Digital Commons Network^™

A Web-Based Distance-Learning Course In Structural Analysis, Abi Aghayere

Articles

There are some asynchronous web-based courses available in the civil engineering technology field but to the author’s knowledge, very few courses exist in structural analysis and design. The advantages of web-based online learning include flexibility and the ability to accommodate various learning styles such as visual and auditory learners, with the visual learning style being the most common among people of college age and older. The Civil Engineering Technology program at RIT recently developed a suite of web-based courses as part of the new Certificate in Structural Design. The online courses available include Structural Analysis, Timber Design, Reinforced Concrete Design, …

The Scholarship Horizons In Engineering Technology: Choosing The Best Path, Abi Aghayere, Wiley Mckinzie, Warren Hill, David Dvorak, Dale Palmgren, Anthony Brizendine

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The issue of scholarship in Engineering Technology (ET) is becoming an important topic of discussion within the ET community due to the evolving missions of many institutions that host Engineering Technology programs. Many of these institutions now require some form of documented scholarship from their ET faculty for promotion and tenure purposes, and it is incumbent upon the ET community to support these faculty by defining not only the meaning of scholarship in ET, but also the yardstick by which such scholarship will be assessed. This issue is pertinent to ET because our programs are traditionally of an applied nature …

Rainwater Harvesting And Grey Water Recycling Systems, Liam Mccarton, Sean O'Hogain

Articles

The benefits of water efficiency measures, rainwater harvesting and greywater reuse are principally water savings and reduced volume of consumption. Cost savings can accrue to the water supplier and water user. These benefits can be felt at a local level. Only with widespread use of such technology will reduced pressure on water resources and the supply infrastructure be realised. These technologies should be considered in the context of an overall water conservation strategy and each situation evaluated separately. A water audit should be undertaken to establish existing water usage and possible demands that can be met by using these technologies. …

Water Conservation Technologies, Liam Mccarton

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Given the increasing incidence of serious flooding in Europe in recent years it might seem odd to be addressing the problem of water conservation. However, recent economic prosperity has led to an increased per capita use of water for domestic and industrial use. The traditional approach to meeting increased demand is to augment supply. However, mobilising new resources involves ever higher costs. Allied to this is the concept of sustainability, which can be defined as ‘development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs’. An important consideration of …

The Persistence Of Ecological-Economic Systems: Alternate Measures And Their Properties, Amitrajeet A. Batabyal

Articles

A number of ecologists and some economists have commented on the significance of persistence as a stability concept for jointly determined ecological-economic systems. This notwithstanding, the economics and the regional science literatures have paid scant attention to the problem of computing an ecological-economic system’s persistence. As such, this paper has two objectives. First, we derive three measures of the persistence of a jointly determined ecological-economic system whose temporal behavior is governed by the presence of thresholds. Next, we compare and contrast these three measures. Finally, we discuss their theoretical properties and their practical uses.

Enron At The Margin, William H. Widen

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No abstract provided.

High-Performance Architecture For Color Error Diffusion, Christopher R. Brown, Andreas Savakis

Articles

Error diffusion is one of the most widely used algorithms for halftoning gray scale and color images. It works by distributing the thresholding error of each pixel to unprocessed neighboring pixels, while maintaining the average value of the image. Error diffusion results in inter-pixel data dependencies that prohibit a simplistic data pipelining processing approach and increase the memory requirements of the system. In this paper, we present a multiprocessing approach to overcome these difficulties, which results in a novel architecture for high performance hardware implementation of error diffusion algorithms. The proposed architecture is scalable, flexible, cost effective, and may be …

Landsat-7 Etm+ Radiometric Stability And Absolute Calibration, Brian L. Markham, John L. Barker, Julia A. Barsi, Ed Kaita, Kurtis J. Thome, Dennis L. Helder, Frank D. Palluconi, John R. Schott, Pat Scaramuzza

Articles

Launched in April 1999, the Landsat-7 ETM+ instrument is in its fourth year of operation. The quality of the acquired calibrated imagery continues to be high, especially with respect to its three most important radiometric performance parameters: reflective band instrument stability to better than ±1%, reflective band absolute calibration to better than ±5%, and thermal band absolute calibration to better than ± 0.6 K. The ETM+ instrument has been the most stable of any of the Landsat instruments, in both the reflective and thermal channels. To date, the best on-board calibration source for the reflective bands has been the Full …

Taking Exit Row Seating Seriously, Wendy Gerwick Couture

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No abstract provided.

