Who was the beloved disciple?

Thesis (M.A.)--Boston University, 1932. This item was digitized by the Internet Archive

Development and Characterization of a Plate Fuel Hotspot Model in COMSOL

Aluminum clad plate fuel is common to many high performance water cooled research reactors, including the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR) at ORNL. Fuel manufacturing defects associated with fuel segregation and incomplete bonding of the cladding to the fuel material currently limit the performance of HFIR. A high resolution multi-physics (HRMP) simulation of concurrent fuel segregation and incomplete bonding of fuel cladding is developed in this dissertation. The simulation development begins with a review of legacy modeling of the fuel segregation and cladding non-bond, and then proceeds to identify improvements possible in the HRMP framework. A contact conductance model is selected for the incomplete bonding of cladding to fuel, advancing previous models. A verification of the COMSOL simulation platform used to construct the evaluation model is performed using the method of manufactured solutions, including assessments of the solid conduction modeling domain, the fluid coolant channel domain, and coupled fuel to coolant channel domains. Solution verification is performed with the least squares, grid convergence index approach, and indirect validation of the evaluation model is performed using data generated to establish thermal performance limits for the Advanced Neutron Source reactor. The verification and validation efforts are also extensions to previous work using COMSOL for HRMP modeling of HFIR, and establish numerical and modeling uncertainties. The evaluation model is then employed in a sensitivity assessment of 18 parameters in the evaluation model using Latin Hypercube sampling methods to establish a ranking of parameter importance in predicting four quantities of interest

Dangerous message: the material effects of Enough, A

2006 Fall.Includes bibliographical references (pages 112-141).Domestic violence is a cultural epidemic in U.S. society. How we define, perceive, and treat domestic violence is a product of the material rhetorics about it. Since film is a prominent mode of rhetorical discourse, I examine how the issue of domestic violence is represented in the 2002 film Enough. I argue that the film presents a view of domestic violence that offers space for empowerment, but serves to potentially place real women in danger. I undertake a dual-methodological approach using a textual analysis of the film and a focus group discussion with female domestic violence professionals/providers to discern the negative material effects of Enough. In my concluding section, drawing from feedback from the focus group participants, I offer suggestions for improving portrayals of domestic violence that may lead to ending this problem

Pruning Mr. Wilson\u27s Hedges: The Link between Woodrow Wilson and George W. Bush

This paper seeks to show that a connection exists between President George W. Bush\u27s rhetoric sending America into war with Iraq and the rhetoric used by President Woodrow Wilson which led to America\u27s entrance into World War I. The paper is broken into two major sections: the first is an analysis of Woodrow Wilson\u27s 1917 address to Congress seeking a declaration of war against Germany. The remainder of the paper is dedicated to beginning the establishment of a link between Wilson\u27s rhetoric during World War I and President Bush\u27s rhetoric which drew America into war with Iraq

Prototype selection for parameter estimation in complex models

Parameter estimation in astrophysics often requires the use of complex physical models. In this paper we study the problem of estimating the parameters that describe star formation history (SFH) in galaxies. Here, high-dimensional spectral data from galaxies are appropriately modeled as linear combinations of physical components, called simple stellar populations (SSPs), plus some nonlinear distortions. Theoretical data for each SSP is produced for a fixed parameter vector via computer modeling. Though the parameters that define each SSP are continuous, optimizing the signal model over a large set of SSPs on a fine parameter grid is computationally infeasible and inefficient. The goal of this study is to estimate the set of parameters that describes the SFH of each galaxy. These target parameters, such as the average ages and chemical compositions of the galaxy's stellar populations, are derived from the SSP parameters and the component weights in the signal model. Here, we introduce a principled approach of choosing a small basis of SSP prototypes for SFH parameter estimation. The basic idea is to quantize the vector space and effective support of the model components. In addition to greater computational efficiency, we achieve better estimates of the SFH target parameters. In simulations, our proposed quantization method obtains a substantial improvement in estimating the target parameters over the common method of employing a parameter grid. Sparse coding techniques are not appropriate for this problem without proper constraints, while constrained sparse coding methods perform poorly for parameter estimation because their objective is signal reconstruction, not estimation of the target parameters.Comment: Published in at http://dx.doi.org/10.1214/11-AOAS500 the Annals of Applied Statistics (http://www.imstat.org/aoas/) by the Institute of Mathematical Statistics (http://www.imstat.org