The aim of this dissertation is to construct a virtual element method (VEM) for models in magneto-hydrodynamics (MHD), an area that studies the behavior and properties of electrically conducting fluids such as a plasma. MHD models are a coupling of the Maxwell’s equations for electromagnetics and models for fluid flow....
Accurate modeling and simulation of wave propagation in dispersive dielectrics such as water, human tissue and sand, among others, has a variety of applications. For example in medical imaging, electromagnetic waves are used to interrogate human tissue in a non-invasive manner to detect anomalies that could be cancerous. In non-destructive...
In this thesis, we consider Maxwell's Equations and their numerical discretization using finite difference and finite element methods. We first describe Maxwell's equations in linear dielectrics and then present finite difference and finite element methods for this case. We then describe Maxwell's equations in linear metamaterials using the Lorentz and...
Barley and cereal yellow dwarf viruses (B/CYDV) are a suite of aphid-vectored pathogens that affect diverse host communities, including economically important crops. Coinfection of a single host by multiple strains of B/CYDV can result in elevated virulence, incidence, and transmission rates. We develop a model for a single host, two...
Modeling and analyzing the combined effects of disease and population dynamics
is important in understanding the effects of mechanisms such as pathogen transmission
and direct competition between host species on the distribution and abundance of different
species in an ecological community. Mathematical analysis of such models in a
spatially explicit...
In 1877 John Kerr described an experiment that demonstrated a quadratic change in refractive index in a plate glass placed in a strong external electric field. This results in a nonlinear relationship between the average electric polarization within the materials and the intensity of the applied electric field. This opened...
In this thesis we analyze a model for Kerr optical materials consisting of Maxwell's equations along with the dispersive Duffing model. We consider Duffing models with cubic and quintic polynomial nonlinearities. We assume a traveling wave solution to this nonlinear electromagnetic system and analyze it using the theory of dynamical...
In this thesis, we investigate the problem of simulating Maxwell's equations in dispersive dielectric media. We begin by explaining the relevance of Maxwell's equations to
21st century problems. We also discuss the previous work on the numerical simulations of
Maxwell's equations. Introductions to Maxwell's equations and the Yee finite difference...
We construct an implicit derivative matching (IDM) technique for restoring the accuracy of the Yee scheme for Maxwell's equations in dispersive media with material interfaces in one dimension. We consider media exhibiting orientational polarization, which are represented using a Debye dispersive model, examples of which are water and living tissue....
Temperature data from above and below the Cougar Dam collected by the U.S. Geological Survey prior to the construction of the temperature control structure was analyzed to determine how the di®ering temperature regimes a®ect the growth and survival of threatened spring- run Chinook salmon. An ARIMA time-series model was used...