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Angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) studies of cuprate superconductors
This dissertation is comprised of three different angle-resolved photoemission spectroscopy (ARPES) studies on cuprate superconductors. The first study compares the band structure from two different single layer cuprates Tl{sub 2}Ba{sub 2}CuO{sub 6+{delta}} (Tl2201) T{sub c,max} {approx} 95 K and (Bi{sub 1.35}Pb{sub 0.85})(Sr{sub 1.47}La{sub 0.38})CuO{sub 6+{delta}} (Bi2201) T{sub c,max} {approx} 35 K. The aim of the study was to provide some insight into the reasons why single layer cuprate's maximum transition temperatures are so different. The study found two major differences in the band structure. First, the Fermi surface segments close to ({pi},0) are more parallel in Tl2201 than in Bi2201. Second, the shadow band usually related to crystal structure is only present in Bi2201, but absent in higher T{sub c} Tl2201. The second study looks at the different ways of doping Bi{sub 2}Sr{sub 2}CaCu{sub 2}O{sub 8+{delta}} (Bi2212) in-situ by only changing the post bake-out vacuum conditions and temperature. The aim of the study is to systematically look into the generally overlooked experimental conditions that change the doping of a cleaved sample in ultra high vacuum (UHV) experiments. The study found two major experimental facts. First, in inadequate UHV conditions the carrier concentration of Bi2212 increases with time, due to the …
Date:
December 15, 2010
Creator:
Palczewski, Ari Deibert
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Developing new optical imaging techniques for single particle and molecule tracking in live cells
Differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy is a far-field as well as wide-field optical imaging technique. Since it is non-invasive and requires no sample staining, DIC microscopy is suitable for tracking the motion of target molecules in live cells without interfering their functions. In addition, high numerical aperture objectives and condensers can be used in DIC microscopy. The depth of focus of DIC is shallow, which gives DIC much better optical sectioning ability than those of phase contrast and dark field microscopies. In this work, DIC was utilized to study dynamic biological processes including endocytosis and intracellular transport in live cells. The suitability of DIC microscopy for single particle tracking in live cells was first demonstrated by using DIC to monitor the entire endocytosis process of one mesoporous silica nanoparticle (MSN) into a live mammalian cell. By taking advantage of the optical sectioning ability of DIC, we recorded the depth profile of the MSN during the endocytosis process. The shape change around the nanoparticle due to the formation of a vesicle was also captured. DIC microscopy was further modified that the sample can be illuminated and imaged at two wavelengths simultaneously. By using the new technique, noble metal nanoparticles with different …
Date:
December 15, 2010
Creator:
Sun, Wei
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Devitrification kinetics and phase selection mechanisms in Cu-Zr metallic glasses
Metallic glasses have been a promising class of materials since their discovery in the 1960s. Indeed, remarkable chemical, mechanical and physical properties have attracted considerable attention, and several excellent reviews are available. Moreover, the special group of glass forming alloys known as the bulk metallic glasses (BMG) become amorphous solids even at relatively low cooling rates, allowing them to be cast in large cross sections, opening the scope of potential applications to include bulk forms and net shape structural applications. Recent studies have been reported for new bulk metallic glasses produced with lower cooling rates, from 0.1 to several hundred K/s. Some of the application products of BMGs include sporting goods, high performance springs and medical devices. Several rapid solidification techniques, including melt-spinning, atomization and surface melting have been developed to produce amorphous alloys. The aim of all these methods is to solidify the liquid phase rapidly enough to suppress the nucleation and growth of crystalline phases. Furthermore, the production of amorphous/crystalline composite (ACC) materials by partial crystallization of amorphous precursor has recently given rise to materials that provide better mechanical and magnetic properties than the monolithic amorphous or crystalline alloys. In addition, these advances illustrate the broad untapped potential …
Date:
December 15, 2010
Creator:
Kalay, Ilkay
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Dislocation dynamics simulations of plasticity at small scales
As metallic structures and devices are being created on a dimension comparable to the length scales of the underlying dislocation microstructures, the mechanical properties of them change drastically. Since such small structures are increasingly common in modern technologies, there is an emergent need to understand the critical roles of elasticity, plasticity, and fracture in small structures. Dislocation dynamics (DD) simulations, in which the dislocations are the simulated entities, offer a way to extend length scales beyond those of atomistic simulations and the results from DD simulations can be directly compared with the micromechanical tests. The primary objective of this research is to use 3-D DD simulations to study the plastic deformation of nano- and micro-scale materials and understand the correlation between dislocation motion, interactions and the mechanical response. Specifically, to identify what critical events (i.e., dislocation multiplication, cross-slip, storage, nucleation, junction and dipole formation, pinning etc.) determine the deformation response and how these change from bulk behavior as the system decreases in size and correlate and improve our current knowledge of bulk plasticity with the knowledge gained from the direct observations of small-scale plasticity. Our simulation results on single crystal micropillars and polycrystalline thin films can march the experiment results …
