One of the biggest challenges in the study of the nucleon structure is the understanding of the transition from partonic degrees of freedom to hadronic degrees of freedom. In 1970, Bloom and Gilman noticed that structure function data taken at SLAC in the resonance region average to the scaling curve of deep inelastic scattering (DIS). Early theoretical interpretations suggested that these two very different regimes can be linked under the condition that the quark-gluon and quark-quark interactions are suppressed. Substantial efforts are ongoing to investigate this phenomenon both experimentally and theoretically. Quark-hadron duality has been confirmed for the unpolarized structure function F{sub 2} of the proton and the deuteron using data from the experimental Hall C at Jefferson Lab (JLab). Indications of duality have been seen for the proton polarized structure function g{sub 1} and the virtual photon asymmetry A{sub 1} at JLab Hall B and HERMES. Because of the different resonance behavior, it is expected that the onset of duality for the neutron will happen at lower momentum transfer than for the proton. Now that precise spin structure data in the DIS region are available at large x, data in the resonance region are greatly needed in order to …

This dissertation presents the highest four-momentum transfer, Q^2,quasielastic (x_Bj = 1) results from Experiment E01-020 which systematically explored the 2He(e,e'p)n reaction ("Electro-disintegration" of the deuteron) at three different four-momentum transfers, Q^2 = 0.8, 2.1, and 3.5 GeV^2 and missing momenta, P_miss = 0, 100, 200, 300, 400, and 500 GeV including separations of the longitudinal-transverse interference response function, R_LT, and extractoin of the longitudinal-transverse asymmetry, A_LT. This systematic approach will help to understand the reaction mechanism and the deuteron structure down to the short range part of the nucleon-nucleon interaction which is one of the fundamental missions of nuclear physics. By studying the very short distance structure of the deuteron, one may also determine whether or to what extent the description of nuclei in terms of nucleon/meson degrees of freedom must be supplemented by inclusion of explicit quark effects. The unique combination of energy, current, duty factor, and control of systematics for Hall A at Jefferson Lab made Jefferson Lab the only facility in the world where these systematic studies of the deuteron can be undertaken. This is especially true when we want to understand the short range structure of the deuteron where high energies and high luminosity/duty factor are …

The study of thermal decomposition in high explosive (HE) charges has been an ongoing process since the early 1900s. This work is specifically directed towards the analysis of PBX 9501. In the early 1970s, Dwight Jaeger of Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) developed a single-step, two-species kinetics system that was used in the development of one of the first finite element codes for thermal analyses known as EXPLO. Jaeger's research focused on unconfined spherical samples of HE charges to determine if varied heating ramps would cause detonation or deflagration. Tarver and McGuire of Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (LLNL) followed soon after with a three-step, four-species kinetics system that was developed for confined spheres under relatively fast heating conditions. Peter Dickson et al. of LANL then introduced a kinetics system with four steps and five species that included bimolecular products to capture the effects of the endothermic phase change that the HE undergoes. The results of four experiments are examined to study the effectiveness of these kinetics systems. The experiments are: (1) The LLNL scaled thermal explosion (STEX) experiments on confined cylindrical charges with long heating ramps in the range of 90 hours. (2) The LLNL one-dimensional time to explosion (ODTX) …