Chemistry

<p>This research has focused on extending the utility of previously synthesized 5-iodo-2,3-dihydro-4-pyridones. The initial conversion involved introducing a phosphonate group by nickel-catalyzed cross-coupling with the vinyl iodide at the C-5 position. Using a Horner-Wadsworth-Emmons reaction, the phosphonate ester was then converted to various olefins in moderate to high yields. Having an aldehyde present on the substituted 5-(diethoxyphosphoryl)--acylpiperidin-4-one allowed cycl...

Curriculum and Instruction

<p>ABSTRACTJACKSON, ALECIA YOUNGBLOOD. Peer Response Groups Using Electronic and Traditional Communications: A Portraiture of a Class. (Under the direction of Dr. Carol A. Pope.) This participatory action research project was a qualitative inquiry into the contextual variables that influence peer response groups using electronic and traditional communications. The research participants, students of the teacher/researcher, were twenty-two university freshmen enrolled in two sections...

Computer Engineering

<p><p>The field programmable gate array (FPGA) has become one of the most utilized configurable devices in the area of reconfigurable computing. FPGAs have alarge amount of flexibility and provide a high degree of parallel computing capability. Since their introduction in the 1980 s, these configurable logicdevices have experienced a dramatic increase in programming capabilities and performance. Both factors have been significant in the changing roles ofconfigurable d...

Computer Engineering

<p>Zhu, Kai. <b>Statistical Delay Bounds Oriented Packet Scheduling Algorithms inHigh Speed Networks.</b> (Under the direction of Prof. Yannis Viniotis)<P>We first present a strategic analysis of end-to-end delay bounds and identify heuristics for scheduler design, then propose three new schedulers that are targeted at statistical delay bounds: Deadline-curve basedEarliest Deadline First (DC-EDF), Adaptive Quasi-Earliest Deadline First (AQE...

Zoology

<p>Lichstein, Jeremy William. Landscape effects on breeding songbird abundance in managed southern Appalachian forests. Chair of advisory committee: Theodore R. Simons.Many studies have demonstrated adverse effects of forest fragmentation on breeding forest songbirds in North America, and the viability of regional populations is thought to depend on large, unfragmented forests. However, we know relatively little about the landscape scale consequences of management in the forested l...

Chemical Engineering

<p>CHAMBERS, JAMES JOSEPH. Reactions for Yttrium SilicateHigh-k Dielectrics. (Under the advisement of Dr. GregoryN. Parsons.)The continued scaling of metal-oxide-semiconductor-field-effect-transistors (MOSFETs) will require replacing the silicon dioxide gate dielectric with an alternate high dielectric constant (high-k) material. We have exploited the high reactivity of yttrium with both silicon and oxygen to form yttrium silicate high-k dielectrics. Yttrium silicate films with com...

Civil Engineering

<p>The rocking response of rigid bodies with rectangular footprint, freely standing on a horizontal rigid plane is studied analytically. Rigid bodies are subjected to simulated single component of horizontal earthquake time histories. The effect of the baseline correction, applied to simulated excitations, on the rocking response is first examined. The sensitiveness of rocking motion to the details of simulated earthquakes and the geometric properties of rigid bodies (i.e., slender...

Chemical Engineering

<p>The objective of this thesis is to study the phase equilibria ofbinary mixtures using molecular simulation. Vapor-liquid,vapor-solid, liquid-liquid, and liquid-solid coexistence lines arecalculated for binary mixtures of Lennard-Jones spheres using MonteCarlo simulation and the Gibbs-Duhem integration technique. Completephase diagrams, i.e., showing all types equilibrium betweenvapor, liquid, and solid phases are constructed. The calculations presented in this thesismark the fir...

Agricultural and Extension Education

<p>ABSTRACTCoil, Krist Tina. Effects of Block Scheduling on the Level of Student Achievement of Agricultural Education Students in North Carolina. Under the direction of Dr. Jim Flowers. The primary purpose of this study was to determine the impact of block scheduling on VoCATS scores of Agricultural Education students in North Carolina. The research objectives of this study were to determine if block scheduling affects student performance on VoCATS assessments and to determine if ...

