Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Removal Of Heavy Metals From Aqueous Solutions Using Local Adsorbents, Moza S. Al-Sharyani

Theses

The recent rapid increase in industrialization activities contributed to most of aquatic pollution problems. Among aquatic pollutants, heavy metals, such as zinc, lead, cadmium, and copper have gained relatively more significance in view of their persistence and toxicity. Due to their health and toxicological effects, environmental agencies and authorities have set strict regulations to maintain the limit of heavy metals in wastewater below the maximum acceptable concentration levels.

The technical feasibility of using raw date pits and different activated carbons prepared from date pits by air and acid activation as low cost local adsorbents for the removal of different heavy …

Emissivity Of Patterned Silicon Wafers In Rapid Thermal Processing, Markus Rabus

Theses

The influence of patterns on emissivity in silicon wafers in rapid thermal processing systems has been investigated. In this study, two experiments with layered and patterned silicon wafers were conducted. The main difference in the experiments is the way in which the temperature was controlled. The first experiment was performed under Open Loop Intensity Control (OLIC). For OLIC, no feedback from the wafer is returned. It is assumed that supplying a certain power level will lead to the desired temperature. The other experiment used the Closed Loop Intensity Control. In this case, a feedback, in the form of temperature deviation …

Snp Auto-Calling Using Artificial Neural Networks, Damien Spivak

Theses

In recent years feedforward artificial neural networks (ANN) and their training algorithms have become an effective methodology for the construction of nonlinear systems that solve the statistical problem of classification. The ability of ANNs to solve this problem is highly germane to making progress in the refinement of DNA microarray analysis and techniques regarding this issue. This study attempts to deal with the classification of microarray data and the comparison and validation of simple feedforward ANNs in partitioning high dimensional data. In doing this the efficacy of using ANNs as a genotyping tool will be proven. Furthermore, it has been …

An Analysis Of Changes In The Magnetic Field Of Active Region 9415 After The 2001 April 6 Solar Flare, Juli Marya Stoltz

Theses

The objective of this study was to further the current understanding of the correlation between solar flares and magnetic flux change. The average gradient of the magnetic flux around the neutral line of Active Region 9415 and the locations of the magnetic flux centers-of-mass in both polarities in AR 9415 were determined. Subsequent to the 2001 April 6 flare, there was a statistically significant mean increase of 0.00208 G/km in the average gradient. Prior to the flare, the magnetic flux centers-of-mass became increasingly sheared along the neutral line. After the flare, this shear suddenly decreased and the magnetic flux centers-of-mass …

Techno-Economic Evaluation Of Conventional And Membrane-Based Pretreatment Before Reverse Osmosis, Shamma Ahmed Rashid Al-Malek

Theses

In this thesis, a technological and economical comparison was conducted on both conventional and membrane based pre-treatment before reverse osmosis desalination. In order to produce high quality water at the design recovery ratio, reverse osmosis membranes should receive high quality feed water in terms of turbidity, suspended solids, and biological matters. Conventional pre-treatment schemes of media and cartridge filters after coagulation chambers have been used for years. Due to the poor performance and decline in reverse osmosis recovery, membrane based pre-treatment has emerged and has been under research and study in the recent years. Few conventional pre-treatment reverse osmosis plants …

Sharing The Big Apple : A Survey Study Of People, Place And Locatability, Samer Nadim Karam

Theses

Over the past half century social trends and new technologies have weakened local social ties and thus, the fabric of civil society itself. Mobile location-aware community systems offer one path to redress these problems by enhancing community cohesion and the formation of social capital by helping people to meet each other and coordinate their actions. However, little is known about the general population's desire and attitude towards these systems.

The design space described by the People-to-People-to-Geographical-Places Framework (P3-Framework), was used to guide a survey study of the impact of 'place' on people's social information needs and their willingness to share …

Rebuild Performance Enhancement Using Onboard Caching And Delayed Vacation Termination In Clustered Raid 5, Akheel Ahmed

Theses

The Clustered Raid 5 (CRAID5) architecture with a parity group size(G) smaller than the number of disks(N) increases the load by the declustering ratio denoted by α = (G -1)/(N -1), which can be lesser than that in Raid 5 while switching to, and subsequently operating in rebuild mode. The Nearly Random Permutation (NRP) layout provides the flexibility to vary the declustering ratio (α) for a given N, and the Vacationing Server Model (VSM) of processing the rebuild requests provides acceptable rebuild and user response times.

