Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Study Of The Minimum Spanning Hyper-Tree Routing Algorithm In Wireless Sensor Networks, Ting Yang, Yugeng Sun, Zhaoxia Wang, Juwei Zhang, Yingqiang Ding

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Designing energy-efficient routing protocols to effectively increase the networks' lifetime and provide the robust network service is one of the important problems in the research of wireless sensor networks. Using the hyper-graph theory, the paper represents large-scale wireless sensor networks into a hyper-graph model, which can effectively decrease the control messages in routing process. Based on this mathematic model, the paper presents the minimum spanning hyper-tree routing algorithm in synchronous wireless sensor networks (MSHT-SN), which builds a minimum energy consumption tree for data collection from multi-nodes to Sink node. The validity of the algorithm is proved by the theatrical analysis. …

Location Update Versus Paging Trade-Off In Cellular Networks: An Approach Based On Vector Quantization, Abhishek Roy, Archan Misra, Sajal K. Das

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In this paper we propose two information-theoretic techniques for efficiently trading off the location update and paging costs associated with mobility management in wireless cellular networks. Previous approaches attempt to always accurately convey a mobile's movement sequence and hence, cannot reduce the signaling cost below the entropy bound. Our proposed techniques, however, exploit rate-distortion theory to arbitrarily reduce the update cost, at the expense of an increase in the corresponding paging overhead. To this end, we describe two location tracking algorithms, based on spatial quantization and temporal quantization, which first quantize the movement sequence into a smaller set of codewords, …

Spatial And Temporal Analysis Of Pharmaceutical Concentrations And Chitobiase Activity In The Upper Tennessee River, Justin M. Conley

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Tennessee currently has the 3rd highest per capita prescription drug usage rate in the United States, yet no published studies have analyzed Tennessee surface waters for the presence of pharmaceuticals. Composite surface samples were collected upstream and downstream of sewage treatment plants and at the inflow of major tributaries to the Tennessee River to determine the presence and potential sources of pharmaceuticals. Subsurface samples were collected at 7 meters depth to determine differences in occurrence and potential natural degradation. All samples were collected once during each of the four seasons (winter, spring, summer, and fall) to determine yearly variations. Aliquots …

A Study Of Avian Nest Predation At Audubon Acres In Chattanooga, Tn, Melea R. Langley

Masters Theses and Doctoral Dissertations

Predation is believed to be the primary cause of nesting mortality among North American migratory land birds. High rates of nest predation can jeopardize avian reproductive biology by affecting life histories and habitat selection. Artificial nests are commonly used to study nest predation because they allow the researcher to investigate comparative treatments and their impact on predation. Relative nest predation was studied at Audubon Acres in Chattanooga, TN using artificial nests. The study investigated differences in habitat types,nest heights, egg types, and predator types.

Zinc Cysteine Active Sites Of Metalloproteins: A Density Functional Theory And X-Ray Absorption Fine Structure Study, Nicholas Dimakis, Mohammed Junaid Farooqi, Emily Sofia Garza, Grant Bunker

Physics & Astronomy Faculty Publications

Density functional theory (DFT) and x-ray absorption fine structure (XAFS) spectroscopy are complementary tools for the biophysical study of active sites in metalloproteins. DFT is used to compute XAFS multiple scattering Debye Waller factors, which are then employed in genetic algorithm-based fitting process to obtain a global fit to the XAFS in the space of fitting parameters. Zn-Cys sites, which serve important functions as transcriptional switches in Zn finger proteins and matrix metalloproteinases, previously have proven intractable by this method; here these limitations are removed. In this work we evaluate optimal DFT nonlocal functionals and basis sets for determining optimal …

The Opacity Of Spiral Galaxy Disks. Viii. Structure Of The Cold Ism., Benne W. Holwerda, B. Draine, K. D. Gordon, R. A. Gonzalez, D. Calzetti, M. Thornley, B. Buckalew, Ronald J. Allen, P C. Van Der Kruit