Plant Pathology

<p> Anastomosis group 3 (AG-3) of Rhizoctonia solani is frequently associated with diseases of potato and tobacco. Although isolates from the two hosts are taxonomically related, previous studies have shown differences in their biology, fatty acid composition, pathogenicity and ribosomal DNA. However, the genetic diversity of populations of R. solani AG-3 from potato and tobacco are not known. In this study, the genetic diversity of field populations of R. solani AG-3 from potato a...

Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management

<p><P>I developed a new methodology to produce an orthorectified mosaic and a vegetation database of Petersburg National Battlefield using mostly digital methods. Both the mosaic and the database meet National Map Accuracy Standards and proved considerably faster than traditional aerial photograph interpretation methods. I classified vegetation polygons to the formation level using the Nature Conservancys National Vegetation Classification System. Urban areas were cla...

Mechanical Engineering

<p>AbstractWANG, YUN YENG. Constitutive Modeling of the Unloading Behavior of Paper Material Using the Asymptotic Fiber and Bond Model. (Under the direction of Dr. M. K. Ramasubramanian)Current constitutive models for paper and paperboard material are focused on the prediction of the sheet stress-strain behavior during loading. The unloading process has not been widely addressed. This work will focus on modeling the unloading behavior of paper material in one- and two-dimensional p...

Food Science

<p>Whey protein isolate (WPI) forms particulate, heat-induced gels under conditions of low electrostatic repulsion among proteins. Particulate gels appear opaque, release water when deformed, and can be formed by 1) adjusting the pH to near the isoelectric point (pI) of beta-lactoglobulin (pH treatment), and 2) addition of >200 mM NaCl at pH 7.0 (NaCl treatment). The objective of our research was to understand the electrostatic contribution to particulate gel formation, usin...

Botany

<p>A method of rapid field assessment and predictive modeling was developed to characterize vegetation communities of the Gorges State Park and Gamelands and to create predictive community maps for the area. This method placed an emphasis on locating rare communities using expert information, existing databases, aerial photography, and random encounters in efforts to provide information to researchers and park personnel about community locations. Approaches for classifying these co...

Electrical Engineering

<p>This thesis work consists of two distinct parts: a study ofreal-time intrusion detection on network link-state routingprotocol attacks (Part I), and a study of source identification for spoofed IP packets (Part II). These two parts could be united into a common framework consisting of an intrusion detection system and an intrusion response system. However, in many ways they are distinct and self-contained. In Part I, a real-time knowledge-based network intrusiondetection model f...

Computer Science

<p>Deadlocks are a common type of faults in message-passing programs. One approach to detecting deadlocks in a message-passing program is to perform reachability analysis, which involvesderiving possible global states of the program. The resulting state graph is referred to as a reachability graph (RG). The size of the RG of a message-passing program, in the worst case, is anexponential function of the number of processes in the program. This problem, referred to as the state explo...

Psychology

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Soil Science

<p>Alcacio, Tim. The Molecular Scale Nature of Copper(II) and Arsenate Bonding With Goethite-Humate Complexes. In soils, interactions between clay minerals and natural organic matter are known to affect the cycling of heavy metals and anions. Contaminant structures at mineral surfaces that contain adsorbed organic matter will have a significant influence on the bioavailability of the contaminant. The structure of copper(II) and arsenate complexes on goethite in the presence and abs...

Mechanical Engineering

<p>A modified J-integral, namely the equivalent domain integral, is derived for athree-dimensional anisotropic cracked solid to evaluate the stress intensity factor alongthe crack front using the finite element method. Based on the equivalent domain integralmethod with auxiliary fields, an interaction integral is also derived to extract the secondfracture parameter, the T-stress, from the finite element results. The auxiliary fields arethe two-dimensional plane strain solutions of ...

Nuclear Engineering

<p>Decommissioning is the process of closing down a facility. In nuclear power plant decommissioning, it must be determined that that any remaining radioactivity at a decommissioned site will not pose unacceptable risk to any member of the public after the release of the site. This is demonstrated by the use of predictive computer models for dose assessment. The objective of this thesis is to demonstrate the methodologies of site-specific dose assessment with the use of Bayesian an...

