Comparative Biomedical Sciences

<p>The swine industry is often implicated as one of the most significant contributors to foodborne Salmonella infections in humans. As the trend in swine production in the United States is toward larger and more intensive farms, but fewer farm units, it is likely that antimicrobial usage is also increasing. The purpose of this research was to study antimicrobial resistance and determine phenotypic and genotypic diversity of multi-drug resistant Salmonella in swine production system...

Computer Science

<p>AbstractWeili, Zhu. The Application of Monte Carlo Sampling to Sequential Auction Games with Incomplete Information: -An Empirical Study. (Under the direction of Peter Wurman.)In this thesis, I develop a sequential auction model and design a bidding agent for it. This agent uses Monte Carlo sampling to ¡

Genetics

<p>MYBURG, ALEXANDER ANDREW. Genetic Architecture of Hybrid Fitness andWood Quality Traits in a Wide Interspecific Cross of Tree Species. (Under thesupervision of Ross W. Whetten and Ronald R. Sederoff.)The genetic architecture of interspecific differentiation plays a key role in the evolution ofreproductive isolating barriers in plants, and has important implications for hybrid breedingprograms. Interspecific hybridization is an important approach towards the genetic improvementof...

Mechanical Engineering

<p>ABSTRACTXIONG, MING. Investigation of Transport Phenomena in the Presence of Interfaces: Forced Convection in Composite Porous/Fluid Domains, Solidification with a Mushy Region, and Meniscus Formation in Dip Coating Processing (Under the direction of Andrey V. Kuznetsov)Transport phenomena play an important role in many practical applications. Every time a new technology is developed, analysis of transport processes is crucial for its success. Numerical and analytical investigat...

Biological and Agricultural Engineering

<p>Gurjer, Yeshwant Ramesh. Use of Heat Pumps for Heating and Night Cooling of Greenhouses. (under the direction of Daniel H. Willits). The use of heat pumps for heating and night cooling of greenhouses was investigated using a computer simulation program and weather data from Typical Meteorological Year (TMY2) datasets for Raleigh, NC, and Wilmington, NC. A greenhouse computer model taken from the literature, along with the heat pump subroutines (HPHEAT and HPCOOL) developed in th...

Natural Resources

<p>ABSTRACTHARRELL, MELANI HIX. Development of a digital protocol for vegetation mapping. (Under the direction of Dr. Hugh Devine)Softcopy photogrammetry has proven useful to reduce mapping time with aerial photography and aids in producing a digital product that is easily transferable over other electronic media. This study brings together computer stereo viewing with scanned aerial photos in a GIS to produce a fully digital protocol for mapping vegetation to the formation level. ...

Statistics

<p>LUNCEFORD, JARED KENNETH. Estimating Causal Treatment Effects Via thePropensity Score and Estimating Survival Distributions in Clinical TrialsThat Follow Two-stage Randomization Designs. (Under the direction ofProfessor Marie Davidian)Estimation of treatment effects with causalinterpretation from obervational data is complicated by the fact thatexposure to treatment is confounded with subject characteristics. Thepropensity score, the probability of exposure to treatment conditio...

Psychology

<p>Conjoint behavioral consultation, an extension of traditional behavioral consultation, is a relatively new model of structured problem-solving. No published study exists that systematically examines the relationship between process and outcome variables in CBC. In an effort to expand on the process-outcome research in traditional behavioral consultation, a relational communication perspective was adopted to examine the presence of relational control in CBC and its relationship t...

Crop Science

<p>Low commodity prices and environmental concerns have compelled cotton growers to increase production efficiency while decreasing inputs. Research evaluated weed interference, strip-tillage production, transgenic cultivars, and new herbicides to improve weed management in peanut and cotton. The rectangular hyperbola model described the effect of common ragweed density on percent peanut yield loss. With the asymptote constrained to 100% maximum yield loss, the I coefficient (yield...

Civil Engineering

<p>PARK, HEE MUN. Use of Falling Weight Deflectometer Multi-Load Level Data for Pavement Strength Estimation. (Under the direction of Y. Richard, Kim).The objective of this study is to describe a mechanistic-empirical approach to developing an analysis method for assessing pavement layer conditions and estimating the remaining life of flexible pavements using multi-load level Falling Weight Deflectometer (FWD) deflections. A dynamic finite element program, incorporating a stress-de...

