This work presents on-orbit experiments conducted to validate SEU mitigation and detection techniques on FPGA devices and to measure SEU rates in FPGAs and SDRAM. These experiments were designed for the Cibola Flight Experiment Satellite (CFESat), which is an operational technology pathfinder satellite built around 9 Xilinx Virtex FPGAs and developed at Los Alamos National Laboratory. The on-orbit validation experiments described in this work have operated for over four thousand FPGA device days and have validated a variety of SEU mitigation and detection techniques including triple modular redundancy, duplication with compare, reduced precision redundancy, and SDRAM and FPGA block memory scrubbing. Regional SEU rates and the change in CFE's SEU rate over time show the measurable, expected effects of the South Atlantic Anomaly and the cycle of solar activity on CFE's SEU rates. The results of the on-orbit experiments developed for this work demonstrate that FPGA devices can be used to provide reliable, high-performance processing to space applications when proper SEU mitigation strategies are applied to the designs implemented on the FPGAs.

As the cost of variable renewable energy resources like wind and solar decline rapidly the major barrier to decarbonization of the electrical grid becomes that of energy storage. Current storage technologies are much too expensive to justify widespread adoption and it is unclear what type of technology is even capable of fulfilling this role. Flow batteries are an often proposed technological solution to this problem but they are plagued by high cost and reliability issues due to the expensive and complex balance of plant included in the system design. In this work a new design for a gravity driven flow battery is explored which is capable of drastically lowering the cost of flow batteries by removing the pumps and membranes and replacing their function with density stratification and flow driven by the density change of the electrode reactions. A design for a zinc-bromine battery which makes use of this free convection during operation is explored. The system is studied through construction of prototype cells, exploration of key design variables, and a techno-economic analysis of the technology is performed showing cost viability. The free convection phenomenon which underlies the battery operation is expanded upon by connecting non-dimensional correlations in heat transfer with electrochemical transport equations in order to create predictive understanding of flow behavior based on system composition. This correlative understanding is used to construct a model of a zinc-bromine gravity driven flow battery. This model shows results which align with experimental data and gives insight into the complex transport dynamics of the system.

Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / This study examines private foundation positioning and actions in respect to governance and market considerations in the multi-national arena around the issue of ocean conservation in the empirical setting of the Arctic Ocean. Existing research has focused primarily on foundations in their domestic setting or alternatively in their international engagement within a foreign country. There is evidence that foundation creation and activity addressing global issues are rising. Questions remain around the role of foundations in global governance and their relationship to the market. Using a qualitative case study methodology, this study was guided by a framework based on governance and market. The framework incorporated Young and Frumkin’s conceptualization of government-nonprofit relations enhanced by three additional United Nations ocean-related frameworks, and an orientation toward the market based on empirical studies. Five key actions carried out by foundations were also considered. The study was organized around two ocean conservation policy contexts to see similarities and differences. The research focused on a total of eleven foundation case studies, drawing on data from publicly available documents, grant databases, the observation of public events, and sixteen semi-structured on-line video interviews of experts, foundation, government, and NGO representatives. The study supports the theoretical model demonstrating that foundations generally complemented government activity underway and took adversarial stances at specific decision-making junctures. Foundations were attentive to international frameworks that intersected with their issue area and approach. The study challenges the model due to the difficulty in differentiating the supplemental and complementary positioning. Governance architecture and interlocking policy fields kept foundations from driving the agenda. Primary actions were funding and deploying a variety of non-financial assets. No high-risk funding linked to markets was detected and sustainable market solutions coupled with regulation were favored approaches. Risk mitigation was a primary concern prompting questions around foundation innovation. This research points to factors hindering foundations to take on a key role in governance and the evolving dimensions of the market prompting further research on foundation activity in the multi-national arena. It provides scholars and practitioners insights into theoretical and practical implications for foundations working in complex, politically tense contexts.

Streams and rivers have been modified in the past centuries for agricultural purposes. The Baltic Sea suffers from problems regarding eutrophication. Regulations of point-sources have decreased nutrient levels, but for a scattered source of nutrient pollution, streams are important. One way of mitigating nitrogen is with coupled denitrification and nitrification processes when stream water is transported through flow paths in the hyporheic zone, an area in the stream sediments where groundwater and stream water mix. Tullstorps brook is an agricultural stream that flows into the Baltic Sea. It has had problems with high nutrient loads and poor water quality and has therefore been restored. The fieldwork in this project was conducted in Tullstorps brook in May 2019, where Rhodamine WT (RWT) tracer test and Hydraulic Conductivity (HC) measurements were done in 3 reaches, and compared to similar fieldwork since before restorations, during the summer of 2015. Two reaches in an agricultural setting that have been restored, Reach 4 and Reach 6, were measured, as well as a control reach, Reach 5, which is in a natural setting. The tracer tests indicated a significant decrease in the velocity in remediated reaches. The results of exchange velocity between the stream flow and the hyporheic zone suggest an increase after remediation of the reaches and the residence time seems to be decreasing simultaneously. When comparing the hydraulic characteristics, different stream flow during measurements was considered in a qualitative manner. The results of HC measurements show a decrease from 2015 to 2019 in the remediated reaches. In Reach 4 it decreased from 1.20E-03 m/s to 5.0E-4 m/s and in Reach 6, HC decreased from 7.70E-04 m/s before remediations to 5.6E-04 m/s after remediation actions. All the measurements have uncertainties, especially since homogeneity is assumed to some extent and the natural environment will always be heterogeneous.

