Digital Commons Network^™

Volumetric Irrigation Water Pricing Considerations, Charles M. Burt

BioResource and Agricultural Engineering

Volumetric water pricing is a popular topic within donor agencies for irrigation project modernization and sustainability. Implementation of an effective pricing program is quite complex and requires consideration of physical modernization, fee structure, enforcement procedures, and the level of water delivery service. Variations of volumetric water pricing and allocation are discussed.

On The Nature Of Over-Dispersion In Motor Vehicle Crash Prediction Models, Sudeshna Mitra, Simon Washington

Civil and Environmental Engineering

Statistical modeling of traffic crashes has been of interest to researchers for decades. Over the most recent decade many crash models have accounted for extra-variation in crash counts—variation over and above that accounted for by the Poisson density. The extra-variation – or dispersion – is theorized to capture unaccounted for variation in crashes across sites. The majority of studies have assumed fixed dispersion parameters in over-dispersed crash models—tantamount to assuming that unaccounted for variation is proportional to the expected crash count. Miaou and Lord [Miaou, S.P., Lord, D., 2003. Modeling traffic crash-flow relationships for intersections: dispersion parameter, functional form, and …

Sexual Conflict Over Egg Allocation: A Dynamic Programming Approach To Modeling The Evolution Of Male Harm And Female Resistance, David Kelley

Renée Crown University Honors Thesis Projects - All

Sexual conflict, which is expected to be ubiquitous among polygamous species, is known to occasionally result in male adaptations that are harmful to females. One theoretical model indicates that males may benefit from physically harming their mates by triggering a “terminal investment” reproductive response by them. Using dynamic programming, we explore how females optimize their lifetime egg allocation, how selection acts on males to exploit such allocation, and how females respond to resist this exploitation. The model reveals alternative female response pathways; one of the most effective of which is simply to forgo plasticity in egg allocation. By switching to …

Characterization Of The Ibc Technologies Superlig¨ 620 Solid Phase Extraction Resin With Applications For Automated Process Monitoring, John Clements

All Theses

Characterization of the IBC Advanced Technologies SuperLig¨ 620 solid phase extraction resin was performed in order to develop an automated strontium-90 process monitor. The main focus was on strontium separation from barium, with the goal of developing an automated separation process for strontium-90 in Hanford high-level tank wastes. High-level waste tanks contain significant cesium-137 activities, of which barium daughters are of great concern as interferences to strontium quantification. A number of complexants were studied in a series of batch distribution coefficient experiments, as SuperLig¨ 620 was not previously known to elute strontium in typical mineral acids. The optimal separation was …

Electrical Skin Impedance At Acupuncture Points, Sean Pearson, Agatha P. Colbert, James Mcnames, Meggan Baumgartner, Richard Hammerschlag

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Publications and Presentations

Objective: To test whether electrical skin impedance at each of three acupuncture points (APs) is significantly lower than at nearby sites on the meridian (MP) and off the meridian (NP). Design: Two instruments—Prognos (MedPrevent GmbH, Waldershof, Germany), a constant-current (DC) device, and PT Probe (designed for this study), a 100-Hz sinusoidal-current (AC) device—were used to record electrical impedance at three APs (right Gallbladder 14, right Pericardium 8, and left Triple Energizer 1), and two control sites for each AP. Each AP, MP, and NP was measured four times in random order with each device. Setting: The study was conducted over …

Soar Checkers - An Intelligent Checkers Playing Agent In Soar, Jithu Menon

All Theses

The classic board game of checkers is ideally suited for research in AI game-playing programs or agents. The objective behind Soar Checkers is to investigate if it is possible to create an agent-based game playing system that would beat novices with ease and at least challenge advanced novice to intermediate-level players by designing a rules-based expert system whose knowledge base consists of nothing more than the rules of checkers, and a set of guidelines for game-play based on good strategy. Soar was chosen as the platform for building this agent because it came built-in with features that facilitate creating rules-based …

Real Time Prognostic Strategies Application To Gas Turbines, Rajat Sekhon

All Theses

Gas turbines are increasingly deployed throughout the world to provide electrical and mechanical power in consumer and industrial sectors. The efficiency of these complex multi-domain systems is dependant on the turbine's design, established operating envelope, environmental conditions, and maintenance schedule. A real-time health management strategy can enhance overall plant reliability through the continual monitoring of transient and steady-state system operations. The availability of sensory information for control system needs often allow diagnostic/prognostic algorithms to be executed in a parallel fashion which warn of impending system degradations. Specifically, prognostic strategies estimate the future plant behavior which leads to minimized maintenance costs …

