Geological and Planetary Sciences

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.The Manicouagan-Mushalagan Lakes structure is an area of anomalous geological features in the Grenville Province terrain of northeastern Canada. Three features of this structure have been revealed by geological studies:(1) The Grenville gneisses and anorthosites which outcrop in the area between the arcuate lakes have been shock metamorphosed.(2) The shocked Grenville gneisses are co...

Biology

The neural crest is a transient population of embryonic cells that originates at the border between the neural plate and the non-neural ectoderm. Near the time of neural tube closure, the neural crest go through an epithelial to mesenchymal transition and start an extensive migration throughout the embryo. During migration or shortly after they reached their final position, neural crest cells differentiate to form a wealth of derivatives. The mechanisms of migration and differentiation of neural...

Physics

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.This thesis is the first to result from operation of the 48" magnet cloud chambers at the California Institute of Technology. The apparatus is not described here in any detail. The techniques used to measure track curvatures and the positions of points inside the chambers are discussed in detail as is the analysis of the possible errors in these quantities. A formula is derived ...

Mechanical Engineering

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.Part IFailure mechanisms of materials under very high strains experienced at and ahead of the crack tip (such as the formation, growth and interaction of microvoids in ductile materials, microcracks in brittle solids or crazes in polymers and adhesives) are represented by one-dimensional, nonlinear stress-strain relations possessing different post-yield softening (unloading) behavior...

Geological and Planetary Sciences

A matrix formulation is used to derive the pressure variation for acoustic gravity waves from an explosive source in an atmosphere modelled by a large number of isothermal layers. Comparison of theoretical and experimental barograms from large thermonuclear explosions leads to the following conclusions: (1) The major features on the barogram can be explained by the super-position of four modes, (2) Different portions of the vertical temperature structure of the atmosphere control the relative ex...

Chemistry

This dissertation describes the development of three novel variants of the zwitterionic Claisen rearrangement. Initial studies demonstrate an efficient and diastereoselective ketene-Claisen rearrangement catalyzed by metal salts. This process involves the condensation of ketenes and allylic amines to form zwitterionic enolates which undergo [3,3]-sigmatropic rearrangements to afford alpha,beta-disubstituted-gamma,delta-unsaturated amides. The scope of this chemistry is further expanded through t...

Civil Engineering

Strong ground motion from a nearby fault has frequency content in the same range as the natural frequencies of tall buildings. This may have serious repercussions and is the topic of this dissertation.Buildings are designed per building code standards. But, are the code provisions adequate? Strong motion from large earthquakes has been recorded only in recent times in the near-source region. Have the current codes used this information to update tall structure design guidelines? Considerable dam...

Aeronautics

In Part I, methods for determining the strain energy function and the associated constitutive stress-deformation law for rubber-like materials is undertaken and the mechanics of data reduction needed to determine some parameters of the theory are displayed. Experiments were performed in four different stress fields on a foamed polyurethane rubber (dilatable rubber) and on several kinds of continuum rubbers. A new strain energy function and the associated stress-deformation law for a foamed rubbe...

Aeronautics

This investigation was undertaken in an attempt to determine the behavior of high purity aluminum when subjected to fatigue stressing in rotary bending at various elevated temperatures, and also to study the effects on fatigue life when the material was given intermittent periods of rest. Two types of rest periods were given; 1) room temperature resting from fatigue cycling at elevated temperature, and 2) resting at higher temperature after stressing at ambient temperature. Because of the limite...

Chemistry

Three methods have been developed for handling data from enzyme kinetics studies. The first method, which involves the use of Simpson s rule, is applicable when Michaelis-Menten (21) kinetics obtain and has the advantage of a short calculation time. The second method, which involves approximation of the data by a set of orthogonal polynomials, is applicable when the reaction mechanism is either unknown or so complicated that the mathematical formulation is intractable. The third method applies w...

Chemistry

Quantities of protein as small as five micrograms can be positively detected after electrophoresis on paper if strong adsorption to the paper, known as tailing, is prevented. Adding 0.1% gelatin to the buffer solution used to soak the paper is the simplest way to reduce tailing, and allows the conventional bromphenol blue stain to be used to locate the protein. A protein as nearly identical to the sample as possible eliminates tailing more completely than gelatin, and can be used if the sample c...

Chemistry

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.A system of elemental analysis for pedagogical use has been developed. Non-metallic solids are fused with sodium hydroxide, sodium carbonate and sodium nitrate and the melt is treated with water to give a residue of the basic element oxides, hydroxides and carbonates, and a solution containing the amphoteric and acidic elements. Metallic solids are dissolved in nitric acid and the ho...

