In this thesis work construction of the angular acceleration signal of a 2-DOF gimbal platform and use of this signal for improving the stabilization performance is aimed. This topic can be divided into two subtopics, first being the construction of angular acceleration and the second being the use of this information in a way to improve system performance. Both problems should be tackled in order to get satisfactory results. The most important output of this work is defined as the demonstration of the improvements obtained both theoretically and on experimental setup. Although the system to be studied is a two axis gimbal platform, the results obtained can be applied to other servo control problems. It is possible to define different performance criteria for a servo control problem and different techniques will be addressed with different control objectives. For this thesis work, the performance criterion is defined as the stabilization performance of the platform. As a result, disturbance rejection characteristics of the controller emerges as the main topic and methods for rejecting these disturbances such as the friction torques and externally applied moments are focused on throughout the studies. As expected, remarkable improvement is achieved as a result of the use of acceleration feedback.

An important step for the design of direction finding systems is the performance evaluation using numeric electromagnetic simulation tools. In this thesis, a method is presented for both modeling and simulation in a numeric electromagnetic simulation tool FEKO. The method relies on the data generated by FEKO. The data is then processed by correlative interferometer algorithm. This process is implemented in a MATLAB environment. Different types of antenna arrays including dipole, monopole and discone antennas are used. The antenna arrays are mounted on a UAV and SUV in order to see the platform effects. The direction finding performance is evaluated for different scenarios. It is shown that the presented approach is an effective tool for understanding the direction finding characteristic of antenna arrays.

The requirements of modern e-learning techniques change. Aspects such as community interaction, flexibility, pervasive learning and increasing mobility in communication habits become more important. To meet these challenges e-learning platforms must provide support on mobile learning. Most approaches try to adopt centralised and static e-learning mechanisms to mobile devices. However, often technically it is not possible for all kinds of devices to be connected to a central server. Therefore we introduce an application of a mobile e-learning network which operates totally decentralised with the help of an underlying ad hoc network architecture. Furthermore the concept of ad hoc messaging network (AMNET) is used as basis system architecture for our approach to implement a platform for pervasive mobile e-learning.

<p>With Cloud Computing becoming a popular term on the Information Technology (IT) market, security and accountability has become important issues to highlight. In our research we review these concepts by focusing on security risks with Cloud Computing and the associated services; Software, Platform and Infrastructure (SPI) and connecting them with a social study of trust.</p><p>The method that was conducted during our research was reviewing secondary literature, interviewing different experts regarding Cloud Computing and relating standards already established by ENISA, NIST, and CSA to the interviews.</p><p>The result of this study shows connections between the specific SPIs, both how they compare, but also how they differ. In the end we were also able to rank the top security risks from interviews with experts and see which SPI could be the most insecure one and  what countermeasures could be applied.</p><p>This was further related to trust and Service Level Agreement (SLA) in Cloud Computing to show how the security risks we discuss are related to these two specific areas. By highlighting this we wanted to present useable information for both clients and providers in how to create a better Cloud Computing environment.</p>