On-Line Spatial Processing Systems, James Carswell, Michela Bertolotto

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On-line Spatial Processing (OLSP) delivers high performance spatial systems for the modelling and monitoring of dynamic environments. It provides an ideal solution for the management of networks, land and assets, and the real-time tracking of changing spatial systems. OLSP is server-centric, as opposed to the primarily desktop-centric world of GIS. It places spatial data at the heart of the organisation's IT systems and integrates it with business and attribute data. The result is more effective use of spatial data and improved decision support and spatial intelligence throughout the organisation.

Law's Non-Existent Empire, Jeanne L. Schroeder, David G. Carlson

Articles

The article critiques Pierre Schlag's normative legal thought, arguing that while his descriptive critique of law as a fiction is accurate, his normative proposal to abolish law is contradictory and flawed. By incorporating Lacanian psychoanalysis, the authors contend that law, as part of the symbolic order, is constitutive of subjectivity and cannot be abolished. They propose that legal scholarship should instead focus on exposing law's role in shaping subjectivity rather than seeking to eliminate it. The analysis emphasizes that law, like language, is an intersubjective system sustained by collective belief, despite lacking a concrete foundation.

The Internet And The Persistence Of Law, Justin Hughes

Articles

Since legal commentators first confronted cyberspace, three broad stories have emerged to describe the interrelation of law and the Internet: the "no-law Internet," the "Internet as a separate jurisdiction," and Internet law as "translation" of familiar legal concepts. This Article reviews these stories, focusing on how ongoing "translation" is giving way to a growing convergence in Internet law. The Article makes the case for convergence among legal responses to cyberspace and proposes a basic taxonomy for different models of convergence. With this taxonomy, the Article examines the ways in which convergence is occurring, as well as its effects on both …

A Fire Risk Assessment Technique For Educational Establishments, Victor Hrymak, Noel O'Reilly

Articles

It is now widely considered as good practice to include fire risk assessment techniques when developing a fire risk management system. However there is little guidance as to how to evaluate the influence of organisational culture and human behaviour on the resultant level of fire safety. Since most accidents are caused by the failure of management systems, quantified risk assessment must take into account local safety management practices, or else it will not provide reliable information”.

This study tries to address this issue by developing a new fire risk assessment technique for assessing the fire safety management system of …

Fair Use Across Time, Justin Hughes

Articles

This Article proposes that, as a copyright work ages, the scope of fair use, especially as to derivative works and uses, should expand. This is because the "market" for a copyrighted work has a temporal dimension; the copyrighted work has a market of a fixed number of years. In considering the fourth element of § 107 fair use, courts have discussed two kinds of situations in which the market for a plaintiff's work can be adversely affected: (1) situations where a particular defendant's action adversely affected the plaintiffs market, and (2) situations where the defendant's action, if it became "widespread," …

An Atmospheric Correction Parameter Calculator For A Single Thermal Band Earth-Sensing Instrument, Julia Barsi, John Barker, John Schott

Articles

An atmospheric correction tool has been developed for public web site access for the Landsat-5 and Landsat-7 thermal band. The Atmospheric Correction Parameter Calculator uses the National Centers for Environmental Prediction (NCEP) modeled atmospheric global profiles for a particular date, time and location as input. Using commercially-available MODTRAN software and a suite of integration algorithms, the site-specific atmospheric transmission, and upwelling and downwelling radiances are derived. These calculated parameters can be applied to single band thermal imagery from Landsat-5 Thematic Mapper (TM) or Landsat-7 Enhanced Thematic Mapper Plus (ETM+) to infer an at-surface kinetic temperature for all the pixels in …

Diffusion Barrier Cladding In Si/Sige Resonant Interband Tunneling Diodes And Their Patterned Growth On Pmos Source/Drain Regions, Niu Jin, Sung-Yong Chung, Anthony Rice