Civil Engineering

<p>Research work is conducted to investigate the possibility of using laboratory model tests to simulate lateral response of drilled shafts embedded in soft weathered rock and discern their P-y curve function. Eight lateral load tests on instrumented model piles embedded in an Aggregate Base Course (ABC) medium are performed to evaluate the P-y curves. The ABC material is selected to simulate the response of soft weathered rock encountered in the field. The laboratory-evaluated P-y...

Computer Engineering

<p><P><B>NEMLEKAR, MILIND NILKANTH. Scalable Distributed Tuplespaces. (Under the direction of Dr. Gregory T. Byrd.)</B></P><P>The purpose of the research has been to develop a multiple tuplespace model that would scale as much as the Internet. A tuplespace is like a shared cache, in which tuples are accessed associatively. One issue in designing a multiple tuplespaces model is keeping track of tuples over multipl...

Botany

<p>Lysimachia asperulifolia, commonly known as Rough Leaved Loosestrife, is a federally endangered, rhizomatous herb restricted to ecotones between long-leaf pine savannas and pocosins in North and South Carolina. Botanists and land use managers across the species range have observed low rates of seed production in natural populations. Low seed production may prevent establishment of new populations and production of new genotypes, thus limiting the ability of the species to surviv...

Chemical Engineering

<p> Petroleum asphaltenes (n-heptane insolubles and toluene solubles) and fractions more and less soluble in mixtures of heptane and toluene (heptol) were analyzed chemically and by small angle neutron scattering (SANS). Asphaltene chemistry and their propensity to aggregate in solution were correlated to the stability of water-in-oil emulsions and the strength of adsorbed films at oil-water interfaces. Solubility profiles of the more soluble and less soluble fractions in heptol in...

Civil Engineering

<p></HEAD><BODY><B></B><P ALIGN="JUSTIFY">PAI, PRASHANT PADMANABH. Environmental Implications of Packaging Material Choice and Associated Solid Waste Management Alternatives (Under the direction of Drs. S.R. Ranjithan and M.A. Barlaz).</P><P ALIGN="JUSTIFY">Packaging materials (e.g., beverage containers) constitute a significant portion of the municipal solid waste....

Zoology

<p><html xmlns:v="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:vml"xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office"xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word"xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">Recent studies have shown that biodiversity is greater in shadedplantations than in sun coffee plantations, yet many farmers </title> </o:DocumentProperties></xml> </w:WordDocument></xm...

Electrical Engineering

<p>Optical memory effects in III-V Nitrides have been investigated. In order to have further understanding of this effect, qualitative and then quantitative measurements were performed to investigate this memory effect. A microscopic model consistent with most of the experimental observations was developed. Finally, verification of the model was performed.Experimental observations indicate that optical memory effects are flux-dependent effects, which require no lower power limit of...

Horticultural Science

<p>Seeds of southern seaoats (.<P>

Chemistry

<p>In this work, new metal-halide materials are designed by using a novel charge matching methodology whereby structural analogs of metal chalcogenides are prepared using a halide-for-chalcogenide substitution strategy. In particular, the metal-halide materials prepared herein are analogous to known phosphate, phosphonate, and silicate-based clay-type materials. Following this charge matching strategy, dimethyl ammonium cations were shown to organize copper(I) and zirconium(IV) pri...

Physics

<p>A remote plasma enhanced chemical vapor deposition method, RPECVD, was utilized to deposit thin films of aluminum oxide, tantalum oxide, tantalum aluminates, and hafnium aluminates. These films were analyzed using auger electron spectroscopy, AES, Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy, FTIR, X-ray diffraction, XRD, nuclear resonance profiling, NRP, capacitance versus voltage, C-V, and current versus voltage, J-V. FTIR indicated the alloys were homogeneous and pseudobinary in c...

Computer Science

<p>Numerous studies have shown that interpersonal communication acts as animportant channel for gathering information. But if we wish to rely oninterpersonal communication, we still need to figure out how to determinethe right person to ask. Usually we cannot find the potential expert(s)directly, and we need some assistance from our friends or friends friends to locate them. The phenomenon of Six Degrees of Separationindicates that it is possible to use some intelligent software ag...

