Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-161). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1997. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 150-161). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2005. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 99-106).

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / The high-spin states of the nucleus 152Gd have been populated via the 152Sm (α, 4n) 152Gd fusion-evaporation reaction at a beam energy of 45MeV. The emitted γ rays were observed with the AFRODITE spectrometer array. The previously known decay scheme of 152Gd was extended. Directional Correlation from Oriented states of nuclei (DCO) and linear polarization measurements were performed in order to assign spins and parities in the 152Gd decay scheme. An alternative interpretation of the first excited Kπ = 0+ band, previously considered to be a β-vibration is discussed.

The evolution of technology in the textile industry reached the design of embroidery patterns for machine embroidery. In order to create quality designs the shapes to be embroidered need to be segmented into regions that define different parts. One of the objectives of our research is to develop a method to automatically segment the shapes and by doing so making the process faster and easier. Shape analysis is necessary to find a suitable method for this purpose. It includes the study of different ways to represent shapes. In this thesis we focus on shape representation through its skeleton. We make use of a shape's skeleton and the shape's boundary through the so-called feature transform to decide how to segment a shape and where to place the segment boundaries. The direction of stitches is another important specification in an embroidery design. We develop a technique to select the stitch orientation by defining direction lines using the skeleton curves and information from the boundary. We compute the intersections of segment boundaries and direction lines with the shape boundary for the final definition of the direction line segments. We demonstrate that our shape segmentation technique and the automatic placement of direction lines produce sufficient constrains for automated embroidery designs. We show examples for lettering, basic shapes, as well as simple and complex logos.

<p> The present collection of studies examines how sensory information is interrelated, and how that changes with age and experience. The hypotheses motivating the research were based on the sensory associations of adults who experience concrete inter/intra-sensory linkage, known as synesthesia. Adult synesthesia can inform the study of perceptual development, and even of language, because it appears to represent one way in which normal developmental mechanisms can play out. Using insights gained from adults with synesthesia, we derived novel hypotheses about cross-modal and cross-dimensional links likely to be present in early childhood and to persist in muted form in non-synesthetic adults.</p> <p> The research reported in Chapters 2 and 3 was an examination of the learned and naturally biased influences on the development of one type of intermodal sensory association. Specifically, it investigated whether colour-letter associations found in adults reflect learned versus naturally-biased influences between shape and colour. Results from these two studies suggest that pre-literate children (2.5-3 years old) show natural biases to associate certain shapes to certain colours, which can be manifest as colour associations to letters. Naturally-biased associations between shape and colour appear to be based, in part, on the angularity of the shape. In addition to the same naturally biased colour letter associations found in toddlers, older children (7-9 years old) and adults showed colour letter associations that appear to be based in literacy, since they were not present in preliterate toddlers. The research reported in Chapter 4 was an examination of crossmodal associations between sound and shape. Specifically, it investigated the influences of consonant and vowel sound on the mapping of words to shape in toddlers. Results from this study suggest that the vowel sound of a nonsense word can reliably predict its association to a shape with specific characteristics (rounded versus jagged). Such natural biases may help bootstrap language learning. The research reported in Chapter 5 was an examination of cross-modal associations to odour. Specifically, it investigated whether there any consistent cross-modal associations between odour and either colour or texture. Results from this study suggest that there are consistent colour and texture associations to odours, some of which do not appear to be based in experience. Across studies, pre-literate toddlers, older children, and/or adults provide evidence that stimulus characteristics reliably relate to one another cross-dimensionally and crossmodally. Further, sensory associations in adulthood appear to result from an interplay of learning and natural biases, and non-synesthetic adults and toddlers show consistent, naturally-biased sensory associations similar to those seen in synesthesia.</p> <p> The work presented in this thesis reveals the value of deriving hypotheses from the phenomenon of adult synesthesia about the interplay of learning and natural biases in the formation of sensory associations.</p> / Thesis / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

<p> We investigated the local electronic properties of the triangular-lattice materials NaxCO2 (x = 0.3, 0.72) and the superconductor Na0.3Co02-1.3H20 by 59Co and 170 Nuclear Magnetic Resonance(NMR). For Na0.72Co02 , 59Co NMR line shape shows clearly that there are two types of Co sites - Co(A) site and Co(B) site. The electronic character of Co(A) site is close to that of the less magnetic Co+3-like ion with spin rv 0, while the electronic character of Co(B) site is close to that of the strongly magnetic Co+4-like ions with spin ~ 1/2. The temperature dependence of the Knight shifts suggests that the Co(A) and Co(B) sites are electronically coupled, which is not consistent with simple phase separation. The local Co electronic environments propagate to the adjacent 0 layers through p-d hybridization. Therefore, there are two types of oxygen sites, O(A) site and O(B) site. We introduced a different route to do K vs x plot analysis for the Co sites and determined that for the Co sites, Karbitat(A) is 1.816 % and Kspin(A) is about rv 0.2 %; Karbitat(B) is 4.0255 % and Kspin(B) is at least 1.5 %. For Na0 .3Co02 , 59Co NMR line shape shows that the Co valence is averaged out in this material. There are two types of oxygen sites, 0( C) site and O(D) site, presumably because of the nearest neighbor Na+ sites. The constant behavior of Knight shifts below 100 K for both the Co and 0 sites suggests the emergence of a low temperature canonical Fermi-liquid behavior. For the superconductor Na0.3CoO2-1.3H20, both 59Co and 170 NMR line shapes show that there is only one type of Co site and oxygen site. The Knight shifts of 59Co and 170 are temperature independent below 100 K down to Tc. Combined with our spin-lattice relaxation 1/T 1 T measurements, we can rule out the possibility of ferromagnetic scenario of spin excitations above Tc. </p> / Thesis / Master of Science (MSc)

