This work is based on Shafer's Dichromatic Reflection Model as applied to color image formation. The color spaces RGB, XYZ, CIELAB, CIELUV, rgb, l1l2l3, and the new h1h2h3 color space are discussed from this perspective. Two color similarity measures are studied: the Euclidean distance and the vector angle. The work in this thesis is motivated from a practical point of view by several shortcomings of current methods. The first problem is the inability of all known methods to properly segment objects from the background without interference from object shadows and highlights. The second shortcoming is the non-examination of the vector angle as a distance measure that is capable of directly evaluating hue similarity without considering intensity especially in RGB. Finally, there is inadequate research on the combination of hue- and intensity-based similarity measures to improve color similarity calculations given the advantages of each color distance measure. These distance measures were used for two image understanding tasks: edge detection, and one strategy for color image segmentation, namely color clustering. Edge detection algorithms using Euclidean distance and vector angle similarity measures as well as their combinations were examined. The list of algorithms is comprised of the modified Roberts operator, the Sobel operator, the Canny operator, the vector gradient operator, and the 3x3 difference vector operator. Pratt's Figure of Merit is used for a quantitative comparison of edge detection results. Color clustering was examined using the k-means (based on the Euclidean distance) and Mixture of Principal Components (based on the vector angle) algorithms. A new quantitative image segmentation evaluation procedure is introduced to assess the performance of both algorithms. Quantitative and qualitative results on many color images (artificial, staged scenes and natural scene images) indicate good edge detection performance using a vector version of the Sobel operator on the h1h2h3 color space. The results using combined hue- and intensity-based difference measures show a slight improvement qualitatively and over using each measure independently in RGB. Quantitative and qualitative results for image segmentation on the same set of images suggest that the best image segmentation results are obtained using the Mixture of Principal Components algorithm on the RGB, XYZ and rgb color spaces. Finally, poor color clustering results in the h1h2h3 color space suggest that some assumptions in deriving a simplified version of the Dichromatic Reflectance Model might have been violated.

Bruce Peninsula National Park (BPNP) clears a 2 m swath of trees on the boundary in order to make it clear when one is entering the park from any neighbouring land; this in particular aims to protect the park and its inhabitants from illegal actions such as hunting and logging. This study looks at the ecological effects of this practice by measuring various microclimate variables and the abundance of eastern redback salamanders (Plethodon cinereus) on the boundary and comparing these measurements to parallel transects at 5, 10, 15, 20, and 40 m. Because it is a small linear development, it is then compared to other types of linear developments, such as roads, trails, and pipelines. The microclimate variables of air temperature, slug abundance, canopy cover, soil pH, total cover area, litter depth, and relative humidity were all significantly affected (p<0.05) up to 10 m into the adjacent forest, indicating that the cleared boundaries do change the surrounding microclimate. Soil pH, downed woody cover area, litter depth, and canopy cover were significantly affected (p<0.05) up to 5 m away from the boundary. Sixty hectares, or 0.4%, of the land area of BPNP is thus affected by the microclimate changes caused by the cleared boundary. These effects are similar to those found for other narrow, vegetated linear developments such as trails. Over double the number of salamanders were found on the boundary as compared to in the forest; this is due to higher cover area availability on the cleared boundary from the felled trees. Therefore, the boundary does not act as a barrier to eastern redback salamander movement, nor does it fragment the local population. Salamander abundance was best explained by the amount of cover area, snail abundance, and the dominant type of vegetation present along transects. It was also found in an additional study that salamander abundance tended to increase with increasing days since the last precipitation event, contrary to most woodland salamander monitoring protocols and methods. The boundaries were seen also to be used by hunters and recreationalists through incidental observations of human disturbance. This increased access to remote areas of the park through use of the cleared boundaries is an issue that requires further study, as the boundary itself may be leading to an increase in illegal activity. Recommendations to BPNP include leaving downed woody cover on the boundary, minimizing the boundary width, reducing lines of sight, decreasing accessibility, increasing landowner and park staff education, communicating with adjacent landowners, and securing funding to complete and maintain the boundary clearing.