Material Science and Engineering

<p>The purpose of this research has been to use off-line characterization techniques to establish material-specific properties of gate-stack constituents (i.e., high-k dielectric stacks and electrodes) and complete gate-stack structures. Hence, the characterization methodologies were established to evaluate high-k dielectrics at various processing levels, which, in part, determine the final characteristics of an advanced gate-stack device. Material systems that were investigated in...

Civil Engineering

<p>COLYAR, JAMES DANIEL. An Empirical Study of the Relationships between Macroscopic Traffic Parameters and Vehicle Emissions. (Under the direction of Dr. Nagui Rouphail.)Understanding the relation between traffic parameters and vehicle emissions is an important step toward reducing the potential for global warming, smog, ozone depletion, and respiratory illness. Traffic engineers, through improved roadway design and traffic control, have the ability to reduce vehicle emissions. Ho...

Statistics

<p>Statistical analysis applied to percutaneous absorption andcutaneous disposition of different types of jet fuels is presented. A slightly different question is addressed with methyl salicylate absorption, namely when one compound can be used as a simulant for another compound. A new graphical statistics method, called ``Compass Plot , is introduced for displaying the results in the design of experiments, especially for balanced factorial experiments. An example of compass plots ...

Operations Research

<p>Horton, Kirk Gerritt. Fault Detection and Model Identification in Linear Dynamical Systems. (Under the direction of Dr. Stephen La Vern Campbell.) Linear dynamical systems, Ex +Fx=f(t), in which E is singular, are useful in a wide variety of applications. Because of this wide spread applicability, much research has been done recently to develop theory for the design of linear dynamical systems. A key aspect of system design is fault detection and isolation (FDI). One avenue of F...

Horticultural Science

<p>NEPPL, GRANT P. Efficient trialing methods for watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thumb.) Matsum. & Nakai). (Under the direction of Dr. Todd C. Wehner) Researchers interested in evaluating watermelon (Citrullus lanatus (Thunb.) Matsum. & Nakai) cultivars for yield use multiple-row plots to simulate the monoculture system growers use, or single-row plots to save on land, labor, and seeds. We were interested in whether there is a significant interaction of border with ...

Zoology

<p>ABSTRACTWEEKS, KENDRICK COLLINS. The foraging and nesting ecology of Black-throated Blue Warbler () in the southern Appalachians. Chair of Advisory Committee: Theodore R. Simons.Some species of Neotropical-Nearctic migrant birds have been showing declines in populations for the past thirty years. Black-throated Blue Warbler ( in the southern Appalachians. This research documents the foraging and nesting habitat use and nest fate of these two species primarily in cove forests at ...

Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management

<p>MURPHY, JILL MARIE. The Effect of a One-Time Team Building Exercise on Team Cohesion when working with a NCAA Division I Womens Basketball Team. Dr. Aram Attarian, Committee Chair. The purpose of this preliminary study was to measure the effects on a one-time team building exercise on team cohesion. A NCAA Division I womens basketball team participated in this study. The team building exercise used was a rescue simulation. The instrument used to measure team cohesion was the Gro...

Natural Resources

<p>In recent years, mapping software utilizing scannedor softcopyaerial photographs has become widely available. Using scanned photos of Valley Forge (PA) National Historical Park, I explored some of the latest tools for image processing and computer-based vegetation mapping. My primary objective was to compare different approaches for their efficiency and accuracy. In keeping with the USGS-NPS Vegetation Mapping Program protocol, I classified the parks vegetation according to The ...

Operations Research

<p>The primary objectives of this research are formulation and evaluation ofa Bayesian approach for selecting input models in discrete-eventstochastic simulation. This approach takes into account the model,parameter, and stochastic uncertainties that are inherent in mostsimulation experiments in order to yield valid predictive inferences aboutthe output quantities of interest. We use prior information to specify theprior plausibility of each candidate input model that adequately fi...

Mechanical Engineering

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Textile Technology Management

<p>The apparel design process involves gathering and analyzing information on fashion trends, markets, past line sales and editing ideas for successful combinations of fabric, style and price. These ideas are the result of creativity. Creativity is most often modeled as a problem solving process involving complex chaotic systems. In the fields of architecture and software design, pattern languages have been developed to help understand the various fundamental components and dynamic...

