Copper zinc tin sulfide (CZTS) is a potential solar material for thin film solar cells according to its suitable band gap in the visible light range, high absorption coefficient, low toxicity, good photostability and relative earth abundance of component elements. However, the production cost of this solar thin film material...
This dissertation explores mathematical theory of the 3 dimensional incompressible Navier-Stokes equations that consists a set of partial differential equations which govern the motion of Newtonian fluids and can be seen as Newton's second law of motion for fluids. The main interest of this work focuses on how local perturbation...
The focus of this research is to develop a prototype
expert system for softwood lumber grading. The grading
rules used in the knowledge base of the system are based on
Western Lumber Grading Rules 88 published by the Western
Wood Products Association. The system includes 27 grades
in Dimension, Select/Finish,...
The thermodynamic properties of 39 PBDEs have been calculated using Gaussian 03
on the B3LYP/6-31G(d)//B3LYP/6-31G(d) level. The PBDE congeners' enthalpies of
formation increase with increasing number of bromines and show a strong dependence on
the bromine substitution pattern. The effects of bromine substitution pattern have been
quantitatively studied by GAM...
As the number of nodes in high-performance computing (HPC) systems continues to grow, it becomes increasingly important to design scalable interconnection network topologies. Prior work has shown promise in adding random shortcuts on top of an existing topology to reduce average hop count and network diameter, but has been limited...
Epoxy resin is a thermosetting resin that is commonly used as composite matrix. Epoxy composite materials are well utilized in industries, such as aerospace, due to their good mechanical properties. Nano-scale filler reinforced polymer composite materials have been intensively researched in recent decades. Cellulose nanocrystals (CNXLs) are a type of...
This dissertation focuses on extending the application scope of surface enhanced infrared absorption spectroscopy to gas sensing. The method we propose is incorporating plasmonic nanostructures with nano-composite material, metalorganic framework, which can selectively preconcentrate certain gas molecules into the nanopores. The preconcentrating property is first demonstrated by applying metal-organic framework...
Here, liquid water path (LWP), cloud fraction, cloud top height, and cloud base height retrieved by a suite of A-train satellite instruments (the CPR aboard CloudSat, CALIOP aboard CALIPSO, and MODIS aboard Aqua) are compared to ship observations from research cruises made in 2001 and 2003–2007 into the stratus/stratocumulus deck...
Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) has demonstrated single-molecule sensitivity and is becoming intensively investigated due to its significant potential in chemical and biomedical applications. SERS sensing is highly dependent on the substrate, where excitation of the localized surface plasmons (LSPs) enhances the Raman scattering signals of proximate analyte molecules. This paper...
In recent years, spinel ferrites have attracted much attention as a merging material for oxygen reduction reaction (ORR),(1) advanced battery electrodes,(2, 3) and supercapacitors.(4, 5) Generally, the spinel structure can be described by a formula [X₁−λ²⁺Bλ³⁺]ᵀ[Xλ²⁺B₂−λ³⁺]ᴼ O₄, where λ is the inversion degree in-between 0 and 1, and superscripts T...