Chemical Engineering

<p>Staphylococcal enterotoxin B (SEB) is a primary toxin that causes food poisoning. It also acts as a superantigen that interacts with the major histocompatibility complex class II molecule (MHCII) and T cell receptor (TCR) to activate large amounts of T cells leading to autoimmune diseases. Highly purified SEB is needed in research and can be used as a standard in current detection methods for SEB. Inexpensive, robust ligands with high affinity would be suitable replacements for ...

English

<p>With existing technological capabilities, writing instructors are confronted with many choices regarding the facilitation of their instruction. They must be aware of the potential benefits and shortcomings of using Computer-Mediated Communication (CMC) in their writing instruction, and then they must decide if this technology will support their pedagogy. If so, they face the decision of choosing a conferencing software product and incorporating it into their classroom. This stud...

Psychology

<p>This study measured job performance of United States Army Special Forces (SF) soldiers using a Mixed Standard Rating Scale (MSRS) format, performance dimension ratings, and rankings. Each SF soldiers performance was examined with a three dimension conceptual model ( i.e. soldiering skills, Special Forces specific skills, and team member skills). This model was tested on two different samples. The first sample was made up of 1,273 U.S. Army Special Forces Soldiers who were rated ...

Psychology

<p>Applying attribution theory to capital sentencing decisions, it was hypothesized that temporal location of mitigation (suggesting defendant impairment) and level of defendant effort would affect mock jurors ratings of mitigating value and subsequent life v. death votes. This was tested experimentally in a 2 (type of mitigation: proximal v. remote-chronic) x 2 (defendant effort: high v. low) design with 240 university psychology students. Two sentencing scenarios were nested with...

Adult and Community College Education

<p>Metcalf, Ronald Carroll. Certified Nursing Assistants in long-term care facilities: Perceptions of their initial training program. (Under the direction of John M. Pettitt) Throughout the country, long-term care (LTC) facilities are faced with the challenge of providing residents with the essential care that this growing population deserves. One of the biggest challenges is the critical shortage of certified nursing assistants (CNAs) within the LTC industry. These essential front...

Computer Science

<p><P>As networks become increasingly more open and complex, their management becomes that much more important. Numerous commercial and open-source tools already exist that are capable of providing useful network analysis. Unfortunately, the majority of these commercial tools are either quite expensive, or require a significant amount of effort for their deployment. Other tools are very specific in their tasks, and offer little in the way of customization. Tools able ...

Zoology

<p>Corridors have been shown to serve as movement conduits for a wide variety of species, though their effects on interspecific interactions have been largely unstudied. I designed a replicated experiment to investigate corridor-mediated prey responses to predators in a network of open habitat patches surrounded by a matrix of planted pine forest. I used mark-recapture studies and foraging trays to monitor the movements and behaviors of several small mammal species. The presence of...

Genetics

<p><P> The primary focus of this thesis is the study of the regulation of NtPMT3 and NtQPT1 gene expression. Their spatial and temporal expression has been demonstrated to be regulated coordinately. In this work, a 2.05kb of 5 flanking region of NtPMT3 has been cloned from N. tabacum. Then a series of nested 5 -deletion of the NtPMT3 promoter driving a GUS reporter gene were generated. The chimeric reporter gene constructs, as well as a 35S CaMV promoter::GUS were int...

Crop Science

<p></HEAD><BODY><B><P ALIGN="CENTER">ABSTRACT</P><P>BURKE, IAN CRISTOFER</B>. Influence of Environmental Factors on Broadleaf Signalgrass (<P>Laboratory and greenhouse studies were conducted to determine the effect of temperature, solution pH, water stress, and planting depth on broadleaf signalgrass and crowfootgrass germination. Onset, rate, and total broadlea...

Industrial Engineering

<p>WARDONO, BAGAS. Algorithms for the multi-stage parallel machine problem with buffer constraints. (Under the direction of Yahya Fathi).We study two problems in the context of scheduling N jobs on parallel machines in L successive stages with the primary objective of minimizing the makespan. In the first problem we assume that there are unlimited buffer capacities between successive stages. We refer to this problem as the FSPM problem. In the second problem, we assume that the buf...

