Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Hong Kong, 2006. / Title proper from title frame. Also available in printed format.

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The major work involved is the debugging procedure on the Varian Model V-21003 electromagnet, power supply and spectrometer and the design and construction of supporting structure to house the various pieces of apparatus which were required to complete the system.Equipment which was not immediately available was then designed and constructed, with the final step being the testing. of the entire system for its integrity.Adjustments to each component was then carried out to obtain the best signal possible, noting the various changes caused by the condition and setting of each section of the system.

This thesis comprises a computer analysis of NMR-determined interatomic distance in strontium formate dihydrate. The computer program is designed to locate the hydrogen atoms associated with the water molecules in strontium formate dihydrate. The bond length of the oxygen-hydrogen bond is assumed to be fixed. The program varies the hydrogen separation, plotting total proton interaction against the hydrogen separation distance. Using Van Vleck's second moment theory, the hydrogen-hydrogen distances were determined.. The value of the second moment of the NMR absorption curve is 24.6 gauss2, obtained from investigation by Dr. D. E. Koltenbah. The result of this thesis is that the proton separation is 1.47± .02 A. This result is found to be close enough to other studies to conclude that the program analysis is essentially sound.

Multidimensional nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy has become one of the most important techniques available for studying the structure and function of biological macromolecules at atomic resolution. The conventional approach to multidimensional NMR involves the sampling of the time domain on a Cartesian grid followed by a multidimensional Fourier transform (FT). While this approach yields high quality spectra, as the number of dimensions is increased the time needed for sampling on a Cartesian grid increases exponentially, making it impractical to record 4-D spectra at high resolution and impossible to record 5-D spectra at all. This thesis describes new approaches to data collection and processing that make it possible to obtain spectra at higher resolution and/or with a higher dimensionality than was previously feasible with the conventional method. The central focus of this work has been the sampling of the time domain along radial spokes, which was recently introduced into the NMR community. If each radial spoke is processed by an FT with respect to radius, a set of projections of the higher-dimensional spectrum are obtained. Full spectra at high resolution can be generated from these projections via tomographic reconstruction. We generalized the lower-value reconstruction algorithm from the literature, and later integrated it with the backprojection algorithm in a hybrid reconstruction method. These methods permit the reconstruction of accurate 4-D and 5- D spectra at very high resolution, from only a small number of projections, as we demonstrated in the reconstruction of 4-D and 5-D sequential assignment spectra on small and large proteins. For nuclear Overhauser spectroscopy (NOESY), used to measure interproton distances in proteins, one requires quantitative reconstructions. We have successfully obtained these using filtered backprojection, which we found was equivalent to processing the radially sampled data by a polar FT. All of these methods represent significant gains in data collection efficiency over conventional approaches. The polar FT interpretation suggested that the problem could be analyzed using FT theory, to design even more efficient methods. We have developed a new approach to sampling, using concentric rings of sampling points, which represents a further improvement in efficiency and sensitivity over radial sampling. / Dissertation

Pulsating flows in a Helmholtz pulse combustor tailpipe were numerically simulated by a commercial CFD software package, FLUENT. The effects of ambient temperature on the characteristics of the pulsating tailpipe flows were studied. Two study cases, with high and low levels of ambient temperature, were simulated with compressible flow equations. An additional case, with high ambient temperature, was simulated with incompressible (temperature-dependent density) flow equations. Results showed that the effect of ambient temperature on the mean temperature profile in the tailpipe was limited to the distance where the ambient fluid traveled into the tailpipe during the period of flow reversal. In this region, the amplitude of mass flow rate oscillation significantly increased, due to higher density associated with low ambient temperature. The overall effects of cooler ambient temperature included an increase in mean pressure at the entrance of the tailpipe and a decrease in the magnitude of velocity amplitude profile along the tailpipe. Interestingly, the mean velocities along the tailpipe, even at the tailpipe exit, were not affected by the cooler ambient air. The mean velocity at the exit corresponded to the higher temperature of fresh fluid from upstream, which was not affected by the ambient temperature, driven out of the tailpipe in each oscillation cycle. The linear acoustic theory with appropriate assumptions could be used to calculate the magnitude of the profiles of velocity amplitude along the tailpipe as a fair approximation, at least for the study cases in this thesis.

Nuclear incompressibility Knm is an important parameter in the nuclear matter equation of state (EOS). The locations of the isocalar giant monopole resonance (ISGMR) and giant dipole resonance (ISGDR) of nuclei are directly related to Knm and thus can give the most effective constraint on the value of the Knm. In order to determine Knm accurately, a systematic study of the ISGMR and ISGDR over a wide range of nuclei is necessary. Alpha inelastic scattering at small angles has been successfully used to study the ISGMR of heavy and medium nuclei where the monopole resonance is concentrated in a broad peak. For light nuclei (A<40), however, ISGMR strengths are more elusive because the resonance is fragmented and extends to excitation energies above 35 MeV. Other processes give a large physical background at high excitation energy in α inelastic scattering, which makes it difficult to extract strength distributions in this range. As an isoscalar projectile (N=Z), 6Li scattering could be an alternate way to study giant resonances. A better ratio between the resonance peak and the continuum is expected in 6Li scattering due to the low particle emitting threshold. Another important motivation for 6Li scattering study is to explore the possibility of expanding current research from stable nuclei to radioactive nuclei with inverse reactions using 6Li as a target. Data for elastic scattering of 240 MeV 6Li ions and inelastic scattering to low-lying states and giant resonances was taken for 24Mg, 28Si and 116Sn. A data analysis procedure was developed for double folding calculations. The optical potential parameters for 6Li + 24Mg, 6Li + 28Si and 6Li + 116Sn scattering systems were obtained by fitting elastic scattering data. Multipole analyses were carried out for inelastic scattering to high lying isoscalar giant resonances with multipolarities L=0 - 3. The results for the ISGMR and ISGQR are in agreement with those obtained with 240 MeV α scattering, however the agreement for the ISGDR and HEOR is not so good, indicating the uncertainty in extracting these strengths. This work has shown that 240 MeV 6Li scattering is a viable way to study the ISGMR and ISGQR and can be particularly useful in rare isotope studies where 6Li can be used as the target.

In Magnetic Resonance Imaging, the time required to generate an image is proportional to the number of steps used to encode the spatial information. In rapid imaging, an array of coil elements and receivers are used to reduce the number of encoding steps required to generate an image. This is done using knowledge of the spatial sensitivity of the array and receiver channels. Recently, these arrays have begun to include a large number of coil elements. Ideally, each coil element would have its own receiver channel to acquire the image data. In practice, this is not always possible due to economic or other constraints. In this dissertation, methods are explored to combine a large array to a limited number of receivers so as to optimize the performance for parallel imaging; this dissertation focuses on SENSE in particular. Simple combinations that represent larger coils that might be constructed are discussed. More complex solutions form current sheets. One solution uses Roemer'€™s method to optimize image SNR at a set of points. In this dissertation, Roemer's solution is generalized to give the weighting coefficients that optimize SNR over regions. Also, solutions fitted to ideal profiles that minimize noise amplification are shown. These fitted profiles can allow the SENSE algorithm to function at optimal reduction factors. Finally, a description of how to build the combiner in hardware is discussed.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Washington, 2008. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 125-136).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 1999. / Typescript. Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 116-120). Also available on the Internet.