The recovery of a 1.5 million yr long ice core from Antarctica represents a keystone of our understanding of Quaternary climate, the progression of glaciation over this time period and the role of greenhouse gas cycles in this progression. Here we tackle the question of where such ice may still...
Hatchability of the fertilized avian egg is impacted by factors which can be
categorized as being either genetic or environmental in nature. An elevated
incubation temperature, > 100 F reduces development time (time, days to hatch),
but increases embryonic mortality and lowers the numbers of fertile eggs that will
hatch....
The problem of optimization of stochastic dynamic systems with
random coefficients is discussed. Systems with both Wiener processes and uncertain random-process disturbances are dealt with in
this dissertation, and these include certain bilinear stochastic
systems. It is the purpose of this thesis to study the optimal control and, to some...
To face large scale environmental challenges like climate change, the Obama administration has turned to renewable sources of energy to offset the carbon emissions that result from traditional energy sources like coal and natural gas. However, finding suitable locations for large-scale renewable energy developments has proven difficult due to strong...
The growth of linear disturbances to stable and unstable time-periodic basic states is analyzed in an asymptotic
model of weakly nonlinear, baroclinic wave–mean interaction. In this model, an ordinary differential equation
for the wave amplitude is coupled to a partial differential equation for the zonal-flow correction. Floquet vectors,
the eigenmodes...
Currently, little work has been performed studying energy consumption in hop kilning. This thesis explores drying with an alternative drying schedule that extends the initially elevated drying temperature currently used by growers and examines its impact on drying time and energy use. Extending the time of the initially elevated drying...
The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT), an activity of the international marine carbon research community, provides access to synthesis and gridded fCO2 (fugacity of carbon dioxide) products for the surface oceans. Version 2 of SOCAT is an update of the previous release (version 1) with more data (increased from 6.3...
We describe an integrated spatially distributed hydrologic
and glacier dynamic model, and use it to investigate
the effect of glacier recession on streamflow variations
for the upper Bow River basin, a tributary of the South
Saskatchewan River, Alberta, Canada. Several recent studies
have suggested that observed decreases in summer flows...
The second law of thermodynamics, through the exergy
concept, allows us to quantify and rationally cost the
consumption of exergy (irreversibility) used to drive the
heat exchange process and the effluent losses of exergy in
a heat exchanger For systems with a network of heat
exchangers, the exergy concept recognizes...
The purpose of this study was to determine the effects of long-term weighted vest
exercise on hip bone mass, functional ability and static balance in elderly women. This was
a within subject exercise intervention study and included a 6-month control period.
Twenty-three subjects (age 85 ± 6) were recruited and...
Methane is a product of biogeochemical processes which respond to changes in climate. The history of atmospheric methane is recorded by ice cores providing insight into past changes in these biogeochemical processes. This dissertation is comprised of three studies which focus on centennial- and millenial-scale variability of methane from ice...
Two experiments were conducted to determine the
effects of riboflavin and pantothenic acid deficiency
on the production of clubbed down embryos in Single
Combed White Leghorn (SCWL) and Rhode Island Red (RIR)
hens.
In experiment 1, sixteen SCWL and eight RIR hens
were assigned to one of four diets calculated...
Simulations of combustion and reacting flows often encounter stiffness in the equations governing chemical kinetics. Explicit solvers for these ordinary differential equations offer low computational expense, but typically cannot efficiently handle stiff systems. In contrast, implicit methods demand greater expense but offer unconditional stability—as a result, most reactive-flow solvers rely...
Combustion emissions produced from burning real transportation fuels have many environmental impacts. However, detailed chemistry across multiple phases, time scales, and thermodynamic conditions make predicting combustion emissions challenging. Detailed modeling of the gas phase alone is prohibitively expensive, due to the large size and stiffness of the kinetic models. The...
The South Pole ice core (SPC14), drilled in the field seasons of 2014/2015 and 2015/2016, is an intermediate length, 1,751-m ice core which preserves a 54,000-year record of past climate and atmospheric composition. The SPC14 ice core adds to the spatial grid of ice cores in Antarctica extending into the...
Three varieties of sweet corn (Zea mays L.) , including
two supersweet (Crisp 'N Sweet 710 and Rogers 3376) and one
normal sweet (Jubilee), were harvested at six stages of
maturity (80-72% moisture for supersweet and 75-68% moisture
for normal sweet) at three days intervals. Changes in
physical and chemical...
Sea-level and ice-sheet databases have driven numerous advances in understanding the Earth system. We describe the challenges and offer best strategies that can be adopted to build self-consistent and standardised databases of geological and geochemical information used to archive palaeo-sea-levels and palaeo-ice-sheets. There are three phases in the development of...
Museums, aquariums, and technology centers are informal learning environments that facilitate the understanding of scientific phenomena while supporting self-motivated learning. Families are a social group that frequently visits these sites. There are multiple opportunities for adults and children to engage in independent sense-making and collective discussion about their experiences with...
Outreach is a small, but significant component to modern research.
Developing an exhibit for public display can be an effective way to communicate science to broad audiences, although it may be a less familiar method to scientists than writing papers or giving presentations. I outline the process of developing an...