The rebuild performance and the user response time can be improved by introducing an …

Short-Term Effects Of Bulkheads On The Bayshore Of Fire Island, New York, Dipanjali Chavan

Theses

Construction of bulkheads as a method of shore protection is common on the bay shoreline of Fire Island, New York but there are few studies that assess the effects of these structures on beach change in estuarine and lagoon environments. A short-term field study was conducted at Cherry Grove on Fire Island to assess the effect of a bulkhead on the fronting profile and to the adjacent beaches on the east side of the bulkhead. Data on winds, waves, and currents were gathered daily at high water. Data on profile change and depth of sediment activation were gathered at low …

Approximation Algorithms For Variants Of The Traveling Salesman Problem, Ankur Gupta

Theses

The traveling salesman problem, hereafter abbreviated and referred to as TSP, is a very well known NP-optimization problem and is one of the most widely researched problems in computer science. Classical TSP is one of the original NP - hard problems [1]. It is also known to be NP - hard to approximate within any factor and thus there is no approximation algorithm for TSP for general graphs, unless P = NP. However, given the added constraint that edges of the graph observe triangle inequality, it has been shown that it is possible achieve a good approximation to the optimal …

Structure And Dynamics Of Soluble Guanylyl Cyclase, Kentaro Sugino

Theses

Soluble guanylyl cyclase (sGC) is one of the key enzymes involved in many fundamental biological processes including vasodilatation. It can be allosterically activated by synthetic compound such as YC-l. Recently, the 3D structure of adenylyl cyclase (AC), which is a homologue of sGC, was determined. Using AC as template and homology modeling, the 3D structure of sGC is predicted. Prior experimental work has suggested two binding modes of YC- 1. In the current investigation, molecular dynamics simulations (MD) were conducted to seek more detail of molecular mechanism of sGC activation.

From these MD simulations, a tentative mechanism of sGC activation …

The Role Of University Participation In Integrated Coastal Zone Management : A Case Study Of The Ria De Aviero, Amie Barbosa Figueiredo

Theses

The purpose of this investigation is to examine the efforts of the Universidade de Aveiro to create a public participation process and provide information for the management of the Ria de Aveiro, a lagoon system, in Portugal. This thesis examines whether universities are effective as coordinators and facilitators of Integrated Coastal Zone Management (ICZM). The Universidade de Aveiro, through the European Union-ICZM Demonstration Programme, spearheaded two projects, MARIA and ESGIRA-Maria, in efforts towards moving forward with ICZM in the area. A framework was created and then applied through a series of pilot-projects. Examination of the results of these pilot projects …

Analysis Of Relationship Between Software Metrics And Process Models, Sadia Munir

Theses

This thesis studies the correlation between software process models and software metrics. To support our studies we have defined a Process - Metric Evaluation Framework and derived an evaluation template from it. The template served as a basic tool in studding the relationships between various process models, artifacts and software metrics.

We have evaluated a number of process models according to our template and have identified suitable software metrics. We have also recommended a root cause analysis approach at various points of the process models.

The suggested software metrics can be derived from various product and process artifacts. They can …

Performance Evaluation Of Various Allocation Methods In A Heterogeneous Disk Array Architecture, Bogdan Alexandru Branzoi

Theses

Dataset attributes, such as data availability levels and access patterns, make their mapping to certain RAID levels more desirable than others. On the other hand, it is not economically viable for an installation to acquire multiple disk arrays to satisfy diverse data storage requirements. A Heterogeneous Disk Array (HDA) architecture is proposed, which allows device heterogeneity as well as RAID level heterogeneity. In other words, various disks of different types can be incorporated in a single HDA and multiple RAID schemes can coexist in the same array. The goal of this architecture is to utilize the resources of all its …

2d Quantitative Structure Activity Relationship Modeling Of Methylphenidate Analogues Using Algorithm And Partial Least Square Regression, Noureen Wadhwaniya

Theses

Quantitative Structure-Activity Relationship (QSAR) analysis attempts to develop a predictive model of biological activity based on molecular descriptors. 2D QSAR uses descriptors, such as topological indices, that are independent of molecular conformation. A genetic algorithm - partial least squares (GA-PLS) approach was used to identify the molecular descriptors that correlate to the biological activity (binding affinity) of a set of 80 methylphenidate analogues and to construct a predictive model. The GA code was implemented using the fitness function (1-(n-1)(1-q²)/ (n - c)), where n is the number of compounds, c is the optimal number of components, and q …

Next Generation Satellite Orbital Control System, Thomas Gerard Nowak

Theses

Selection of the correct software architecture is vital for building successful software-intensive systems. Its realization requires important decisions about the organization of the system and by and large permits or prevents a system's acceptance and quality attributes such as performance and reliability. The correct architecture is essential for program success while the wrong one is a formula for disaster.

