Various models of density dependence predicted different evolutionary outcomes for Helicoverpa zea, Diabrotica virgifera, and Ostrinia nubilalis using simple and complex resistance evolution models, different dose assumptions and refuge proportions. Increasing available refuge increased durabilities of pyramided Plant-Incorporated-Protectants (PIPs), especially between 1-5%. For some models of density dependence and pests, additional refuge resulted in faster adaptation rates. Significant considerations should be given to a pest’s intra-specific competition in simple and complex theoretical models when designing insect resistance management plans. Life-history, refuge, and dose characteristics of a PIP had different effects on the adaptation rate of a generic pest of Bt, and unexpected outcomes occurred. Intrinsic growth rate ‘R0’ was the strongest evolutionary force, and large R0’s reduced time to resistance for a high dose PIP to similar levels as projected for a low dose PIP. This was caused by differential density dependent effects in refuge and Bt fields that elevated generational resistance increases beyond those from selection alone. Interactions between density dependence and R0 were always present and further affected the life-time of the PIPs. Varying ‘average dispersal distance’ did not affect evolutionary outcomes; however, increasing the proportion of the population engaging in dispersal often increased the durability of high dose PIPs. When resistance genes spread from a hypothetical hotspot, local resistance phenomena developed in the immediate surroundings. Higher growth rates lead resistance to spread faster through the landscape than lower rates. Increasing available refuges slowed adaptation rates to single PIPs and low dose pyramids, although non-linear trends were possible. Integrated Pest Management (IPM) practices at the onset of PIP commercialization slowed pest adaptation rates. For corn rootworm, interspersing non-selective periods with IPM+IRM delayed resistance evolution, yet crop rotation was the best strategy to delay resistance. For bollworm inclusion of isoline corn as an IPM tool did not increase the life-time of the PIP. A local resistance phenomenon for rootworm was maintained immediately surrounding the hotspot; random selection of mitigatory strategies in the landscape slowed adaptation rates while mitigation in the hotspot alone did not. Mitigation extended the life-time of the pyramid minimally for both corn rootworm and bollworm.

Resuspended floor dust constitutes up to sixty percent of the total particulate matter in indoor air. This fraction may also include virus-laden particles that settle on the floor after being emitted by an infected individual. This research focuses on predicting the concentration of influenza A viruses in resuspended dust, generated by people walking in a room, at various heights above the floor. Using a sonic anemometer, we measured the velocity field from floor to ceiling at 10-cm intervals to estimate the magnitude of turbulence generated by walking. The resulting eddy diffusion coefficients varied between 0.06 m2 s-1 and 0.20 m2 s-1 and were maximal at ~0.75-1 m above the floor, approximately the height of the swinging hand. We used these coefficients in an atmospheric transport model to predict virus concentrations as a function of the carrier particle size and height in the room. Results indicate that the concentration of resuspended viruses at 1 m above the floor is about seven times the concentration at 2 m. Thus, shorter people may be exposed to higher concentrations of pathogens in resuspended dust indoors. This study illuminates the possibility that particle resuspension could be a mode of disease transmission. It also emphasizes the importance of considering resuspension of particulate matter when designing ventilation systems and flooring in hospitals and residences. / Master of Science