A growing trend in Mississippian research in the archaeology of the southeastern United States stresses the need to shift away from categorizing generalizations (e.g., the concept of chiefdoms) that have been used to characterize Mississippi-period (A.D. 1000-1600) societies and advocates elucidating the unique occupational histories of Mississippian communities. This dissertation follows this trend with the goal of identifying and interpreting the particular historical and developmental trajectory of the Yon mound and village site (8Li2), a Fort Walton Mississippian site situated in the middle Apalachicola River valley, northwest Florida. Since its initial recording by Clarence Bloomfield Moore at the turn of the 20th century, Yon has been intermittently investigated by various researchers, but the data from these multiple investigations until now have been severely underreported or not reported at all. In this dissertation, these archaeological data from Yon are synthesized and used to identify the site's particular developmental history. The study proceeds through a careful examination of Yon's radiocarbon dates, artifact assemblage, platform mound construction, structural remains, and to a lesser extent, subsistence data, in an effort to tease apart its occupational components and contextualize them within the wider Fort Walton and Mississippian milieu. To this end, particular attention is given to the wider Fort Walton manifestation of the Apalachicola-lower Chattahoochee River valley and the Rood and later Lamar Mississippian regional variants that were located upriver from Yon in the upper reaches of the lower Chattahoochee River valley. This study demonstrates that Yon emerged rather precipitously as a Middle Fort Walton period center circa A.D.1200, a time marked by initial mound construction and the first intense village occupation at the site, which was preceded only by a very small, pre-Fort Walton, Swift Creek occupation there around A.D. 320. Probable antecedent events at a nearby Fort Walton mound center, Cayson (8Ca3), as well as contact with Rood Mississippian groups to the north are hypothesized as influencing Yon's Middle Fort Walton development and florescence. Evidence indicates that this initial Middle Fort Walton occupation was followed by an occupation of Lamar groups. Regional data and radiocarbon evidence from Yon suggest that this Lamar component likely began during protohistoric times (circa A.D. 1600) and continued into the late seventeenth to early eighteenth centuries. It is hypothesized that this Lamar occupation was the result of Lamar groups migrating down the lower Chattahoochee-Apalachicola River in the wake of European contact. As a whole, this study represents the most complete documentation of the occupational history of any Fort Walton mound center to date. As such, it can provide an important foundation for future studies of Fort Walton mound centers and sites in the Apalachicola-lower Chattahoochee River region.

An appreciation of the extent of syndepositional fracturing, faulting, and cementation of carbonate platform margins is essential to understanding the role of early diagenesis and compaction in margin deformation. This study uses integrated lidar and outcrop data along the Capitan Reef from an area encompassing the mouths of both Rattlesnake and Walnut Canyons. Mapping geomorphic expressions of syndepositional faults and fractures at multiple scales of observation was the main approach to delineating zones of syndepositional fractures. Ridge- groove couplets visible in exposures of the Capitan Reef throughout the Guadalupe Mountains were targeted because the ability to identify these as signs of syndepositional fracture development would have implications for the entire reef complex. Results show that these ridgegroove couplets are the product of differential weathering of syndepositional as well as burial-related fractures. Recessive grooves have an average syndepositional fracture spacing of ~13 m whereas ridges have a spacing of ~33 m. vi Smaller (~5-20 m-wide) scale erosional lineaments common in the study area and mappable on airborne lidar are formed by differential erosion of planes of syndepositional faults. Maps of these fault lineaments on the lidar show that syndepositional faults extend laterally for 300 m - 2000 m and relay near the terminations of the faults at each end. Faults can be further grouped into fault systems consisting of sets of faults connected by fault relays that extend for at least the entire length (~12 km) of the study area. Although vertical displacement along faults is typically less than 11 m, syndepositional faults result in changes in structural dip domain of 1-6 degrees across an individual fault. Even smaller erosional lineaments (10 cm-1 m) are visible on the airborne lidar that form as a result of differential erosion of individual fractures. Larger fractures (> 20 cm) can be reliably mapped on the lidar, but smaller features (< 20 cm) cannot be reliably mapped with currently available data and can only be captured using field studies. Fracture fill types are heterogeneous along strike as shown by comparisons of field study locations. Siliciclastic-dominated fills are likely sourced from overlying siliciclastic units of the shelf, which, in this area, were from the Ocotillo Siltstone. These silt-filled fractures are broadly distributed, indicating preferential development and infill of syndepositional fractures during the deposition of the Ocotillo Siltstone in the G27/28 high-frequency sequences. Development of early fractures is also shown to have been influenced by mechanical stratigraphy with changes in fracture spacing between massive to thick-bedded shelf-margin (~17 m fracture spacing) and outer-shelf facies tracts versus thin-bedded outer-shelf and shelf-crest (~28 m fracture spacing). Ultimately, this study demonstrated that the Capitan shelf margin was ubiquitously overprinted by syndepositional fracturing and faulting and that this nearsurface structural modification influenced early diagenetic patterns and internal vii sedimentation throughout the reef margin. Before this study, the extent and nature of syndepositional fracture/fault development within the margin were largely unquantified. Here, by integrating field observations and surface weathering reflections of these fractures as observed in the lidar, we can demonstrate a widespread impact of early fracturing more akin to analogous early-lithified margins such as the Devonian of the Canning Basin of Australia. / text

