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Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 49 Number 1, Summer 2007, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

8 - A CENTURY OF BRONCO BASKETBALL, By Jed Mettee and Steven Boyd Saum. Celebrating the first hundred seasons.

12 - A FAMILY SHOW By Steven Boyd Saum. Meet new men's basketball coach Kerry Keating.

14 - A SPACE THAT TALKS TO NATURE By Miriam Schulman. A team of SCU students aim to win the Department of Energy's Solar Decathlon. And save the planet.

19 - EPITAPH FOR THE JOURNEY A poem by Paul Mariani.

22 - THE BUZZ ABOUT SUSTAINABILITY By John Farnsworth. When we talk about "sustainability," what are we really talking about?

26 - THE GREEN TAX …

Love Canal Tragedy, Alicia Saunte Phillips, Yung-Tse Hung, Paul A. Bosela

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

The purpose of this environmental failure case study paper is to provide educational materials for environmental engineering courses dealing with design and operation of landfills for hazardous waste. In 1978, it was discovered that hazardous waste had contaminated homes and schools in the Love Canal area, a former chemical landfill which became a 15 acre neighborhood of the City of Niagara Falls, New York. On August 7, 1978, the United States President Jimmy Carter declared a federal emergency at the Love Canal. The Love Canal became the first man-made disaster to receive such a designation based on a variety of …

Afci Quarterly Input – Unlv April 1 Through June 30, 2007, Harry Reid Center For Environmental Studies. Nuclear Science And Technology Division

Transmutation Research Program Reports (TRP)

Quarterly report highlighting research projects, activities and objectives of the Transmutation Research Program at the Nuclear Science & Technology Division, Harry Reid Research Center.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas supports the AFCI through research and development of technologies for economic and environmentally sound refinement of spent nuclear fuel. The UNLV program has four components: infrastructure, international collaboration, student-based research, and management and program support.

Interdisciplinary Team Teaching: Lessons For Engineering Instructors From A Capstone Course In Environmental Studies, David Braun, Emmit B. Evans, Randall Knight, Thomas Ruehr

Electrical Engineering

The capstone course teaches students to analyze global environmental issues, resources, and human activities with a systems approach based on scientific, economic, political, social and ethical perspectives. Such an intrinsically multifaceted subject demands interdisciplinary treatment. To deliver the interdisciplinary treatment, the course uses diverse faculty teams comprised of faculty from fields in the natural and social sciences, engineering, and business. This work describes the interdisciplinary team teaching strategies adopted for the course and how they evolved with subsequent offerings of the course. We present assessment data measuring how well students achieve course objectives. Finally, experience gleaned from this course for …

Detection, Attribution, And Sensitivity Of Trends Toward Earlier Streamflow In The Sierra Nevada, Edwin P. Maurer, Iris T. Stewart-Frey, Celine Bonfils, Philip B. Duffy, Daniel R. Cayan

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

Observed changes in the timing of snowmelt dominated streamflow in the western United States are often linked to anthropogenic or other external causes. We assess whether observed streamflow timing changes can be statistically attributed to external forcing, or whether they still lie within the bounds of natural (internal) variability for four large Sierra Nevada (CA) basins, at inflow points to major reservoirs. Streamflow timing is measured by “center timing” (CT), the day when half the annual flow has passed a given point. We use a physically based hydrology model driven by meteorological input from a global climate model to quantify …

An Analysis Of The Potential Of Hydroelectric Power In Kentucky, Terry White

Morehead State Theses and Dissertations

A thesis presented to the faculty of the College of Science and Technology at Morehead State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science at Morehead State University by Terry White on June 15, 2007.

Uncertainty In Hydrologic Impacts Of Climate Change In The Sierra Nevada, California Under Two Emissions Scenarios, Edwin P. Maurer

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

A hydrologic model was driven by the climate projected by 11 GCMs under two emissions scenarios (the higher emission SRES A2 and the lower emission SRES B1) to investigate whether the projected hydrologic changes by 2071–2100 have a high statistical confidence, and to determine the confidence level that the A2 and B1 emissions scenarios produce differing impacts. There are highly significant average temperature increases by 2071–2100 of 3.7°C under A2 and 2.4°C under B1; July increases are 5°C for A2 and 3°C for B1. Two high confidence hydrologic impacts are increasing winter streamflow and decreasing late spring and summer flow. …

Santa Clara Magazine, Volume 48 Number 4, Spring 2007, Santa Clara University

Santa Clara Magazine

8 - ARCHAEOLOGISTS OF THE CARIBBEAN By Monte Lorenzet. Eye patch and peg leg-we all know what makes a pirate. Or do we? Only recently have scientists taken a serious look at the archeology of piracy, with SCU's Russ Skowronek one of the hearties unearthing facts buried beneath centuries of myth.