Injecting CO2 into unconventional reservoirs to enhance oil recovery has been widely studied due to its potential to improve the profitability of these reservoirs. CO2 Huff-n-Puff is emerging as a promising method, but exploiting its full potential is challenging due to difficulties in optimizing its operations. The latter arises from the limited understanding of CO2 and oil transport in unconventional reservoirs. This dissertation used molecular dynamics simulations to study the storage and transport of oil and CO2 in unconventional reservoirs in single nanopores. The first study examined the modulation of oil flow in calcite pores by CO2. It is discovered that CO2 molecules adsorb strongly on calcite walls and can change decane permeability through 8 nm-wide pores by up to 30%. They impede decane flow at moderate adsorption density but enhance flow as adsorption approaches saturation. The second study investigated the CO2 transport in 4 nm-wide calcite pores during the soaking phase of Huff-n-Puff operations. CO2 entering the pore can become adsorbed on pore walls and diffuse on them or diffuse as free CO2 molecules. The accumulation of CO2 follows a diffusion behavior with an effective diffusivity ~50% smaller than bulk CO2. Two dimensionless groups are proposed to gauge the importance of surface adsorption and diffusion in CO2 storage and transport in nanopores. The third study examined the extraction of decane initially sealed in a 4 nm-wide calcite pore through exchange with CO2 and CH4 in a reservoir. The CO2-decane exchange is significantly driven by the evolution of adsorbed oil and gas initially, but a transition to dominance by free oil and gas occurs later; for CH4-decane exchange, the opposite occurs. The net gas accumulation and decane extraction follow the diffusive law, but their effective diffusivities do not always align well with the self-diffusion coefficients of CO2, CH4, and decane in the nanopore. The three studies identified the essential roles of gas/oil adsorption in their net transport in nanopores and, thus, unconventional reservoirs. Delineating these roles and formulating dimensionless groups to gauge their importance help develop better models for enhanced oil recovery from unconventional reservoirs by CO2 injection. / Doctor of Philosophy / Unconventional reservoirs are hydrocarbon-bearing formations with ultralow permeabilities, and they have emerged as a critical source of liquid petroleum production in the United States over the past decade. However, because oil is trapped in nanoscale pores in these reservoirs, the oil recovery rate is low. Therefore, many methods have been developed to enhance the oil recovery from unconventional reservoirs. One of the popular methods is to inject gas into reservoirs to enhance oil recovery. Improving this method's efficacy requires a fundamental understanding of the thermodynamic and transport phenomena underlying its operation is needed. This dissertation used molecular dynamics simulations to study the storage and transport of oil and CO2 in unconventional reservoirs at the single nanopore scale. Three series of studies have been performed to elucidate how CO2 modulates the flow of oil inside nanopores, how CO2 enters a nanopore filled with oil, and how oil is extracted from the nanopore by the ingression of CO2. These studies showed that when CO2 molecules adsorb strongly on a nanopore's walls, they can either enhance or impede the permeation of oil through the pore. The ingression of CO2 into an oil-filled nanopore and the concurrent oil extraction can be described by the same equation for the conduction of heat in one-dimensional objects. The CO2 ingression and oil extraction rates are heavily affected by the adsorption of CO2 and oil on the nanopore's walls. These results highlight the important effects of surface adsorption on the storage and transport of gas and oil in nanopores and, thus, unconventional oil reservoirs. Incorporating these effects into oil recovery models will improve their predictive power, and thus help model-guided optimization of oil recovery.