Chemistry

The 2,3-iminobutanes react with acetic acid to give products that are easily converted without isolation into 3-acetamido-2-acetoxybutanes. Comparisons of the latter with samples of known configuration demonstrate that ring opening occurs in a trans manner.Attempts to prepare 3-p-toluenesulfonamido-2-p-toluenesulfonoxybutane by reaction of 2,3-iminobutane with p-toluenesulfonic acid, followed by treatment with p-toluenesulfonyl chloride, have failed. Under mild conditions the ring is not attacke...

Chemistry

Part I presents the results of electron diffraction investigations of some relatively simple four-membered organic ring compounds: trimethylene oxide, 3-methylenetrimethylene oxide, trimethylene sulfide, and cyclobutene. Discussion is given of the bond lengths in these and other small-ring molecules.In a supplementary section are the results of an investigation of dimethyl selenide, which indicates a somewhat larger radius for selenium than is usually given, and preliminary results for decaboran...

Chemical Engineering

The local convective thermal transfer from a spherical surface in an air stream was experimentally investigated by measuring the temperature distribution in the air stream surrounding the sphere. The investigation was carried out in an air stream of known turbulence level at bulk velocities of 8 and 16 feet per second using two different half-inch spheres. The local thermal flux over the spherical surface was calculated from the detailed measurements of temperature distribution in the air close ...

Chemistry

The technical details of a radiation measuring system based on a quartz torsion fiber electroscope and a pressurized ionization chamber are described. This equipment is designed to measure the radiation intensity from the carbon-14 contained in a sample introduced into the system as carbon dioxide. This system, including the shielding, is shown to be capable of measuring nuclear radiations of extremely low intensities, on the order of 1/200 of the normal laboratory background level, with a proba...

Aeronautics

In order to gain some understanding of interference effects during the combustion and evaporation of fuel sprays, simple three-dimensional body-centered cubic arrays of nine n-heptane or nine methyl alcohol droplets burning in air have been studied. Different cube sizes were used to vary the amount of interference obtained during combustion of the droplets. Photographic studies of the center droplet in this nine-droplet array were made in order to determine the qualitative effects of droplet spa...

Physics

A.- Energy Content of ultra-violet lines of the quartz Mercury Arc.By means of a vacuum thermocouple it is possible to use a Leeds and Northrup high sensitivity galvanometer for these measurements directly. The sensitivity of the couple is increased from 6 to 15 fold by operation in a vacuum. Stabilization of the operation of the arc enables one to get accurate and reproducible results for long periods of time. The deviation from average between 3000A and 2400A does not exceed 2.2%. Limitations ...

Mathematics

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.The central theorems in my thesis are generalizations of theorems due to G.Birkhoff, S.Sternberg, and J.Moser on local normal forms for invertible mappings. We will consider smooth, area preserving, Anosov diffeomorphisms of the two dimensional torus, [...]. These are among the most fundamental examples of dynamical systems which exhibit extremely complicated (chaotic) behavior. Some...

Biology

Here I look at three stages in the evolutionary development of mammalian brains. Chapter one addresses how connectivity in neocortex scales with brain size. This is of evolutionary interest because it helps define the basic mammalian condition. Neocortical white matter increases disproportionately in large brains. This might reflect increases in the number of connections per neuron. It might also reflect scaling in axon diameter. I compare these hypotheses by examining white matter-gray matter s...

Geological and Planetary Sciences

Forty-three species of mammals are known at present from the McKittrick tar seeps, in addition to a larger number of bird species and a smaller number of plant types. In the McKittrick fossil assemblage Recent or still living forms are more abundant than extinct types. Since at Rancho La Brea the reverse is generally true, it appears that McKittrick is a somewhat later accumulation. The interval does not appear to be greater, however, than that separating a glacial and interglacial epoch. Many l...

Mathematics

This thesis develops restrictions governing how a quantum system, jointly held by two parties, can be altered by the local actions of those parties, under assumptions about how they may communicate. These restrictions are expressed as constraints involving the eigenvalues of the density matrix of one of the parties. The thesis is divided into two parts.Part I (Chapters 1-4) explores what is possible if the two parties may use only classical communication. A well-known result by M. Nielsen says t...

Physics

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.Measurements of some of the properties of high-degree solar p- and f- mode oscillations are presented. Using high-resolution velocity images from Big Bear Solar Observatory, we have measured mode frequencies, which provide information about the composition and internal structure of the Sun, and mode velocity amplitudes (corrected for the effects of atmospheric seeing), which tell us ...

Physics

Many gauge theories in three dimensions flow to interacting conformal field theories in the infrared. We define a new class of local operators in these conformal field theories that are not polynomial in the fundamental fields and create topological disorder. They can be regarded as higher-dimensional analogs of twist and winding-state operators in free 2-D CFTs. We call them monopole operators for reasons explained in the text. The importance of monopole operators is that in the Higgs phase, th...