Date:
December 15, 2010
Creator:
Zhou, Caizhi
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Extending the frontiers of mass spectrometric instrumentation and methods
The focus of this dissertation is two-fold: developing novel analysis methods using mass spectrometry and the implementation and characterization of a novel ion mobility mass spectrometry instrumentation. The novel mass spectrometry combines ion trap for ion/ion reactions coupled to an ion mobility cell. The long term goal of this instrumentation is to use ion/ion reactions to probe the structure of gas phase biomolecule ions. The three ion source - ion trap - ion mobility - qTOF mass spectrometer (IT - IM - TOF MS) instrument is described. The analysis of the degradation products in coal (Chapter 2) and the imaging plant metabolites (Appendix III) fall under the methods development category. These projects use existing commercial instrumentation (JEOL AccuTOF MS and Thermo Finnigan LCQ IT, respectively) for the mass analysis of the degraded coal products and the plant metabolites, respectively. The coal degradation paper discusses the use of the DART ion source for fast and easy sample analysis. The sample preparation consisted of a simple 50 fold dilution of the soluble coal products in water and placing the liquid in front of the heated gas stream. This is the first time the DART ion source has been used for analysis of …
Date:
December 15, 2010
Creator:
Schieffer, Gregg
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Input/Output of ab-initio nuclear structure calculations for improved performance and portability
Many modern scientific applications rely on highly computation intensive calculations. However, most applications do not concentrate as much on the role that input/output operations can play for improved performance and portability. Parallelizing input/output operations of large files can significantly improve the performance of parallel applications where sequential I/O is a bottleneck. A proper choice of I/O library also offers a scope for making input/output operations portable across different architectures. Thus, use of parallel I/O libraries for organizing I/O of large data files offers great scope in improving performance and portability of applications. In particular, sequential I/O has been identified as a bottleneck for the highly scalable MFDn (Many Fermion Dynamics for nuclear structure) code performing ab-initio nuclear structure calculations. We develop interfaces and parallel I/O procedures to use a well-known parallel I/O library in MFDn. As a result, we gain efficient I/O of large datasets along with their portability and ease of use in the down-stream processing. Even situations where the amount of data to be written is not huge, proper use of input/output operations can boost the performance of scientific applications. Application checkpointing offers enormous performance improvement and flexibility by doing a negligible amount of I/O to disk. Checkpointing …
Date:
December 15, 2010
Creator:
Laghave, Nikhil
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Magnetic nanoparticles for applications in oscillating magnetic field
Enzymatic and thermochemical catalysis are both important industrial processes. However, the thermal requirements for each process often render them mutually exclusive: thermochemical catalysis requires high temperature that denatures enzymes. One of the long-term goals of this project is to design a thermocatalytic system that could be used with enzymatic systems in situ to catalyze reaction sequences in one pot; this system would be useful for numerous applications e.g. conversion of biomass to biofuel and other commodity products. The desired thermocatalytic system would need to supply enough thermal energy to catalyze thermochemical reactions, while keeping the enzymes from high temperature denaturation. Magnetic nanoparticles are known to generate heat in an oscillating magnetic field through mechanisms including hysteresis and relaxational losses. We envisioned using these magnetic nanoparticles as the local heat source embedded in sub-micron size mesoporous support to spatially separate the particles from the enzymes. In this study, we set out to find the magnetic materials and instrumental conditions that are sufficient for this purpose. Magnetite was chosen as the first model magnetic material in this study because of its high magnetization values, synthetic control over particle size, shape, functionalization and proven biocompatibility. Our experimental designs were guided by a series …
Date:
December 15, 2010
Creator:
Peeraphatdit, Chorthip
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Metal thin film growth on multimetallic surfaces: From quaternary metallic glass to binary crystal
The work presented in this thesis mainly focuses on the nucleation and growth of metal thin films on multimetallic surfaces. First, we have investigated the Ag film growth on a bulk metallic glass surface. Next, we have examined the coarsening and decay of bilayer Ag islands on NiAl(110) surface. Third, we have investigated the Ag film growth on NiAl(110) surface using low-energy electron diffraction (LEED). At last, we have reported our investigation on the epitaxial growth of Ni on NiAl(110) surface. Some general conclusions can be drawn as follows. First, Ag, a bulk-crystalline material, initially forms a disordered wetting layer up to 4-5 monolayers on Zr-Ni-Cu-Al metallic glass. Above this coverage, crystalline 3D clusters grow, in parallel with the flatter regions. The cluster density increases with decreasing temperature, indicating that the conditions of island nucleation are far-from-equilibrium. Within a simple model where clusters nucleate whenever two mobile Ag adatoms meet, the temperature-dependence of cluster density yields a (reasonable) upper limit for the value of the Ag diffusion barrier on top of the Ag wetting layer of 0.32 eV. Overall, this prototypical study suggests that it is possible to grow films of a bulk-crystalline metal that adopt the amorphous character of …