A series of hybrid inorganic-organic composites were fabricated from a functionalized fluorinated polyimide and tetraethoxysilane (TEOS), tetramethoxysilane, methyltrimethoxysilane (MTMOS), and phenyltrimethoxy-silane (PTMOS) employing the sol-gel process. Polyimides were synthesized from 4,4'-hexafluoroisopropylidene dianiline (6FpDA) and 4,4'-hexafluoroisopropyl-idenediphthalic anhydride (6FDA) utilizing a solution imidization technique. The hybrid materials were synthesized by in-situ sol-gel processing of the aforementioned alkoxides and a fully imidized polyimide that was functionalized with 3-aminopropyltriethoxysilane. The gas permeability, diffusivity, and selectivity were evaluated for He, O2, N2, CH4, and CO2, while the physical properties of these hybrid materials were evaluated using several analytical techniques. The results from this study revealed that gas transport and physical properties were dependent on the type of alkoxide employed in the hybrid inorganic-organic material. Gas permeability was observed to increase with increasing gas penetrant size for MTMOS and PTMOS based hybrids, while TEOS based hybrids decreased gas permeability at all compositions. In general, MTMOS based hybrid materials had the largest increases in permeability, which was attributed to an increase in free volume. The TEOS based hybrid materials had the largest decreases in permeability, while PTMOS based hybrid materials had performance in between these alkoxides. Decreased permeability for the TEOS based hybrids was attributed to the formation of lower permeable material at a particle interface and coupled with increasing tortuosity. Results of PALS studies suggested that there was an increase in free volume and pore size for MTMOS based hybrids, while both TEOS and PTMOS based hybrids had decreases in both average pore size and free volume. The temperature dependence of permeation, diffusivity, and sorption were evaluated from 35oC to 125oC. These results suggested that there was a decrease in solubility for all hybrids employed in this study. Furthermore, increases in permeability for the MTMOS based hybrids were created by increased penetrant diffusion. Physical property studies revealed that the type of inorganic material incorporated into the hybrid influences the degree of swelling, bulk density, Tg, and thermal stability. Hybrid materials were also created employing 3,5-diaminobenzoic acid (DABA) in the synthesis of modified 6FDA-6FpDA polyimides in order to evaluate how improvements in inorganic and polymer compatibility influenced the gas transport properties. From this separate study, it was found that increases in both permeability and selectivity were possible. The mechanism attributed to this simultaneous increase in permeability and selectivity was the formation of a more permeable and selective interphase at the interface of an inorganic particle and the polymer matrix. In addition to these studies, 6FDA-6FpDA polyimide molecular weights were changed from 19.3K to 35.3K to probe its role on gas transport and physical properties. These studies revealed that permeability, diffusivity, and solubility increased with increasing molecular weight, while density decreased with increasing molecular weight. These results suggest that there is an increase in free volume with increasing 6FDA-6FpDA polyimide molecular weight. / Ph. D.

The purpose of this research was to assess the suitability of the thermistor based method for measuring thermal conductivity and diffusivity of moist food materials at high temperatures. Research focused on aspects of calibration, thermal contact in solid food materials, natural convection in liquid media and the performance in moist food materials at high temperatures. Thermistor probes were constructed in house and calibrated in three materials of known thermal conductivity and diffusivity, water, glycerol, and a heat transfer fluid, HTF 500. With few exceptions, the calibrated probe estimated thermal properties with an error of less than 5%, over the range of thermal properties spanned by the those of the calibration media. An alternate calibration using two media was also investigated. It was found to give better accuracy over a more limited range. Thermal contact in potato and lean beef was investigated through a comparative study that used a miniature line heat source probe as a reference method. The food materials were measured at 25, 50 and 100 °C. Good agreement was found between the measurements with the line heat source probe and the bead thermistor probe, indicating adequate thermal contact at the thermistor probe. The effect of fluid viscosity and the magnitude of the temperature step on the occurrence of natural convection was studied for aqueous solutions of a thickening agent. During a sample time of 30 seconds, convection was absent in solutions with a viscosity of 25 cp or greater, when measured with a temperature step of 1.5 and 2.5 °C, and in solutions with a viscosity of 50 cp or greater, when measured with a temperature step of 5.0 °C. A Rayleigh number was defined to study the notion of a critical Rayleigh number at the onset of convection. This study found that when the Rayleigh number was below 43, convection could not be demonstrated. For a Rayleigh number of 84 and higher, convection was observed. The performance at high temperatures in food materials was studied through tests in tomato concentrate and in a liquid food supplement. Tomato puree and tomato paste were sampled at 100, 130 and 150 °C. The thermal conductivity of tomato puree at 100, 130 and 150 °C was measured as 0.638, 0.645 and 0.647 W/m°C respectively. The thermal diffusivity was 1.63, 1.64 and 1.62 10^-7 m²/s respectively. For tomato paste at 100, 130 and 150 °C, a thermal conductivity was obtained of 0.590, 0.597 and 0.534 W/m°C respectively. The thermal diffusivity was 1.63, 1.84 and 2.36 10 ^-7 m²/s respectively. With some notable exceptions the results of this study agreed well with Choi and Okos (1983). A liquid food supplement was also studied at 95 and 150 °C. The thermal conductivity of the food supplement decreased with increasing solids content from 0.62 W/m°C at a solids level of 15% to 0.41 W/m°C at a solids level of 50%. The results of this study indicate that the thermistor based method was suitable for measuring thermal conductivity and diffusivity of moist food materials at high temperatures. However, the type of thermistor used in the research, a glass encapsulated thermistor, was too fragile for routine work. In particular the high temperature use of the glass thermistor was impacted by its susceptibility to fracture. / Ph. D.