Effects Of Ionizing Radiaton On Diaphyseal Cortical Bone, Neil Travis

All Theses

Radiation exposure is experienced in both radiotherapy and exploratory space missions. As cancer treatments improve and astronauts aim to explore beyond low earth, radiation's effects on bone must be clearly understood. Nine-week old female C57BL/6 mice were evaluated for cortical bone changes by mechanical testing, micro-computed tomography, quantitative histomorphometry, percent mineralization and micro-hardness indentation. Study one, Multi-Type study, mice received a 2 Gray (Gy) gamma, proton, iron and carbon whole body radiation dose and sacrificed 110 days post-exposure. Study two, High-Dose study, mice received a 7 Gy gamma radiation whole body dose and sacrificed 14 days post-exposure. Neither study revealed …

Analysis Of Ride Quality Of Tractor Semi-Trailers, Christopher Spivey

All Theses

This thesis develops parameter variation techniques for calculating the set of vehicle parameters that result in the best ride comfort for the driver. The model is a fifteen degree-of-freedom (15 DOF) tractor semi-trailer vertical dynamic ride model. The modeling and simulation techniques used in this thesis are extensions of the research performed by Trangsrud and Vaduri. Features of the model include suspension characteristics for (a) each of the five axles (tractor steer axle, two tractor drive axles, and two trailer axles), (b) tires, (c) a flexible engine mount, (d) the tractor cab, (e) the driver's seat, and (f) a fifth …

High Resolution Millimeter Wave Inspecting Of The Orbiter Acreage Heat Tiles Of The Space Shuttle, Joseph Toby Case, Sergey Kharkovsky, R. Zoughi, Frank L. Hepburn

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The physical cause of Space Shuttle Columbia's catastrophic failure was a breach in its thermal protection system, caused by a piece of external tank insulating foam (SOFI) separating from the external tank and striking the leading edge of the left wing of the orbiter. Consequently, there is an urgent need for a rapid, robust and life-circle oriented nondestructive testing (NDT) technique capable of inspecting the SOFI as well as the orbiter's protective heat tiles and its fuselage prior and subsequent to a launch. Microwave and millimeter wave NDT methods have shown great potential to achieve these goals using real focused …

Effectiveness Of Green Roof Stormwater Treatment Systems Irrigated With Recycled Green Roof Filtrate To Achieve Pollutant Removal With Peak And Volume Reduction In Florida, Martin Wanielista, Michael Hardin

BMP Trains Research and Publications

No abstract provided.

Bs News

Building Services Engineering

No abstract provided.

A Bayesian Method For Groundwater Quality Monitoring Network Analysis, Khalil A. Ammar

All Graduate Theses and Dissertations, Spring 1920 to Summer 2023

Water resources management is best done when an efficient and reliable information system is available that provides data about the state of the water system being managed. Herein, a new methodology is developed and demonstrated that incorporates different aspects of monitoring, including vulnerability assessment, environmental health risk, the value of information, and redundancy reduction in an existing monitoring network. These various objectives reflect a desire for cost- efficiency, while taking into account uncertainty in predictions of groundwater contamination potential. This methodology is presented within an integrated approach to groundwater quality monitoring that includes several multi-objective aspects associated with decisions about …

Factors Affecting The Spread Of A Bioterrorist Agent Through A Building, William Cantrell

Mechanical Engineering Undergraduate Honors Theses

Bioterrorism has become a concern for Americans since the 2001 anthrax letters. Many studies have been done regarding the possibilities of biological attacks since, and most deal with possibilities of large scale attacks. However, there is reason to believe that small scale attacks are more likely. Even though studies have been done revolving around the postal system and the spread of bioagents through mail, few if any studies have looked at an attack on a single building. One particular method of attacking a building would be simply releasing an aerosoled contaminant in the building. This purpose of this project is …

Raman Spectroscopy Of The Human Nail: A Potential Tool For Evaluating Bone Health?, Mark R. Towler, A. Wren, N. Rushe, J. Saunders, N. M. Cummins, P. M. Jakeman

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Dual X-ray absorptiometry (DEXA) is the current gold standard for the diagnosis of osteoporosis. However, patients can suffer osteoporotic fractures despite normal bone mineral density, partly because of unmeasured influences of both the protein and mineral phases of bone that are affected in osteoporosis. There is currently no clinically applicable method of evaluating the health of the protein phase. The proteins in human nail (keratin) and bone (collagen) require sulphation and disulphide bond (S-S) formation for structural integrity and disorders of either sulphur metabolism or cystathione beta-synthase can lead to structural abnormalities in these tissues. Raman protein spectra provide a …

Mitigating The Impacts Of Uncontrolled Air Flow On Indoor Environmental Quality And Energy Demand In Non-Residential Buildings, Florida Solar Energy Center, Hugh Henderson, Jr.

