Digital Commons Network^™

Systolic Algorithm For Processing Rle Images, Hao Feng, Fikret Erçal, Filiz Bunyak

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Image difference operation is commonly used in on-line automated printed circuit board (PCB) inspection systems as well as many other image processing applications. In this paper, we describe a new systolic algorithm and its system architecture which computes image differences in run-length encoded (RLE) format. The efficiency of this operation greatly affects the overall performance of the inspection system. It is shown that, for images with a high similarity measure, the time complexity of the systolic algorithm is a small constant. A formal proof of correctness for the algorithm is also given in the paper.

Optical Digital Fragmentation Measuring Systems -- Inherent Sources Of Error, Norbert H. Maerz, Wei Zhou

Geosciences and Geological and Petroleum Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Automated optical imaging systems of measuring fragmentation are increasingly being used in the mining, comminution, and materials handling industries. These methods have been well received in many of the industries involved. Considering that in many of these applications there are no alternative ways of sizing material, having even a rudimentary measurement of size distributions allows evaluations of explosive, blast design, detonator performance, crusher and milling performance, and material degradation due to transport.

Optical methods have inherent limitations, which reflect on accuracy, precision, and reproducibility of measurement results. This stems from the fact that there are myriads of variables, which affect …

A Practical Continually Online Trained Artificial Neural Network Controller For A Turbogenerator, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Ronald G. Harley

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

This paper reports on the simulation and practical studies carried out on a single turbogenerator connected to an infinite bus through a short transmission line, with a continually online trained (COT) artificial neural network (ANN) controller to identify the turbogenerator, and another COT ANN to control the turbogenerator. This identifier/controller augments/replaces the automatic voltage regulator and the turbine governor. Results are presented to show that this COT ANN identifier/controller has the potential to allow turbogenerators to operate more closely to their steady-state stability limits and nevertheless “ride through” severe transient disturbances such as three phase faults. This allows greater usage …

Segmentation Of Printed Circuit Board Images Into Basic Patterns, Madhav Moganti, Fikret Ercal

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Segmentation is the first and foremost step in the inspection of the printed circuit boards. In this paper a new technique for the segmentation of printed circuit board (PCB) images is presented. The technique basically segments a given PCB into small windows containing primitive PCB subpatterns. The technique proposed exploits the simplicity and the homogeneity of the PCB images and is inherently parallel. A detailed discussion of the experiments and the results obtained is also presented. © 1993 Academic Press.

Prediction Of Pressure Drop And Liquid Holdup In High-Pressure Trickle-Bed Reactors, M. (Muthanna) H. Al-Dahhan, M. R. Khadilkar, Y. Wu, M. P. Duduković

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Holub Et Al. (1992, 1993) Phenomenological Model for Pressure Drop and Liquid Holdup in Trickle Flow Regime at Atmospheric Pressure Was Noted by Al-Dahhan and Duduković (1994) to Systematically Underpredict Pressure Drop at High Pressure and High Gas Flow Rates. in This Study, the Holub Et Al. (1992, 1993) Model Has Been Extended to Account for the Interaction between the Gas and Liquid Phases by Incorporating the Velocity and the Shear Slip Factors between the Phases. as a Result, the Prediction of Pressure Drop at the Operating Conditions of Industrial Interest (High Pressure) Has Been Improved Noticeably Without Any …

An Interlibrary Loan System On The World Wide Web, Schubert Shou Boon Foo, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Inter-Library Loan (ILL) service is one of the services provided by libraries that offers users a way to access library resources beyond their affiliated libraries. Additionally, it allows participating libraries to share and maximize their resources. This work examines the ILL process used by libraries in Singapore and proposes that the existing paper-based manual system be replaced by a Web-based ILL system. Such a Web-based system has been successfully designed and implemented at the Nanyang Technological University. The paper presents an overview of the system requirements and architecture, implementation details and demonstrates the feasibility and advantages of the new system.