published_or_final_version / Physics / Doctoral / Doctor of Philosophy

The objective of this study is to demonstrate the ability of riverstage tomography to estimate 2-D spatial distribution of hydraulic diffusivity (D) of Zhuoshui River alluvial fan, Taiwan, using groundwater level data from 65 wells and stream stage data from 5 gauging stations. In order to accomplish this objective, wavelet analysis is first conducted to investigate the temporal characteristics of groundwater level, precipitation, and stream stage. The results of the analysis show that variations of groundwater level and stream stage are highly correlated over seasonal and annual periods while that between precipitation is less significant. Subsequently, spatial cross-correlation between seasonal variations of groundwater level and riverstage data is analyzed. It is found that the correlation contour map reflects the pattern of sediment distribution of the fan. This finding is further substantiated by the cross-correlation analysis using both noisy and noise-free groundwater and riverstage data of a synthetic aquifer, where aquifer heterogeneity is known exactly. The ability of riverstage tomography is then tested with these synthetic data sets to estimate D distribution. Finally, the riverstage tomography is applied to the alluvial fan. The results of the application reveal that the apex and southeast of the alluvial fan are regions with relatively high D and the D values gradually decrease toward the shoreline of the fan. In addition, D at northern alluvial fan is slightly larger than that at southern. These findings are consistent with the geologic evolution of this alluvial fan. (C) 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.

We present a periodic technique for measuring the thermal conductivity and diffusivity of thin samples simultaneously. In samples of this type, temperature measurements must be made across the sample faces and are therefore subject to large error due to the interface resistance between the temperature sensor and the sample. The technique uses measurements of the amplitude and phase of the periodic temperature across both a reference sample and the unknown material at several different frequencies. Modeling of the heat flow in the sample allows the simultaneous determination of the thermal parameters of the sample as well as the interface resistance. Data will be presented for standard materials to show the viability of the technique.

O objetivo deste trabalho foi desenvolver um software, de fácil operação e eficiente, para determinar a difusividade térmica de biomateriais. A necessidade de se conhecer a difusividade térmica de materiais como, por exemplo, esmalte e dentina, é essencial para o estabelecimento de protocolos de utilização clínica laser, para evitar danos colaterais ao paciente. O software desenvolvido, denominado CZ ThermaDiff, baseia-se no processamento de imagens térmicas adquiridas por uma câmera termográfica no infravermelho (ThermaCam SC3000, FLIR System, EUA). Foi desenvolvido em ambiente LabView, o que permitiu criar um painel de controle de fácil operação, contendo apenas duas funções básicas (Start e Stop). O software arquiva os dados em formato de tabela contendo todas as medidas de difusividade térmica, suas médias para intervalos de 10 °C e suas respectivas temperaturas, para uma amostra. Foi observado, tanto para o esmalte quanto para a dentina, que os valores de difusividade não são constantes e aumentavam em função da temperatura. Os valores encontrados foram aplicados a um modelo de transferência de calor, simulando um dente molar humano com as seguintes estruturas: esmalte, dentina e polpa. O modelo baseia-se no método de resistores térmicos, sendo que para a polpa foi utilizado o modelo de difusão de calor, considerando a circulação sanguínea. Os valores de temperatura obtidos neste modelo teórico, utilizando difusividades dependentes da temperatura foram maiores que as obtidas com um valor constante de difusividade, medido à temperatura ambiente. Este fato realça a importância da mensuração da difusividade em função da temperatura e da interface desenvolvida neste trabalho. / The aim of this work was to develop a software, easy to operate and efficient, to determine the thermal diffusivity of biomaterials as enamel and dentin. It is necessary to know the thermal diffusivity of these materials to establish laser irradiation protocols, to avoid collateral damage to the patient. The software developed named called CZ ThermaDiff, processes thermographic images from a thermographic camera (ThermaCam SC300, FLIR System, USA). The software was programmed in LabView environment, allowing easy operation from a control window with only two buttons (start and stop). Thermal diffusivity values, the mean values for intervals of 10 °C and its respective temperature, for one sample are saved in table form. For both biomaterials, thermal diffusivity increased as function of the temperature increase. The experimental thermal diffusivity data were used in a heat transfer model, for a human molar tooth with three layers: enamel, dentin and pulp. The model was based on the thermal resistors method, for the three layers and for the pulp, it was applied the heat diffusion model, taking into account the blood circulation. Using temperature dependent diffusivities, temperatures where values were higher than the temperatures of the theoretical model using a constant diffusivity value, obtained at ambient temperature. This fact emphasized the importance of both: the temperature dependent diffusivity measurement and the software developed in this work.

