Digital Commons Network^™

Tactile Working Memory And Multimodal Loading, Peter Terrence

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This work explored the role of spatial grouping, set size, and stimulus probe modality using a recall task for visual, auditory, and tactile information. The effects of different working memory (WM) loading task modalities were also examined. The Gestalt spatial organizing principle of grouping showed improvements in response times for visual and tactile stimulus probes with large set sizes and apparently allowed participants to effectively chunk the information. This research suggests that tactile information may use spatial characteristics typically associated with visual information, as well as sequential characteristics normally associated with verbal information. Based on these results, a reformulation of …

Game On: The Impact Of Game Features In Computer-Based Training, Renee Derouin-Jessen

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The term "serious games" became popularized in 2002 as a result of an initiative to promote the use of games for education, training, and other purposes. Today, many companies are using games for training and development, often with hefty price tags. For example, the development budget for the U.S. Army recruiting game, "America's Army" was estimated at $7 million. Given their increasing use and high costs, it is important to understand whether game-based learning systems perform as billed. Research suggests that games do not always increase learning outcomes over conventional instruction. However, certain game features (e.g., rules/goals, fantasy, challenge) might …

Initial Validation Of Novel Performance-Based Measures: Mental Rotation And Psychomotor Ability, Philip Fatolitis

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Given the high-risk nature of military flight operations and the significant resources required to train U.S. Naval Aviation personnel, continual improvement is required in the selection process. In addition to general commissioning requirements and aeromedical standards, the U.S. Navy utilizes the Aviation Selection Test Battery (ASTB) to select commissioned aviation students. Although the ASTB has been a good predictor of aviation student performance in training, it was proposed that incremental improvement could be gained with the introduction of novel, computer administered performancebased measures: Block Rotation (BRT) and a Navy-developed Compensatory Tracking task. This work constituted an initial validation of the …

Lidar Based Emissions Measurement At The Whole Facility Scale: Method And Error Analysis, Gail E. Bingham, Christian C. Marchant, Vladimir V. Zavyalov, Douglas J. Ahlstrom, Kori D. Moore, Derek S. Jones, Thomas D. Wilkerson, Lawrence E. Hipps, Randy S. Martin, Jerry L. Hatfield, John H. Prueger, Richard L. Pfeiffer

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Particulate emissions from agricultural sources vary from dust created by operations and animal movement to the fine secondary particulates generated from ammonia and other emitted gases. The development of reliable facility emission data using point sampling methods designed to characterize regional, well-mixed aerosols are challenged by changing wind directions, disrupted flow fields caused by structures, varied surface temperatures, and the episodic nature of the sources found at these facilities. We describe a three-wavelength lidar-based method, which, when added to a standard point sampler array, provides unambiguous measurement and characterization of the particulate emissions from agricultural production operations in near real …

Model Abstraction In Dynamical Systems: Application To Mobile Robot Control, Patricia Mellodge, Pushkin Kachroo

Electrical & Computer Engineering Faculty Research

This book investigates abstraction of dynamical systems for the purpose of designing controllers. Abstraction is a means to reduce a system model's complexity while retaining the important behavior of that system. The motivating example throughout this text is the robotic car. Two topics are introduced in this text: control design using abstraction and propagation of uncertainty in abstracted systems. First, this book investigates the conditions for which controllers can be designed in abstracted systems and then transferred to the original dynamical system, taking advantage of design using the simpler model. This book also studies the relationship between the evolution of …

Studies Of Spatial Clustering Of Inertial Particles In Turbulence, Ewe Wei Saw

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

We present studies of the spatial clustering of inertial particles embedded in turbulent flow. A major part of the thesis is experimental, involving the technique of Phase Doppler Interferometry (PDI). The thesis also includes significant amount of simulation studies and some theoretical considerations. We describe the details of PDI and explain why it is suitable for study of particle clustering in turbulent flow with a strong mean velocity. We introduce the concept of the radial distribution function (RDF) as our chosen way of quantifying inertial particle clustering and present some original works on foundational and practical considerations related to it. …

Electronic Properties Of Zig-Zag Carbon Nanotubes : A First-Principles Study, Pavan Kumar Valavala

