Digital Commons Network^™

Lucerne Is It For Me? Participants Notes, Richard O'Donnell

Agriculture reports

Participants will be able to recognise landscape components on their farm, which are at risk of salinity (current, imminent or future) and will be aware of a range of available options available to them to managing this risk. This workshop has been developed as part of the GRDC/NDSP funded ?A Million Hectares for the Future? Project.

Privatization Initiatives: A Source For Engineering Economy Case Studies, Paul Kauffmann, Tarek Abdel-Salam, Keith Williamson, Carol L. Considine

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

A case study method which reviews the basic structure of the circular A-76 privatization decision model is discussed. It highlights the possibilities for development of case studies that can challenge student teams to apply engineering economy tools while developing skills in a range of circular areas that are important to undergraduate engineering education and career success in engineering practice. Beyond building quantitative and qualitative business analysis skills, engineering economy cases can enhance student skills in other topical areas such as technical presentations, and report writing. The privatization initiatives and related decision models can also enhance human relations oriented skills in …

A Template Functional-Gage Design Using Parameter-File Table In Autodesk Inventor, Cheng Lin, Moustafa Moustafa

Engineering Technology Faculty Publications

A systematic approach using Autodesk Inventor to design the functional gages of Geometric Dimensioning & Tolerancing (GD&T) is presented. The gages can be used to check straightness, angularity, perpendicularity, parallelism, and position tolerances of a part when geometric tolerances are specified with Maximum Material Condition (MMC). Four steps are proposed to accomplish the task: (1) creation of two-dimensional (2-D) initial template files, (2) generation of hierarchical folders for the template files, (3) creation a 3-D gage model from a specific template file, and (4) dimensioning and generation of the gage drawing. Results show that, by following this approach, students can …

Community Benchmarks: An Analysis Of Performance Measurements In Urban Planning Management, Susan Joan Daluddung

Dissertations and Theses

New public management practices in the U.S. call for governmental accountability, performance measures and benchmarks. Community benchmarks research provides a basis for current information and further research for planners and educators in the urban planning profession. A benchmark is simply a standard for performance or targeted level of service delivery aspired to by the city. Community benchmarks, as defined by the researcher, are tied to an adopted community plan. Community plans take many shapes including the General or Comprehensive Plan, the city's budget document, or a variety of strategic planning documents.

The intent of the study was to complete research …

Groundwater Study Of The Boddington Townsite, Gregory Paul Raper

Resource management technical reports

A study of the groundwater beneath the Boddington townsite was carried out in April 2002. The aim was to assess the salinity risk to the townsite infrastructure and to accelerate the implementation of effective salinity management for the town. The study consisted of field reconnaissance, a drilling program, expansion of a groundwater-monitoring network installed in March 2001, and groundwater monitoring.

Deep Drains To Manage Groundwater, Neil Cox, Sylvia Tetlow, Neil Coles

Bulletins 4000 -

A channel that is 1.0 m to 3.0 m in depth is considered to be a deep drain. The drain is excavated to a depth that is sufficient to intercept the watertable in order to capture and convey that groundwater from flat, poorly drained land.

The drain can either be ‘open’ to allow the inflow of surface water or ‘leeved’ to exclude surface water. An open deep drain has its spoil banks placed on one side or on alternate sides of the channel (Figure 1) while a leveed deep drain has continuous spoil banks placed on both sides of the …

Beyond The Roof, Faye. Pelosi

Electronic Theses and Dissertations 2000 - 2009

Ultimately, these verses are reflections of paintings (not necessarily paintings made with brush and oil, but paintings created by Nature, memory, and so forth). Each poem is also a painting and each painting is also a poem in the sense that the poetry should work the way a painting does by presenting a vivid image and idea. In every case, one has stemmed from the other. I want to translate the visual arts into writing, which includes the visual art of imagination because images are my natural language. These verses are an attempt at intermixing the categories (language and image), …

Valuing Diversity As An Imperative For Fulfilling The Mission Of The Church, Walter B. T. Douglas