Date:
December 15, 2010
Creator:
Jing, Dapeng
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Microstructures and oxidation behavior of some Molybdenum based alloys
The advent of Ni based superalloys revolutionized the high temperature alloy industry. These materials are capable of operating in extremely harsh environments, comprising of temperatures around 1050 C, under oxidative conditions. Demands for increased fuel efficiency, however, has highlighted the need for materials that can be used under oxidative conditions at temperatures in excess of 1200 C. The Ni based superalloys are restricted to lower temperatures due to the presence of a number of low melting phases that melt in the 1250 - 1450 C, resulting in softening of the alloys above 1000 C. Therefore, recent research directions have been skewed towards exploring and developing newer alloy systems. This thesis comprises a part of such an effort. Techniques for rapid thermodynamic assessments were developed and applied to two different systems - Mo-Si alloys with transition metal substitutions (and this forms the first part of the thesis) and Ni-Al alloys with added components for providing high temperature strength and ductility. A hierarchical approach towards alloy design indicated the Mo-Ni-Al system as a prospective candidate for high temperature applications. Investigations on microstructures and oxidation behavior, under both isothermal and cyclic conditions, of these alloys constitute the second part of this thesis. It …
Date:
December 15, 2010
Creator:
Ray, Pratik Kumar
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Reducing the losses of optical metamaterials
The field of metamaterials is driven by fascinating and far-reaching theoretical visions, such as perfect lenses, invisibility cloaking, and enhanced optical nonlinearities. However, losses have become the major obstacle towards real world applications in the optical regime. Reducing the losses of optical metamaterials becomes necessary and extremely important. In this thesis, two approaches are taken to reduce the losses. One is to construct an indefinite medium. Indefinite media are materials where not all the principal components of the permittivity and permeability tensors have the same sign. They do not need the resonances to achieve negative permittivity, {var_epsilon}. So, the losses can be comparatively small. To obtain indefinite media, three-dimensional (3D) optical metallic nanowire media with different structures are designed. They are numerically demonstrated that they are homogeneous effective indefinite anisotropic media by showing that their dispersion relations are hyperbolic. Negative group refraction and pseudo focusing are observed. Another approach is to incorporate gain into metamaterial nanostructures. The nonlinearity of gain is included by a generic four-level atomic model. A computational scheme is presented, which allows for a self-consistent treatment of a dispersive metallic photonic metamaterial coupled to a gain material incorporated into the nanostructure using the finite-difference time-domain (FDTD) method. …
Date:
December 15, 2010
Creator:
Fang, Anan
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Adult Attachment Patterns, Mental Representation of Self, and Faith: Mediators of Childhood Trauma and Affect-Behavior Regulations in Adulthood
The purpose of this study was to investigate psychological mechanism by which four intra- and inter-personal characteristics of an individual (anxious and avoidant adult attachment patterns, images of self, and religious faith) mediate the relationship between childhood trauma and each of three affect-behavior regulation problems in adulthood (symptoms of depression, disordered eating behaviors, and substance abuse). A total of 401 college student participants completed a packet of 18 surveys including 10 surveys used in the present study. Structural equation modeling was used to test each of three hypothesized structural models (Depression, Eating Disturbances, and Substance Abuse). A series of multi-group analyses conducted to test if each of three hypothesized models is invariant across gender indicated no significant difference between females and males. Thus, the data were combined across gender to test for mediated effects in each of three hypothesized models. The results indicated: (a) for the hypothesized model for depression, anxious attachment patterns, avoidant attachment patterns, and negative self-images, but not religious faith, fully mediated the relationship between childhood trauma and symptoms of depression; (b) for the model for eating disturbances, anxious attachment and negative images of self, but not avoidant attachment and religious faith, fully mediated the association between …
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Han, GiBaeg
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Alberto Ginastera and the Guitar Chord: An Analytical Study
The guitar chord (a sonority based on the open strings of the guitar) is one of Alberto Ginastera's compositional trademarks. The use of the guitar chord expands throughout forty years, creating a common link between different compositional stages and techniques. Chapters I and II provide the historical and technical background on Ginastera's life, oeuvre and scholar research. Chapter IV explores the origins of the guitar chord and compares it to similar specific sonorities used by different composers to express extra-musical ideas. Chapter V discusses Ginastera's initial uses and modifications of the guitar chord. Chapter VI explores the use of the guitar chord as a referential sonority based on Variaciones Concertantes, Op. 23: I-II, examining vertical (subsets) and horizontal (derivation of motives) aspects. Chapter VII explores uses of trichords and hexachords derived from the guitar chord in the Sonata for Guitar Op. 47.
