Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Digital Commons Network™

Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

Brigham Young University

Discipline
Keyword
Publication Year
Publication
Publication Type
File Type

Articles 15931 - 15960 of 19131

Full-Text Articles in Entire DC Network

Multi-Physics Modeling And Calibration For Self-Sensing Of Thermomechanical In-Plane Microactuators, Kendall B. Teichert Jul 2008

Multi-Physics Modeling And Calibration For Self-Sensing Of Thermomechanical In-Plane Microactuators, Kendall B. Teichert

Theses and Dissertations

As technology advances and engineering capabilities improve, more research has focused on microscopic possibilities. Microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) is one area that has received much attention recently. Within MEMS much research has focused on sensing and actuation. This thesis presents work on a particular actuator of interest, the thermomechanical in-plane microactuator (TIM). Recent work has shown the possibility of a novel approach of sensing mechanical outputs of the TIM without ancillary sensors. This sensing approach exploits the piezoresistive property of silicon. However, to implement this approach a full model of the TIM would need to be obtained to describe the physics …

Go to article

Secondhand Chinoiserie And The Confucian Revolutionary: Colonial America's Decorative Arts "After The Chinese Taste", Kiersten Claire Davis Jul 2008

Secondhand Chinoiserie And The Confucian Revolutionary: Colonial America's Decorative Arts "After The Chinese Taste", Kiersten Claire Davis

Theses and Dissertations

This thesis explores the implications of chinoiserie, or Western creations of Chinese-style decorative arts, upon an eighteenth century colonial American audience. Chinese products such as tea, porcelain, and silk, and goods such as furniture and wallpaper displaying Chinese motifs of distant exotic lands, had become popular commodities in Europe by the eighteenth century. The American colonists, who were primarily culturally British, thus developed a taste for chinoiserie fashions and wares via their European heritage. While most European countries had direct access to the China trade, colonial Americans were banned from any direct contact with the Orient by the British East …

Go to article

Secondary Intervention For Students At Risk For Emotional And Behavioral Disorders Within A Positive Behavior Support Model, Jennifer Anne James Jul 2008

Secondary Intervention For Students At Risk For Emotional And Behavioral Disorders Within A Positive Behavior Support Model, Jennifer Anne James

Theses and Dissertations

Mentoring is an intervention growing in popularity with a weak research foundation. This study combines mentoring and social skill training within a positive behavior support framework. Targeting a fourth-grade, Latino student at risk for emotional and behavioral disorders, this single-subject study looks at his ability to master a specific social skill. The mentor served to reinforce social skill learning through practicing, role-playing, and goal setting. The student was chosen using the Systematic Screening for Behavior Disorders and the social skill was created using the School Social Behavior Scales that identified social skill strengths and weaknesses. Student demonstration of the social …

Go to article

A True War Story: Reality And Simulation In The American Literature And Film Of The Vietnam War, Alexis Turley Middleton Jul 2008

A True War Story: Reality And Simulation In The American Literature And Film Of The Vietnam War, Alexis Turley Middleton

Theses and Dissertations

The Vietnam War has become an important symbol and signifier in contemporary American culture and politics. The word "Vietnam" contains many meanings and narratives, including both the real events of the American War in Vietnam and the fictional representations of that war. Because we live in a reality that is composed of both lived experience and simulacra, defined by Baudrillard as a hyperreality, fiction and simulation are capable of representing particular realities. Vietnam was shaped by simulacra of Vietnam itself as well as simulacra of previous American conflicts, especially World War II; however, the hyperreality of Vietnam differed largely from …

Go to article

Mode I Fracture Toughness Testing Of Friction Stir Processed Hsla-65, Jeffery D. Horschel Jul 2008

Mode I Fracture Toughness Testing Of Friction Stir Processed Hsla-65, Jeffery D. Horschel