Faculty Publications

Demographic shifts, cultural and ethnic diversity, globalization, and the rapid expansion of the church in the southern hemisphere strongly suggest that the future growth of Adventism may emerge in the developing nations. This article is an attempt to engage in conversation on the changing face of Adventism and the challenge this new Adventism presents across cultural, ethnic, and racially diverse communities. This article provides the church with a window of opportunity to view diversity not as an event but as a process to maximize and explore the richness of its diversity and to see it not as a problem to …

Dangerous Memories: Lynching And The U.S. Literary Imagination, Anne P. Rice

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

The terrorization of African Americans through lynching was a national cultural trauma producing a struggle over the meaning of suffering, victimization and moral responsibility. The lesson you were meant to learn from white supremacy and terror powerfully affected how you remembered lynching. My dissertation asks who remembered (and did not remember) what about lynching and how these habits of memory influenced literary and visual representations. I consider the impact of race, gender, class, and sexuality on how lynching was textualized and performed, avoided and blocked. While much recent scholarship has concentrated on the visual technologies of lynching, lynching was also …

Represent: The New York City Public Housing Resident Alliance And Its Struggle Against The Imposition Of The Neoliberal Agenda, Gretchen Susi

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

This research has focused on four interconnected topics: the formation of a citywide group of public housing residents and advocates (The New York City Public Housing Resident Alliance); a collaboration between the Resident Alliance and building trade unions in New York City to gain jobs for public housing residents—The TRADES Coalition (Trade Unions and Residents for Apprenticeship Development and Economic Success); public housing activism in an era of neoliberal reform; and efforts on the part of the Resident Alliance to engage in what Henri Lefebvre refers to as the production of space. It has examined how The New York City …

Geomechanics Applied To Reservoir Development In The Coso Geothermal Field, Andrew J. Nygren

Theses and Dissertations

The Coso geothermal field is located approximately 220 kilometers north of Los Angeles, CA. In 2002, a project began to develop the east flank of the Coso geothermal field into an enhanced geothermal system (EGS); in such a system water is injected via injection well(s) into hot dry basement rock through naturally occurring or stimulated fractures. The injected water gathers heat from the reservoir rock before being extracted for direct use or energy production. To develop such a reservoir, adequate understanding of the reservoir geomechanics is necessary. This thesis investigates the state of stress and rock fractures, the existing permeable …

The Survival Of The Great Plains States: Saving North Dakota, Gregg Schmidt

Theses and Dissertations

No abstract provided.

The Alleged Persecution Of The Roman Christians By The Emperor Domitian, Ken Laffer

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

This thesis examines the traditional view of Domitian 's reign, particularly as it relates to his alleged persecution of Roman Christians. In the light of recent revisionist studies, which offer alternative views, this alleged persecution needs to be reassessed. In order to reevaluate this topic, it will be necessary to examine the opinions of the traditionalists and the revisionists, argued from the pagan primary sources together with views expressed in Christian primary and secondary sources. The study of the development of the Domitianic tradition, which involves accounts from a variety of primary and secondary sources, will involve a re-examination of …

"My Dearest Mum": A Biographical Journey Based On My Mother's Letters From Australia To England 1968-1985, Helen Ritter

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

not available

3d-Softchip: A Novel 3d Vertically Integrated Adaptive Computing System [Thesis], Chul Kim

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

At present, as we enter the nano and giga-scaled integrated-circuit era, there are many system design challenges which must be overcome to resolve problems in current systems. The incredibly increased nonrecurring engineering (NRE) cost, abruptly shortened Time-to- Market (ITA) period and ever widening design productive gaps are good examples illustrating the problems in current systems. To cope with these problems, the concept of an Adaptive Computing System is becoming a critical technology for next generation computing systems. The other big problem is an explosion in the interconnection wire requirements in standard planar technology resulting from the very high data-bandwidth requirements …

Image Quality Assessment Using Artificial Neural Networks, Alexander Havstad

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

not available

Exploring A Technology-Facilitated Part-Complete Solution Method For Learning Computer Programming, Stuart K. Garner

