Karst environments are unique landscapes that contain important resources, including freshwater aquifers and specialized ecosystems, which are easily disturbed due to the interconnected nature of the surface and subsurface. The anthropogenic impacts on karst are deleterious to the ecosystems that are dependent on the karst environment and also to groundwater supplies. The Karst Disturbance Index (KDI) is a holistic tool used to measure anthropogenic impacts associated with karst environments, which has been applied and refined through studies performed in Florida and Italy, yet still remains untested and susceptible to modification for other areas. Application of the KDI in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, which is geographically isolated, and highly vulnerable due to its sensitive karst resources, provides an opportunity to test the index in an island setting. This research resulted in two KDI scores for the study area using both the original and recently modified methods. The scores reflect a significant to severe disturbance to the municipality’s karst environment of 0.54 and 0.68, respectively. Issues regarding the KDI were found from the application and comparison of these methodologies and revealed the need for adding additional indicators, including Mogote Removal and Coastal Karst, as well as several additional refinements and recommendations pertaining to scale, weighting, and incorporating the two methods together to create a single, more practical KDI tool. The disseminated results of the assessment of the area using the KDI will educate and help to foster stewardship of this vital resource in Puerto Rico.

The design of the RF over fiber signal transport system for the ALPACA receiver is described, with particular attention to the strict noise requirements as well as dynamic range considerations. Also discussed are analytical tools for analyzing dynamic range in the context of RFI-rich radio astronomy observational settings, including formulas for maximum interference to noise ratios and a simulation framework for predicting distortion levels. Phase and gain stability measurements of the signal transport system are presented, including the effects of the multi-strand armored fiber optic cable. The resulting system meets design requirements, with equivalent noise temperature below 900 K in 90° F ambient air, resulting in less than 1 K contribution to the system noise temperature. Typical gain is 31-37 dB, and gain differences between channels are stable within 0.25 dB in 90° F conditions. Phase drift between channels due to electronics remains below 1° at room temperature, and below 1.3° in a warm environment. The fiber optic cable is predicted to cause phase changes between channels of no more than 1.3° per °C. Typical spurious free dynamic range is 99 dB·Hz^(⅔), and distortion levels for normal RFI conditions at Arecibo are expected to be 28 dB below the system noise floor.

The design of the RF over fiber signal transport system for the ALPACA receiver is described, with particular attention to the strict noise requirements as well as dynamic range considerations. Also discussed are analytical tools for analyzing dynamic range in the context of RFI-rich radio astronomy observational settings, including formulas for maximum interference to noise ratios and a simulation framework for predicting distortion levels. Phase and gain stability measurements of the signal transport system are presented, including the effects of the multi-strand armored fiber optic cable. The resulting system meets design requirements, with equivalent noise temperature below 900 K in 90° F ambient air, resulting in less than 1 K contribution to the system noise temperature. Typical gain is 31-37 dB, and gain differences between channels are stable within 0.25 dB in 90° F conditions. Phase drift between channels due to electronics remains below 1° at room temperature, and below 1.3° in a warm environment. The fiber optic cable is predicted to cause phase changes between channels of no more than 1.3° per °C. Typical spurious free dynamic range is 99 dB·Hz^(⅔), and distortion levels for normal RFI conditions at Arecibo are expected to be 28 dB below the system noise floor.

No description available.

Polarised synchrotron emission from the Milky Way is of interest for its role as a foreground to the polarised CMB and as a probe of the interstellar medium. The Galactic ALFA Continuum Transit Survey (GALFACTS) and the Global Magneto-Ionic Medium Survey (GMIMS) are two ongoing surveys of the diffuse polarised emission around 1.4 GHz, with wide bandwidths and high frequency-resolution. In this thesis, I use early data from GALFACTS to investigate the behaviour of polarised, diffuse Galactic synchrotron emission. I also analyse GMIMS total intensity data. I derive a rotation measure (RM) map of the GALFACTS sky using a combination of RM-synthesis and linear angle fitting, commenting on the structure of the maps in general and on specific regions in particular. Overall I find that the maps are rich in features, and probe the RM structure of the extended Galactic emission with reasonable accuracy. I also derive the Angular Power Spectrum (APS) of the polarised emission for thirty-one 15 by 15 degree subregions across the GALFACTS data. I compute the E- and B-modes (E+B) and the scalar APS of the polarised emission (PI). I parametrise the APS by fitting a power law to the data. Comparing the E+B APS to the PI APS shows that E+B is consistently steeper across the sky. The APS data is also used to estimate the level of foreground contamination of the CMB B-mode by the synchrotron emission. I find that the slope of the APS averaged over high-latitude, low-emission subregions agrees exactly with that of the Planck 30 GHz polarised emission, thus setting an upper limit to the synchrotron contamination of CMB B-modes. Finally, I evaluate the spurious, systematic, temperature zero-level offset and associated uncertainty in preliminary GMIMS total intensity maps, finding a lower limit of ±0.26 K. I also make spectral index maps made using the GMIMS data and the Haslam et al. (1982) 408 MHz map, improving upon previous spectral index maps in the literature.