The development of a chip-based sensor array composed of individually addressable polystyrene-polyethylene glycol and agarose microspheres has been demonstrated. The microspheres are selectively arranged in micromachined cavities localized on silicon wafers. These cavities are created with an anisotropic etch and serve as miniaturized reaction vessels and analysis chambers. The cavities possess pyramidal pit shapes with trans-wafer openings that allow for both fluid flow through the microreactors/analysis chambers as well optical access to the chemically sensitive microspheres. Identification and quantification of analytes occurs via colorimetric and fluorescence changes to receptor and indicator molecules that are covalently attached to termination sites on the polymeric microspheres. Spectral data is extracted from the array efficiently using a charge-coupled device (CCD) allowing for the near-real-time digital analysis of complex fluids. The power and utility of this new microbead array detection methodology is demonstrated here for the analysis of complex fluids containing a variety of important classes of analytes including acids, bases, metal cations, sugars and antibody reagents. The application of artificial neural network analyses to the microbead array is demonstrated in the context of pH measurements. To assess the utility of the analysis and gain an understanding of the molecular level design of the sensor, parameters such as the choice of the indicator dyes, array size, data pre-processing techniques, as well as different network types and architectures were evaluated. Additionally, the development of miniaturized chromatographic systems localized within individual polymer microspheres and their incorporation into an array is reported. The integrated chromatographic and detection concept is based on the creation of distinct functional layers within the microspheres. Such beads have been incorporated into the array platform and used for speciation and concentration determination of aqueous metal cation solutions. / text

The Mural Limestone, located in the Mule Mountains to the northeast and southeast of Bisbee, Arizona provides an exceptional outcrop analog for time-equivalent productive reservoirs in the Albian Glen Rose patch-reef play of the Maverick Basin. The Mural Limestone is exposed in a number of folds and east-dipping fault blocks in the Grassy Hill and Paul Spur localities in the Mule Mountains and represents a remnant of a south-facing distally-steepened carbonate ramp that prograded into the Chihuahua Trough in Albian time. This study documents the detailed facies architecture and sequence stratigraphic setting of a multicyclic patch-reef and its associated ramp interior facies at the Paul Spur and Grassy Hill localities, respectively. Small mud-dominated coral-algal buildups (~5 m thick) and tabular biostromes (up to 1.5 m thick) consisting of rudist floatstones are common in the bedded ramp interior carbonates at the Grassy Hill locality in the Mule Mountains 10 km landward of the Paul Spur reef. Buildups in this area are flanked by weakly-cyclic and well-bedded skeletal mud- and grain-dominated packstones. At the Paul Spur locality, Mural facies consist of a 10-35 m thick patch-reef with four distinct reef communities: microbial-Microsolena framestone, algal-Actinastrea boundstone, branching coral-skeletal framestone and caprinid-requienid floatstone. Measured reef dimensions show a distinct windward-leeward margin with reef frame facies extending ~70 m from the margin and extensive leeward rudstone debris and grainstone shoal facies extending a distance of 870 m. Reef and backreef shoal facies exhibit low preserved porosity but petrographic analysis of backreef grainstones shows that primary porosity and permeability was present. These extensive reservoir-prone shoals may be a suitable reservoir target similar to flank rudstones and grainstones of the Maverick Basin reefs. Three aggradational to retrogradational cycles of reef growth are evident at the Paul Spur locality. Retrogradational stacking is consistent with that of time-equivalent Lower Glen Rose patch-reefs in the Maverick Basin of Texas, which suggests a eustatic driver for stratigraphic architecture along the Bisbee/Comanche shelf. Backstepping of reef frame facies in Cycle 3 is interpreted to be time-equivalent to patch-reef development at the Grassy Hill locality. / text