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

The quantity of dust in a spiral disk can be estimated using the dust’s typical emission or the extinction of a known source. In this paper we compare two techniques, one based on emission and one on absorption, applied to sections of 14 disk galaxies. The two measurements reflect, respectively, the average and apparent optical depth of a disk section. Hence, they depend differently on the average number and optical depth of ISM structures in the disk. The small-scale geometry of the cold ISM is critical for accurate models of the overall energy budget of spiral disks. ISM geometry, relative …

Spiral Disk Opacity From Occulting Galaxy Pairs In The Sloan Digital Sky Survey., Benne W. Holwerda, W. C. Keel, A. Bolton

Faculty and Staff Scholarship

A spiral galaxy partially overlapping a more distant elliptical offers a unique opportunity to measure the dust extinction in the foreground spiral. From the Sloan Digital Sky Survey (SDSS) DR4 spectroscopic sample, we selected 83 occulting galaxy pairs and measured disk opacity over the redshift range z ¼ 0:0Y0:2 with the goal of determining the recent evolution of disk dust opacity. The enrichment of the ISM changes over the lifetime of a disk, and it is reasonable to expect the dust extinction properties of spiral disks as a whole to change over their lifetime. When they do, the change will …

Evaluation Of Remote Trap Monitors

United States Department of Agriculture Wildlife Services: Staff Publications

Can trap monitors save Wildlife Services (WS) specialists time and money by increasing the efficiency of trap checks? To find out, WS scientists and field specialists evaluated the use of remote trap monitors. In 2006, WS personnel evaluated the effectiveness of two remote monitoring devices to alert wildlife specialists when an animal is captured in a trap. The devices, which can be used with any type of trap, consist of small radio transmitters that emit unique pulse rates when an animal is captured. WS personnel tested the device on a variety of wildlife species using several different types of traps …

Spin Density Wave Phases In Semiconductor Superlattice, Liqiu Zheng

All Dissertations

We discuss the existence of spin instabilities and of possible ground states with broken spin symmetry in the presence of a tilted magnetic field for several semiconductor heterostructures. In each instance, the fundamental premise of our study is the existence of a spin degeneracy, controlled by tuning various experimentally controllable parameters, that permits the apparition of spin-flip processes driven entirely by the many-body Coulomb interaction. If in the case of a single quantum well, the spin instabilities trigger an abrupt paramagnetic to ferromagnetic phase transition, we demonstrate that in superlattices, at low temperatures, a stable spin density wave ($SDW$) ground …

A Study Of The Relationship Between American Evangelicals And Human Rights, Amy Rachel Timmons Stumpf

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Human rights violations and abuses affect every region of the globe. The most recent Amnesty International Annual Report details violations in 149 countries. While there are no simple solutions to a problem of this magnitude and complexity, the support of powerful social groups can help in providing relief to the victims, pressure on abusive governments, legal consequences for abusers, and other resources in combating the violence that seems to chronically plague over our world. One of the most powerful groups, with tremendous social capital, is American evangelicals. Evangelicalism, even given the loose and informal organizational structures, is one of the …

Immediate Implant Placement In Extraction Sites With Periapical Lesions: A Retrospective Study, Yuan-Lung Hung

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

Immediate implant placement into fresh extraction sites has become a relatively routine clinical procedure with a favorable prognosis. However, immediate placement into extraction sockets with lesions has not been extensively documented in humans. Therefore, the purpose of this study was to retrospectively determine the survival rate of implants placed into extraction sockets with visible periapical lesions.