An Integrated Web-Based Ill System For Singapore Libraries, Schubert Foo, Ee Peng Lim

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

The paper proposes an integrated Web-based inter-library loan (ILL) system to replace and enhance the existing manual-based ILL system used by Singapore libraries. It describes the system requirements that must be supported in order to make it a viable and acceptable solution to all participating libraries. Subsequently, it presents the client-server Web-based system architecture, database design and Java development platform that are used to implement the system. The new system exhibits a host of advantages over the manual system including the minimising of human resource by eliminating form-filling and other forms of paper work completely, improving the access and speed …

The Changing Nature Of Theory And Practice In Marketing: On The Value Of Synchrony, Aidan O'Driscoll, John Murray

Articles

Any academic discipline with a closely associated area of professional endeavour is profoundly affected by the relationship between its theory and practice. Synchrony in theory and practice adds value to the management of enterprise and to the advance of the discipline. Mindful of this assertion, this article explores the changing nature of theory and practice in marketing. It examines current trends in marketing practice which are occurring as a result of change in markets, technology and organisations. It assesses the state of theory in six subfields of marketing. It also considers developments in closely related management disciplines as well as …

Experimental Measurements And Simulation Of Mixing And Chemical Reaction In A Stirred Tank, Robertp Zipp, Gary Kent Patterson

Chemical and Biochemical Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Effects of mixing on the rate of second-order chemical reactions have been studied by measuring the time-average degree of conversion at enough points in a steady-state, continuous-flow stirred reactor to provide comparisons with numerical simulations of the same reactions using a standard Reynolds-averaged turbulence simulation code with an added closure. The reactants were introduced in widely separated feed streams in order to provide a difficult test for the measurements and simulations. Concentration and segregation measurements were made with two fluorescence based methods - one remote and one using a fiber optic probe. The rates of mixing and reaction were simulated …

Deuterium Nmr Of Adsorbed Poly(Methyl Acrylate)-D₃, Frank D. Blum, Wuu-Yung Lin

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

The dynamics of polymers at interfaces are important in a variety of applications, especially where those applications depend on the mechanical or surface properties. Unfortunately, the surface properties of interfacial species like polymers used in composites are not easily measured macroscopically. Microscopic techniques, especially spectroscopic ones, have been successful. In our laboratory we have been successful in applying NMPR to determine the behavior of absorbed polymers. NMR has several advantages for this kind of study, the principal ones being that it can be used on opaque materials, different nuclei can be used as probes, and interfacial material can sometimes be …

Biological Fixed-Film Systems, Mark W. Fitch, Natalie Pearson, Gene Richards, Joel Gerard Burken

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Making Concrete Less Abstract, David Newton Richardson

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

CE 3 13 is a second level properties of concrete lecture course. In an effort to make it appear less abstract to the students, over the course of several semesters several learning strategies were tried, including journaling, muddiest point, entering the academy, role playing, bookends-on-a-lecture, and hands-on lab projects. Most recently, an emphasis on short writing-to-learn papers, a problems-based stance, and an integrated lab project was used. Student evaluations indicated that the lab projects and the increased writing was of significant benefit in promotion of learning.

Rose Ausländer (1901-1988): Austria-Hungary/Germany, Kathrin M. Bower

Languages, Literatures, and Cultures Faculty Publications

Rose Ausländer was born Rosalie Beatrice Scherzer on 11 May 1901 into a German-speaking Jewish family. She spent her childhood in Czernowitz, the capital of Bukovina, a province of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. After World War I, Bukovina was incorporated into Romania, and at the end of World War II was annexed by the Soviet Union. Rosalie Scherzer studied literature and philosophy at the university in Czernowitz but never completed a degree, largely because of the family's poverty after her father's death in 1920. To help alleviate this economic situation, she emigrated to the United States in 1921 with lgnaz Ausländer. …

Substroke Matching By Segmenting And Merging For Online Korean Cursive Character Recognition, Chang-Soo Kim, Kang Ryoung Park, Byung Hwan Jun, Jaihie Kim

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The Korean character is composed of several alphabets in two-dimensional formation and the total number of Korean characters exceeds eleven thousand. Therefore, the previous approaches to Korean cursive characters pay most of their attention to segmenting a character into alphabets accurately. However, it is difficult because the boundaries of alphabets are not apparent in most cases. We propose an alphabet-based method without assuming accurate alphabet segmentation. In the proposed method, a cursive character is segmented into substrokes by a set of segmenting conditions. Then it is matched with the reference substrokes generated from alphabet models and ligatures by segmenting and …

The Structural Behavior Of Homogeneous And Hybrid Stub Columns Under Dynamic Loading Conditions, Chi Ling Pan, Wei Wen Yu

Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

It has been recognized that the mechanical properties of sheet steels and the structural strength of cold-formed steel members can be influenced by strain rate. For studying the local and postbuckling behavior of the stiffened and unstiffened compression elements under dynamic loading condition, 97 stub columns which were assembled from the same material have been tested under different strain rates. In order to study the structural behavior of hybrid cold-formed stub columns, a total of 144 specimens were investigated. In addition, 52 drop silo tests of stub columns were conducted at General Motors Corporation (GM). The results showed that the …