In this investigation, potential software architectures for the Next Generation Satellite Orbital Control System (NG-SOCS) are developed from compiled system specifications and a review of existing technologies. From the developed architectures, the recommended architecture is selected based on real-world considerations that …

Digital Libraries And Middleware Technology, Muhammad Umar Qasim

Theses

Digital libraries deliver personalized knowledge directly to their users, without being restricted to the contents of a physical library. In a digital library information from any online source can be managed and shared, making more knowledge available to users than before. The information sharing is achieved by integrating many autonomous heterogeneous systems available. The challenge is to provide users with the ability to transparently access digital library contents in spite of the heterogeneity among the information sources.

Research communities have proposed several approaches to accomplish the system integration in digital libraries. In this thesis, the working of currently employed approaches …

Data Feed Management Automation : An Empirical Approach, Dibyendu Majumder

Theses

This thesis proposes a framework for automation of data feed management and control. The framework can be classified into two broad areas i) building an ontology for a feed system and ii) developing a test suite, that is, a set of statistical models to analyze and diagnose feeds and formalize the results to feedback into the ontology. This thesis concentrates more on the latter and will only outline the course of action required for the former. Detailed descriptions of the statistical models that are part of the test suite are given and their strengths and weaknesses discussed. Practical results of …

The Establishment, Management And Evaluation Of The Conservation Reserve System In The Rangelands Of Western Australia, Anthony Brandis

Theses

The rangelands of Western Australia cover about 85% of the State and include the sub-tropical savanna of the Kimberley, the semi arid and arid spinifex, the southern mulga shrublands and the extensive chenopod plains of the Nullarbor. About 40% of the rangelands are managed for the production of meat and wool under a pastoral lease system. A large range of ecosystems occurs within these pastoral leases where, after a relatively short period of time, many changes to native flora and fauna populations have occurred. Biological diversity in the rangelands is declining most noticeably with the extinction, or reduction in the …

Revising And Unifying The Use Case Textual And Graphical Worlds, Pierre Metz

Theses

This thesis traces the evolution of use cases and use case relationships from the initial suggestion by Jacobson et al. in OOSE until today. This tracing reveals that there are two distinct streams of development, as referred in this thesis to as the “textual world” and the “graphical world”: the textual world being literature concentrating on textual use case properties, i.e. use case writing techniques and use case templates. The second stream that has been developed in parallel with the use case template progression is UML, i.e. Unified Modeling Language, which defines the standard for the use case diagram notation …

Gmpac - The Generic Message Processing And Communications Framework, Eoin Barry

Theses

The Generic Message Processing and Communications Framework (GMPAC), is an extensible, communications architecture, which is concerned processing various message types. The GMPAC framework is designed around the java NIO API. It receives in various messages over a socket, decomposes them and extracts the payload. It then passes a message back to the sender in the same format as the received message. GMPAC uses xml files to define message formats, and decodes and decodes the messages using information contained in these definitions. This project was developed for Altobridge Tralee, meeting a set of requirements set out by them. This report provides …

Building A Declarative Workflow Engine, Patrick Rushe

Theses

In the last two decades, technology has become available that not only allows certain activities of a business process to be automated, but also allows a business process itself to be automatically managed. A Workflow Management System assigns the work, passes it on, and tracks its progress. This technology is called Workflow. Workflow is the automation and formal management of a business process.

Many commercial and open-source Workflow Management Systems are available. However, the cost and technical difficulty in implementing either can be excessively high. The primary contribution of this work is to prove that building a workflow engine is …

Elucidation Of The Mass Spectral Fragmentation Pathways Of Cyclic Hepatopeptides Microcystins, Paloma Muniz Ortea

Theses

The most frequently found cyanobacterial toxins in blooms from fresh and brackish waters are the cyclic peptide microcystins (MCs) and nodularin family. These toxins cause fatal poisonings of agricultural livestock, wild animals, birds and fish on a worldwide basis. The involvement of these toxins in human health problems has also been inferred in several countries and their presence in drinking water sources is of interest to the drinking water industry.

One of the biggest problems in the analysis of MCs is the lack of commercially available standards to be used for the identification and characterisation of these cyanobacterial toxins. One …

A Case For Constructivism In Workplace Education : Substantiated With The Design, Development, Implementation And Evaluation Of A Collaborative And Resource-Based Web Learning Environment, Carmel Burke

Theses

This thesis addresses the role of constructivism in workplace education, where organisations are currently going through a time of great change. The study starts with questioning the suitability of information and communication technology in current web based learning in the workplace. Organisations increasingly require professionals to possess knowledge in a dynamic way in order to deal with change and just-in-time demands. The research is firmly anchored in learning theories as they apply to workplace education and particularly as they apply to collaborative and resource-based web learning. An extensive literature review is produced in order to establish a theoretical starting point …

Numerical Modelling Of Sediments In Cork Harbour, Jérémy Pingon

Theses

In recent years there have been considerable developments in the new and emerging field of hydroinformatics. This relatively new discipline is concerned with the application of computer and networking technology for the planning, management and protection of water bodies.