FSEC Energy Research Center®

This project builds on previous field research in Florida that has demonstrated the significant impact that uncontrolled air flows (UAFs) have on indoor environmental quality (IEQ) and energy use in small commercial buildings, a large but poorly understood segment of the nation's building stock. The goal of this project was to extend that research to a national scale by assessing the importance of UAFs in a sample of 25 commercial buildings in New York State. The differences in climate and construction techniques between New York and Florida are expected to bound the range conditions typically found on a national basis. …

Functional Dissociation In Frontal And Striatal Areas For Processing Of Positive And Negative Reward Information, Xun Liu, David K. Powell, Hongbin Wang, Brian T. Gold, Christine R. Corbly, Jane E. Joseph

Neuroscience Faculty Publications

Reward-seeking behavior depends critically on processing of positive and negative information at various stages such as reward anticipation, outcome monitoring, and choice evaluation. Behavioral and neuropsychological evidence suggests that processing of positive (e.g., gain) and negative (e.g., loss) reward information may be dissociable and individually disrupted. However, it remains uncertain whether different stages of reward processing share certain neural circuitry in frontal and striatal areas, and whether distinct but interactive systems in these areas are recruited for positive and negative reward processing. To explore these issues, we used a monetary decision-making task to investigate the roles of frontal and striatal …

Stacked Generalization For Early Diagnosis Of Alzheimer's Disease, Hardik P. Gandhi

Theses and Dissertations

Alzheimer's disease (AD) is a neurological disorder characterized by nerve degeneration and neuronal death. The diagnosis of AD at an early stage is a major concern due to growing number of elderly people affected by the disease, as well as the lack of a standard diagnosis procedure available to community clinics. A biomarker that will allow early diagnosis of the disease would be beneficial. Such biomarker should be noninvasive, simple to obtain, safe, inexpensive, accurate, and most importantly, must be made available to local health clinics for maximum effectiveness.

Recent studies have used wavelets and other signal processing methods to …

2007 - The Twelfth Annual Symposium Of Student Scholars

Symposium of Student Scholars Program Books

The full program book from the Twelfth Annual Symposium of Student Scholars, held on April 23, 2007. Includes abstracts from the presentations and posters.

The Case For Teaching Network Protocols To Computer Forensics Examiners, Gary C. Kessler, Matt Fasulo

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

Most computer forensics experts are well-versed in basic computer hardware technology, operating systems, common software applications, and computer forensics tools. And while many have rudimentary knowledge about the Internet and simple network-lookup tools, they are not trained in the analysis of network communication protocols and the use of packet sniffers. This paper describes digital forensics applications for network analysis and includes four case studies.

Keywords: computer forensics education, network forensics, protocol analysis

An Exploratory Analysis Of Computer Mediated Communications On Cyberstalking Severity, Stephen D. Barnes, David P. Biros

Annual ADFSL Conference on Digital Forensics, Security and Law

The interaction between disjunctive interpersonal relationships, those where the parties to the relationship disagree on the goals of the relationship, and the use of computer mediated communications channels is a relatively unexplored domain. Bargh (2002) suggests that CMC channels can amplify the development of interpersonal relationships, and notes that the effect is not constant across communications activities. This proposal suggests a line of research that explores the interaction between computer mediated communications (CMC) and stalking, which is a common form of disjunctive relationships. Field data from cyberstalking cases will be used to look at the effects of CMC channels on …

40th Conference On Senior Engineering Design Projects, College Of Engineering And Applied Sciences

Senior Engineering Design Conference

The 40th Conference on Senior Engineering Design Projects was held on April 17, 2007 at the College of Engineering and applied Sciences on the Parkview Campus of Western Michigan University. The college sponsors the conference to showcase the work of its graduating seniors, who are required to complete a capstone project that puts into practice what they have learned. Many of the projects are sponsored by business and industry.