Visual Form Of Alzheimer's Disease And Its Response To Anticholinesterase Therapy, Stacey Warren, Daniel B. Hier, Dan Pavel

Chemistry Faculty Research & Creative Works

In a 60-Year-Old Woman with the Visual Variant of Alzheimer's Disease, Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography Abnormalities Were Most Marked in the Parieto-Occipital Regions of the Brain. after Treatment with Donepezil, Improvement is Noted on Neuropsychological Testing and on Brain SPECT, Including Increased Perfusion (Metabolism) in the Occipital Lobes.

A Case Study Of One Iowa Public School Superintendent's Evaluation Process, Gail Vanous Moon

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this exploratory case study was to identify and describe one Iowa public school district's superintendent performance evaluation process. This study explored the perceptions of one superintendent and one school board of directors in regard to the purposes, criteria, sources of information, and general effectiveness of their superintendent performance evaluation process.

The study was conducted in an urban K-12 public school district in northeastern Iowa. Factors considered in the selection of the school district included: size, location, demographics, as well as the willingness of the participants ta have their voices heard through the researcher. Also, the district was …

Oil Consumption Measurements Of A Production Engine Using The Sulfur-Trace Method, Verlyn Royal Benson

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Controlling the oil consumption of diesel engines is important for customer satisfaction. Existing oil consumption measurement methods are adequate; however, improved methods offer the possibility of faster and more comprehensive results. The sulfur-trace method is an example.

Major objectives of this investigation were to adopt a sulfur-trace analyzer for oil consumption measurements, to improve the oil consumption measurement process, and to demonstrate application of the sulfur-trace instrument to individual cylinder sampling. To achieve these objectives, four research questions were applied:

1. What procedures and attention to detail are required?
2. How can results be reported to maximize data interpretation?
3. How do the …

An Evaluation Of The Aws Entry Level Welder Training Program, John R. Rice

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The purpose of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of a training program for Entry Level Welders and to provide this information to the American Welding Society (AWS), industry, and educators. The problem of this study was to evaluate the AWS Entry Level Welder Training Program (ELWTP) by obtaining the opinions of faculty members who taught the program and welders who had completed the program.

Two groups comprised the research population for this study. The first group consisted of faculty members who were actually involved in teaching the course at institutions accredited by the AWS to offer the curriculum. …

Breeding Bird Use Of Intensively Managed Rotational Grazing Pastures, Native Prairies And Savannas: A Comparison, Jennifer Marie Hurley O'Hara

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Intensively managed rotational grazing is a grazing method in which livestock are moved through a series of paddocks over a three to six week rotation. Vegetation in resting paddocks is allowed to regrow, renew energy reserves, and rebuild plant vigor to provide nutritious forage for livestock. Consequently, vegetation in the paddocks is in different stages of growth which creates a mosaic of vegetation heights across the pasture landscape. I hypothesized that the mosaic of vegetation heights resembles the native tallgrass prairie grazed by bison prior to European settlement. The mosaic may be attractive and beneficial to breeding grassland birds. Several …

Young V. Fordice: Challenging Dual Registration Under Section 5 Of The Voting Rights Act, Brenda Wright

MC Law Review

Symposium - An Analysis of Mississippi Cases Argued before the United State Supreme Court

School-Based Primary Prevention Programs For Eating Disorders, Suzanne D. Holmes

Graduate Research Papers

The primary purpose of this paper is to provide an extensive review of the literature and research related to anorexia nervosa, and to emphasize the importance of prevention programs in school settings and the role of school psychologists in the prevention and intervention process. Chapter two of this paper covers anorexia nervosa and the theories regarding its etiology, complications, co-morbidities, risk factors, and treatment. Because anorexia nervosa is a disorder which most frequently begins during adolescence, chapter three addresses the specific factors of adolescence that can lead to eating disorders.