Theses and Dissertations

In order to investigate the viability of friction stir welding for use in Naval construction, mode one elastic-plastic fracture toughness of friction stir processed HSLA-65 was determined using current ASTM 1820 and BS 7448 standards. Double-sided welds were used to achieve 12.7 mm thick samples. A constant feed rate of 100 mm/min was used for all welds. To explore the effect of weld parameters on toughness, welds were produced using two rotational speeds: 340 RPM and 490 RPM. The weld centerline, advancing side hardened region (ASHR), and TMAZ/HAZ regions were sampled, in addition to un-welded parent material. All elastic-plastic fracture …

Go to article

A Compliant Threshold Acceleration Sensor Integrated With Radio Frequency Identifiable Tags, Benjamin L. Todd Jul 2008

A Compliant Threshold Acceleration Sensor Integrated With Radio Frequency Identifiable Tags, Benjamin L. Todd

Theses and Dissertations

Fully compliant bistable mechanisms have been proposed to be used as threshold accelerometers. The advantages to using these devices are that they require no external power to operate and maintain their sensing state. Using this characteristic the devices can be integrated with passive radio frequency identification tags (RFID). This allows for the sensing package to lay dormant with no maintenance needed until the sensor is read by the RFID reader. This thesis presents a successfully fabricated and integrated threshold accelerometer with a passive RFID tag. This in turn has been successfully read with an RFID reader and shown to act …

Go to article

Effect Of Ca And Ph On Disease Severity Of Pink Rot Phytophthora Erythroseptica In Russett Norkotah Potato Solanum Tuberosum, Jared H. Benson Jul 2008

Effect Of Ca And Ph On Disease Severity Of Pink Rot Phytophthora Erythroseptica In Russett Norkotah Potato Solanum Tuberosum, Jared H. Benson

Theses and Dissertations

Phytophthora erythroseptica Pethyb. is a devastating fungal pathogen of potato (Solanum tuberosum). The pathogen causes a disease known as pink rot. Pink rot results in necrosis and decay of tubers; and is responsible for major losses pre and post harvest. Attributes of the disease are progressing toward epidemic proportions. To help prevent such dramatic outbreaks of the disease, understanding the factors associated with incidence will provide opportunities to control the pathogen. A link between pH and disease severity has been observed. We studied the effects of pH and Ca to determine their influence on disease development. Low pH and Ca …

Go to article

Rational Schur Rings Over Abelian Groups, Brent L. Kerby Jul 2008

Rational Schur Rings Over Abelian Groups, Brent L. Kerby

Theses and Dissertations

In 1993, Muzychuk showed that the rational S-rings over a cyclic group Z_n are in one-to-one correspondence with sublattices of the divisor lattice of n, or equivalently, with sublattices of the lattice of subgroups of Z_n. This idea is easily extended to show that for any finite group G, sublattices of the lattice of characteristic subgroups of G give rise to rational S-rings over G in a natural way. Our main result is that any finite group may be represented as the automorphism group of such a rational S-ring over an abelian p-group. In order to show this, we first …

Go to article

Homomorphisms Into The Fundamental Group Of One-Dimensional And Planar Peano Continua, Curtis Andrew Kent Jul 2008

Homomorphisms Into The Fundamental Group Of One-Dimensional And Planar Peano Continua, Curtis Andrew Kent

Theses and Dissertations

Let X be a planar or one-dimensional Peano continuum. Let E be a Hawaiian Earring with fundamental group H. We show that every homomorphism from H to the fundamental group of X is conjugate to a homomorphism which is induced by a continuous function.