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Gaviria, Carlos A.
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Alignment of Middle School Core TEKS with Visual Arts TEKS
This descriptive study uses a qualitative, content analysis to examine the middle school visual arts and core Texas Essential Knowledge and Skills (TEKS) to determine the potential common learning activities that can be aligned between the two. By performing an alignment of the potential common learning activities present in the middle school visual art TEKS and the middle school core TEKS, I demonstrate that there is a foundation for curriculum integration in the Texas middle school visual arts classroom.
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Hartman, Jennifer
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Baseball in the Digital Age: The Role of Online and Mobile Content in Major League Baseball's Media Product Portfolio
This case study evaluated Major League Baseball's (MLB) media product portfolio to identify how broadcast revenues have evolved over the past decade. This research looked back across baseball's long, dysfunctional history with broadcasters in order to recognize the significance of its ambitious use of online content. While MLB had failed to fully utilize the potential of broadcasting, the league's aggressive online strategy through its Advanced Media (MLBAM) division made it the industry leader in broadcasting live streaming sports video. MLBAM expanded its online streaming video to mobile phones and iPad, further expanding the distribution of its content. This research compared MLBAM revenue to traditional broadcast revenue while analyzing the online division's role in promoting the MLB brand. This case study concluded that while MLBAM had made a number of groundbreaking developments, the league could still improve its use of embedded, shared video clips, archived footage and international marketing in order to further extend the brand equity of the MLB, its thirty individual brands and its media product portfolio.
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Hutton, Brian P.
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Benefits and Costs of Social Interactions Among Firefighters
Despite high levels of exposure, firefighter posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) rates are unclear. Likewise, questions remain regarding how social interactions and beliefs about emotion might interact to influence PTSD in firefighters. In this study, U.S. urban firefighters (N = 225) completed measures of social support, negative social interactions, and fear of emotion which were then used via regression analyses to predict PTSD symptoms. Each independent variable predicted PTSD beyond variance accounted for by demographic variables. Additionally, fear of emotion emerged as the strongest individual predictor of PTSD and a moderator of the relation between social interactions and PTSD symptoms. These findings emphasize the importance of beliefs about emotion; both in how these beliefs might influence the expression of PTSD symptoms, and in how the social networks of trauma survivors might buffer distress.
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Farnsworth, Jacob
System:
The UNT Digital Library
A-Bu-GE: A Composition for Organ and Percussion
Keyphrases describe a document in a coherent and simple way, giving the prospective reader a way to quickly determine whether the document satisfies their information needs. The pervasion of huge amount of information on Web, with only a small amount of documents have keyphrases extracted, there is a definite need to discover automatic keyphrase extraction systems. Typically, a document written by human develops around one or more general concepts or sub-concepts. These concepts or sub-concepts should be structured and semantically related with each other, so that they can form the meaningful representation of a document. Considering the fact, the phrases or concepts in a document are related to each other, a new approach for keyphrase extraction is introduced that exploits the semantic relations in the document. For measuring the semantic relations between concepts or sub-concepts in the document, I present a comprehensive study aimed at using collaboratively constructed semantic resources like Wikipedia and its link structure. In particular, I introduce a graph-based keyphrase extraction system that exploits the semantic relations in the document and features such as term frequency. I evaluated the proposed system using novel measures and the results obtained compare favorably with previously published results on established benchmarks.