I denna studie behandlas effort shapes kopplat till digital animation med syfte att undersöka om det finns en könsbaserad skillnad i uppfattning och bedömning av karaktärsdrag. De animationer som har producerats är grundade på effort shapes som härstammar från Laban Movement Analysis. Metoden som har tillämpats för att samla in data är en kvalitativ enkät med öppna frågor som har besvarats av tio män samt tio kvinnor. Resultatet visade att det finns en skillnad mellan könen i bedömningen av karaktärerna men inte i uppfattningen av karaktärsdragen.

Proteins are the basic building blocks of biological organisms, and are responsible for a variety of functions within them. Proteins are composed of unique amino acid sequences. Some has only one sequence, while others contain several sequences that are combined together. These combined amino acid sequences fold to form a unique three-dimensional (3D) shape. Although the sequences may fold proteins into different 3D shapes in diverse environments, proteins with similar amino acid sequences typically have similar 3D shapes and functions. Knowledge of the 3D shape of a protein is important in both protein function analysis and drug design, for example when assessing the toxicity reduction associated with a given drug. Due to the complexity of protein 3D shapes and the close relationship between shapes and functions, the prediction of protein 3D shapes has become an important topic in bioinformatics. This research introduces a new approach to predict proteins’ 3D shapes, utilizing a multilayer artificial neural network. Our novel solution allows one to learn and predict the representations of the 3D shape associated with a protein by starting directly from its amino acid sequence descriptors. The input of the artificial neural network is a set of amino acid sequence descriptors we created based on a set of probability density functions. In our algorithm, the probability density functions are calculated by the correlation between the constituent amino acids, according to the substitution matrix. The output layer of the network is formed by 3D shape descriptors provided by an information retrieval system, called CAPRI. This system contains the pose invariant 3D shape descriptors, and retrieves proteins having the closest structures. The network is trained by proteins with known amino acid sequences and 3D shapes. Once the network has been trained, it is able to predict the 3D shape descriptors of the query protein. Based on the predicted 3D shape descriptors, the CAPRI system allows the retrieval of known proteins with 3D shapes closest to the query protein. These retrieved proteins may be verified as to whether they are in the same family as the query protein, since proteins in the same family generally have similar 3D shapes. The search for similar 3D shapes is done against a database of more than 45,000 known proteins. We present the results when evaluating our approach against a number of protein families of various sizes. Further, we consider a number of different neural network architectures and optimization algorithms. When the neural network is trained with proteins that are from large families where the proteins in the same family have similar amino acid sequences, the accuracy for finding proteins from the same family is 100%. When we employ proteins whose family members have dissimilar amino acid sequences, or those from a small protein family, in which case, neural networks with one hidden layer produce more promising results than networks with two hidden layers, and the performance may be improved by increasing the number of hidden nodes when the networks have one hidden layer.

The total worldwide base of installed wind energy peak capacity reached 94 GW by the end of 2007, including 1846 MW in Canada. Wind turbine systems are being installed throughout Canada and often in mountains and cold weather regions, due to their high wind energy potential. Harsh cold weather climates, involving turbulence, gusts, icing and lightning strikes in these regions, affect wind turbine performance. Ice accretion and irregular shedding during turbine operation lead to load imbalances, often causing the turbine to shut off. They create excessive turbine vibration and may change the natural frequency of blades as well as promote higher fatigue loads and increase the bending moment of blades. Icing also affects the tower structure by increasing stresses, due to increased loads from ice accretion. This can lead to structural failures, especially when coupled to strong wind loads. Icing also affects the reliability of anemometers, thereby leading to inaccurate wind speed measurements and resulting in resource estimation errors. Icing issues can directly impact personnel safety, due to falling and projected ice. It is therefore important to expand research on wind turbines operating in cold climate areas. This study presents an experimental investigation including three important fundamental aspects: 1) heat transfer characteristics of the airfoil with and without liquid water content (LWC) at varying angles of attack; 2) energy losses of wind energy while a wind turbine is operating under icing conditions; and 3) aerodynamic characteristics of an airfoil during a simulated icing event. A turbine scale model with curved 3-D blades and a DC generator is tested in a large refrigerated wind tunnel, where ice formation is simulated by spraying water droplets. A NACA 63421 airfoil is used to study the characteristics of aerodynamics and convective heat transfer. The current, voltage, rotation of the DC generator and temperature distribution along the airfoil, which are used to calculate heat transfer coefficients, are measured using a Data Acquisition (DAQ) system and recorded with LabVIEW software. The drag, lift and moment of the airfoil are measured by a force balance system to obtain the aerodynamics of an iced airfoil. This research also quantifies the power loss under various icing conditions. The data obtained can be used to valid numerical data method to predict heat transfer characteristics while wind turbine blades worked in cold climate regions. / October 2008