorption capacity of these Mn minerals, attributed to the negative layer charge that arises from structural "defects" such as layer Mn3+ ions and Mn4+ vacancies, as well as the high interlayer surface area available for the sorption of charge compensating cations. Great interest …

Multiple Dna Binding Domains Mediate The Function Of Ercc1-Xpf In Nucleotide Excision Repair And Interstrand Crosslink Repair, Yan Su

Stony Brook Theses and Dissertations Collection, 2006-2020 (closed to submissions)

Structure-specific endonucleases are widespread enzymes that incise phosphodiester bonds in DNA and play key roles in DNA transactions including the maintenance of genome stability. One such enzyme is ERCC1-XPF, which cleaves single-stranded/double-stranded DNA junctions, and is involved in nucleotide excision repair (NER), interstrand crosslink (ICL) repair, homologous recombination, and other pathways. Defects in ERCC1-XPF lead to several hereditary diseases, like xeroderma pigmentosum, XFE progeroid syndrome, cranio-occulo-facio-skeletal syndrome, and Fanconi anemia. In NER, ERCC1-XPF is recruited to DNA lesions by interaction with XPA and incises the DNA 5' to the lesion. In this dissertation, the roles of the four C-terminal DNA …

Front Matter, Tennessee Ornithological Society

The Migrant - Tennessee Ornithological Society

No abstract provided.

Status Of Glossy And White-Faced Ibises In Tennessee, Richard L. Knight

The Migrant - Tennessee Ornithological Society

No abstract provided.

2011 Tennessee Fall Bird Counts, Ron Hoff

The Migrant - Tennessee Ornithological Society

No abstract provided.

Tos Fall Symposium 2011 Abstracts, Tennessee Ornithological Society

The Migrant - Tennessee Ornithological Society

No abstract provided.

The Fall Season, Richard L. Knight, Dick D. Preston, Phillip D. Casteel, Richard P. Lewis

The Migrant - Tennessee Ornithological Society

No abstract provided.

Minutes Of Board Of Directors 2011 Fall Meeting, Cyndi Routledge

The Migrant - Tennessee Ornithological Society

No abstract provided.

Contents, Tennessee Ornithological Society

The Migrant - Tennessee Ornithological Society

No abstract provided.

Clemson Commencement Program, December 2011, Clemson University

Clemson Commencement Programs

No abstract provided.

Exploring Factors Of Media Characteristic Influencing Flow In Learning Through Virtual Worlds, Beomkyu Choi, Youngkyun Baek

Educational Technology Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study aims to find out factors of media characteristic which are considered to influence flow in learning through virtual worlds. One hundred ninety eight elementary students who are eleven to twelve years old participated in this study. After the exploratory factor analysis, to extract media characteristics of virtual worlds, seventy-eight elementary students who are eleven years old were used in the analysis of exploring relationships between factors influencing flow.

The results of this study show that distinct media characteristics of virtual worlds affecting engagement were labeled 'interactivity', 'representational fidelity', 'immediacy of communication', 'consistency', and 'persistence' after the exploratory factor …

Co2 Sequestration In Basalt: Carbonate Mineralization And Fluid Substitution, Thomas L. Otheim, Ludmila Adam, Kasper Van Wijk, Michael L. Batzle, Travis Mcling, Robert Podgorney

CGISS Publications and Presentations

Geologicalsequestration of carbon dioxide in deep reservoirs may provide alarge-scale option for reducing the emissions of this gas intothe atmosphere. The effectiveness of sequestration depends on the storagecapacity and stability of the reservoir and risk of leakageinto the overburden. Reservoir rocks can react with a CO₂-watermixture, potentially resulting in the precipitation of minerals in theavailable matrix pore space and within pre-existing fractures. This inducedmineralization may form internal seals that could help mitigate theleakage of CO₂ into the overburden. For basaltic host rocks,carbonic acid partially dissolves minerals in the host rock, suchas the calcium plagioclase mineral, freeing various …

Empirical Problems Using The Efficient Frontier To Find Optimal Weights In Asset Classes, Matthew Maher, Harry White, Phil Fry

Marketing Faculty Publications and Presentations

This study documents the transitory nature of "efficient" weights in six commonly employed asset classes, going beyond a simple stock and bond classes and using a 30 year data window. We review the literature on asset class diversification, including its failures during the recent credit crisis. Results show that asset class diversification benefits are inconsistent and, contrary to common academic wisdom before recent times, historical asset class covariances (even estimated with decades of data) are poor estimates of future values.

Managing Undocumented Students: Do Undocumented Students Hinder Student Performance?, Gregory Hill, Daniel P. Hawes

Public Policy and Administration Faculty Publications and Presentations

Illegal immigration is a salient topic for policy makers and for local units of government who are responsible for implementing policies. One particularly relevant policy topic is to what extent undocumented students affect performance in public schools, and if undocumented students do have an impact on performance, what can be done about it? Using Texas as a case study, this analysis finds that, surprisingly, undocumented students have only a marginal effect on the overall performance on standardized exams. Among Latinos, however, there is a statistically negative effect. Furthermore, evidence suggests that managerial skills can mitigate those negative effects.

Adipose Tissue Extracellular Matrix And Vascular Abnormalities In Obesity And Insulin Resistance, Michael Spencer, Resat Unal, Beibei Zhu, Neda Rasouli, Robert E. Mcgehee Jr., Charlotte A. Peterson, Philip A. Kern

Clinical and Translational Science Faculty Publications

Context: Insulin resistance is associated with inflammation, fibrosis, and hypoxia in adipose tissue.

Objective: This study was intended to better characterize the extracellular matrix (ECM) and vascularity of insulin-resistant adipose tissue. Design: Adipose expression of collagens, elastin, and angiogenic factors was assessed using realtime RT-PCR and immunohistochemistry (IHC) in abdominal sc adipose tissue. Adipocyte-macrophage coculture experiments examined the effects of polarized macrophages on adipose ECM gene expression, and the effects of collagens were measured in an angiogenesis assay.

Participants and Setting: A total of 74 nondiabetic subjects participated at a University Clinical Research Center. Interventions: Interventions included baseline adipose biopsy …

Cave Talk, December 2011, Diane Thompson

Cave Talk

Contents: From the Desk of the President -- International Park World Publication -- Free Webinars -- NCA 2012 Convention -- Administrative Notes

The Daily Gamecock, Thursday, December 1, 2011, University Of South Carolina, Office Of Student Media

December

No abstract provided.