Material Science and Engineering

<p>Free-standing single crystals of bulk GaN were grown via unseeded vapor phase transport at 1130C on hexagonal BN surfaces via direct reaction of Ga with ammonia. The temperature and stability of the Ga source were critical in terms of uniform nucleation and growth. The source temperature was maintained at 1260C to minimize a rapid reaction leading to the formation of GaN and the subsequent decomposition beneath the surface and consequent spattering of Ga. A maximum crystal growt...

Sociology

<p>The central focus of my dissertation is the process through which people construct and strategically use an emotional culture as an interactional resource. My research is based on three years of fieldwork observing an intentional community s business meetings, retreats, workdays, and social events, as well as interviews with all community members. For many of the community s therapeutic founding members, intense, unconstrained processing was a self-developmental end in itself. T...

Psychology

<p>Research and case studies have emphasized the role Early Adopters play (as gatekeepers and disseminators) in the diffusion of new technologies and innovations (Rogers & Cartano, 1962; Robertson, 1971; Rogers, 1983; Flynn & Goldsmith 1993). Marketers have acknowledge the need to identify, profile, utilize and potentially influence Early Adopters to successfully launch a new product or service (Robinson, 1988). This research assists with identifying the salient cha...

Animal Science

<p>Feed mills demand routine techniques to analyze digestible amino acids in highly variable animal meals. As routine tools, infrared spectroscopic predictions of digestible amino acids require reference samples assayed in vivo. Lack of reference samples resulting from costly and time-consuming in vivo assays has limited infrared spectroscopic applications. To remove this limitation, an in vitro assay mimicking in vivo digestion in swine was sought as a replacement to build the ref...

Forestry

<p>This study wasconducted in a 14-year-old midrotation loblolly pine (<i style= mso-bidi-font-style:normal >Pinus taeda</i> L.) plantation to assess the effects of fertilizationand vegetation control (a) on soil net nitrogen mineralization, (b) litterdecomposition and (c) foliar nutrient concentrations and use, and vegetationgrowth. Fertilization (none, 224 kg haP) and vegetation control (none, complete) treatments were applied in a 2x2factorial design ...

Animal Science

<p>PALA, AKIN. Effects of Three Twice-a-Year Breeding Schedules in Four Breeds of Sheep. (Under the direction of ODIS WAYNE ROBISON and ROGER LEE McCRAW).Straightbred populations of Dorset, Finnsheep, Composite I (50% Finnsheep, 25% Dorset, and 25% Rambouillet), and Composite II (50% Finnsheep, 25% Suffolk, and 25% Targhee) sheep were evaluated under three different twice-a-year breeding schedules. Ewes were exposed for 32 d starting on August 13 and February 5 for schedule I, on S...

Biochemistry

Ribosome-inactivating proteins (RIPs) catalytically depurinate a conserved adenine in the ribosomal alpha-sarcin domain, and it is believed that the local structure surrounding the target adenine is (at least transiently) an RNA GAGA tetraloop with the first A in the GAGA sequence being the target adenine. Studies of the catalytic activity of ricin A-chaininteracting with ribosomes and with RNA GAGA tetraloops, as well as the catalytic activities of a set of related maize RIPs interacting with r...

Operations Research

This dissertation studies the competitive behavior of firms insupply chain management and revenue management contexts. A gametheoretic approach is employed. We analyze capacity allocation andpricing strategies and derive equilibrium solutions for multiplecompeting firms. We also study channel coordination mechanisms tobring the competing firms together for chain-wide optimality andconduct sensitivity analysis of equilibrium solutions.First we consider a single-period distribution system with one...

Computer Engineering

<center><b>ABSTRACT</b></center><p>Merritt, Carey Reid. A Pneumatically Actuated Brace Designed For Upper Extremity Stroke Rehabilitation (Under the direction of Dr. Eddie Grant)<p>Nearly 700,000 people suffered from stroke last year and those who survived were left with any number of disabilities. One of the most common disabilities in stroke is paralysis of the upper arm. Since therapy for this disability is ex...