Throughout the paper, there is an emphasis on the lack …

Automatic Car Registration Plate Recognition Using The Hough Transform, Shokri Gendy

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The development of automatic car registration plate recognition systems will provide greater efficiency for vehicle monitoring in automatic access control, and will avoid the need to equip vehicles with special RF tags for identification since all vehicles possess a unique registration plate. Thus this study is an attempt to introduce an automatic car registration plate recognition system based on identifying the plate characters by using the Hough transform. However, the proposed recognition system can be used in conjunction with a tag system for higher security access control. The automatic registration plate recognition could also have considerable potential in a wide …

Women's Perceptions Of Successful Breastfeeding During The Early Stages Of Being A Mother, Shelagh Lawrence

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The purpose of this qualitative study, guided by Rubin's Model was to describe women's perceptions of successful breastfeeding during the early stages of being a mother. The transition to motherhood marks a time of great developmental change in a woman's life. Infant feeding is an important aspect of this adaptation to the maternal role. The physiological benefits of breastfeeding for mother and baby are well documented, but there is limited research on the psychological advantages of breastfeeding for the mother. This Masters research was a discrete part of a larger research project entitled the Perth Metropolitan Breastfeeding Study. This project …

The Language And Literacy Skills And Behaviours Of Two Middle Primary Severely To Profoundly Hearing Impaired Students In The School Environment, Renee M. Kinsman

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Much research has shown that the hearing impaired population typically achieve only very low levels of literacy. Many researchers have examined the language and literacy deficits of the hearing impaired population in order to explain this. Nevertheless, a recent study has shown that hearing impaired children's preschool language and literacy development may occur along a similar pathway to that of their hearing peers. The present study aimed to investigate the language and literacy skills, behaviours and interactions of two severely to profoundly hearing impaired middle primary boys in the context of their mainstream school. Both qualitative and quantitative data sources …

Performing Cooperative Work And Conferencing On An Intranet Using Java, Thaveeporn Limpanyalers

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The process of organising, preparing and conducting a meeting is a time consuming one. Additionally, geographic separation compounds the amount of effort required. Within this study, an electronic conferencing system in an Intranet environment is designed and implemented, thus enabling employees in the same organisation to meet up electronically without the dual constraints of time and space. Specifically, the study investigates incorporation of facial expressions and an ongoing polling system. The results demonstrate that a presence of facial expressions helps users to better engage in on-line discussion and that users find an ongoing poll to be useful in determining direction …

An Art Therapy Programme Incorporating Buddhist Concepts To Address Issues Of Aggression In Adult Male Prisoners, Diane Randall

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis has researched and designed a programme that offers an alternative way of working with aggression in a male prison population, using an art therapy approach that incorporates Buddhist concepts as an intervention. Buddhist practices have traditionally been used in Eastern cultures to calm the mind and to develop compassion as an antidote to aggression. Therefore these practices have seen used as a basis for the design of exercises in the programme. The purpose of the programme is to offer an intervention that will complement, support, or be an alternative to existing treatments, which are primarily cognitive-behavioural in orientation. …

Redefining The Art Experience : From Static To Temporal Art Forms, Justine Mcknight

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This research examines an approach to art making and viewing that questions the acceptance of the autonomous object in favour of a transient experience. It focuses specifically on work and writing from the 1960s by the American artist Robert Morris that attempted to alter the then predominant Formalist understanding of the art object as autonomous and self-referential. This investigation follows the formal and conceptual development of Morris' work (and that of associated artists Richard Serra and Rafael Ferrer) with particular focus on the shift from static objects to time-based and transient an-forms including film/video and installation. I address the influence …

Improving Provision For Disaffected Students: Toward A New Educational Model, Cecilia Netolicky

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

The purpose of this study is to develop and review strategies and policies to drive retentive teaching-learning environments for disaffected students, modifying their modus operandi sufficiently for them to qualify and retain a tertiary place or position in the workforce, or sustain a return to mainstream schooling. I employed action research methods to examine Strike Four. an educational model servicing students with severe social and/ or emotional difficulties and behavioural disorders. I tested the Strike Four model during an intensive study period on two programs. Part 1 of the thesis comprises three Chapters. An introduction to the issue of the …

Factors Which Influence Women's Decisions For Choice Of Primary Surgery For Stage I And Stage Ii Breast Cancer, Barbara Mastaglia

Theses : Honours

A descriptive correlational study was conducted to describe the factors that Western Australian women with either Stage I or Stage II Breast Cancer, perceived to be important considerations when deciding upon either Modified Radical Mastectomy (MRM) or Breast Conserving Treatment (BCT) for surgical treatment. The Conflict Theory of Decision Making (Janis & Mann, 1977) was used as the theoretical framework to guide this study. Ward, Heidrich and Wolberg's (1989) Factor List, the Multidimensional Health Locus of Control (MHLC) Scale (Wallston, Wallston & De Vellis, 1978) and a demographic questionnaire were used to measure variables. Questionnaires were mailed to a consecutive …