12 - ARE PEOPLE GETTING CRAZIER? By Thomas G. Plante. From what the media offers every day, you can't help but think the world is going to hell in a handbasket. What's really going on? And what can we do about it?

21 - A TEACHABLE MOMENT Q&A with …

Towards Interval Techniques For Processing Educational Data, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich, Luc Longpre, Mourat Tchoshanov, Gang Xiang

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

There are many papers that experimentally compare effectiveness of different teaching techniques. Most of these papers use traditional statistical approach to process the experimental results. The traditional statistical approach is well suited to numerical data but often, what we are processing is intervals (e.g., A means anything from 90 to 100). We show that the use of interval techniques leads to more adequate processing of educational data.

Afci Quarterly Input – Unlv January 1 Through March 31, 2007, Harry Reid Center For Environmental Studies. Nuclear Science And Technology Division

Transmutation Research Program Reports (TRP)

Quarterly report highlighting research projects, activities and objectives of the Transmutation Research Program at the Nuclear Science & Technology Division, Harry Reid Research Center.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas supports the AFCI through research and development of technologies for economic and environmentally sound refinement of spent nuclear fuel. The UNLV program has four components: infrastructure, international collaboration, student-based research, and management and program support.

Modeling Dissolved Oxygen In Lake Powell Using Ce-Qual-W2, Nicholas Trevor Williams

Theses and Dissertations

Water quality models in the Colorado River Basin have been developed for the basin, river, and individual reservoirs. They are used to support water quality programs within the basin. The models are periodically reviewed and updated to improve the accuracy of simulations. Improving the usefulness of the Lake Powell model, one of the key reservoirs in the basin, is the subject of this study. Lake Powell is simulated using a hydrodynamic and water quality model, CE-QUAL-W2. Previously the model has been used at Lake Powell to simulate hydrodynamics, temperature, and total dissolved solids with a reasonable degree of accuracy. An …

University Of Nevada, Las Vegas Transmutation Research Program Annual Report Academic Year 2006-2007, Anthony Hechanova, Rebecca Arbour

Transmutation Research Program Reports (TRP)

It is my pleasure to present the UNLV Transmutation Research Program’s sixth annual report that highlights the academic year 2006-2007. Supporting this document are the many technical reports and theses that have been generated over the past five years.

In the sixth year of our program, we continued to see growth in the Radiochemistry Ph.D. program with a total of 13 students in the third year of the program (we anticipated eight in the program proposal). Since our inception, the program has sponsored to their conclusion 42 M.S. and 4 Ph.D. degrees. The program supported 39 graduate students, 17 undergraduates, …

Evaluation Of Cs/Sr Waste Form For Long Term Storage And Disposal, Gary Cerefice, Longzhou Ma

Waste Forms Campaign (TRP)

The goal of this project is to examine two potential concerns regarding the long-term performance of a proposed cesium/ strontium waste form. To facilitate long-term storage, up to 300 years, the disposal containers will need to be able to survive for the entire storage interval. The first aspect of the project will explore the potential interaction of the aluminosilicate waste form with the storage canister materials to determine if there is any corrosion or chemical interaction concerns for the storage of the materials.

At the end of the storage interval, most of the 137Cs in the waste form will have …

Impact Of The Synthesis Process On Structure Properties For Afci Fuel Candidates, Kenneth Czerwinski

Fuels Campaign (TRP)

Synthesis of actinium mononitrides using carbothermic reduction of the corresponding oxides has a few outstanding issues, including the formation of secondary phases such as oxides and carbides and low densities of the final product. Furthermore the requirement of a high process temperature at 1700°C, for more than 12 hours is also a drawback particularly for Americium-bearing samples. Therefore, it is important to explore the use of other possible routes to synthesize actinide mononitrides.

