Predictions are presented for a selected compressor using longer hole-pattern seals with L/D ratios from 0.5 to 2.5. Results were obtained for back-to-back and in-line compressors with the seal located at mid-span and at 82% of rotor span respectively, considering different seal lengths, radial seal clearances, as well as constant clearance and convergent-tapered seal geometries. Predictions of the synchronous rotordynamic coefficients and leakage were estimated using a code developed by Kleynhans and Childs with zero preswirl and constant pressure ratio of 0.5. This code does not include moment coefficients; which can affect the results. Results of all configurations show an increase of stiffness and damping coefficients with increasing seal length. In addition, a significant reduction in leakage (approximately 47 percent) as L/D increases is exhibited for constant clearance and convergent-tapered hole-pattern seals. For the back-to-back compressor, the stability analysis predicts that the system is stable for all speeds and L/D ratios. In fact, the rotor cylindrical-bending mode becomes more stable with lengthening the seals, for both constant clearance and convergent-tapered hole-pattern seals. For constant clearance seals (Case A), the synchronous response at mid-span show a critical speed at 8,000 rpm (cylindrical-bending mode) for all L/D ratios, while a reduction of 85 percent in the peak response is exhibited as L/D increases. Case B, in which the radial clearance is increased as L/D increases to have the same leakage as case A, slightly increases the synchronous response of the model compared to case A. For convergent-tapered seals (Case C), the synchronous response at mid-span shows a higher critical speed (9,000 rpm) for all L/D ratios, and a larger reduction (89 percent) in peak response with increasing L/D, compared to Case A. However, the magnitude of the peak response is larger for convergent-tapered seals than that for constant clearance seals, for all L/D ratios. For in-line compressor, the stability analysis predicts two critical speeds at 6,000 (conical mode) and 18,000 rpm (first bending mode) respectively. Both modes are predicted to be stable for all speed and L/D ratios. Synchronous response at the mid-span for Case A shows the peak response at the first critical speed is slightly reduced as L/D increases while the response at the second critical speed is increased for most of the cases. In addition, the second critical speed is reduced from 18,000 to 13,000 rpm, which is not a concern because it remains above the running speed. This was also the trend for convergent-tapered hole-pattern seal. In addition, the increase of radial clearance in Case B slightly increases the amplitude of vibration, compared to Case A.

Mn12-acetate single-molecule magnets (SMMs) are nano-scale magnets showing a strong magnetic anisotropy, slow relaxation and stepwise magnetic hysteresis curves. Possible applications of Mn12-acetate, e.g. for ultra high density magnetic information storage device, quantum computation, and magnetic molecular electronics, have been suggested due to the unusual magnetic behavior. It is an important prerequisite for the applications to develop a reliable technique to organize the molecules on a surface and to detect the magnetic signals of the molecules. A solution evaporation technique combined with conventional lithography is a simple but reliable method to create Mn12-acetate thin film patterns on the micro/nano-scale. The method is demonstrated with a series of analysis. A superconducting quantum interference device (SQUID) shows a non-linear I-V (Current vs. Voltage) characteristic that is modulated by a magnetic flux inside the loop, allowing one to sense and analyze an extremely weak magnetic field. The miniaturized SQUID is appropriate for sensing the magnetic flux from the film structure of the molecular magnets. Theoretical ideas, fabrication, and a measurement technique of the device are presented. A new interesting system, the so-called superconductor/SMM hybrid, results from the experimental configuration. Understanding this new type of hybrid system is important not only because of the expectation of new phenomena affecting the functionality of superconducting devices, but also because the two coupled substances are fundamentally incompatible phases. The first experimental attempt to investigate the interaction between an aluminum superconducting film and Mn12-acetate SMMs will be discussed.

