An understanding of natural coastal hazards is essential for improving resilience of coastal communities. Effective management of coastal hazards relies on prediction tools and mitigation structures that have been designed to handle the dynamic coastal system. This dissertation is a collection of manuscripts that cover a diverse range of fundamental...
To better understand the extreme local amplification of tsunami, the experimental investigation on counter-propagating solitary wave collisions over a horizontal bottom was conducted using the optical measurement techniques: Particle Image Velocimetry (PIV), and Laser Induced Fluoresce (LIF). Head-on collisions and oblique collisions of equal-amplitude as well as unequal-amplitude waves were...
Reflection of an obliquely incident solitary wave at a vertical wall is studied experimentally in the laboratory wave tank. Precision measurements of water-surface variations are achieved with the aid of laser-induced fluorescent (LIF) technique and detailed temporal and spatial features of the
Mach reflection are captured. During the development stage...
Numerical results are presented using a higher-order pseudo-spectral method in order to solve the Zakharov-Craig-Sulem formulation of the Euler model. We study the effects of variable bathymetry on weakly-dispersive, weakly-nonlinear, shallow water waves. Improved predictions on wave amplitude and shoaling behavior are developed by analytical means in the context of...
The purpose of this study was to explore factors
which influence Taiwanese vocational teachers'
participation in program evaluations, use of evaluative
results and, in turn, program improvement. Twelve
Taiwanese public vocational high school teachers were
interviewed during February and March 1992. To confirm
the responses of the teachers, 12 school...
The objective of our study was to investigate the effect of selenium on
selenoprotein W. Western blot analysis indicated that selenoprotein W is present in
muscle, brain, testis and spleen of rat tissues. Tissue distribution of selenoprotein W
was not altered in rats fed various selenium levels. Among muscle, brain,...
Control of high-speed, light-weight robotic manipulators is a challenge because of their special dynamic characteristics. In this work, a two-stage control algorithm for the position control of flexible manipulators is proposed. First, the more complex, flexible robot system is replaced by a simplified hypothetical rigid body system (HRRA) with off-line...
This research was designed to study the perinatal and
postweaning effects of the interaction between ethanol and low
dietary zinc during gestation and lactation in the rat.
Pregnant rats were fed liquid diets containing either 2 or 10
μg zinc/ml with or without 30% of kcal from ethanol throughout
gestation...
Wave runup is an important physical process that affects nearshore sediment transport, coastal erosion, and flooding. Large and unexpected runup events can also be dangerous to beach goers. Extreme runup statistics are essential parameters used in engineering design of marine structures and in coastal management. Although the study of runup...