Chemistry

ABSTRACTKLEIN, MARY ALTHEA.Substituted Carbonyl-Linked Bis(dioxolene) Complexes: Is a Carbonyl an Effective Ferromagnetic Coupler?(Under the direction of Dr. David A. Shultz)Bis-semiquinone complexes have been successfully synthesized and characterized to give triplet ground states from the use of typical coupling units. The typical coupling unit ethenylidene has produced compounds with ground state triplets, i.e. trimethylenemethane (TMM). Upon substitution of oxygen onto the ethenylidene coupl...

Genetics

Duplicated genes are the building blocks for the origin and diversification of gene families and may play a pivotal role in organismal diversity. Many regulatory genes involved in key developmental pathways are derived from gene duplications and divergence processes underlying gene family expansion. Thus, studies of duplicated genes shed light on genome evolution, the origin and diversification of gene families, and the potential adaptive significance of gene duplications. This dissertation rese...

Chemical Engineering

<p class=MsoNormal style= text-indent:0in >This thesis investigates the use ofcompressed carbon dioxide as a replacement solvent for web based coatingprocesses including the free meniscus based devices.<span style="mso-spacerun:yes">  </span>We use theory, such as Tallmadges Four Force Inertial Theory, toshow <i>why</i> carbon dioxide based free meniscus coaters are advantageousover normal coating processes....

Forestry

<p>Long-term effects of site preparation, early fertilization and weed control on selected wood properties of 22-23 year-old loblolly pine (<i>Pinus taeda </i> L.) were examined. Wood samples were obtained from four regeneration trials established by the North Carolina State Forest Nutrition Cooperative between 1978 and 1981 in southeastern USA. Twelve millimeter breast-height wood samples were extracted from a total of 675 trees (across sites) from five...

Animal Science

During the last half of the 20<sup>th</sup> century, the world pork industry has achieved astonishing developments in pig breeding. Now swine farms are larger, ownership more concentrated, and farms have become more industrialized. Artificial insemination (AI) plays an important role in animal breeding increasing utilization of genetically superior sires. Currently boars selected for commercial use as AI sires are evaluated on grow-finish performance and carcass chara...

Bioinformatics

Genetic analysis of molecular markers has allowed biologists to ask a wide variety of questions. This dissertation explores some aspects of the statistical and computational issues used in the genetic marker data analysis. Chapter 1 gives an introduction to genetic marker data, as well as a brief description to each chapter. Chapter 2 presents the different genetic analyses performed on a large data set and discusses the use of microsatellites to describe the maize germplasm and to improve maize...

Aerospace Engineering

Soot volume fraction (f<sub>sv</sub>) is measured quantitatively in a laminar diffusion flame at elevated pressures up to 25 atmospheres as a function of fuel type in order to gain a better understanding of the effects of pressure on the soot formation process. Methane and ethylene are used as fuels; methane is chosen since it is the simplest hydrocarbon while ethylene represents a larger hydrocarbon with a higher propensity to soot. Soot continues to be of interest b...

Chemical Engineering

This thesis involves development of novel micro- and nanocellular foamed polymers using judicious polymer processing strategies with supercritical carbon dioxide (scCO<sub>2</sub>). Apart from serving as a processing aid in the form of a transient plasticizer, scCO<sub>2</sub> is a powerful blowing agent to manufacture foamed plastics. It is also a viable replacement for the harmful chemical blowing agents such as chlorofluorocarbons, hydro...

Wood and Paper Science

Over the past decades lumber cut-up operations (rough mills), have changed from using extensive manual decision sawing systems to saws capable of automated decision making in an effort to save labor cost, increase yield, and reduce operational mistakes. Although a large amount of automatic and computerized equipment has been incorporated into rough mills, especially in the gang-rip first process, many of the process steps still rely on human decision making. Examples include choosing the appropr...

Civil Engineering

The objectives of this research were to (1) determine the sorption capacity of individual municipal solid waste (MSW) components for tetrachloroethylene (PCE) and cis-1,2-dichloroethylene (DCE), (2) evaluate the importance of the amorphous fraction of sorbent organic matter on HOC sorption to polyethylenes, (3) measure the toluene sorption capacity of newsprint samples collected at the Norman, OK, landfill (NLF), (4) determine sorbate and sorbent characteristics that affect HOC sorption, and (5)...