What happens after a place has been exploited, isolated, and neglected? What occurs when that place is bound – confined – by impenetrable voids of dereliction? Its core, slowing diffracting, with no opportunity to perceive outward – beyond the derelict terrain to the boundless expanses of earth and water that have perpetuated its vitality. And what then, if for a moment, this decaying place is given a view beyond these boundaries? Deindustrialization has invariably altered modern cultural conceptions of control over nature. The terrain remaining after decades of resource exploitation is composed of deep voids and fissures that reside physically, psychologically, and theoretically in-between the accepted realms of culture and nature. This thesis explores the perversion and dissolution of these two opposing realms within the sublime and fantastical derelict landscape of a declining town. Deindustrial voids are considered as both barrier and bridge; serving as persistent symbolic reminders of the volatile and hubristic relationship between culture and nature, and offering potential reconnection to the natural landscape of a city’s foundation. Reacting to collective nostalgia through memorialisation, totemism, and erasure, typical design interventions continue to prioritize cultural domination and emphasize the designer as creator in order to reassert control over the chaos of deindustrialization, often resulting in placeless infilling of the void. Ideas of extimacy, alterity, and ruination, with influences from the fields of industrial archaeology and landscape architecture, ground contemporary reactions to the deindustrial void and explore the role of landscape in the creation and fragmentation of ideas of place for the dissolving North American industrial city. Both inspired and situated within the declining former town of Fort William, Ontario, this thesis surveys an abandoned industrial corridor that encircles the town, severing it from the liminal water’s edge and landscape beyond. Viewed as a palimpsest, this site is considered beyond its most recent industrial usage to expose a place-specific natural/cultural terrain comprised of material and immaterial layers of evolution and exploitation. This thesis positions the architect as perceiver, hoping to inspire sensitivity, pause, and reflection and resists ideas of forced transformation as a means of outwardly expressing progress. It immerses itself within the in-between places that blur preconceived boundaries – natural and cultural, past and future, controlled and chaotic – in order to encounter the inherent existential qualities of a site in transition.

In about 30 years of experiments and development, impulse drying is now considered as a well known technology and a good candidate in the constant effort to save energy in the paper industry. The drying section is indeed the most expensive section in the process of paper production. However, this potential technology has a major disadvantage, stopping its implementation in the industry. Paper, which is a porous material with a variable compressibility, experienced a sudden release of energy at the nip opening during impulse drying. Under these conditions of high intensity process (both in temperature and pressure), the fiber mat has a tendency to delaminate. This web disruption is a critical issue against impulse drying. This thesis comes up with a new approach to the problem. These last years, the technology itself has been addressed in this issue and many improvements have been reached in terms of energy release (heat transfer control, material coating ). The novel idea is then to investigate the inner structure of the paper once it has been coated with starch to a large extent (up to 10 or 20% of the relative basis weight). Starch is known for its large use in industry, but also its capability to expand under high temperature. Hence, both relative strength and bulking effects are investigated in this thesis, using numerous experiments with variable temperatures and pressures, along with ultrasonic testing and image analysis. We have the opportunity to appreciate the phenomenon of heat transfer and mass transport in the coated medium, while reaching promising results in terms of strength and bulk. These are finally investigated using scanning electron microscopy as a first step toward a pore expansion model for starch imbued handsheets.

In this thesis, we have performed systematical study of anomalous electric and magnetic behaviors of the 3d transition metal oxides; colossal magnetoresistance (La1−xRxMnO3 where R is a divalent alkaline earth ion) and Multiferroic (Ho1-xLaxMn2O5) systems by X-ray and Neutron scattering techniques. In our study, the enhancement of the transfer temperature for La0.8Ba0.2MnO3 under strain effect from the SrTiO3 substrate could be possible due to two reasons which one is Sr diffusion from SrTiO3 substructure, and other one is the octahedral MnO6 high symmetry are increasing. We focus the intrinsic strain effect on La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 and La0.8Ba0.2MnO3 films, and findings show that due to the different ionic sizes of doped Ca or Ba ions, the strain effect acts differently in the way it deforms. The interfacial strain effect produces opposite influences on the lattice symmetry, the average Mn¡VO bond lengths, the average oxygen disorders, the coupling symmetries inside and in the vicinity of the MnO6 octahedrons, as well as producing an opposing trend in metal-insulator and magnetic transition temperatures of the strained La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 and La0.8Ba0.2MnO3 films. The strain effects on the electronic structures of La0.67Ca0.33MnO3 and La0.8Ba0.2MnO3 thin films have been studied by O K-edge x-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) spectroscopy. For La0.67Ca0.33MnO3, the first-principles calculations reveal that the features in the XANES spectra are associated with hybridized states between O 2p and Mn minority-spin 3d t2g and eg, La 5d/Ca 3d, and Mn 4s/Ca 4p states. An analysis of these features shows that the tensile strain decreases substantially La¡VO and Ca¡VO hybridization and TC for La0.67Ca0.33MnO3. For La0.8Ba0.2MnO3, the small compressive strain enhances slightly La¡VO and Ba¡VO hybridization and TC. In this thesis, the influence of the local structure distortion on the magnetic transition in La doped HoMn2O5 Multiferroics has been investigated systematically. The orthorhombic crystal structure of Ho1−xLaxMn2O5 is maintained up to x¡Ø0.2 but decomposed into multiphase for x¡Ù0.25. By doping La ions to a concentration of 0.1¡Øx¡Ø0.2, the formation of the RMnO3 1(13) phase can be suppressed and single-phase Ho1−xLaxMn2O5 (0.1¡Øx¡Ø0.2) compounds can be formed under 1 atm flowing oxygen. For x=0.2, a ferromagnetic FM transition at 150 K is superimposed on the paramagnetic background, which implies that the compound undergoes a ferromagnetic to antiferromagnetic (AFM) transition. This unique FM to AFM transition is observed for the first time. The FM transition is attributed to the formation of magnetic clusters in a host paramagnetic matrix. The anomalous magnetic clusters phenomena observed in Ho0.8La0.2Mn2O5 can be directly attributed to the different properties between Ho and La ions, and the differences of Ho and La ions are not only in the ionic radius but also in the electron negativity. During 90~150K, X-ray scattering diffraction presented the new addition peaks indicates the new electric density distribution, and the Neutron powder scattering diffraction (NPD) refining results show that the local structure of R-O (R: La, Ho) is un-symmetry which is conflict to the La Extended X-ray absorption fine structure (EXAFS) (which shows that the local structure of La-O becomes more symmetry than H-O. Since the refining values of the NPD are an average of entire crystal, such that it cannot tell the local changes. X-ray absorption spectrum (XAS) and EXAFS, in contrarily, can provide the local information. They implies that the temperature evolutions of the coupling strength with O 2p or unoccupied density state are opposite for the Ho and La ions in our Ho0.8La0.2Mn2O5 sample. Therefore, local change of ions position and charge redistribution happens in this specific temperature range.