Chemistry

1. The hydration of crotoaldehyde and the dehydration of aIdol in dilute aqueous solutions of acids are first order with respect to the organic compound and to the acid. Energies of activaton for hydration and dehydration are 18.23 and 24.48 kcal., respectively. Equilibrium is reached when 47% of the crotonaldehyde has been converted to aldol at 25[degrees] and 39% at 35[degrees].II. Complex formation between silver ion and a variety of unsaturated molecules in aqueous solution has been studied ...

Aeronautics

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.An experimental investigation is carried out on the processes of heat transfer associated with a heated circular cylinder in crossflow. Two studies are made. First, a study of the transport of heat in the near wake (x/D<5) of a stationary and transversely oscillated cylinder is made at Reynolds number of 610. Second, a study is made of the surface heat transfer from a cylinder...

Chemical Engineering

This work is devoted to the development and application of the numerical technique suitable for solution of the free-boundary problems, i.e. those in which the shape of the boundary should be determined as a part of the solution. The technique is based on a finite-difference solution of the equations of the problem on an orthogonal curvilinear coordinate system, which is also constructed numerically and always adjusted so as to fit the current boundary shape. The same orthogonal mapping approach...

Chemistry

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.This thesis concerns the attempted synthesis of two strained nonbenzenoid, conjugated bicyclic systems, 1,4-dehydrobenzene (butalene or para-benzyne, 28) and the 1,4-dehydrotropylium ion (30c). Both 28a and 30c contain a fused cyclobutadiene ring with [...] its accompanying antiaromaticity but overall possess 4n+2 [pi] electrons. The concept of nonbenzenoid aromaticity as it applies ...

Astronomy

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.Spectrophotometry of extragalactic supernovae shortly after discovery, and of galactic supernova remnants has been used to derive the masses, temeratures[sic], compositions, and distances of supernovae.The Crab Nebula is shown to have a mass of ionized hydrogen in excess of 0.3 [...], but no enrichment of oxygen, nitrogen, or sulfur. The Cygnus Loop is shown to emit [Fe XIV], indicat...

Mathematics

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.Let m = [...] where [...] is a square-free positive integer and m is congruent to 1 or 2 mod 4. A theorem of Gauss (see [5]) states that the number of ways to write m as a sum of 3 squares is 12 times the size of the ring class group with discriminant -4m in the field [...]. The proof given by Gauss involves the arithmetic of binary quadratic forms; Venkow (see [12]) obtained an alte...

Aeronautics

The motion of a uniform vorticity of an elliptical shape (UEV) induced by an external linear flow field and a self induced effect in a two dimensional incompressible inviscid flow is investigated. The fluid particle motion around the UEV is also investigated. The techniques from dynamical systems are intensively used. In particular, we develop some modified versions of the Melnikov techniques which show how the perturbations influence the dynamics and allow us to predict the perturbed dynamics b...

Geological and Planetary Sciences

We have studied the global cloud distribution on Mars using red and blue global map swaths taken by the Mars Global Surveyor (MGS) Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC).In Chapters 1 and 4, we summarize the results for the first and second MGS mapping years, respectively. In Chapter 2, we investigate the mechanism for a new type of "flushing" dust storm first observed by MGS. These dust storms moved from the northern high latitudes southward across the equator, and led to a planet-encircling dust ...

Chemistry

No Abstract Submitted

Civil Engineering

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.Tests on a rectangular channel 10.5 by 3 inches in cross-section transporting water mixed with different amounts of sand are described in this thesis. Two sizes of sand were used. They are of mean sedimentation diameter of 0.10 mm. and 0.16 mm.Th experimental data were used to study both the effects of the presence of sand in suspension on the characteristics of the flow, and the con...

Chemistry

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.Part I.1. A system has been designed and constructed which will mix two gaseous reactants, isolate them in a reaction cell, and follow the entire course of the reaction photoelectrically in one-tenth of a second. The output of the photoelectric tube is recorded by a time-exposure photograph of the screen of an oscilloscope.2. The kinetics of the fast reaction between ozone and nitrog...

Electrical Engineering

The material in this thesis is the result of a year s experience in the solution of problems on the Caltech Electric Analog Computer. Although much work has been done elsewhere, the solution of partial differential equations is a relatively new field for the Caltech Computer. It is natural that such an undertaking should initiate points of view and techniques that differ from those of other investigators., This thesis contains the development of certain ideas that have been useful to the author ...

Electrical Engineering

A collection of logic gates forms a combinational circuit if the outputs can be described as Boolean functions of the current input values only. Optimizing combinational circuitry, for instance, by reducing the number of gates (the area) or by reducing the length of the signal paths (the delay), is an overriding concern in the design of digital integrated circuits.The accepted wisdom is that combinational circuits must have acyclic (i.e., loop-free or feed-forward) topologies. In fact, the idea ...