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Learning to program is now a requirement in many courses of study in such areas as computer science, information technology, information systems, multimedia. engineering, and science. However, research indicates that many students have great difficulties in learning to program and this results in high failure rates and high levels of withdrawal from academic courses. It is accepted that programming is an intrinsically difficult subject however the teaching and learning methods used in many programming courses have changed little over the years. The literature indicates the importance of reducing the cognitive load that students experience when learning programming and that one …

Towards The Light : A Fictionalized (Auto) Biography, John Cailes

Theses: Doctorates and Masters

Towards the Light - - at times biographical, autobiographical, and basically fiction - is built out of anecdotes supplied to me as the result of direct questioning of my parents and relatives, and from my own memories of past experiences; from private 'on the ground' observations both in Western Australia and in Cornwall, England – and, where factual information is lacking, a good deal of creative invention on my part. My paternal great-grandfather who at the age of eight began his working life in a Cornish tin mine provided me with a figure central to my purpose while constructing this …

Polymerization Kinetics Of Peo-B-Pnipaam Block Copolymers, William G. Pitt, Yi Zeng

Faculty Publications

Our research in ultrasonic activated drug delivery motivated us to develop polymeric micelles that sequester hydrophobic drugs (Fig. 1) until they are sheared open by cavitation events produced by low frequency ultrasound (Fig. 2). [1] Using this type of drug delivery system, micelles sequestering drug can circulate freely without releasing their drug until they flow through a tumor or other tissue insonated by low frequency ultrasound. There they release part of their drug (Fig. 3). [2,3] This drug delivery technology was used to reduce tumors in a rat model [4] using block copolymers of PEO and PPO. However, we are …

Mechanism Of Targeted Chemotherapeutic Delivery Using Ultrasound, Thaidra A. Gaufin, Byron K. Murray, Seiga Ohmine, Kim L. O'Neill, William G. Pitt, Briant S. Stringham

Faculty Publications

Ultrasound (US) is used to enhance and target delivery of drugs and genes to cancer tissues. The advantages of focused delivery to select tissues are manifold, but the exact mechanisms are largely unknown and need clarification to optimize delivery. The present study further defined the role of collapse cavitation in US-induced permeabilization of cell membranes and subsequent drug or gene uptake by the cell. Cavitation, defined as the collapse of micro-bubbles, produces high shear stresses and shock waves that may transiently puncture cell membranes and has been suggested as the cause of increased permeability. The hypothesis that collapsing bubbles permeabilize …

Efficient Capacity-Based Antenna Selection For Mimo Systems, Michael A. Jensen, Matthew L. Morris

Faculty Publications

The achieved capacity of the multiple-input-multiple-output wireless channel is typically dependent on the array configurations at the transmitter and receiver. Maximizing system capacity or throughput therefore requires that the arrays adapt to changing channel conditions, which may be accomplished by selecting an appropriate subset of available antenna elements for connection to the electronic transmit and receive modules. This work presents algorithms, derived using relatively straightforward information theoretic considerations, for efficiently and effectively selecting the antenna elements. Computational examples using a realistic channel model for indoor environments illustrate the performance of the techniques.

Network Model For Mimo Systems With Coupled Antennas And Noisy Amplifiers, Michael A. Jensen, Matthew L. Morris

Faculty Publications

This work presents a framework for the analysis of mutually-coupled antennas in a multiple-input multiple-output system. The approach uses network theory to formulate the transfer matrix relating the signals input to the transmit antennas to the signals at the output of the receiver front end. This transfer function includes the coupled transmit and receive antennas, the multipath propagation channel, the receiver matching network, and a realistic noise model for the receive amplifiers. Application of the formulation to coupled dipole antennas characterized using full-wave electromagnetic analysis illustrates the performance gains possible from matching the coupled antenna/receive amplifier subsystem for minimum noise …

Prioritization Methods For Accelerating Mdp Solvers, Kevin Seppi, David Wingate

Faculty Publications

The performance of value and policy iteration can be dramatically improved by eliminating redundant or useless backups, and by backing up states in the right order. We study several methods designed to accelerate these iterative solvers, including prioritization, partitioning, and variable reordering. We generate a family of algorithms by combining several of the methods discussed, and present extensive empirical evidence demonstrating that performance can improve by several orders of magnitude for many problems, while preserving accuracy and convergence guarantees.