Image-related communications are forming an increasingly large part of modern communications, bringing the need for efficient and effective compression. Image compression is important for effective storage and transmission of images. Many techniques have been developed in the past, including transform coding, vector quantization and neural networks. In this thesis, a novel adaptive compression technique is introduced based on adaptive rather than fixed transforms for image compression. The proposed technique is similar to Neural Network (NN)-based image compression and its superiority over other techniques is presented It is shown that the proposed algorithm results in higher image quality for a given compression ratio than existing Neural Network algorithms and that the training of this algorithm is significantly faster than the NN based algorithms. This is also compared to the JPEG in terms of Peak Signal to Noise Ratio (PSNR) for a given compression ratio and computational complexity. Advantages of this idea over JPEG are also presented in this thesis.

Thesis advisor: Chia-Kuang Tsung / Electrochemical energy storage and conversion applications benefit from the integration of nanostructures into the devices, as they have many more active sites per gram which enables excellent mass utilization of the active species. By controlling the surface of fuel cell catalysts, higher activity and efficiency can be achieved as compared to the bulk counterpart, with multiple catalyst facets of varying activity and efficiency. Nanostructured electrochemical capacitors have enhanced electrolyte diffusion over the surface of the electrode, facilitating high rate capability. Nanostructured materials for energy storage and conversion devices, such as electrochemical capacitors and proton exchange membrane fuel cells, can perform even better with the incorporation of carbon. High surface area carbon can enhance the activity of electrochemical capacitors by improving the conductivity of the electrode and/or enhancing the double layer capacitance. Carbon supports for fuel cell catalysts enable proper dispersion of active material without sacrificing conductivity. The work reported in this thesis is aimed toward improving the performance of electrochemical energy storage and conversion devices through novel incorporation of carbon. Carbon was first used to enhance the performance of electrocatalysts. By wrapping fuel cell catalysts in a porous carbon shell, the activity was increased over its bare and CNT-supported counterparts. The carbon shell synthetic method reported here is a good route to the production of a conductive host for Pd electrocatalysts with good contact and in one step with the formation of the Pd nanoparticles. Carbon was also used to enhance the performance of pseudocapacitors, first by incorporating it into the precursor spray solution in the generation of mesoporous metal oxides and then as a metal-organic framework-derived carbon host with dispersed electrochemically active metal oxides. A carbon network was generated from the pyrolysis of pore directing agents during the decomposition of precursor metal nitrates in the generation of mesoporous manganese oxides in a modified spray pyrolysis approach. The addition of Super P to the precursor spray solution further enhanced the conductivity of the material, enabling the formation of high-performing pseudocapacitors. Lastly, nitrogen-doped carbon cubes produced from thermally-treated parent ZIF-8 cubes were tested as electrochemical capacitors and found to have higher specific capacitance than the nitrogen-doped carbon generated from the parent ZIF-8 rhombic dodecahedra. ZIF-67 cubes were then thermally treated to yield cubic nitrogen-doped carbon hosts for the generated cobalt nanoparticles. Once the cobalt particles were oxidized, the cobalt oxide/carbon hybrid structure exhibited the best pseudocapacitive performance of the ZIF-derived carbon materials tested, exhibiting high specific capacitance and good capacitance retention with increased scan rates and prolonged cycling. Each of the materials tested for electrochemical energy storage and conversion saw an enhancement in performance with the addition of carbon. The results reported here illustrate the importance of carbon in electrochemical cells and the importance of continuing research to modify and improve the methods for carbon production and integration. / Thesis (PhD) — Boston College, 2016. / Submitted to: Boston College. Graduate School of Arts and Sciences. / Discipline: Chemistry.

Typescript, etc. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Vita. / Digitized by Kansas Correctional Industries

Shi Xiaodong. / Thesis (M.Phil.)--Chinese University of Hong Kong, 2007. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 114-117). / Abstracts in English and Chinese. / 摘要 --- p.i / Abstract --- p.ii / Acknowledgement --- p.iii / Table of Contents --- p.iv / List of Tables --- p.vi / List of Figures --- p.vii / List of Figures --- p.vii / Chapter Chapter 1. --- Introduction --- p.9 / Chapter 1.1. --- Background --- p.9 / Chapter 1.2. --- Research Motivation --- p.10 / Chapter 1.3. --- Research Objective --- p.14 / Chapter 1.4. --- Organization of Thesis --- p.14 / Chapter Chapter 2. --- Problem Analysis and Definition --- p.15 / Chapter 2.1. --- "Definitions of Story, Event and Topic" --- p.15 / Chapter 2.2. --- Characteristics of News Stories --- p.17 / Chapter Chapter 3. --- Literature Review --- p.26 / Chapter 3.1. --- Topic Detection and Tracking (TDT) --- p.26 / Chapter 3.2. --- Document Clustering Techniques --- p.27 / Chapter 3.3. --- Event Evolution --- p.30 / Chapter Chapter 4. --- System Architecture --- p.34 / Chapter Chapter 5. --- Event Evolution --- p.37 / Chapter 5.1. --- Event Evolution --- p.37 / Chapter 5.2. --- Event Timestamp and Temporal Relationship --- p.39 / Chapter 5.3. --- Event Evolution Graph --- p.42 / Chapter 5.4. --- Event Threading and Event Joining --- p.46 / Chapter Chapter 6. --- Extracting News Events --- p.48 / Chapter 6.1. --- Clustering Approach --- p.48 / Chapter 6.2. --- Utilizing Clustered Stories from News Infomediaries --- p.59 / Chapter Chapter 7. --- Modeling Event Evolution Relationships --- p.62 / Chapter 7.1. --- Measuring the Confidences of Event Evolution Relationships --- p.63 / Chapter Chapter 8. --- Constructing Event Evolution Graphs --- p.68 / Chapter 8.1. --- Static Thresholding --- p.68 / Chapter 8.2. --- Static Pruning --- p.69 / Chapter 8.3. --- Dynamic Pruning --- p.70 / Chapter Chapter 9. --- Experimental Evaluation --- p.72 / Chapter 9.1. --- Evaluation Measure --- p.72 / Chapter 9.2. --- Data Set --- p.77 / Chapter 9.3. --- Experimental Results and Analysis --- p.78 / Chapter Chapter 10. --- Case Study --- p.89 / Chapter Chapter 11. --- Story Segmentation and Its Effects --- p.93 / Chapter 11.1. --- Story Segmentation --- p.95 / Chapter 11.2. --- Event Generalization --- p.97 / Chapter 11.3. --- Experimental Evaluation --- p.98 / Chapter Chapter 12. --- Conclusions and Future Work --- p.112 / Chapter 12.1. --- Conclusions --- p.112 / Chapter 12.2. --- Future Work --- p.113 / References --- p.114