Chemistry

No Abstract Submitted

Control and Dynamical Systems

In the first part of this thesis, we introduce a specific class of Linear Matrix Inequalities (LMI) whose optimal solution can be characterized exactly. This family corresponds to the case where the associated linear operator maps the cone of positive semidefinite matrices onto itself. In this case, the optimal value equals the spectral radius of the operator. It is shown that some rank minimization problems, as well as generalizations of the structured singular value ($mu$) LMIs, have exactly t...

Aeronautics

An investigation of combustion instability in solid rocket motors was conducted using perturbation techniques, with particular emphasis placed upon understanding the fluid dynamics of the chamber environment. It was shown that although the phenomena generally manifests itself as oscillations of pressure, with the frequencies measured in tests well predicted by classical acoustic formulas, important aspects of the behavior cannot be explained without due recognition of the two basic processes of ...

Physics

<P style="line-height:200%;"> We present a study of the fully differential inclusive semileptonic <EM>B</EM> meson decay rate. Using a maximum likelihood fit, we extract the fractional contributions from the <EM> B→ X <sub>c</sub> l ν</EM> processes with <EM>X<sub>c</sub> = D</EM>, <EM>D<su...

Chemistry

Establishing correlations among structure, dynamics and reactivity is a fundamental problem in biological chemistry. Here, this problem is explored in the context of the design and reactivity of different metallointercalators bound to DNA.First, the effects of intervening mismatches on DNA structure, dynamics and DNA charge transport reactivity is examined. The pistacked DNA base pairs mediate charge transport chemistry over long molecular distances in a reaction that is exquisitely sensitive to...

Physics

This thesis presents tunneling measurements on bilayer two-dimensional (2D) electrons systems in GaAs/AlGaAs double quantum wells. 2D-2D tunneling is applied here as a probe of the inter-layer correlated quantum Hall state at total Landau level filling factor nu = 1. This bilayer state is theoretically expected to be an excitonic superfluid with an associated dissipationless current and Josephson effect.In addition to the conventional signatures of the quantum Hall effect a pronounced minimum in...

Social Science

Redistricting is always political, increasingly controversial, and often ugly. Politicians have always fought tooth-and-nail over district lines, while the courts, for most of their history, considered the subject a thicket too political even to enter.Three decades ago the courts finally entered the political thicket, ruling in Baker v. Carr (1962) that redistricting was justiciable. A decade ago, the court showed signs that it wanted to chop the thicket down, ruling in Davis v. Bandemer (1986) ...

Astronomy

We present a study of the star-formation history (SFH), and the initial mass function (IMF) in the 30 Doradus super-association. The study is divided in six natural stages: (1) profile fitting photometry; (2) characterization of the instrument; (3) calibration using stars with spectroscopy; (4) visualization of the stellar properties using the color-magnitude stereogram; (5) Bayesian analysis to obtain physical quantities; and (6) the construction of the SFH and IMF. The reduction and characteri...

Physics

Quantum information theory is concerned with identifying how quantum mechanical resources, such as entangled quantum states, can be utilized for a number of information processing tasks, including data storage, computation, communication, and cryptography. Efficient quantum algorithms and protocols have been developed for performing some tasks (e.g., factoring large numbers, securely communicating over a public channel, and simulating quantum mechanical systems) that appear to be very difficult ...

Astronomy

I present five explorations of the formation of early galaxies near the epoch of reionization: observable phenomena that demonstrate the interaction between galaxy formation and the intergalactic medium.I calculated the contribution of the first stars (Pop III) to the cosmic infrared background (CIRB). Pop III stars produced the observed unexplained component of the NIR CIRB if they were very massive and formed efficiently over a redshift range 25>=z>=7. A small escape fraction of ...

Physics

Quantum mechanical applications range from quantum computers to quantum key distribution to teleportation. In these applications, quantum error correction is extremely important for protecting quantum states against decoherence. Here I present two main results regarding quantum error correction protocols.The first main topic I address is the development of continuous-time quantum error correction protocols via combination with techniques from quantum control. These protocols rely on weak measure...

Mathematics

This thesis investigates variable stage size multistage hypothesis testing in three different contexts, each building on the previous.We first consider the problem of sampling a random process in stages until it crosses a predetermined boundary at the end of a stage -- first for Brownian motion and later for a sum of i.i.d. random variables. A multistage sampling procedure is derived and its properties are shown to be not only sufficient but also necessary for asymptotic optimality as the distan...

Astronomy

NOTE: Text or symbols not renderable in plain ASCII are indicated by [...]. Abstract is included in .pdf document.Asteroseismology is the study of acoustic oscillations in stars. Such oscillations probe the stellar interior, and thus carry information on the physical conditions in regions of the star that are not accessible through ordinary observational techniques. Oscillations have not yet been measured for any star other than the Sun, however, because they are quite small. The solar p-modes g...