This dissertation focuses on two portions of the Clovis lithic assemblage recovered from Excavation Area 8 at the Gault site (41BL323) located in central Texas. Gault is a quarry-camp visited by hunter-gatherer groups for at least 13,000 years, with Paleoindian, Archaic, and Late Prehistoric occupations. Freshwater seep springs, a diverse array of floral and faunal resources, and an abundant outcrop of high-quality toolstone at the site created an ideal location for people who lived a mobile hunting-andgathering way of life. The site is currently the only locale with two stratigraphically separate Clovis components-a lower geologic unit designated 3a and an upper unit designated 3b. Both are represented in Excavation Area 8 where, in the spring of 2000, Texas A&M University (TAMU) excavated 22 1-m2 contiguous units. For this research, 3375 complete flakes were analyzed individually to characterize Clovis debitage as represented at Excavation Area 8 and to establish if there are technological differences between the debitage assemblages recovered from Units 3a and 3b. The two Clovis components are quite similar from a technological standpoint. Minor differences appear to be related to site formation processes and intensity of site use. The second objective was to determine if Clovis debitage has diagnostic technological traits that allow confident assignment to the Clovis era. To test whether Clovis debitage is distinctive, it was compared to debitage recovered from later cultural components at the site. No evidence of a true blade technology was observed in the post- Clovis Paleoindian or Early Archaic debitage assemblages, although biface manufacture continued through time. Technologically, few differences were observed between the Clovis, post-Clovis Paleoindian, and Early Archaic debitage related to biface reduction. While overshot flakes may be diagnostic of Clovis biface technology, biface thinning flakes and other non-distinctive debitage showed few differences between components. During debitage analysis pieces were selected in an attempt to identify edgemodified tools. Low- and high-power usewear analysis was employed to make determinations concerning the cultural modification or use of flakes. This study concluded post-depositional damage affected most of the collection and there was minimal usewear-or minimal observable usewear-on flakes. Taphonomic processes interfered to a great extent with drawing firm inferences on tool use and possibly hindered the identification of tools. Of the 3375 pieces of Clovis debitage originally analyzed, 26 specimens were classified as tools based mainly on invasive, patterned flaking with less reliance on microscopic use indicators. Of these, inference of use was assigned to nine tools.

A method for detecting buildings from satellite/aerial images is proposed in this study. The aim is to extract rectilinear buildings by using hypothesize first verify next manner. Hypothesis generation is accomplished by using edge detection and line generation stages. Hypothesis verification is carried out by using information obtained both from the color segmentation of HSV representation of the image and the shadow detection stages&rsquo / output. Satellite/aerial image is firstly filtered to sharpen the edges. Then, edges are extracted using Canny edge detection algorithm. These edges are the input for the Hough Transform stage which will produce line segments according to these extracted edges. Then, extracted line segments are used to generate building hypotheses. Verification of these hypotheses makes use of the outputs of the HSV color segmentation and shadow detection stages. In this study, color segmentation is processed on the HSV representation of the satellite/aerial image which is less sensitive to illumination. In order to perform the shadow detection, the basic information which is shadow areas have higher value of saturation component and lower value of value component in HSV color space is used and according to this information a mask is applied to the HSV representation of the image to produce shadow pixels. The proposed method is implemented as software written in MATLAB programming software. The approach was tested in several different areas. The results are encouraging.

