No description available.

Two different modeling approaches to simulate pesticide fate and transport in soil were investigated in this study. First, a process-based mathematical model, DRAINMOD-P, was developed by combining the attractive features of DRAINMOD and PESTFADE. While DRAINMOD formed the main component to perform hydrological predictions, PESTFADE's pesticide sub-model was used to simulate pesticide fate. The new model was validated against three years of independently collected field data from southern Ontario. Several statistical parameters were calculated to evaluate model performance. / Second, an implicit model, Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines, MARS, which is also a novel data mining tool, was used to assess pesticide transport. MARS was first validated against the field data on three herbicides, namely, atrazine, metribuzin and metolachlor. DRAINMOD-P and MARS simulations, though impressive, need further validations before they can be recommended for actual real-world use.* / *This dissertation is a compound document (contains both a paper copy and a CD as part of the dissertation). The CD requires the following system requirements: Microsoft Office; Adobe Acrobat.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.

This thesis proposes an efficient power system simulator to estimate the automatic sequence of events that follow a fault contingency leading to islanding and cascading outages. The simulator is based on a quasi-steady state model that includes island identification, under-frequency load shedding, over-frequency generator tripping, and island load flow. Contingencies can include the outage of generators, loads, or transmission lines. Often times, a fault of one or two of these power system elements can lead to many cascaded outages and system islanding. The simulator utilizes an innovative method that analyzes the null space of the DC load flow susceptance matrix to identify system islands after each disturbance. Once system islands have been determined, each island power imbalance is calculated and the simulator determines based on the power imbalance in each island whether any load shedding, generator tripping, or primary frequency regulation is required. Once these corrective actions are completed each island will either have been found to balance power or will experience blackout. In the islands that have balanced power, a load flow is computed to see if all line flow constraints are satisfied. Any lines with flow constraint violations are faulted, and the iterative process is repeated under all line flow constraints are satisfied. / The results demonstrate the ability of the simulator to quickly and efficiently predict a system's response to contingencies leading to cascading outages and islanding. Simulations were conducted on a 10-bus 13-line network, a 24-bus 38-line network, and a 72-bus 119-line network. / This thesis also examined the highly complex mixed-integer linear problem of identifying the optimum initial outage in the sense that it would cause the maximum amount of load shedding through islanding. The results on a three-line, three-bus test properly identified the line whose initial outage caused overflows leading to system separation and maximum loss of load.

No description available.

No description available.

No description available.