Articles

Si/SiGe resonant interband tunnel diodes (RITDs) employing -doping spikes that demonstrate negative differential resistance (NDR) at room temperature are presented. Efforts have focused on improving the tunnel diode peak-to-valley current ratio (PVCR) figure-of-merit, as well as addressing issues of manufacturability and CMOS integration. Thin SiGe layers sandwiching the B -doping spike used to suppress B out-diffusion are discussed. A room-temperature PVCR of 3.6 was measured with a peak current density of 0.3 kA/cm2. Results clearly show that by introducing SiGe layers to clad the B -doping layer, B diffusion is suppressed during post-growth annealing, which raises the thermal budget. A …

Comparing Air Pollution From Ferry And Landslide Commuting, Alexander Farrell, Deborah Redman, James Corbett

Articles

Recent and anticipated growth in passenger ferry service has been complicated by concerns about air pollution from marine engines that are only starting to be regulated. While marine engines are known to be a significant and growing source category in some locations, sparse data and analytical difficulties have prevented rigorous comparisons of marine and on-land passenger travel. Using data gathered in the San Francisco Bay Area, we model emissions from three passenger ferries and the matching on-land travel that would be used by commuters if ferry service were not available. The results are analyzed parametrically for levels of ridership and …

Object Segmentation And Labeling By Learning From Examples, Yaowu Xu, Eli Saber, Murat Tekalp

Articles

We propose a system that employs low-level image segmentation followed by color and two-dimensional (2-D) shape matching to automatically group those low-level segments into objects based on their similarity to a set of example object templates presented by the user. A hierarchical content tree data structure is used for each database image to store matching combinations of low-level regions as objects. The system automatically initializes the content tree with only “elementary nodes” representing homogeneous low-level regions. The “learning” phase refers to labeling of combinations of low-level regions that have resulted in successful color and/or 2-D shape matches with the example …

Analyzing Transformation-Based Simulation Metamodels, Maria Irizarry, Michael Kuhl, Emily Lada

Articles

To analyze a simulation (response surface) metamodel that involves a variance-stabilizing transformation of the original simulation- generated response, we present two techniques. In the first technique we compute an approximate percentile-type confidence interval for the mean of the original response at a selected factor-level combination (design point) as follows: we compute the usual confidence interval for the mean of the transformed response at that design point; and then we untransform the corresponding endpoints to obtain the desired confidence interval for the untransformed metamodel. In the second technique we compute the Maximum Likelihood Estimator (MLE) for the mean of the untransformed …

Experimental Energy Performance Of Open Cooling Towers Used Under Low And Variable Approach Conditions For Indirect Evaporative Cooling Of Buildings, Ben Costelloe, Donal Finn

Articles

The success of chilled ceilings and displacement ventilation systems as a means of sensible cooling in buildings has prompted a review of evaporative cooling technology as an effective means of generating the required cooling water. When such cooling water is generated at low approach conditions (2–5 K), at the higher temperatures required in these systems (14–18°C), very high levels of availability result. In many north western European locations the levels of availability are such that the prospect of supplanting rather than simply supplementing the refrigeration system, for sensible cooling purposes, arises. The viability of the technique, however, largely depends on …

A Wide-Band Shorted Planar Monopole With Bevel, Max Ammann, Zhi Ning Chen

Articles

A new wide-band shorted planar monopole with a bevel is presented. The numerical simulations and measurements demonstrate that the impedance bandwidth of a wide-band planar square monopole is shown to increase dramatically by combining bevelling and a shorting technique. The radiation pattern stability is also discussed.

A New Approach In Water Management Or Business As Usual? The Milk River, Montana, Barbara Cosens

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No abstract provided.

When Is It Worthwhile To Use Courts To Search For Exclusionary Conduct?, Frank H. Easterbrook

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No abstract provided.

Indirect Liability For Copyright Infringement: An Economic Perspective, William M. Landes, Douglas Gary Lichtman

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No abstract provided.

The Least Restrictive Means, Alan O. Sykes

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No abstract provided.

Misappropriation: A Dirge, Richard A. Posner

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No abstract provided.

Charismatic Code, Social Norms, And The Emergence Of Cooperation On The File-Sharing Networks, Lior Strahilevitz

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No abstract provided.

In Coase's Footsteps, Douglas G. Baird

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No abstract provided.

Reply: Chapter 11 At Twilight, Douglas G. Baird, Robert K. Rasmussen

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No abstract provided.

The Missed Opportunity In Gault, Emily Buss

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No abstract provided.