Go to article

Ordinal Regression To Evaluate Student Ratings Data, Emily Brooke Bell Jul 2008

Ordinal Regression To Evaluate Student Ratings Data, Emily Brooke Bell

Theses and Dissertations

Student evaluations are the most common and often the only method used to evaluate teachers. In these evaluations, which typically occur at the end of every term, students rate their instructors on criteria accepted as constituting exceptional instruction in addition to an overall assessment. This presentation explores factors that influence student evaluations using the teacher ratings data of Brigham Young University from Fall 2001 to Fall 2006. This project uses ordinal regression to model the probability of an instructor receiving a good, average, or poor rating. Student grade, instructor status, class level, student gender, total enrollment, term, GE class status, …

Go to article

A Comparison Of The Marriage Checkup And Traditional Marital Therapy: Examining Distress Levels At Intake For Student Couples, Benjamin Richard Erwin Jul 2008

A Comparison Of The Marriage Checkup And Traditional Marital Therapy: Examining Distress Levels At Intake For Student Couples, Benjamin Richard Erwin

Theses and Dissertations

The Marriage Checkup (Cordova, Warren & Gee, 2001) was introduced as a brief intervention targeting couples at risk for severe marital distress. The purpose of this study was to examine married couples who participated in The Marriage Checkup for levels of individual and relational stress and severity of presenting problems recorded at intake. Differences were investigated between couples who, though initially requesting the brief Marriage Checkup, elected to continue with traditional marital therapy and couples who only participated in traditional marital therapy. The group means were compared using a structural equation model in order to account for the non-independence of …

Go to article

Arbitrary Degree T-Splines, Gordon Thomas Finnigan Jul 2008

Arbitrary Degree T-Splines, Gordon Thomas Finnigan

Theses and Dissertations

T-Splines is a freeform surface type similar to NURBS, that allows partial rows of control points. Up until now, T-Splines have only been formally defined for the degree three case. This paper extends the definition to support all odd, even, and mixed degree T-Spline surfaces, making T-Splines a proper superset of all standard NURBS surfaces.

Go to article

The German Proficiency Exam At Brigham Young University: A Validation Study, Tina Grahovac Starr Jul 2008

The German Proficiency Exam At Brigham Young University: A Validation Study, Tina Grahovac Starr

Theses and Dissertations

In order to continuously improve teaching and learning of a language program, it is a crucial part of program evaluation to assure that its assessment instruments have a beneficial influence on the teaching and learning procedures. For that reason, evidence was gathered to investigate the validity of test scores of the German Proficiency Exam (GPE) used by the German Section of the Germanic and Slavic Languages Department at Brigham Young University. The GPE consists of seven exam components: Listening comprehension, reading, writing, speaking, grammar, vocabulary, and strong verbs. The GPE component scores of 179 students were used to conduct the …

Go to article

Characterization Of A Phased Array Feed Model, David A. Jones Jul 2008

Characterization Of A Phased Array Feed Model, David A. Jones

Theses and Dissertations

Creating accurate software based models of phased array feeds (PAFs) is one of many steps to successfully integrating PAFs with current and future radio telescopes, which is a goal of many groups around the globe. This thesis characterizes the latest models of a 19 element hexagonal PAF of dipoles used by the BYU radio astronomy research group and presents comparisons of these models with experimental data obtained using a prototype array. Experiments were performed at the NRAO site in Green Bank, West Virginia, and utilized the outdoor antenna test range and 20 meter radio telescope. Accurate modeling of the PAF …

Go to article

Advanced Cascading Sensor Observation Service, D. Havlik, Gerald Schimak, R. Barta Jul 2008

Advanced Cascading Sensor Observation Service, D. Havlik, Gerald Schimak, R. Barta

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Main goals of “Global Monitoring for Environment and Security” (GMES, see http://www.gmes.info/), and “Global Earth Observation System of Systems” (GEOSS, see http://www.earthobservations.org) can be summarized as: “how to remove the obstacles for sharing environmental information?”. Austrian Research Centres (ARC) participates in development of the IT-infrastructure, architecture and services capable of addressing this challenge in the context of risk management through ORCHESTRA IP (http://www.eu-orchestra.org/), and in the context of environmental monitoring networks through SANY IP (http://sany-ip.eu/). In order to minimize the cost associated with “bridging the technology gaps” between the networks, ORCHESTRA proposes an abstract architecture and a methodology for mapping …