Patient charts of 544 immediately placed implants from Loma Linda University School of Dentistry, Center for Prosthodontics and Implant Dentistry were examined. Eighty-six of the 544 implants had been placed immediately into extraction sockets with periapical lesions and they were included in this study. …

Self-Organizing Neural Architectures And Cooperative Learning In A Multiagent Environment, Dan Xiao, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Temporal-Difference–Fusion Architecture for Learning, Cognition, and Navigation (TD-FALCON) is a generalization of adaptive resonance theory (a class of self-organizing neural networks) that incorporates TD methods for real-time reinforcement learning. In this paper, we investigate how a team of TD-FALCON networks may cooperate to learn and function in a dynamic multiagent environment based on minefield navigation and a predator/prey pursuit tasks. Experiments on the navigation task demonstrate that TD-FALCON agent teams are able to adapt and function well in a multiagent environment without an explicit mechanism of collaboration. In comparison, traditional Q-learning agents using gradient-descent-based feedforward neural networks, trained with the …

A Unified Interdisciplinary Theory Of Open Source Culture And Entertainment, Jerald Hughes, Karl Reiner Lang, Eric K. Clemons, Robert J. Kauffman

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Digital technologies are profoundly transforming the production and consumption of culture and entertainment products. The emerging digital re-mix culture is an open source approach where content products in the arts and entertainment industries are increasingly rearranged, manipulated, and extended in the process of creating new works. This article offers a unified description of the tools and techniques that led to the development of the open source culture and that enable the processes which promote re-use of previously recorded materials. It then lays out the incentives and forces that either promote or inhibit the development, distribution, and consumption of modified cultural …

I’M A Virus Harming The Earth, M. Thulasidas

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

We humans plunder the raw material from our host planet with such an abandon that is only seen in viruses.

Understanding Highly Competent Information System Users, Brenda Eschenbrenner, Fiona Fui-Hoon Nah

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Individuals differ in their abilities to use information systems (IS) effectively, with some achieving exceptional performance in IS use. Using the Repertory Grid Technique, this research identifies attributes of highly competent IS users that distinguish them from less competent users. Using the Grounded Theory approach, we identified categories and sub-categories of these attributes and used them to develop a conceptual framework to explain IS User Competency. The findings indicate that highly competent users differ from less competent users in their Personality Traits and Disposition Factors, General Cognitive Abilities, Social Skills and Tendencies, Experiential Learning Factors, Domain Knowledge of and Skills …

Competition In Modular Clusters, Carliss Y. Baldwin, C. Jason Woodard

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The last twenty years have witnessed the rise of disaggregated “clusters,” “networks,” or “ecosystems” of firms. In these clusters the activities of R&D, product design, production, distribution, and system integration may be split up among hundreds or even thousands of firms. Different firms will design and produce the different components of a complex artifact (like the processor, peripherals, and software of a computer system), and different firms will specialize in different stages of a complex production process. This paper considers the pricing behavior and profitability of these so-called modular clusters. In particular, we investigate a possibility hinted at in prior …

An Empirical Analysis Of Mobile Voice Service And Sms: A Structural Model, Youngsoo Kim, William B. Vogt, Ramayya Krishnan, Rahul Telang

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

In addition to the wireless telephony boom, a similar exponential increasing trend in wireless data service - short message service (SMS) - is visible as technology advances. We develop a structural model to understand how mobile users behave, especially how they consume voice, and services. Specifically, we measure the own- and the cross-price elasticities of these services. The cross-price elasticity is of significant importance because marketing activities are critically influenced by whether the goods are substitutes or complements. The research context poses significant econometric challenges due to three-part tariff, sequential discrete plan choice and continuous quantity choices. Using detailed individual …

Preventing Location-Based Identity Inference In Anonymous Spatial Queries, Panos Kalnis, Gabriel Ghinita, Kyriakos Mouratidis, Dimitris Papadias

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The increasing trend of embedding positioning capabilities (for example, GPS) in mobile devices facilitates the widespread use of location-based services. For such applications to succeed, privacy and confidentiality are essential. Existing privacy-enhancing techniques rely on encryption to safeguard communication channels, and on pseudonyms to protect user identities. Nevertheless, the query contents may disclose the physical location of the user. In this paper, we present a framework for preventing location-based identity inference of users who issue spatial queries to location-based services. We propose transformations based on the well-established K-anonymity concept to compute exact answers for range and nearest neighbor search, without …