The Southern Ocean is an important region for the sequestration of heat, carbon dioxide and other tracers. The Southern Ocean circulation is typically described in a circumpolarly averaged sense as a Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC), but the detailed 3-D pathways that make up this circulation remain poorly understood. We use Lagrangian particle trajectories, obtained from eddy permitting numerical models, to map out and quantify different aspects of the 3-D circulation. We first introduce various definitions used to quantify efficient export from the Antarctic Circumpolar Current (ACC) to the subtropical gyres. Using these definitions, we show that the permanent northward export varies by water mass and occurs in localised regions; with 11 key pathways identified. We then examine the dynamics setting the location and efficiency of the identified pathways, which includes the investigation of the role of diapycnal mixing and the impact of short and long time variability in the flow. Although we show that the flow of particles in the 3-D model is predominantly isopycnal, we find that particles that are forced to remain on isopycnals lead to approx. 60% lower export (mainly via three pathways) than identical releases where the diapycnal component of advection is included. Enhanced upward mixing near rough topography, and downward mixing in the southeast Pacific, were shown to be mostly responsible for the export. In addition, we show that most of the export pathways are mainly influenced by timescales from 90 days to 20 years, which suggests that mesoscale eddies are not the leading-order importance in the northward export from the ACC to the subtropical gyres. However, we also find that mesoscale eddies and the mean-ACC flow play a significant role in setting the export from the ACC in some pathways. These results highlight the role of temporal variability and vertical transport in enhancing the northward flow from the ACC by allowing transport across barotropic streamlines and onto more efficiently exporting isopycnals. In addition, the asymmetrical response of the studied quantities emphasises the importance of the three dimensions in understanding the dynamics driving the overturning circulation. We also demonstrated that the annually repeating velocity fields, which are commonly used for trajectory calculations, increase the diapycnal transport of particles and as a consequence, increase the overall 20-year northward export from the ACC by approx. 10%. In the study of the meridional overturning circulation, we diagnose the geographical distribution of the streamwise averaged diffusivity calculated from meridional displacements of the Lagrangian particles. We examine streamwise averaging using both latitude and equivalent latitude and argue that the latter gives a more useful measure. Reconciling tracer and particle horizontal diffusivities, we show that in the ACC, the average diffusivity peaks between 1500m and 2500m with an average value of 1500 m$^{2}$/s and that it is highest near the topographic features. We compare the exact diffusivity and its approximation to show that an assumption of time homogeneity does not hold and therefore that standard expressions for diffusivity that assume time homogeneity are of limited usefulness. Finally, we use the calculated trajectories to provide a streamwise averaged 2-D advection-diffusion model of the Southern Ocean MOC and then examine the extent to which this 2-D model can capture the overall effect of the actual 3-D transport.