Go to article

Developments In Urban Environmental Information Perception And Communication, Kostas Karatzas, J. Lee Jul 2008

Developments In Urban Environmental Information Perception And Communication, Kostas Karatzas, J. Lee

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Urban environmental information (EI) is related to knowledge concerning the status, the pressures and the consequences of environmental quality parameters to human life and the urban surroundings. One of the most important aspects in the life cycle of EI is knowledge generation and flow, data management and information dissemination between ICT systems and environmental actors, players, or interested parties. In the present paper, urban air quality serves as the application domain, for which the following issues are discussed, • Analysis of the way that environmental information is related to urban structures (roads, buildings, etc) • Investigation of the spatial and …

Go to article

Assessment And Management Of Environmental Risks Resulting From Operation Of Large-Scale Irrigation Delivery Systems: A Case Study In Southern Italy, D. Zaccaria, M. Scimone Jul 2008

Assessment And Management Of Environmental Risks Resulting From Operation Of Large-Scale Irrigation Delivery Systems: A Case Study In Southern Italy, D. Zaccaria, M. Scimone

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The cumulative effects of irrigation delivery schedule on aquifer and onagricultural soils were analysed in a study conducted on a large-scale irrigated area locatedin southern Italy. These effects likely result from the inadequate operation of the largescaleirrigation delivery system. Agriculture in the study area is market-oriented and tightlydependant on irrigation, due to hot and dry climatic conditions and to the poor distributionof seasonal rainfall. The study area is characterized by fairly high levels of groundwatersalinity likely due to intensive exploitation of the aquifer by farmers especially during peakirrigation demand periods. The concentration of groundwater pumping during these periodsresults most likely …

Go to article

Massacre At Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy. By Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., And Glen M. Leonard, Jared Farmer Jul 2008

Massacre At Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy. By Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., And Glen M. Leonard, Jared Farmer

BYU Studies

Ronald W. Walker, Richard E. Turley Jr., and Glen M. Leonard. Massacre at Mountain Meadows: An American Tragedy. New York: Oxford University Press, 2008.

Go to article

Evaluating The Information Content Of Data For Uncertainty Reduction In Hydrological Modelling, B. F. W. Croke, T. Wagener, D. A. Post, J. Freer, I. Littlewood Jul 2008

Evaluating The Information Content Of Data For Uncertainty Reduction In Hydrological Modelling, B. F. W. Croke, T. Wagener, D. A. Post, J. Freer, I. Littlewood

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The inclusion of additional information in a model should improve the model’s performance and reduce associated uncertainties. The additional information may take the form of higher temporal and/or spatial resolution of data already used, or additional types of data (including soft data). However, additional data is not necessarily equivalent with additional information as a model may only be able to make use of a fraction of the information in the data, or the approach chosen to extract data might be inefficient. Consideration of the information-to-noise ratio of the data is needed in order to evaluate whether the information will indeed …

Go to article

A New Definition Of Minimum Sustainable Flow Based On Water Quality Modelling And Fuzzy Processing, Stefano Marsili-Libelli, A. Nocita, E. Giusti, M. Saccà Jul 2008

A New Definition Of Minimum Sustainable Flow Based On Water Quality Modelling And Fuzzy Processing, Stefano Marsili-Libelli, A. Nocita, E. Giusti, M. Saccà

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Water resources in temperate and Mediterranean regions are increasingly scarce and water authorities need efficient criteria for the management of this precious commodity, guaranteeing an amount of water which ensures the preservation of aquatic life. This minimal discharge is referred to as the Minimum Sustainable Flow (MSF) and has been subject to many differing definitions in differing contexts. Gradually the purely hydraulic definition, very popular in the past, has given way to more comprehensive indicators taking into account the river ecosystem, and fish in particular, leading to very popular methods such as the IFIM (Instream Flow Incremental Methodology). The drawback …

Go to article

Shared Data Model To Support Environment Sensor Network Data In Hydrologic Models, M. Kumar, C. J. Duffy Jul 2008