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Kim, Chol-Ho
System:
The UNT Digital Library
A Case Study of the Impact of the Middle School Data Coach on Teacher Use of Educational Test Data to Change Instruction
With the advent of No Child Left Behind (NCLB) legislation in 2002 and its attendant increases in accountability pressure, many districts and schools currently embrace data analysis as an essential part of the instructional decision making process. In their attempts to overcome low achievement on state-mandated tests, some districts have begun employing data coaches. The study reported here, which was set in three middle schools in a northeast Texas school district, assessed the influence of the campus data coach on a middle school mathematics teachers' use of analyzed data to make instructional decisions. It also examined the extent to which the Data Coach/teacher relationship resolved teacher concerns about data-driven decision making. Phenomenological interviews with data coaches were guided by Seidman's (2006) three-series interview. Measurement of teacher use of data to make decisions was based on the concerns-based adoption model's levels of use interview protocol, stages of concern questionnaire, and innovation configuration map. By the end of one school year, two out of the three teachers never used data to make instructional decisions, although the non-users both had moved closer toward employing the innovation in their classroom. Data indicated all teachers were aware of the innovation, but all three ended the …
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Hill, Rachelle Phelps
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Chirped-Pulse Fourier Transform Microwave Spectroscopy of Fluoroiodoacetonitrile and Chloropentafluoroacetone
This work focuses on finding the complete iodine and nitrogen nuclear electric quadrupole coupling tensors for fluoroiodoacetonitrile using chirped-pulse Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy. Fluoroiodoacetonitrile contains two hyperfine nuclei, iodine (I=5/2) and nitrogen (I=1) and the spectra were observed with great resolution. A total of 499 transitions were observed for this molecule. The a, b and c rotational constants were obtained. A study of chloropentafluoroacetone was also done using chirped-pulse Fourier transform microwave spectroscopy. The two chlorine isotopes for this molecule, Cl-35 and Cl-37 were observed and 326 and 170 transitions were recorded, respectively.
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Kadiwar, Gautam
System:
The UNT Digital Library
College Success for all Students: An Investigation of Early Warning Indicators of College Readiness
The purpose of this quantitative study was to determine early warning indicators of college readiness among early college high school students at selected Texas institutions of higher education. Participants in this study included 134 of the class of 2010 from two early college high schools. The graduates were 86% Hispanic, 8% African American, 3% White, 2% Asian, 1% American Indian and 72% economically disadvantaged. A causal-comparative research design using multiple regression analysis of the data collected revealed that each one unit increase in world history was associated with a .470 (p < .05) increase in college GPA, while each one unit increase in Algebra I was associated with a .202 (p < .05) increase. Therefore, student grades in high school Algebra I and world history were the strongest statistically significant indicators that a student will maintain a 2.5 college GPA during the first year of college. According to the early warning indicators, students who maintain a grade of A or B in Algebra I are 10 times more likely to be college ready while having a 78% chance of maintaining a 2.5 or better in college courses. Further, the findings from this study found no significant relationship between TAKS assessment, …
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Davis, Denise
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Combining of Korean Traditional Performance and Recent German Techniques in Isang Yun's Kontraste: Zwei Stücke für Violine Solo (1987)
Isang Yun (1917-1995) embraced a masterful combination of two elements derived from his life: his Korean cultural upbringing and Western musical traditions. This dissertation explores Yun's distinctive style through an analysis of his Kontraste: Zwei Stücke für Violine Solo. Following the introduction (Chapter 1), Chapter 2 contains a brief biography of Isang Yun, and explores the compositions of his Korean period (1917-1955) and his European period (1956-1995). It also discusses how Yun's musical styles changed during these two periods as a result of important life events and due to cultural and political influences. Chapter 3 examines Korean instruments such as Kayakem, Hae-Kem, and Pak; discusses Nonghyun (traditional string techniques of ornamentation in Korean music); and introduces Korean performance techniques. This chapter also provides explanations of these concepts, illustrated through various examples. A subsequent discussion illuminates Yin-Yang theory and Jeong-Jung-Dong, both elements of Taoist philosophy that influenced Yun's compositional style. This is followed by explanations of Hauptton and Umspielung, two compositional techniques that Yun developed and employed in Kontraste. Yun created the idea of Hauptton to reflect the Korean traditional concept of a single note. He used the term Umspielung ("playing around" in German) to describe his interpretation of the four …
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Kim, Hyo Jung
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Correlates of Video Game Addiction
Video game addiction often leads to a tremendous burden on those afflicted with the condition, draining their time, resources, and life away until they have nothing left. To further elucidate the problem of video game addiction, the current research examines the level of video game addiction of 111 participants, along with their motivation for their addictive behaviors, the quality of life of addicted individuals, and possible relations between video game addiction and other forms of addiction. Results of the current research indicate a correlation between addictive video game use and depression, alcohol use, a desire for escapism, a need for social interaction, and lack of self-control. The results of a multiple regression indicate that, amongst the various research factors, depression is the factor with the most significant link to addictive video game use, implying a dangerous correlation between mental health and an addictive behavior that some erroneously disqualify as a true addiction.