A low temperature process is used in this research to produce actinide mononitrides using a fluoride route in which the first step is to mix the actinide …

Solution-Based Synthesis Of Nitride Fuels, Tyler A. Sullens, Kenneth Czerwinski

Fuels Campaign (TRP)

The preliminary studies into the synthesis of actinide nitride fuels through a low temperature, liquid ammonia based synthesis route have been conducted on the uranium containing system, and there is good indication for the success of synthesizing uranium (III) nitride. The dissolution of iodine in ammonia is a rapid process, resulting in a pale green solution, which does not result in any observable oxidation of iodine. The cannula transfer of dissolved iodine into the reaction vessel containing U metal has been conducted with little to no residual iodine remaining in the original flask. The metal being used for these reactions …

Juvenile Crawfish (Procambarus Clarkii) Lc50 Mortality From South Louisiana Crude, Peanut And Mineral Oil, Okey Umejuru

LSU Master's Theses

Nearly every continent has species of crawfish that inhabit wetlands or are near coastal areas where petroleum and other oils are produced, transported, and accidentally released. Most crawfish cannot tolerate polluted water. Thus, they could serve as biomonitors of fossil fuel, biofuel, and other oil releases and assess potential negative impacts such oils have on wetland and coastal ecosystems. The objectives of this study were to estimate the acute toxicity of three oils to juvenile crawfish and determine if toxicity was due to poisoning or interference with oxygen transfer across the gills. Juvenile crawfish (Procambarus clarkii) were tested for acute …

Afci Quarterly Input – Unlv October 1 Through December 31, 2006, Harry Reid Center For Environmental Studies. Nuclear Science And Technology Division

Transmutation Research Program Reports (TRP)

Quarterly report highlighting research projects, activities and objectives of the Transmutation Research Program at the Nuclear Science & Technology Division, Harry Reid Research Center.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas supports the AFCI through research and development of technologies for economic and environmentally sound refinement of spent nuclear fuel. The UNLV program has four components: infrastructure, international collaboration, student-based research, and management and program support.

Windmill Documentary, Timothy David Stoltenburg

Honors Capstones

Capstone submitted as a graduation requirement for the BSU Honors Program.

Evaporation Estimation Using A Floating Pan, Michael Klink

All Theses

Almost all regions in the United States must accurately estimate evaporation to have effective water management programs. The purpose of this study is to develop a better method for measuring evaporation. Lake evaporation along with meteorological data are measured directly from a floating pan. The floating pan is specifically designed to account for one of the most sensitive parameters of evaporation, the water surface temperature, which the design achieves. However, other design factors such as air movement, solar radiation, stability, heat transfer, wave action, water level range, and site location were also taken into consideration. The evaporation measured from the …

Afci Quarterly Input – Unlv July 1 Through September 30, 2006, Harry Reid Center For Environmental Studies. Nuclear Science And Technology Division

Transmutation Research Program Reports (TRP)

Quarterly report highlighting research projects, activities and objectives of the Transmutation Research Program at the Nuclear Science & Technology Division, Harry Reid Research Center.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas supports the AFCI through research and development of technologies for economic and environmentally sound refinement of spent nuclear fuel. The UNLV program has four components: infrastructure, international collaboration, student-based research, and management and program support.

Evaluation Of Environmental Carrying Capacity And Application Of The Sustainability Target Method, Chatpet Yossapol

Dissertations

The environmental carrying capacity (CC) is defined as the capacity of the earth to absorb or tolerate potentially stressful burdens imparted at various scales and locations, that is, to accommodate the ecological stresses without showing permanent damage. The CC can be used as a reference dataset for Life Cycle Assessment (LCA) purposes and as a baseline for other environmental studies.

In this research, a set of impact-oriented U.S. CC is developed for both input- and output-related impacts. CC for eight common impact categories is evaluated: resource depletion, global warming, ozone depletion, acidification, eutrophication, photochemical ozone formation, human toxicity, and eco-toxicity. …

Mansfield Ct: Planning A New Village Center, Maggie Jones, Richard Barringer

Planning

The case follows the development of a plan for a new village center in Storrs, the central village of Mansfield, Connecticut. A process that was transparent and inclusive of the community members yielded a plan that gained the approval of the Town, the landowner (the University of Connecticut), and the citizenry. The process relied on the mending of fences, the leadership of key participants, and an innovative strategy that included development of a nonprofit corporation and creative use of grant money. While zoning changes are still in the works, the first stage of building goes forward.

Afci Quarterly Input – Unlv April 1 Through June 30, 2006, Harry Reid Center For Environmental Studies. Nuclear Science And Technology Division

Transmutation Research Program Reports (TRP)

Quarterly report highlighting research projects, activities and objectives of the Transmutation Research Program at the Nuclear Science & Technology Division, Harry Reid Research Center.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas supports the AFCI through research and development of technologies for economic and environmentally sound refinement of spent nuclear fuel. The UNLV program has four components: infrastructure, international collaboration, student-based research, and management and program support.