Shared Data Model To Support Environment Sensor Network Data In Hydrologic Models, M. Kumar, C. J. Duffy

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

With the advancement of wireless communication and miniaturization of digital electronics, long term observation of remote hydrologic systems using adaptive sensor networks at high spatio-temporal resolutions and across multiple scales, has become a reality. However, for large spatial scales embedded multi-sensor networks with fine temporal sampling rates, the amount and distribution of data generated by these networks becomes unmanageably large. While the sensor network installation itself is generally supported by basic data management software, in the hydrologic sciences there is little support available to directly incorporate the data generated into the hydrologic model. We contend that a seamless transfer of …

Go to article

Entropy Theory Application For Flow Monitoring In Natural Channels, Tommaso Moramarco, A. Ammari, A. Burnelli, D. Mirauda, V. Pascale Jul 2008

Entropy Theory Application For Flow Monitoring In Natural Channels, Tommaso Moramarco, A. Ammari, A. Burnelli, D. Mirauda, V. Pascale

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

A quick and accurate determination of flow passing through a river section is fundamental for a large number of engineering applications, such as flood forecasting models and the real time water resources management. Velocity is one of the basic variables of open channel flow and its variation across a section is described by the velocity profile distribution. This aspect has also been investigated through a probabilistic approach based on the entropy concept, which also expresses the mean flow velocity as a linear function of the maximum velocity through a dimensionless entropy parameter M. Therefore, the entropic relationship between the mean …

Go to article

Towards An Agent-Based Design For The Management Of Urban Wastewater Systems, M. Aulinas, Manel Poch, Ulises Cortés Jul 2008

Towards An Agent-Based Design For The Management Of Urban Wastewater Systems, M. Aulinas, Manel Poch, Ulises Cortés

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Urban Wastewater Systems (UWS) have an important role in nowadays growing and urbanized areas. The management of the water and wastewater cycle in these areas is complex since wastewater sources are both heterogeneous and rapidly changing. Moreover, it implies to deal with different spatial and temporal references and to adapt to the changing conditions that might appear in both natural and urban environments. New paradigms are required to be undertaken when designing and modelling this complex dynamic system, since the need to communicate the embedded elements is essential for an efficient and effective management and a better understanding of the …

Go to article

Evolvable Biological Interfaces: An Outline Of The New Computing System, Igor Balaž, Dragutin T. Mihailović Jul 2008

Evolvable Biological Interfaces: An Outline Of The New Computing System, Igor Balaž, Dragutin T. Mihailović

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

In this paper, we represent architecture of a new individual-based model of evolvable biological interfaces. The model is based on three parts: mutable coding sequence, individual agents produced by the coding sequence and external environment represented by various virtual substances. Agents are able to recognize external substances and to perform transformations on them. However, unlike general computational scheme currently used in evolutionary computation which is based on predefined list of actions, where each action have predefined fitness value defined strictly within current problem, the recognition and corresponding transformation in this model are organized in completely different way. Here we merged …

Go to article

Environmental Information Systems Of Public Administration – Status And Trends, W. Geigera, W. Pillmannb Jul 2008

Environmental Information Systems Of Public Administration – Status And Trends, W. Geigera, W. Pillmannb

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

As a basis of political decisions and administrative measures for the long-term conservation of the natural resources of life, public administration acquires, processes, and supplies a variety of information on the environment. The environmental information systems used for this purpose are subject to constant further development. The present paper will focus on requirements made on environmental information systems in Europe, which essentially result from directives of the European Union, and outline some basic technical trends in the field of public environmental information systems. Furthermore, such systems will be classified roughly depending on the providers, target groups, intentions, etc. By way …

Go to article

Sustainable Use Of Pesticides: An Innovative Experience In Lombardy Region, Italy, C. Riparbelli, A. Di Guardo, A. Serrano, E. Capri, S. Brenna Jul 2008

Sustainable Use Of Pesticides: An Innovative Experience In Lombardy Region, Italy, C. Riparbelli, A. Di Guardo, A. Serrano, E. Capri, S. Brenna