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Langley, Alex
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Critical Discussion of Pleroma: A Digital Drama and Its Relevance to Tragic Form in Music
Pleroma is a digital drama: a work composed of digital animation combined with electroacoustic music, presenting an original dramatic narrative. Pleroma's dramatic elements evoke both the classical form of tragedy and the concept of perceptual paradox. A structural overview of the drama and its characters and a plot synopsis are given to provide context for the critical discussion. Analytical descriptions of Beethoven's Coriolan Overture Op.62 and Mahler's Symphony No. 9 are provided to give background on tragic form and Platonic allegory in music. An investigation into the elements discussed in the analysis of the instrumental works reveals several layers of possible interpretation in Pleroma. Dramatic elements allow for tragic narratives to be constructed, but they are complemented by character associations formed by pitch relationships, stylistic juxtapositions, and instrumentation. A copy of the dramatic text is included to supplement the multimedia production.
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Lucas, Stephen, 1985-
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Culture and Self-Representation in the Este Court: Ercole Strozzi's Funeral Elegy of Eleonora of Aragon, a Text, Translation, and Commentary.
This dissertation presents a previously unedited text by one of the most distinguished- yet neglected-Latin writers of the Italian Renaissance, Ercole Strozzi (1471-1508), a poet and administrator in the court of Ferrara. Under the Este Dukes, Ferrara became a major center of literary and artistic patronage. The Latin literary output of the court, however, has received insufficient scholarly scrutiny. The text is a verse funeral elegy of Eleonora of Aragon (1450-1493), the first Duchess of Ferrara. Eleonora was a remarkable woman whose talents and indefatigable efforts on behalf of her husband, her children, and her state, won her accolades both at home and abroad. She also served as a prototype for the remarkable careers of her two daughters, Isabella d'Este, and Beatrice d'Este, who are celebrated for their erudition and patronage of arts and letters. The text is a mirror of the Estense court and reveals to us how its members no doubt saw themselves, at the very peak of its temporal power and the height of its prestige as a center of cultural creativity. It is also important for the striking portrait it presents of Eleonora. Ercole Strozzi chose to call his poem an epicedium, an ancient minor literary …
Date:
December 2010
Creator:
Cassella, Dean Marcel
System:
The UNT Digital Library
Dark matter limits froma 15 kg windowless bubble chamber
The COUPP collaboration has successfully used bubble chambers, a technology previously applied only to high-energy physics experiments, as direct dark matter detectors. It has produced the world's most stringent spin-dependent WIMP limits, and increasingly competitive spin-independent limits. These limits were achieved by capitalizing on an intrinsic rejection of the gamma background that all other direct detection experiments must address through high-density shielding and empirically-determined data cuts. The history of COUPP, including its earliest prototypes and latest results, is briefly discussed in this thesis. The feasibility of a new, windowless bubble chamber concept simpler and more inexpensive in design is discussed here as well. The dark matter limits achieved with a 15 kg windowless chamber, larger than any previous COUPP chamber (2 kg, 4 kg), are presented. Evidence of the greater radiopurity of synthetic quartz compared to natural is presented using the data from this 15 kg device, the first chamber to be made from synthetic quartz. The effective reconstruction of the three-dimensional positions of bubbles in a highly distorted optical field, with ninety-degree bottom lighting similar to cloud chamber lighting, is demonstrated. Another innovation described in this thesis is the use of the sound produced by bubbles recorded by an …
Date:
December 1, 2010
Creator:
Szydagis, Matthew Mark
System:
The UNT Digital Library