Environmental issues in estuaries require accurate and detailed knowledge of cohesive sediment transport processes to assess different issues including water quality, pollutant dispersion, and dredging and maintenance of navigation channels.

This thesis presents a review of the main sediment properties and processes required for modelling the behaviour and transport of sediments. It also introduces a new approach to sediment properties using …

Static Source Code Weaving : Overcoming The Challenges Of Aspect-Oriented Programming, Stephen Malone

Theses

Aspect-Oriented Programming (AOP) is a relatively new programming paradigm, which promises to allow developers to express cross-cutting concerns independently of their application to the primary core concerns of a system. This promises to allow developers the freedom to reason about both the cross-cutting concerns of a system as well as its primary concerns. In allowing for the expression of cross-cutting concerns AOP is extremely powerful; significant benefits have been found such as the ability to reason about cross-cutting concerns, and in some cases dramatic reductions in the number of lines of code required to implement crosscutting behaviour. These benefits however …

To Develop A Process For The Fabrication Of Thin Film Copper Rf Coils On Glass By Sputter Deposition., Eleanor Maria Baldwin

Theses

A fabrication process was developed to produce thin film probe coils for use in high resolution NMR spectroscopy. Sputter deposited thin film copper coils in the micron range were investigated as a potential replacement for the traditional 1mm diameter copper wire coils currently used.

In NMR spectroscopy higher resolution may be achieved by employing higher field strength magnets which increases the intensity of the inherently weak NMR signal. A reduction in the mass of the copper probe coil through thin film deposition was anticipated to reduce the disturbance to the homogeneity of the magnetic field at higher field strengths. This …

Radio Resource Management For Cellular Wireless Local Area Networks., Olivia Brickley

Theses

The growing demand for mobile computing worldwide has led to the increasing deployment and use of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLANs) in the last number of years. During this time, user requirements have evolved, resulting in a more diverse mix of services being carried over the wireless medium. In particular, delay sensitive real-time applications such as streaming multimedia and voice over IP are growing in importance. The widely accepted IEEE 802.11b standard, however, was not designed with sufficient Quality of Service (QoS) constraints for such applications. A new draft of the standard named 802.1 le has been proposed that deals …

Exploring Marine Biotoxins Using Analytical Techniques Based On Mass Spectrometry, Mónica Fernández Amandi

Theses

The impact of phycotoxins on human and animal health is of important concern for worldwide authorities and the scientific community. Domoic acid (DA) is a neurotoxin produced by phytoplankton {Pseudonitzchia spp.). It enters the food chain through the consumption of shellfish that feed on toxic diatoms. DA has been responsible for several outbreaks affecting humans and animals all around the world. Yessotoxin (YTX) is produced by dinoflagellate species {Protoceratiuni reticulatum) which are globally distributed. Its toxicity is low when ingested orally. However, the co-extraction of YTX with diarrhetic shellfish poisoning (DSP) toxins, derives false positives when the mouse bioassay is …

Analytical And Synthetic Methods For Anatoxins., Janet Crowley

Theses

This thesis is focused on the potent cyanobacterial neurotoxins anatoxin-a (AN), its methyl analogue homoanatoxin-a (HMAN) and their non-toxic dihydro- and epoxydegradation products. In commencing the investigation into this area a literature review was performed in order to identify areas where more research and method development was required (Chapter 1). The review highlighted the fact that although a number of analytical methods had been developed for the analysis of AN, there were few methods for the determination of its potent homologue HMAN and their non-toxic degradation products. As these neurotoxins degrade quickly it is important to monitor their degradation products, …

The Pedagogical And Practical Issues Of Using Ict In Post-Primary Schools, Kay O'Sullivan Mc Carty

Theses

This study was an investigation into some of the pedagogical and practical issues that need to be considered when using ICT, with particular reference to post-primary schools. This investigation was prompted by the introduction of broadband into Irish schools in the next twelve months. Resources need to be developed that are subject specific and relevant to the Irish curriculum. The principle learning theories were examined and their pedagogical implications for post-primary teachers were discussed. The definition of learning styles was explored, different measurements were looked at and several internet based inventories were examined. The VARK questionnaire was administered to a …