Animal Science

<p>HASTY, JENNIFER. EFFECTS OF VITAMIN E SUPPLEMENTATION ON PORK QUALITY CHARACTERISTICS OF HAMPSHIRE CROSSES AND BERKSHIRE CROSSES. (Under the direction of Eric van Heugten). An experiment was conducted to investigate whether pork quality characteristics could be improved by feeding supra-nutritional levels of vitamin E (as a-tocopheryl acetate) to Berkshire x PIC and Hampshire x PIC finishing pigs. Diets contained 0, 75, 150, 300 or 600 mg a-tocopheryl acetate/kg and were fed ad ...

Computer Science

<p>KROTHAPALLI, CHANDRIKA. Developing Predictor Surfaces for Vowels and Voiced Fricatives for Lip Synchronization. (Under the direction of David F. McAllister, Robert D. Rodman and Donald Bitzer.)This paper describes a method to construct predictor surfaces for mouth parameters, using Delaunay triangulation. The first and second moments of the input speech signal are mapped to the shape of the mouth. Predictor surfaces are built for four external shape parameters of the mouth. The ...

Biochemistry

<p>Using traditional column chromatography, Protein DE has been purified from rat epididymides. Affinity, size exclusion, and ion-exchange chromatography were utilized to purify the protein to homogeneity. Protein DE purity was demonstrated using one and two-dimensional electrophoresis. Using the purified sample, an accurate molecular mass of 27,534 Daltons was determined using electrospray-ionization mass spectrometry. After four chromatographic steps, Protein DE was efficiently s...

Material Science and Engineering

<p>LOESING, RAINER, Development of High Resolution Depth Profiling Of Ultra Shallow Dopant Implants with SIMS (under the direction of Phillip E. Russell. Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry (SIMS) is considered a reliable technique for precise and accurate dopant depth profiling in Si with respect to junction depth and implanted dose. The junction depths of source drain extension structures are predicted to be between 19-33nm for the 0.1µm MOSFET generation. Accurate hig...

Physics

<p><p>ALLAIN, RHETT. Investigating the Relationship Between Student Difficulties with the Concept of Electric Potential and the Concept of Rate of Change. (Under the direction of Robert J. Beichner)</p><p>An important aspect of curricula development is not only understanding what difficulties students have but also, why they have these difficulties. The purpose of this study was to investigate the possibility that students have difficulty w...

Material Science and Engineering

<p>The purpose of the research presented herein has been to determine the underlyingmechanisms of and to optimize the growth parameters for the growth of smooth surfaceson InGaN and GaN thin films via metalorganic vapor phase epitaxy. Relationshipsamong dislocation density, film thickness, flow rates of the reactants, kinetic growthregime, and thermodynamic growth mode with the surface morphology and surfaceroughness were determined. The two chief parameters affecting template surf...

Computer Science

<p>The explosive growth in worldwide communication via the Internet has increased the reliance oforganizations and individuals on the electronically transmitted information, which consequentlycreated rising demands to protect data from information leakage, corruption or alteration duringtransmission. Various security service requirements are demanded among different applications andcustomers with consideration of respective data sensitivity level, performance requirement andmonetar...

Forestry

<p>An evaluation of site quality was conducted on the Hofmann Forest located in Jones and Onslow Counties of North Carolina. Site quality is a key element in the plan for management to reach its objectives. Accurately measuring site quality can determine the optimal locations for intensively managed plantations and the areas that may be better managed for other purposes. The identification of these areas will allow management to maximize the returns from the forest regardless of th...

Mathematics

<p>As of now, it is an open problem to find an algorithmthat computes the Galois group G of an arbitrary linear ordinary differential operator L in C(x)[D]. We assume thatC is a computable, characteristic-zero,algebraically closed constant field with factorization algorithm.In this dissertation, we present new methods forcomputing differential Galois groups in two special cases.An article by Compoint and Singer presents a decision procedure to compute G in case L is completely redu...

Electrical Engineering

<p>The goal of this research was to determine the effects thatthe actual physical structure of an overlapped metal-oxide-semiconducter (MOS) capacitor and an etch bias have on the extraction of the gate-oxide thickness. Included in these concerns were the overlap of the field oxide by the gate electrode, the angle of the active-area sidewall, and the increase in size of the active area due to an etch bias. In addition, the growth of a contaminant layer, or ad-layer,on oxides that d...