Pecan [Carya illinoinensis (Wangenh.) C. Koch] is a species distributed over an area of varied geographic and climatic variation in the Unites States and Mexico providing a potential for anatomical and physiological adaptation within the cultivars and provenances (i.e., the area of origin of seed). An assessment of leaf anatomical traits of pecan cultivars (Pawnee, Mohawk and Starking Hardy Giant) collected from three locations (Tifton, GA., Chetopa, KS., and Stillwater, OK.) was conducted to provide an understanding of patterns of ecogeographic variation within the natural range. The stomatal density 'Pawnee’ (404 stomata/mm2) was intermediate between that of ‘Mohawk’ (363 stomata/mm2) and ‘Starking Hardy Giant’ (463 stomata/mm2). There were differences among the three pecan cultivars at the same location but there were no differences in stomatal density within the same cultivar grown at three distinct locations. The study suggested that differences in stomatal density in pecans are cultivar-specific rather than being determined by environmental factors. The stability of certain leaf anatomical characteristics, such as stomatal density, for pecan cultivars grown at different locations confirms that these traits can be used for screening provenances with desirable leaf anatomical characteristics for breeding and cultivar development. To achieve the objective of studying anatomical, morphological and physiological traits, Mexican and U.S. provenances grown at the Pecan Genetics and Breeding Program facility in Somerville, Texas were used. The prominent results from the provenance study indicate the presence of intra-specific variation in pecan provenances for the morphological and anatomical traits along the east-west gradient. It is also interesting to note that western provenances displayed the least stomatal density (350 stomata/mm2) while an eastern provenance showed the greatest stomatal density (728 stomata/mm2). This trend may be explained with the gradient in moisture availability from the wetter conditions in the east to the arid conditions in the west in North America. Most of the physiological traits measured did not show any distinct differences between the provenances. There is a great possibility that anatomical traits like stomatal density are genetically controlled to a great extent in pecan in comparison to the physiological traits.

Optical music recognition (OMR) allows pages of sheet music to be interpreted by a computer, and converted into a versatile machine-readable format. There are many advantages of such a system. For instance, a soloist could have the computer play an accompaniment for rehearsal; a user could build music database occupying less memory; or a musicologist could make an edition, modification, or print of the captured image. Typically, OCR techniques can not be used in music score recognition since music notation presents a two dimensional structure: in a staff the horizontal position denotes different duration for notes and the vertical position defines the height of the note. That the quality or the typesetting of a score is not the same, or some of the man-made factors make many related researches could not process flexibility, or could only recognize with restriction. The paper covers two fields of knowledge: one is image processing technology, mainly based on projection, which is employed to extract horizontal and vertical line to abridge the recognition field, and morphology, which recognize musical symbols. The other is music metric, which provides the help on the analysis, and corrects the errors after recognizing. This system divides into three phases. It starts with all the pre-processing that is needed to de-skew input image, which afford to staff line detection and removal. Then, the symbol recognition, detects the vertical and non-vertical line musical symbol respectively, which are combined into a notation to refine by metric. Finally, the results are stored in a musical representation language, which could be converted into the MIDI format and the music can be played on a MIDI synthesizer. The experiment shows this system could get a satisfied result successfully in short time, and there is no hard-and-fast claim for image resolution.

Software modeling with unified modeling language (UML) and model driven architecture (MDA) concept have become the new paradigm of modern systems analysis and design. Some Several CASE tools have been introduced to facilitate the transformation from platform independent model (i.e., class diagram, and sequence diagram) to platform specific model, and thereby enhance the efficiency of system development. This research depends on MDA concept, and presents a systematic methodology which integrated the UML and MDA concept with Patterns to refine PIM cohesively. A real-world case using the integrated techniques is presented. With this approach, the system developer can increase the reuse of PIM and thereby enhance the efficiency of system development.

“Pattern Language” is a term popularized by Christopher Alexander and his coauthors of the book A Pattern Language: Towns, Buildings, Construction, Sara Ishikawa, and Murray Silverstein in the late 1970’s. Though intended to enable every citizen to design and construct their own home, pattern language never quite caught up with those in the field of architecture, mostly because of its lack of flexibility. The core idea of Alexander’s pattern language was to arm architects, designers, and the common people with a tool that would empower them to make informed decisions related to designing places that would comply with their needs and wants. What architecture needs the most today is the ability to heal and invigorate. I believe that contemporary architecture lacks such places that enable occupants to connect and communicate with what is within and what is without. A number of studies have proven that universally sacred (a majority of which are religious in function) places are charged with energies that could contribute towards this process. The energies, also referred to as “patterns,” are the energies unique to a place that make it special and sacred (not just in the religious context but also in the secular context). This thesis is an attempt to derive a new pattern language for the creation of sacred “secular” places like our homes and work places which draw from the pattern lists that have been proposed in four separate instances by authors including Christopher Alexander and Phillip Tabb. This new pattern list is aimed at providing architects and designers with a tool for creating secular places with an element of sacrality without having to taking on a religious meaning.