Trials Bike Frame Concept, David Boboltz, Rob Harmer, Caleb Vanderveen

Honors Theses

Development of a Concept Trials Frame was a mechanical engineering design project that developed a new bicycle frame that has the strength and durability to be used for trials bike riding. The scope of the project was placed solely on the bicycle's frame. Current frames were analyzed based on their strength, durability, stiffness, weight, and appearance. These factors were ranked for importance and became the performance targets for the new frame. Several designs that utilize elastic strain energy to increase performance were brainstormed. Following SolidWorks modeling, equivalent impact loads were calculated using several analytical methods. These loads were then applied …

A Multilevel Analysis Of Individual And Organizational-Level Effects On Staff Attitudes Towards Use Of Medication In Substance Abuse Treatment, John Patrick Fitzgerald

Dissertations and Theses

Studies consistently indicate a general lack of support for use of medications in the treatment of substance abuse disorders by clinicians, patients, and other stakeholders involved in treatment. Both individual and organizational factors have been shown to influence attitudes towards medications, but the relative contribution of each of these factors remains unclear. Whereas previous studies, by their very design, have generated multilevel data structures, they nevertheless have employed analytic strategies that ignore the multilevel dependencies inherent in such data sets.

To address these limitations, this study took a multilevel approach to investigate the influence of individual and organizational factors on …

Robot For Surgical Applications: United States Patent No. Us 7,199,545 B2, Dmitry Oleynikov, Shane Farritor, Adnan Hadzialic, Stephen R. Platt

Department of Mechanical and Materials Engineering: Faculty Publications

The present invention provides a robot for use inside an open abdominal cavity during minimally-invasive surgery. The robot may include various sensors, imaging devices or manipulators.

Image-Guided Diffuse Optical Fluorescence Tomography Implemented With Laplacian-Type Regularization, Scott C. Davis, Hamid Dehghani, Jia Wang, Shudong Jiang, Brian W. Pogue, Keith D. Paulsen

Dartmouth Scholarship

A promising method to incorporate tissue structural information into the reconstruction of diffusion-based fluorescence imaging is introduced. The method regularizes the inversion problem with a Laplacian-type matrix, which inherently smoothes pre-defined tissue, but allows discontinuities between adjacent regions. The technique is most appropriately used when fluorescence tomography is combined with structural imaging systems. Phantom and simulation studies were used to illustrate significant improvements in quantitative imaging and linearity of response with the new algorithm. Images of an inclusion containing the fluorophore Lutetium Texaphyrin (Lutex) embedded in a cylindrical phantom are more accurate than in situations where no structural information is …

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 …

A Lean Modeling Protocol For Evaluating Green Project Delivery, Leidy E. Klotz, Michael Horman, Mark Bodenschatz

Publications

The first vital step to leaning an operation is to model or map the processes used to deliver value in that operation. This allows the requisite understanding of where waste and non value-adding activity exists, and provides the foundation for improvement. Current protocols for modeling operations present the basic tenets for lean mapping, but tend to be based in manufacturing language, and are not easily adapted to capital facilities projects. “Green” or “sustainable” capital projects delivered using current project delivery systems seem to be laden with hidden waste. These projects tend to be more challenging to deliver due increased levels …

Cuando Viene El Agua: Percepciones De Los Impactos Sociales Del Proyecto Hidroeléctrico “Chan-75” En Las Comunidades Ubicadas En La Cuenca Del Río Changuinola, Bocas Del Toro, Jeffery D. Stein

Independent Study Project (ISP) Collection

This report analyzes the anticipated social impacts of a hydroelectric project, titled “Chan-75,” in the surrounding communities. The project is located in the Bosque Protector de Palo Seco (BPPS) protected area along the Changuinola River. The flooding of 750 ha to create a reservoir for the dam will require the resettlement of roughly 1,000 residents of at least four indigenous Ngöbe Buglé communities including Valle del Rey, Charco la Pava, Changuinola Arriba, and Guayabal, in addition to the submersion of thousands of ha of farmland belonging to residents of nearby communities (Cordero et al). Once completed, the dam will generate …

Stress And Emotion Classification Using Jitter And Shimmer Features, Xi Li, Jidong Tao, Michael T. Johnson, Joseph Soltis, Anne Savage, Kirsten Leong, John D. Newman

Dr. Dolittle Project: A Framework for Classification and Understanding of Animal Vocalizations

In this paper, we evaluate the use of appended jitter and shimmer speech features for the classification of human speaking styles and of animal vocalization arousal levels. Jitter and shimmer features are extracted from the fundamental frequency contour and added to baseline spectral features, specifically Mel-frequency cepstral coefficients (MFCCs) for human speech and Greenwood function cepstral coefficients (GFCCs) for animal vocalizations. Hidden Markov models (HMMs) with Gaussian mixture models (GMMs) state distributions are used for classification. The appended jitter and shimmer features result in an increase in classification accuracy for several illustrative datasets, including the SUSAS dataset for human speaking …