In accordance with the title, the present paper divides itself into two parts, of which the first wil1 be a brief resume of the planetary work done here, with a few details and announcements which have not heretofore been given to the public, and the second will present the writer's personal opinions of why it has been possible to reach these results. The latter must necessarily be more in the form of suggestions than facts, for to give facts one must have tried personally many widely separated localities over long periods of time.

No description available.

The third and final phase of the Sudbury Neutrino Observatory (SNO) experiment utilized a series of 3He proportional counters called Neutral Current Detectors (NCDs) to detect the neutrons produced by the neutral current interactions of solar neutrinos in the detector. The number of neutrons detected by the NCDs, and hence the total flux of 8B solar neutrinos, has been determined using two novel signal extraction techniques which were designed to be robust against potential unexpected behaviour in the NCD background. These techniques yield total 8B solar neutrino flux measurements of 5.04(+0.42-0.40(stat))(+/-0.28(syst))x10E6/cm2/s and (4.40 - 6.43)x10E6/cm2/s, which are in good agreement with previous SNO results and with solar model predictions, and which confirm that previous NCD analyses were not unduly affected by unexpected background behaviour. The majority of the hardware from the now-completed SNO experiment will be reused to create a new liquid scintillator based neutrino experiment called SNO+. An important part of the SNO+ physics program will be a search for neutrinoless double beta decay, carried out by dissolving 150Nd into the scintillator. The sensitivity of the SNO+ experiment to neutrinoless double beta decay has been evaluated. If loaded at 0.1% (w/w) with natural neodymium, after 1 kTa of data taking SNO+ would have a 90%C.L. sensitivity equivalent to a neutrinoless double beta decay half life of 8.0x10E24a or better 50% of the time; if the experiment were run with neodymium enriched to 50% in 150Nd this limit improves to 57x10E24a. Under a reasonable choice for the 150Nd neutrinoless double beta decay matrix element, these half lives correspond to upper limits on the effective Majorana neutrino mass of 112 meV and 42 meV, respectively. These limits are competitive with those expected from all other near-term neutrinoless double beta decay experiments. / Thesis (Ph.D, Physics, Engineering Physics and Astronomy) -- Queen's University, 2009-09-10 21:07:00.25

The purpose of the Pilgrimage to the Night Sky is to encourage a self driven journey of rediscovering the beauty and simple pleasure of looking up and seeing a star-filled sky. The goal is to create two sites in the landscape that will act as the starting points to this pilgrimage by showcasing the stars in the night sky and will nurture the curiosity of those who have an interest in the heavens. A progression approach is meant to be experienced while on this journey, with the first stage of the pilgrimage taking place in Assiniboine Forest. The second stage of the pilgrimage takes place ten minutes south of the city at Glenlea Observatory which hosts an exponential increase of stars in the night sky. The practicum concludes with an assortment of resources people can use to continue their pilgrimage and search for their darkest night sky.

North-East Pacific Undersea Network Experiments (NEPTUNE) is a multi-node cabled ocean observatory linked by 818 kilometers of powered fiber optic cable off-shore from Vancouver Island across the northern Juan de Fuca tectonic plate. It includes a Data Management and Archive Station (DMAS) at the University of Victoria (UVic) and a shore station at Port Alberni, BC, Canada. The core of the network consists of 6 branching units, 6 node stations, 13 junction boxes and more than 130 instruments. In this paper, we explore the costs and benefits of constructing a simulator for NEPTUNE using the OMNeT++ simulation platform---a C++ based discrete-event simulator. In this context, we present the design and implementation of a simple simulator that can work with a variety of configurations of instruments, where the instruments are connected to DMAS via junction boxes and branching units, and generate TCP and UDP traffic following certain patterns. The simulator is designed for supporting \emph{what-if} scenario analysis, particularly with respect to system evaluation and discovery of limits associated with network traffic behaviors. Our study reveals that, although building the simulator in OMNeT++ has many advantages such as ease of tuning and calibration, capturing sufficient details regarding the working behavior of the actual NEPTUNE environment is still challenging. A survey of alternative tools, including NS-2/NS-3, OPNET, JiST/SWANS, J-Sim, SSFNet, and Qualnet reveals that these nuances would not be any less challenging within these simulation environments. / Graduate

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Carleton University, 2004. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 159-165). Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Michigan State University. Dept. of Astronomy and Astrophysics, 2008. / Title from PDF t.p. (viewed on July 23, 2009) Includes bibliographical references (p. 238-251). Also issued in print.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (p. 168-204).

Thesis (M. Sc.)--Carleton University, 1989. / Also available in electronic format on the Internet.

Thesis (M. Sc.)--Carleton University, 1990. / Also available in electronic format on the Internet.