This thesis is composed of three main parts / displaying an analog composite video input by via converting to digital VGA format, license plate localization on a video image and image enhancement on FPGA. Analog composite video input, either PAL or NTSC is decoded on a video decoder board / then on FPGA, video data is converted from 4:2:2 YCbCr format to RGB. To display RGB data on the screen, line doubling de-interlacing algorithm is used since it is efficient considering computational complexity and timing. When taking timing efficiency into account, image enhancement is applied only to beneficial part of the image. In this thesis work, beneficial part of the image is considered as numbered plates. Before image enhancement process, the location of the plate on the image must be found. In order to find the location of plate, a successful method, edge finding is used. It is based on the idea that the plate is found on the rows, where the brightness variation is largest. Because of its fast execution, band-pass filtering with finite response (FIR) is used for highlighting the high contrast areas. Image enhancement with rank order filter method is chosen to remove the noise on the image. Median filter, a rank order filter, is designed and simulated. To improve image quality while reducing the process time, the filter is applied only to the part of the image where the plate is. Design and simulation is done using hardware design language VHDL. Implementations of the chosen approaches are done on MATLAB and Xilinx Virtex-2 Pro FPGA. Improvement of the implementation considering speed and area is evaluated.

In this thesis, transverse vibration of a cracked beam on an elastic foundation and the effect of crack and foundation parameters on transverse vibration natural frequencies are studied. Analytical formulations are derived for a beam with rectangular cross section. The crack is an open type edge crack placed in the medium of the beam and it is uniform along the width of the beam. The cracked beam rests on an elastic foundation. The beam is modeled by two different beam theories, which are Euler-Bernoulli beam theory and Timoshenko beam theory. The effect of the crack is considered by representing the crack by rotational springs. The compliance of the spring that represents the crack is obtained by using fracture mechanics theories. Different foundation models are discussed / these models are Winkler Foundation, Pasternak Foundation, and generalized foundation. The equations of motion are derived by applying Newton&#039 / s 2nd law on an infinitesimal beam element. Non-dimensional parameters are introduced into equations of motion. The beam is separated into pieces at the crack location. By applying the compatibility conditions at the crack location and boundary conditions, characteristic equation whose roots give the non-dimensional natural frequencies is obtained. Numerical solutions are done for a beam with square cross sectional area. The effects of crack ratio, crack location and foundation parameters on transverse vibration natural frequencies are presented. It is observed that existence of crack reduces the natural frequencies. Also the elastic foundation increases the stiffness of the system thus the natural frequencies. The natural frequencies are also affected by the location of the crack.

The microelectronics industry has made remarkable progress with the development of integrated circuit (IC) technology which depends on the advance of micro-fabrication and integration techniques. On one hand, next-generation lithography (NGL) technologies which utilize extreme ultraviolet (EUV) and the state-of-art 193 nm immmersion and double patterning lithography have emerged as the promising candidates to meet the resolution requirements of the microelectronic industry roadmap. On the other hand, the development and advanced characterization of novel resist materials with the required critical imaging properties, such as high resolution, high sensitivity, and low line edge roughness (LER), is also indispensable. In conventional multi-component chemically amplified resist (CAR) system, the inherent incompatibility between small molecule photoacid generator (PAG) and the bulky polymer resin can lead to PAG phase separation, PAG aggregation, non-uniform PAG and acid distribution, as well as uncontrolled acid migration during the post-exposure baking (PEB) processes in the resist film. These problems ultimately create the tri-lateral tradeoff between achieving the desired lithography characteristics. Novel resist materials which can relief this constraint are essential and have become one of the most challenging issues for the implementation NGL technologies. This thesis work focuses on the development and characterization of novel resist materials for NGL technologies. In the first part of the thesis work, advanced characterization techniques for studying resist fundamental properties and lithographic performance are developed and demonstrated. These techniques provide efficient and precise evaluations of PAG acid generation, acid diffusivity, and intrinsic resolution and LER of resist materials. The applicability of these techniques to the study of resist structure-function relationships are also evaluated and discussed. In the second part of the thesis work, the advanced characterization and development of a novel resist system, the polymer-bound-PAG resists, are reported. The advantages of direct incorporation of PAG functionality into the resist polymer main chain are investigated and illustrated through both experimental and modeling studies. The structure-function relationships between the fundamental properties of polymer-bound-PAG resists and their lithographic performance are also investigated. Recommendations on substantial future works for characterizing and improving resist lithographic performance are discussed at the end of this thesis work.