The geology of the Sierra Mojada silver-lead-zinc mining district gives new insights into the stratigraphic evolution of the Coahuila Block and the Coahuila Folded Belt and the history of deformation along the basement-rooted San Marcos Fault Zone. Sierra Mojada provides the opportunity for substantial data collection relevant to the interaction of regional tectono-stratigraphic elements in a generally data-poor region of northeastern Mexico. Active mineral exploration has produced an extensive database of closely spaced drill core. Expansive underground workings facilitate subsurface geologic mapping. Sierra Mojada is situated at the northwestern edge of two tectono-stratigraphic provinces, the Coahuila Block, to the south, and the Coahuila Folded Belt, to the north. The San Marcos Fault, a west-northwest-trending regional structure extends through Sierra Mojada and is the informal boundary between these two provinces. Sierra Mojada is situated on uplifted and deformed late Paleozoic Ouachita siliciclastic strata intruded by Triassic diorites. This basement is diagnostic of the Coahuila Block. Basement rocks are overlain by an immature conglomerate that is interpreted to be the updip equivalent of the Jurassic La Casita Formation. The stratigraphy of Sierra Mojada principally consists of a continuous succession of Barremian through Albian carbonates unconformably overlying the basal conglomerate. The Barremian-Aptian Cupido Formation locally records deepening conditions from a clastic-influenced evaporitic interior to high energy, open water conditions. The shale and lime mudstone of the La Pena Formation were deposited during a Gulf-wide transgression that signals the end of the Aptian. The Sierra Mojada region of the Coahuila Block was inundated throughout the Aptian and was affected by the late Aptian transgression. The Albian Aurora Formation constitutes the bulk of the Cretaceous section. Sierra Mojada exposes the Aurora shelf rim, progressing from platform margin to shelf rim and platform interior facies. The structural features of Sierra Mojada affect the entire Cretaceous section. The high angle San Marcos Fault was reactivated with reverse motion during the Paleogene as a result of Laramide shortening. This juxtaposed basement and Jurassic conglomerate against the Cretaceous carbonates consistent with offset observed along the southern trace of the San Marcos Fault. A local colluvial unit suggests a lag in Laramide deformation. The carbonate strata and colluvial unit were overridden by a low angle, northeast-dipping thrust fault that placed a Neocomian through Aptian sequence atop the autochthonous Aptian-Albian carbonates. The allochthonous San Marcos Formation suggests regional-scale tectonic transport of this immature fluvial conglomerate from a downdip depozone within the Sabinas Basin. Kinematic indicators are consistent with the southwest-northeast axis for maximum compression established for Paleogene shortening throughout the Coahuila Folded Belt. The thrust fault bisects the principal ore zone within the Lower Aurora and upper La Pena Formations. This relation constrains the minimum age of ore emplacement to the Paleogene and suggests mineralization was genetically tied to the late stages of the Laramide Orogeny. / text

FOR UNION AND SLAVERY, FOR SLAVERY AND UNION: KNOW-NOTHINGS IN GEORGIA 1854-1860 by LESLYE JOY ALLEN Under the Direction of Dr. Wendy Hamand Venet ABSTRACT This thesis examines the Know-Nothing (or “American”) Party in the state of Georgia as a political entity whose leading members descended from the bipartisan Constitutional Union Party of Georgia in 1850. This thesis affirms that Georgia Know-Nothings emerged in 1854 and lasted until 1859 as a political party devoted to settling the sectional controversies brought on by the passage of the Kansas-Nebraska Act in 1854. Their role in the 1856 presidential campaign of Millard Fillmore and the 1857 gubernatorial campaign of Benjamin Harvey Hill, along with their role and membership in the revitalized national Constitutional Union Party in 1860 are also critically examined. The major argument is that Georgia Know-Nothings were not nativist, but were conservative unionists whose aim was to protect slavery and prevent the secession of Georgia and the South by using ideologies and political techniques honed while they were members of Georgia’s Constitutional Union Party. INDEX WORDS: Georgia Know-Nothing Party, Benjamin H. Hill, Joshua Hill, Georgia Constitutional Unionists, Georgia Platform, Southern Unionism