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Pesticide contamination may affect the quality of different environmental compartments as soil, water and air and, consequently, may pose a risk to human beings and ecosystems. The current environmental and agricultural policies of the European Union are aimed at the development of sustainable agriculture production. Therefore, decision makers need innovative instruments to plan pesticide use, while farmers need directions to fight pests in a sustainable way in order to maintain reasonable cost-benefit balances for the farm. A decision support system called SuSAP Network – Supplying Sustainable Agriculture Production – has been developed for an intensive agricultural area of North Italy …

Go to article

Integration Of In-Situ And Remote Sensing Data For Water Risk Management, Bernhard H. C. Sputh, Oliver Faust, Lasse H. Pettersson, Torill Hamre, Damiano Vitulli, Alastair R. Allen, Tim Spracklen Jul 2008

Integration Of In-Situ And Remote Sensing Data For Water Risk Management, Bernhard H. C. Sputh, Oliver Faust, Lasse H. Pettersson, Torill Hamre, Damiano Vitulli, Alastair R. Allen, Tim Spracklen

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The combination of environmental measurements from different sensor equipment improveswater quality monitoring and associated risk management. The merging of in-situ andremote sensing data is a prerequisite to efficient monitoring of coastal and marine environments,because of their complementary nature and application areas. Both sensor types can monitorthe same phenomena, but remote sensing delivers the overall picture and in-situ measuring provideslocalised, high resolution measurements, over a wide range of parameters. The WARMER(WAter RiskManagement in EuRope) system combines remote sensing satellite data with in-situmeasurements for water quality risk management applications and delivers products to end-usersthrough a web GIS (Geographic Information System) portal. This …

Go to article

Conceptual Model Of Single Information Space For Environment In Europe, Jiří Hřebíček, K. Kisza Jul 2008

Conceptual Model Of Single Information Space For Environment In Europe, Jiří Hřebíček, K. Kisza

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

The paper presents the further development of the conceptual model of the Single Information Space for the Environment in Environment (SISE) and compares this with an upper ontology concept of the SISE. The developed conceptual model of the SISE enables an implementation the vision of development an integrated, modern, common, shared and sustained Single European Information Space infrastructure for environmental information exchange and environmental management in Europe.

Go to article

Creating Robust Sensor Networks - Architecture And Infrastructure, Gerald Schimak, Thomas Usländer, D. Havlik, R. M. Argent Jul 2008

Creating Robust Sensor Networks - Architecture And Infrastructure, Gerald Schimak, Thomas Usländer, D. Havlik, R. M. Argent

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Significant unregulated development is occurring in sensor devices, protocols and sensor networks especially in the areas of air and water quality monitoring and management where the focus has been on human health and exposure impacts. Satellite technology is well established as a means of deploying sensors. However, for monitoring of air and water we lack the interconnectivity of both in-situ and remote sensing devices that link to interoperable information systems. One reason for this deficiency is the lack of a sensor network infrastructure generic enough to support this interoperability and interconnectivity. This workshop will explore the architectural aspects of creating …

Go to article

The Growing Importance Of Open Service Platforms For The Design Of Environmental Information Systems, Thomas Usländer Jul 2008

The Growing Importance Of Open Service Platforms For The Design Of Environmental Information Systems, Thomas Usländer

International Congress on Environmental Modelling and Software

Environmental Information Systems (EIS) play a key role in our understanding of the past, current and future status of the environment. In the last 10-15 years, the design of EIS has undergone fundamental changes following both the requirements of the users and the capabilities of the underlying information technologies (IT). This paper first identifies three major trends that have determined these changes: 1) integration of several thematic domains to support interdisciplinary environmental tasks, 2) distribution of EIS to a wider spectrum of users, and 3) permanent functional enrichment with sophisticated functions such as environmental simulations or geo-processing capabilities. It then …

Go to article

First Prev Next Last