As part of the European Union’s climate commitment including the adoption of the Paris agreement, the European commission has developed a long-term strategy with the goal to reach net zero CO2emissions in 2050. To achieve this, a transformation of the European industry is necessary, as it represents 30% of EU’s total emissions. A major challenge will be to cut emissions in the CO2intensive steel industry, which is considered hard to abate. To reach the Paris agreement, deep emission cuts are necessary to occur within a decade, before cumulative emissions are too high. Today, about 60% of all steel in the EU is produced using coke as feedstock, a process resulting in large CO2 emissions. A new process in which hydrogen is used instead of coke is under development, with no direct CO2 emissions as result. The implementation of such technologies can help shift the production from fossil based to renewable, with declining emissions as a result. Until now, most abatement methods are focused on the supply side, finding technical solutions that can reduce emissions. This study shows that technology can play an important role in the transformation of the steel industry but will not alone achieve the necessary reductions fast enough. To achieve near-zero emissions in the steel industry, the solution set needs to widen to include demand side measures. The results show that circular economy principles that promote higher shares of recycled steel and reduced losses have the potential to lower total demand. This also applies for circular business models, by which incentives for higher utilisation and lifetimes of products can be created. In this report, demand-side measures are analysed using a stock-based steel demand model. It is estimated that demand-side measures can decrease the steel demand by 27% in 2050, compared to a business as usual scenario. Applying circular principles would also increase the share of recycled steel being produced from old steel scrap, a process far less CO2 intensive than virgin production. The findings are, that demand side measures can provide immediate deep emission cuts necessary, saving time before new technologies are implemented. The lower steel demand also helps making the transition from fossil to fossil-free steel production easier. By a combination of demand side reductions and hydrogen-DR the steel industry in Europe can reach near-zero emissions by 2050.

Extreme ultraviolet lithography (EUVL) is a next generation lithographic techniques under development for fabricating semiconductor devices with feature sizes smaller than 32 nm. The optics to be used in the EUVL steppers is reflective optics with multilayer mirror coatings on each surface. The wavelength of choice is 13.5 nm determined by the optimum reflectivity of the mirror coatings. The light source required for this wavelength is derived from a hot-dense plasma produced by either a gas discharge or a laser. This study concentrate only on the laser produced plasma source because of its advantages of scalability to higher repetition rates. The design of a the laser plasma EUVL light source consists of a plasma produced from a high-intensity focused laser beam from a solid/liquid target, from which radiation is generated and collected by a large solid angle mirror or array of mirrors. The collector mirrors have the same reflectivity characteristics as the stepper mirrors. The EUVL light source is considered as the combination of both the hot-dense plasma and the collector mirrors. The EUVL light sources required by the stepper manufacturers must have sufficient EUV output power and long operational lifetimes to meet market-determined chip production rates. The most influential factor in achieving the required EUV output power is the conversion efficiency (CE) of laser input energy relative to the EUV radiation collected. A high CE is demonstrated in a separate research program by colleagues in the Laser Plasma laboratory at CREOL. Another important factor for the light source is the reflectivity lifetime of the collection optics as mirror reflectivity can be degraded by deposition and ablation from the plasma debris. Realization of a high CE but low debris plasma source is possible by reducing the mass of the target, which is accomplished by using tin-doped droplet targets. These have sufficient numbers of tin atoms for high CE, but the debris generation is minimal. The first part of this study investigates debris emissions from tin-doped droplet targets, in terms of aerosols and ions. Numerous tin aerosols can be created during a single laser-target interaction. The effects these interactions are observed and the depositions are investigated using SEM, AFM, AES, XPS, and RBS techniques. The generation of aerosols is found to be the result of incomplete ionization of the target material, corresponding to non-optimal laser coupling to the target for maximum CE. In order to determine the threats of the ion emission to the collector mirror coatings from an optimal, fully ionized target, the ion flux is measured at the mirror distance using various techniques. The ion kinetic energy distributions obtained for individual ion species are quantitatively analyzed. Incorporating these distributions with Monte-Carlo simulations provide lifetime estimation of the collector mirror under the effect of ion sputtering. The current estimated lifetime the tin-doped droplet plasma source is only a factor of 500 less than the stepper manufacturer requirements, without the use of any mitigation schemes to stop these ions interacting with the mirror. The second part of this investigation explores debris mitigation schemes. Two mitigation schemes are applied to tin-doped droplet laser plasmas; electrostatic field mitigation, and a combination of a foil trap with a magnetic field. Both mitigation schemes demonstrate their effectiveness in suppressing aerosols and ion flux. A very small number of high-energy ions still pass through the combination of the two mitigation schemes but the sputtering caused by these ions is too small to offer a threat to mirror lifetime. It is estimated that the lifetime of the collector mirror, and hence the source lifetime, will be sufficient when tin-doped targets are used in combination with these mitigation schemes.