The increasing share of renewable electricity will make energy storage technologies indispensable in the future. In this study, the potential of grid energy storage technologies is discussed, focusing on the Nordic countries as well as Germany. It is challenging to balance the intermittency of wind power and solar power production in the energy system. In Norway and Sweden, and to some extent Finland, hydropower is a very important balancing resource. Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) is a technology that has not had a real breakthrough yet. There are ongoing projects at different locations where one of the targets is to achieve better round-trip efficiency by taking care of the heat generated at compression. Pumped hydroelectric storage (PHS) has advantages in being cost-efficient and has a high round-trip efficiency. There is probably a high theoretical potential of new generating capacity in Norway and Sweden, but the electricity cost does not vary enough for new developments to be profitable at the moment. The environmental and social impact of PHS plants is an important and difficult aspect to handle. Power-to-gas, power-to-power and hydrogen storage has been getting more attention recently but needs more research to increase the round-trip efficiency and to reduce the costs of electrolysers, storage and fuel cells. Batteries can be well suited as a minute reserve or for peak shaving but are currently not cost-efficient for long-time storage. With lower prices and the possibility of using more abundant metals with less environmental and social impact batteries could play a larger role in electric grids. There might be possibilities of integrating batteries in electric vehicles with power systems as well.To speed up the development of energy storage technologies, governmental subsidies might be necessary. In the future, a larger variation in electricity cost can be expected during different times of the day and the year, which will make energy storage facilities more profitable.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Missouri--Rolla, 2007. / Vita. The entire thesis text is included in file. Title from title screen of thesis/dissertation PDF file (viewed December 3, 2007) Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Nevada, Reno, 2005. / "December, 2005." Includes bibliographical references (leaves 121-124). Online version available on the World Wide Web.

'Gala' is an apple cultivar with a distinctive aroma and flavor. 'Gala' storage season is short in regular atmosphere (RA). Controlled atmosphere (CA) extends 'Gala' storage but volatile production is reduced. 'Gala' odor-active aroma compounds were identified using Osme, a gas chromatography and olfactometry technique. Changes in aroma after RA and CA storage were characterized by Osme and descriptive sensory analysis (DSA). Hexyl acetate, butyl acetate and 2-methylbutyl acetate were emitted in the largest amounts and were perceived with the strongest intensities, with "ripe apple", "solvent" and "fruity" descriptors. Production of hexyl acetate and butyl acetate after CA storage decreased significantly compared to apples stored in RA, along with perceived intensities. 2-Methylbutyl acetate only decreased in apples stored 20 weeks in CA. Other esters with an apple odor were butyl 2-methylbutyrate and hexyl 2-methylbutyrate. Methyl 2-methylbutyrate, ethyl 2-methylbutyrate and propyl 2-methylbutyrate had sweet, fruity, and berry-like odors. Ester production after CA storage decreased at different rates. The non-ester compounds 4-allylanisole (anise) and 0-damascenone (grape juice) as well as an unidentified compound (watermelon), were perceived mostly from RA stored fruit. Other unidentified peaks had cucumber, mushroom, adhesive tape or skunk odors. Comparison of mixtures of 'Gala' odor-active compounds in water with whole 'Gala' apples revealed that hexyl acetate, hexanal and butyl acetate were necessary to impart an apple odor. 2-Methylbutyl acetate and methyl 2-methylbutyrate also contributed to the least difference between mixture solutions and apples. DSA of 'Gala' apples stored in RA and CA confirmed the general decrease in fruity aroma following CA storage. A floral descriptor was also significantly affected by CA storage. A musty note appeared in CA stored fruit, which may have corresponded to a garlic odorant peak detected during Osme. 'Gala' apples stored 16 weeks in CA followed by 4 weeks in RA emitted more volatiles than fruit stored 20 weeks in CA. The difference in volatile production was perceived by Osme analysis, and differences in overall fruity aroma between 16 and 20 weeks CA stored fruit were perceived only for whole fruit. There was no difference between those two types of storage for fruit flavor. / Graduation date: 1998

Parallax is a distributed storage system that uses virtualization to provide storage facilities specifically for virtual environments. The system employs a novel archi-tecture in which storage features that have traditionally been implemented directly on high-end storage arrays and switches are relocated into a federation of storage VMs, sharing the same physical hosts as the VMs that they serve. This architecture retains the single administrative domain and OS agnosticism achieved by array- and switch-based approaches, while lowering the bar on hardware requirements and facilitating the development of new features. Parallax offers a comprehensive set of storage features including frequent, low-overhead snapshot of virtual disks, the “gold-mastering” of template images, and the ability to use local disks as a persistent cache to dampen burst demand on networked storage.