Radio frequency interference is an ever growing problem in the wireless community. This dissertation presents methods to reduce interference for vehicular multi-antenna devices. This document is organized into two parts: the main chapters and the appendices. The main chapters present research conducted primarily by the author. These deserve the reader's primary attention. The appendices showcase contributions made by the author serving in a supporting role to projects led by others and/or do not fit the vehicular theme. These should receive secondary attention. The main chapter contributions are summarized as follows. A device was created that provides over 105 dB of transmit to receive isolation in a full duplex printed circuit board radio. This technology can improve the effective range of vehicular radar systems and increase the bandwidth of full duplex communication schemes for vehicles. The technologies involved are compatible with existing circuit board topologies and are mindful of the size and weight requirements for vehicular use. This isolation performance pushes the state of the art for printed circuit board designs and provides greater capability for these kinds of devices. Recent system on chip computing architectures are opening new pathways for integrating phased array technologies into a single chip. The computer engineering required to configure these devices is beyond the capabilities of many vehicle systems engineers, inviting the author to use one to implement a 16 antenna adaptive beamformer for GPS. The adaptive beamformer can combat multipath bounces and malicious spoofing from ground sources. The high rate analog conversion architecture eliminates the local oscillator distribution to simplify the analog front end to an active antenna. This allows vehicular phased arrays to use smaller footprints and suggests that multi-antenna beamforming devices may be easier to deploy on small to midsized vehicles. Bench tests of the beamformer indicate it can adapt to the environment and increase the received signal strength suggesting it can improve GPS quality for active deployments. The bank of subspace projection beamformers is a popular choice for mitigating interference in digital phased array receivers. A method was discovered that maps that matrix operator into a circuit topology that is simple to implement in an analog circuit and cancels across the entire bandwidth simultaneously. This can offload computational interference mitigation from the signal processor while still allowing secondary multi-pixel digital beamforming downstream. This beamformer was analytically connected to the body of phased array literature and studied to estimate practical error bounds and design methods of calibration.

One of the many challenges in radio astronomy is the ability to make accurate measurements quickly. In recent years engineers and astronomers have begun implementing phased array feeds (PAFs) as a way to negate the long observation times required by single antenna feeds. Unfortunately, large mutual coupling and other loss terms result in low sensitivity, restricting PAF usefulness in on dish observation. This thesis addresses several ways to reduce mutual coupling and maximize sensitivity for PAFs in radio astronomy. Antenna design of this magnitude requires accurate modeling capabilities. To this end, electromagnetic software models and low loss component designs are verified and validated with measured data. This process required the construction of a 50 Ω matched dipole and measurements on a network analyzer at Brigham Young University. The design and optimization of several single and dual polarization hexagonal grid arrays of 19 and 38 elements respectively are also described. Model figures of merit are compared with measurements taken on the 20-Meter dish at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) in Green Bank, WV and the 300 meter dish at the Arecibo Observatory in Arecibo, PR. Although some unexplained discrepancies exist between measured and model datasets, the dual pol cryocooled kite array described boasts the highest PAF sensitivity ever measured.

Among the research topics needing to be addressed to further the development of phased array feeds (PAFs) for radio astronomical use are challenges associated with calibration, beamforming, and imaging for single dish observations. This dissertation addresses these concerns by providing analysis and solutions that provide a clearer understanding of the effort required to implement PAFs for complex scientific research. It is shown that calibration data are relatively stable over a period of five days and may still be adequate after 70 days. A calibration update system is presented with the potential to refresh old calibrators. Direction-dependent variations have a much greater affect on calibration stability than temporal variations. There is an inherent trade-off in beamformer design between achieving high sensitivity and maintaining beam pattern stability. A hybrid beamformer design is introduced which uses a numerical optimizer to balance the trade-off between these two conflicting goals to provide the greatest sensitivity for a desired amount of pattern control. Relative beam variations that occur when electronically steering beams in the field of view must be reduced in order for a PAF to be useful for source detection and imaging. A dual constraint beamformer is presented that has the ability to simultaneously achieve a uniform main beam gain and specified noise response across all beams. This alone does not reduce the beam variations but it eliminates one aspect of the problem. Incorporating spillover noise control through the use of rim calibrators is shown to reduce the variations between beams. Combining the dual constraint and rim constraint beamformers offers a beamforming option that provides both of these benefits.

Includes Van Allen thesis (M.S.)--University of Iowa, 1936, and thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Iowa, 1939.