Many years of communication research have shown that an increase in immediacy has been a major factor that affects students‘ perceptions of instructor credibility which in turn affects, both students‘ cognitive and affective learning, student state motivation and a variety of other positive outcomes. However, in order for immediacy to be effective, instructor and student must be in the same location at the same time. With the recent push toward on-line classes, what can we find to act like immediacy in a text based format? This research suggests that face threat mitigation can be used in a text-based environment, to achieve the pro-social goals of instructor credibility and student state motivation to the same extent as it does when coupled with immediacy. This study is a replication of a study done by Witt and Kerssen-Griep (2012). In the original study face threat mitigation (FTM) was coupled with instructor nonverbal immediacy (NVI) and they examined the impact these factors had on instructor credibility (i.e., competence, character, and caring) and student state motivation in a video simulated feedback situation. This study surveyed 218 undergraduate students in an introductory communication course. Students were randomly assigned to read hypothetical scenarios in which FTM was manipulated in a manner similar to Witt and Kerssen-Griep‘s study. They responded to three scales. The current study removed the instructor by using a simulated electronic feedback correspondence. Results of a MANCOVA and four separate ANOVAs were similar to those of the original findings. FTM was found to have a significant positive relationship with instructor credibility (i.e., competence, character, and caring) and student state motivation.

Radio frequency interference (RFI) is undesired and commonplace. Using a subspace projection method to spatially remove the interference from a phased array system gives results of a 30 dB interference null rejection (INR). Unmanned systems have been developed to observe underwater activity and communicate their observations to passing aircraft. These systems are currently limited by their use of a single transmitter. The uplink can be improved by using a dual-antenna beam steering approach to maximize the signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) the aircraft receives. This approach demonstrates an increase in SNR of 3 dB when compared to a single transmitter.

Reconstruction after natural disasters can represent large peaks in a community’s greenhouse gas emission inventory. Components of the built environment destroyed by natural hazards have their useful life shortened, requiring replacement before functionally necessary. Though the hazard itself does not release greenhouse gasses, the demolition and rebuilding process does, and these are the emissions we can quantify to better understand the climate impacts of disasters. The proposed methodology draws data from existing emission and hazard resource literature and combines the information in a community scale life cycle assessment. Case studies of past disasters are used to refine the methodology and quantify the emissions of single events. The methodology is then annualized projecting the emissions of future hazards. The annualization of greenhouse gasses caused by hazard events provides a baseline from which reduction strategies can be measured against. Hazard mitigation strategies can then be quantified as greenhouse gas reduction strategies for use in Climate Action Plans. The methodology combines the fields of climate action, hazard mitigation, and climate adaptation. Each field attempts to create sustainable and resilient communities, but most plans silo each discipline, missing opportunities that are mutually beneficial. Quantifying the greenhouse gasses associated with recovery following a disaster blends these fields to allow development of comprehensive resilience and sustainability strategies that lower greenhouse gases and decrease risk from existing or projected hazards. An online supplement to this thesis is available online at disasterghg.wordpress.com

The recent surge in fire activity and the extent of displaced communities as a result of wildfire has increased awareness of wildfire issues nationwide (Syphard et al., 2017). Climate change, population growth, and continued development in the wildland urban interface (WUI) has contributed to a growing body of research into the underlying causes of this continued destruction (Kramer et al., 2019). There is no doubt that statewide policies, such as defensible space or building regulations, are associated with home survival (Keeley & Syphard, 2019). However, the relative effectiveness of wildfire mitigation depends on a myriad of factors specific to individual communities impacted by wildfire. This study focuses on factors that contributed to structure loss as a result of the 2017 Thomas Fire in Ventura, CA. Through spatial analysis utilizing GIS software, we were able to determine that defensible space played a minimal role in structural survivability during the Thomas Fire. Our research shows that fence type (noncombustible, combustible, or none) is a more significant factor at decreasing the odds of structure loss for homes experiencing wildfire under similar conditions. Effective wildfire mitigation relies on multiple factors, and government agencies must take a holistic approach rather than singular, “one size fits all” approaches to reduce the impact of future catastrophic wildfire.