Researchers have proposed frequent pattern mining algorithms that are more efficient than previous algorithms and generate fewer but more important patterns. Many techniques such as depth first/breadth first search, use of tree/other data structures, top down/bottom up traversal and vertical/horizontal formats for frequent pattern mining have been developed. Most frequent pattern mining algorithms use a support measure to prune the combinatorial search space. However, support-based pruning is not enough when taking into consideration the characteristics of real datasets. Additionally, after mining datasets to obtain the frequent patterns, there is no way to adjust the number of frequent patterns through user feedback, except for changing the minimum support. Alternative measures for mining frequent patterns have been suggested to address these issues. One of the main limitations of the traditional approach for mining frequent patterns is that all items are treated uniformly when, in reality, items have different importance. For this reason, weighted frequent pattern mining algorithms have been suggested that give different weights to items according to their significance. The main focus in weighted frequent pattern mining concerns satisfying the downward closure property. In this research, frequent pattern mining approaches with weight constraints are suggested. Our main approach is to push weight constraints into the pattern growth algorithm while maintaining the downward closure property. We develop WFIM (Weighted Frequent Itemset Mining with a weight range and a minimum weight), WLPMiner (Weighted frequent Pattern Mining with length decreasing constraints), WIP (Weighted Interesting Pattern mining with a strong weight and/or support affinity), WSpan (Weighted Sequential pattern mining with a weight range and a minimum weight) and WIS (Weighted Interesting Sequential pattern mining with a similar level of support and/or weight affinity) The extensive performance analysis shows that suggested approaches are efficient and scalable in weighted frequent pattern mining.

Abstract With the rapid progress of the MEMs process, the cost and the size of accelerometers are reducing rapidly. As a result, accelerometers have found many new applications in industrial, entertainment and medical domains. One of such an applications is to acquire information about human body movement. The objective of this work is to use knee acceleration signal for indentity verification. Comparing with traditional biometric methods, this approach has several distinct features. First, it can aquire a large amount of data efficiently and conventiently. Second, it is relatively difficult to duplicate. In designing the verification algorithm, this study has developed a neural network method a hyperspherical classifier method. The experimental results demonstrated that hyperspherical classifier provide better performances in this application. By setting the sensitively to 85%, the specificity achieved by the hyperspherical classifier is at least 95%.

Over the past three decades or so, metaheuristics has been one of the most important and successful techniques for finding the true or near optimal solution of complex problems. Instead of systematically enumerating and checking all the candidate solutions that would take forever to accomplish, it works by guessing the right directions for finding the true or near optimal solution so that the space searched, and thus the time required, can be significantly reduced. However, our observation shows that most of the metaheuristic algorithms face a common problem. That is, because of the requirements of convergence, they all involve a lot of redundant computations during the convergence process. In this thesis, we present a simple but efficient algorithm for solving the problem, called the Pattern Reduction algorithm (or PR for short). The proposed algorithm is motivated by the observation that some of the sub-solutions that are repeatedly computed during the convergence process can be considered as part of the final solutions and thus can be first compressed and then removed to eliminate the redundant computations at the later iterations during the convergence process. Since PR is basically a concept that is not limited to any particular metaheuristic algorithm, we present several methods derived from the concept for eliminating the duplicate computations of metaheuristics in the thesis. Although our simulation results show that they all perform well in terms of the computation time reduced, they are not perfect in terms of the quality of the end results because in some cases they will cause a small loss of the quality. For this reason, rather than how much computation time the proposed algorithm can reduce, our ultimate goal is to eliminate all the redundant computations while at the same time preserving or even enhancing the quality of the end result of metaheuristics alone.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Toledo, 2009. / Typescript. "Submitted as partial fulfillment of the requirements for The Master of Science in Engineering." "A thesis entitled"--at head of title. Bibliography: leaves 158-164.