Computer Science

<p>Wavelength division multiplexing (WDM) in optical fiber networks iswidely viewed as the technology with the potential to satisfy theever-increasing bandwidth needs of network users effectively and on asustained basis.In WDM networks, nodes are equipped with optical cross-connects(OXCs)</em>, devices which can optically switch a signal on any givenwavelength from any input port to any output port.This makes it possible to establish lightpaths</em> betw...

Physics

<p>AbstractOH, JAEHWAN. Electrical Characterization of TiSi2 Nanoscale Islands by ScanningProbe Microscopy. (Under the direction of Robert J. Nemanich)Using conducting tip atomic force microscopy (c-AFM), we have measured thecurrent voltage characteristics of individual sub-micron islands of TiSi2 on Si(100)surfaces and we have developed an imaging approach that distinguishes the electricalproperties of the islands. The Schottky barrier height (SBH) of the sub-micron TiSi2islands w...

Physics

<p>Supernova remnants present an excellent opportunity to study the shockacceleration of relativistic particles. X-ray synchrotron emission fromrelativistic electrons should contain important information, butextracting it requires advances in models and observations. I present thefirst test of sophisticated synchrotron models against high resolutionobservations on SN 1006, the first and best example of synchrotron X-rayemission, which has been well observed at radio, X-ray and gamm...

Microbiology

<p>ABSTRACTWILLIAMS, DANIEL. Analysis of RNase P Structure and Function. (Under the direction of James W. Brown.) The diversity of Archaea in municipal wastewater sludge was investigated by amplification of rRNA sequences from sludge DNA using archaeal-specific primers. The most common sequences were extreme halophiles; also found were sequence members of environmental euryarchaeal and crenarchaeal groups. Only distant relatives of Methanosarcina among the Methanomicrobiales were f...

Natural Resources

<p>Conflict between the public interests in non-timber amenities of forests and the private rights of forest owners has focused attention on voluntary conservation agreements as a policy tool. In North Carolina, the Natural Heritage Program identifies ecologically significant sites and provides two mechanisms for landholders to participate in conservation of those sites. Evaluation of the program from a spatial perspective focused on the mountain province of North Carolina, using a...

Biological and Agricultural Engineering

<p>ABSTRACTMarbis, Juan M. CO2 Enrichment and Hot Water Heat in a Greenhouse as a Mean of Recovering Bioresources From Swine Waste. (Under the direction of Daniel H. Willits) Predictions of heating and cooling requirements of a greenhouse located at the Barham Farm, Zebulon, N.C. were made via computer simulation. Kimball?s Modular Energy Balance Model (MEB) was used to simulate thermal behavior of the greenhouse. The weather inputs to the model were provided by data collected at t...

Physiology

<p><p>POOLPERM, PARIWAT.  Factors Influencing Semen Quality and Fertilityin Boars. (Under the direction of Drs.Glen W. Almond and William L. Flowers)<p>        The objectives of this researchwere 1) determine the influence of antibiotics on semen quality, 2) determinethe association among insulin-like growth factor I (IGF-I) in seminal ...

Statistics

<p>BROWN Jr., GEORGE GORDON . Comparing Bayesian, Maximum Likelihood and Classical Estimates for the Jolly-Seber Model. (Under the direction of John F. Monahan and Kenneth H. Pollock)In 1965 Jolly and Seber proposed a model to analyze data for open population capture-recapture studies. Despite frequent use of the Jolly-Seber model, likelihood-based inference is complicated by the presence of a number of unobservable variables that cannot be easily integrated from the likelihood. In...

Computer Science

<p>CHANG, JIAE. Development of a perceptual Visualization assitant for multi-dimensionaldata visualizations. (Under the direction of Christopher G. Healey.)This thesis describes a perceptual visualization assistant (ViA) designed to help usersconstruct perceptually salient visualizations to display high dimensional data stored in amulti-dimensional dataset. ViA focuses on (1) how to construct visualizations in an application-independent manner, (2) how to produce visualizations tha...