Tuning Tabu Search Strategies Via Visual Diagnosis, Steven Halim, Hoong Chuin Lau

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

While designing working metaheuristics can be straightforward, tuning them to solve the underlying combinatorial optimization problem well can be tricky. Several tuning methods have been proposed but they do not address the new aspect of our proposed classification of the metaheuristic tuning problem: tuning search strategies. We propose a tuning methodology based on Visual Diagnosis and a generic tool called Visualizer for Metaheuristics Development Framework(V-MDF) to address specifically the problem of tuning search (particularly Tabu Search) strategies. Under V-MDF, we propose the use of a Distance Radar visualizer where the human and computer can collaborate to diagnose the occurrence of …

Multi-Order Neurons For Evolutionary Higher Order Clustering And Growth, Kiruthika Ramanathan, Sheng Uei Guan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This letter proposes to use multiorder neurons for clustering irregularly shaped data arrangements. Multiorder neurons are an evolutionary extension of the use of higher-order neurons in clustering. Higher-order neurons parametrically model complex neuron shapes by replacing the classic synaptic weight by higher-order tensors. The multiorder neuron goes one step further and eliminates two problems associated with higher-order neurons. First, it uses evolutionary algorithms to select the best neuron order for a given problem. Second, it obtains more information about the underlying data distribution by identifying the correct order for a given cluster of patterns. Empirically we observed that when the …

Clustering Methods For Delineating Regions Of Spatial Stationarity, Jared M. Collings

Theses and Dissertations

This paper seeks to further investigate data extracted by the use of Functional Magnetic Resonance Imaging (FMRI) as it is applied to brain tissue and how it measures blood flow to certain areas of the brain following the application of a stimulus. As a precursor to detailed spatial analysis of this kind of data, this paper develops methods of grouping data based on the necessary conditions for spatial statistical analysis. The purpose of this paper is to examine and develop methods that can be used to delineate regions of stationarity. One of the major assumptions used in spatial estimation is …

Education In The Environment: A Strategy For Continued Interagency Outdoor Education Programming: Quarterly Progress Report, Period Ending November 30, 2007, Environmental Education Strategy For Nevada

Reports (PLI Education)

During the past three months, the focus of the university’s efforts has included the following highlights:

• Progress was made on three projects to meet SNAP strategic messaging needs: an anti-litter exhibit; a volunteer restoration program with educational components; and activity stations to tell the story of Lee Meadows restoration efforts.
• Interpretive planning is underway for Mountain’s Edge Explorer’s Interpretive Trail.
• A Spanish class tailored to meet the communication needs of environmental educators and interpreters will be offered January 2008.
• Forever Earth was scheduled for 15 days and benefited 411 individuals.
• Eight Discover Mojave Outdoor World events were conducted for 102 …

Modeling Transition Probabilities For Loan States Using A Bayesian Hierarchical Model, Rebecca Lee Monson

Theses and Dissertations

A Markov Chain model can be used to model loan defaults because loans move through delinquency states as the borrower fails to make monthly payments. The transition matrix contains in each location a probability that a borrower in a given state one month moves to the possible delinquency states the next month. In order to use this model, it is necessary to know the transition probabilities, which are unknown quantities. A Bayesian hierarchical model is postulated because there may not be sufficient data for some rare transition probabilities. Using a hierarchical model, similarities between types or families of loans can …

Analysis And Implementation Of High-Order Compact Finite Difference Schemes, Jonathan G. Tyler

Theses and Dissertations

The derivation of centered compact schemes at interior and boundary grid points is performed and an analysis of stability and computational efficiency is given. Compact schemes are high order implicit methods for numerical solutions of initial and/or boundary value problems modeled by differential equations. These schemes generally require smaller stencils than the traditional explicit finite difference counterparts. To avoid numerical instabilities at and near boundaries and in regions of mesh non-uniformity, a numerical filtering technique is employed. Experiments for non-stationary linear problems (convection, heat conduction) and also for nonlinear problems (Burgers' and KdV equations) were performed. The compact solvers were …

Matching And Fairness In Threat-Based Mobile Sensor Coverage, Chris Y. T. Ma, Jren-Chit Chin, David K.Y. Yau, Nageswara S. Rao, Mallikarjun Shankar

Department of Computer Science Technical Reports

No abstract provided.

