By integrating an electrochemical deposition process and a silicon chip manufacturing process, a chemical sensor based on a floating gate field-effect transistor was developed. The sensor was fabricated using the standard 0.35μm CMOS process with minimal post-processing. A pH-sensitive organic polymer was electrochemically deposited on the “pseudo” floating gate extension. This “pseudo” floating gate extension was an external area connected to the floating gate of the testing device. By monitoring the change of the current-voltage characteristics during exposure to the gas phase of the chemical aqueous solution, the sensor was shown to be feasible with a reasonable sensitivity.

No description available.

As far back as Euclid's ruler and compass constructions, computation and geometry have been domains for the exploration and development of fundamental mathematical concepts and ideas. The invention of computers has spurred new research in computation, and now with a variety of applications couched in the fundamentals of Euclidean geometry, the study of geometric algorithms has again become a popular mathematical pursuit. / In this thesis, the computational aspects of a fundamental problem in Euclidean geometry is examined. Given a set of line segments in the Euclidean plane, one is asked to connect all the segments to form a simple closed circuit. It is shown that for some sets of line segments it is impossible to perform this task. The problem of deciding whether a set of line segments admits a simple circuit is proved to be NP-complete. A restriction of the class of permissible input allows a polynomial time solution to the simple circuit decision problem. It is also shown that a polynomial solution can be realized by restricting the class of simple circuit in the output. All the polynomial time decision algorithms exhibited deliver a simple circuit if one exists. Furthermore, in all cases the simple circuit obtained can be optimized with respect to area or perimeter.

No description available.

No description available.

The effect of HTST pressure blanching processing parameters, as compared to conventional steam blanching, on enzyme activity, moisture, drip loss, shear force, sensory attributes and consumer acceptability of frozen sweet corn were determined. Complete inactivation of catalase and peroxidase required HTST treatments of 60 psi and 75 psi, respectively. No lipoxygenase activity was detected in the blanched corn. Moisture content increased slightly and maximum shear force decreased in the HTST blanched corn as compared to the steam blanched samples. No differences were observed in total work of compression and shear or drip losses in frozen corn prepared by the two blanching processes. Blanch pressures of 60 psi and 75 psi resulted in corn equivalent in sensory qualities to the control steam blanched product as judged by a trained panel. The 30 psi blanch treatment was rated higher in stale/oxidized, fishy, bitter, and other undesirable descriptors. Stale/oxidized and sweet/caramel character increased with storage time. Consumer tests resulted in no significant differences in acceptability across blanch treatments or storage time. / Graduation date: 1988

Graduation date: 1979

Thesis (M.S.)--University of Hawaii at Manoa, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 97-98). / viii, 98 leaves, bound ill. 29 cm

A novel approach for the analysis of spinal cord deformation based on a combined technique of non-invasive imaging and medical image processing is presented. A sopposed to traditional approaches where animal spinal cords are exposed and directly subjected to mechanical impact in order to be examined, this approach can be used to quantify deformities of the spinal cord in vivo, so that deformations — specifically those of myelopathy-related sustained compression — of the spinal cord can be computed in its original physiological environment. This, then, allows for a more accurate understanding of spinal cord deformations and injuries. Images of rat spinal cord deformations, acquired using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), were analyzed using a combination of various image processing methods, including image segmentation, a versor-based rigid registration technique, and a B-spline-based non-rigid registration technique. To verify the validity and assess the accuracy of this approach, several validation schemes were implemented to compare the deformation fields computed by the proposed algorithm against known deformation fields. First, validation was performed on a synthetically-generated spinal cord model data warped using synthetic deformations; error levels achieved were consistently below 6% with respect to cord width, even for large degrees of deformation up to half of the dorsal-ventral width of the cord (50% deflection). Then, accuracy was established using in vivo rat spinal cord images warped using those same synthetic deformations; error levels achieved were also consistently below 6% with respect to cord width, in this case for large degrees of deformation up to the entire dorsal-ventral width of the cord (100% deflection). Finally, the accuracy was assessed using data from the Visible Human Project (VHP) warped using simulated deformations obtained from finite element (FE) analysis of the spinal cord; error levels achieved were as low as 3.9% with respect to cord width. This in vivo, non-invasive semi-automated analysis tool provides a new framework through which the causes, mechanisms, and tolerance parameters of myelopathy-related sustained spinal cord compression, as well as the measures used in neuroprotection and regeneration of spinal cord tissue, can be prospectively derived in a manner that ensures the bio-fidelity of the cord.

Adaptive signal processing has evolved in the last thirty years to the point where its use in sensors such as radar and sonar and in communications is indispensable. High frequency (HF) skywave radars benefit in particular from spatial and spatio-temporal adaptive filters, detectors and estimators due to their operation in an environment which is crowded with natural and man-made interferences, as well as significant temporal and spatial distortions due to ionospheric propagation. While adaptive processing is important for other types of sensors, including airborne radars, HF radar systems are particularly well-suited to its application, given the modern digital receiver-per-element arrays and radar facilities able to host large computational resources. This allows use of algorithms viewed as merely theoretical benchmarks for other systems. / However, despite the tremendous advances in radar adaptive signal processing theory since its foundation in the 1960s, a number of important issues have still not been addressed fully. In particular, the problem of limitations in available training data for adaptive estimation has, if anything, become more acute in recent years. In the case of HF radar, the hundreds of degrees of freedom presented by the typical HF array prevent the application of conventional techniques, not because of computational cost, but due to insufficient training sample support. Furthermore, new architectures for next generation systems including two-dimensional transmit and receive antenna arrays with MIMO technology to support non-causal adaptivity on transmit will further increase the demand for training data, making an already significant problem even more important in the future. / The following broad problems are found to be the most important at this stage: Without a prior knowledge of particular radar scenarios, how can the suitability of its adaptively reconstructed model for an associated radar inference be verified; what are the ultimate capabilities of adaptive techniques in the pre-asymptotic domain, beyond which the adaptive detection/ estimation problem cannot provide a consistent solution, and how can that limit be assessed in the absence of defined exact finite-sample statistical properties or by resorting to standard large-sample asymptotics; given a limited training data volume, what is this mix of credible a priori assumptions (parametric models) regarding this radar scenario, on one hand, and its adaptive estimation on the other? / Clearly each of these major questions is too complex to be comprehensively addressed in a single study. But this thesis (and the associated publications), by providing further understandings in each of these areas, introduces important results to the field of adaptive processing in the presence of low training sample support. / Thesis (PhDTelecommunications)--University of South Australia, 2009