Unimodality, Independence Lead To Np-Hardness Of Interval Probability Problems, Daniel J. Berleant, Olga Kosheleva, Vladik Kreinovich, Hung T. Nguyen

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

In many real-life situations, we only have partial information about probabilities. This information is usually described by bounds on moments, on probabilities of certain events, etc. -- i.e., by characteristics c(p) which are linear in terms of the unknown probabilities pj. If we know interval bounds on some such characteristics ai <= ci(p) <= Ai, and we are interested in a characteristic c(p), then we can find the bounds on c(p) by solving a linear programming problem.

In some situations, we also have additional conditions on the probability distribution -- e.g., we may know that the two variables x1 and x2 are independent, or that the distribution of x1 and x2 is unimodal. We show that adding each of these conditions makes the corresponding interval probability …

Using Phosphorus Recovery From Wastewater As A Context For Teaching Sustainable Development With Usepa P3 Support, Daniel B. Oerther, Cinnamon Carlarne, Eric Maurer, Regina Lamendella, Sarah I. Pumphrey

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Phosphorus is an essential element required for agriculture. Current practices include "one-way" use of phosphorus: that is mining; production of fertilizer; land application; and ultimately loss to aquatic sediments. Once in the aquatic environment, phosphorus stimulates eutrophication resulting in the "death" of water bodies. With financial support from a People, Prosperity, and Planet program grant of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, an interdisciplinary team of faculty at the University of Cincinnati used phosphorus recovery from sewage and re-utilization as a struvite fertilizer as the context for a year-long course of study integrating graduate and undergraduate students in Environmental Engineering and …

Interval And Fuzzy Techniques In Business-Related Computer Security: Intrusion Detection, Privacy Protection, Mohsen Beheshti, Jianchao Han, Luc Longpre, Scott A. Starks, J. Ivan Vargas, Gang Xiang

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

E-commerce plays an increasingly large role in business. As a result, business-related computer security becomes more and more important. In this talk, we describe how interval and fuzzy techniques can help in solving related computer security problems.

Testing Hypotheses On Simulated Data: Why Traditional Hypotheses-Testing Statistics Are Not Always Adequate For Simulated Data, And How To Modify Them, Richard Aló, Vladik Kreinovich, Scott A. Starks

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

To check whether a new algorithm is better, researchers use traditional statistical techniques for hypotheses testing. In particular, when the results are inconclusive, they run more and more simulations (n2>n1, n3>n2, ..., nm) until the results become conclusive. In this paper, we point out that these results may be misleading. Indeed, in the traditional approach, we select a statistic and then choose a threshold for which the probability of this statistic "accidentally" exceeding this threshold is smaller than, say, 1%. It is very easy to run additional simulations with ever-larger n. The probability of error is still 1% …

Fast Computation Of Centroids For Constant-Width Interval-Valued Fuzzy Sets, Jerry M. Mendel, Hongwei Wu, Vladik Kreinovich, Gang Xiang

Departmental Technical Reports (CS)

Interval-valued fuzzy sets provide a more adequate description of uncertainty than traditional fuzzy sets; it is therefore important to use interval-valued fuzzy sets in applications. One of the main applications of fuzzy sets is fuzzy control, and one of the most computationally intensive part of fuzzy control is defuzzification. Since a transition to interval-valued fuzzy sets usually increases the amount of computations, it is vitally important to design faster algorithms for the corresponding defuzzification. In this paper, we provide such an algorithm for a practically important case of constant-width interval-valued fuzzy sets

Measuring Plant-Wide Energy Savings, J. Kelly Kissock, Carl Eger

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Publications

This paper presents a general method for measuring plant-wide industrial energy savings and demonstrates the method using a case study from an actual industrial energy assessment. The method uses regression models to characterize baseline energy use. It takes into account changes in weather and production, and can use sub-metered data or whole plant utility billing data. In addition to calculating overall savings, the method is also able to disaggregate savings into components, which provides additional insight into the effectiveness of the individual savings measures.

Although the method incorporates search techniques and multi-variable least-squares regression, it is easily implemented using data …

Afci Quarterly Input – Unlv January 1 Through March 31, 2006, Harry Reid Center For Environmental Studies. Nuclear Science And Technology Division

Transmutation Research Program Reports (TRP)

Quarterly report highlighting research projects, activities and objectives of the Transmutation Research Program at the Nuclear Science & Technology Division, Harry Reid Research Center.

The University of Nevada, Las Vegas supports the AFCI through research and development of technologies for economic and environmentally sound refinement of spent nuclear fuel. The UNLV program has four components: infrastructure, international collaboration, student-based research, and management and program support.