Scandium Oxide Thin Films And Their Optical Properties In The Extreme Ultraviolet, Guillermo Antonio Acosta

Theses and Dissertations

This study reports on the physical and optical characterization of scandium oxide thin films. Thin films of scandium oxide, 20-40 nm thick, were deposited on silicon wafers, quartz slides, and silicon photodiodes by reactively sputtering scandium in an oxygen environment. These samples were characterized using ellipsometry, high-resolution transmission electron microscopy, scanning transmission electron microscopy, and energy dispersive x-ray analysis. A 28.46 nm thick scandium oxide thin film was measured in the Extreme Ultraviolet (EUV) from 2.7 to 50 nm (459.3 to 24.8 eV) using synchrotron radiation at the Advanced Light Source Beamline 6.3.2 at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory. In …

A Direct Algorithm For The K-Nearest-Neighbor Classifier Via Local Warping Of The Distance Metric, Tohkoon Neo

Theses and Dissertations

The k-nearest neighbor (k-NN) pattern classifier is a simple yet effective learner. However, it has a few drawbacks, one of which is the large model size. There are a number of algorithms that are able to condense the model size of the k-NN classifier at the expense of accuracy. Boosting is therefore desirable for increasing the accuracy of these condensed models. Unfortunately, there does not exist a boosting algorithm that works well with k-NN directly. We present a direct boosting algorithm for the k-NN classifier that creates an ensemble of models with locally modified distance weighting. An empirical study conducted …

The Rotation Period Of The Planet-Hosting Star Hd 189733, Gregory W. Henry, Joshua N. Winn

Information Systems and Engineering Management Research Publications

We present synoptic optical photometry of HD 189733, the chromospherically active parent star of one of the most intensively studied exoplanets. We have significantly extended the timespan of our previously reported observations and refined the estimate of the stellar rotation period by more than an order of magnitude: P = 11.953 ± 0.009 days. We derive a lower limit on the inclination of the stellar rotation axis of 54° (with 95% confidence), corroborating earlier evidence that the stellar spin axis and planetary orbital axis are well aligned.

2007 Fall Engr333/Biol354 Project Solutions Poster, 2007 Fall Engr333, 2007 Fall Biol354

ENGR 333

A carbon footprint is term which refers to the net amount of greenhouse gases produced to directly or indirectly by human activities and is usually expressed in terms of metric tons of carbon dioxide. The Calvin community places a strong emphasis on practicing good stewardship, including stewardship of Creation. Reducing Calvin’s carbon footprint is crucial because carbon dioxide is a major greenhouse gas and contributes heavily to global climate change. In a previous portion of this project, the carbon footprint of Calvin College was calculated to be about 66,400 MTCE (Metric Tons Carbon dioxide Emitted). The goal of this portion …

2007 Fall Engr333/Biol354 Project Footprint Poster, 2007 Fall Engr333, 2007 Fall Biol354

ENGR 333

The students of Calvin College’s Engineering 333 and Biology 354 classes were given the task of determining “What would it take to make Calvin College Carbon Neutral?” At first glance, it would not appear that classes on Advanced Thermal System Design and Investigations in Plant Ecology would have much in common. However, the biology and engineering students comprising these classes banded together to tackle the problem. Coming to a satisfactory conclusion would require: Creating an inventory of Green House Gas (GHG) emissions and sequestration potential Coming up with detailed solutions to achieve Carbon Neutrality Working out a practical schedule to …