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Carbon nanotube (CNT) is a one dimensional (1-D) nanostructured material, which has been the focal point of research over the past decade for intriguing applications ranging from nanoelectronics to chemical and biological sensors. Using a first-principles gradient corrected density functional approach, we present a comprehensive study of the geometry and energy band gap in zig-zag semi-conducting (n,0) carbon nanotubes (CNT) to resolve some of the conflicting findings. Our calculations confirm that the single wall (n,0) CNTs fall into two distinct classes depending upon n mod 3 equal to 1 (smaller band gaps) or 2 (larger gaps). …

Erupted Magma Volume Estimates At Santiaguito And Pacaya Volcanoes, Guatemala Using Digital Elevation Models , Kelly S. Durst

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

High resolution digital elevation models (DEMs) of Santiaguito and Pacaya volcanoes, Guatemala, were used to estimate volume changes and eruption rates between 1954 and 2001. The DEMs were generated from contour maps and aerial photography, which were analyzed in ArcGIS 9.0®. Because both volcanoes were growing substantially over the five decade period, they provide a good data set for exploring effective methodology for estimating volume changes. The analysis shows that the Santiaguito dome complex grew by 0.78 ± 0.07 km³ (0.52 ± 0.05 m³ s^-1) over the 1954-2001 period with nearly all the growth occurring on …

Digital Processing And Data Compilation Approach For Using Remotely Sensed Imagery To Identify Geological Lineaments In Hard-Rock Terrains : An Application For Groundwater Explorations In Nicaragua , Jill N. Bruning

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

Sustainable yields from water wells in hard-rock aquifers are achieved when the well bore intersects fracture networks. Fracture networks are often not readily discernable at the surface. Lineament analysis using remotely sensed satellite imagery has been employed to identify surface expressions of fracturing, and a variety of image-analysis techniques have been successfully applied in “ideal” settings. An ideal setting for lineament detection is where the influences of human development, vegetation, and climatic situations are minimal and hydrogeological conditions and geologic structure are known. There is not yet a well-accepted protocol for mapping lineaments nor have different approaches been compared in …

Financial Decision Making About Found Oil And Gas In Ghana : Real Options Vs. Traditional Methods, Isaac Owusu-Ansah

Dissertations, Master's Theses and Master's Reports - Open

This research is a study of the use of capital budgeting methods for investment decisions. It uses both the traditional methods and the newly introduced approach called the real options analysis to make a decision. The research elucidates how capital budgeting can be done when analysts encounter projects with high uncertainty and are capital intensive, for example oil and gas production. It then uses the oil and gas find in Ghana as a case study to support its argument.

For a clear understanding a thorough literature review was done, which highlights the advantages and disadvantages of both methods.

The revenue …

Numerical Analysis Of Elliptic Inverse Problems With Interior Data, Mark Gockenbach

Department of Mathematical Sciences Publications

A number of algorithms have been proposed and analyzed for estimating a coefficient in an elliptic boundary value problem when interior data is available. Most of the analysis has been done for the simple scalar BVP

-Δ a Δ u = f in Ω,

a (∂ u / ∂ n) g on ∂ Ω

However, some methods and the associated analysis have been extended to the problem of estimating the Lamé moduli in the system of linear, isotropic elasticity. Under certain idealized conditions, convergence of estimates to the exact Lame moduli has been proved for two techniques, the output …

Electrical And Computer Engineering Research Report 2008, Department Of Electrical And Computer Engineering, Michigan Technological University

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering Annual Reports

• Department
• Research
• New Chair
• Publications
• Enterprise

Intermittent Water Supplies: Challenges And Opportunities For Residential Water Users In Jordan, David E. Rosenberg, Samer Talozi, Jay Lund

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

Intermittent access to improved urban water supplies is a large and expanding global problem. This paper describes 16 supply enhancement and 23 demand management actions available to urban residential water users in Jordan to cope with intermittent supplies. We characterize actions by implementation, costs, and water quantities and qualities acquired or conserved. This effort systematically identifies potential options prior to detailed study and shows that water users have significant capacity to affect demand. We suggest several methods to evaluate options and highlight the need to include local water management decisions in integrated water resources management and planning at utility and …

Water Management With Water Conservation, Infrastructure Expansions, And Source Variability In Jordan, David E. Rosenberg, Richard Howitt, Jay Lund

Civil and Environmental Engineering Faculty Publications

A regional hydroeconomic model is developed to include demand shifts from nonprice water conservation programs as input parameters and decision variables. Stochastic nonlinear programming then jointly identifies the benefit-maximizing portfolio of conservation and leak reduction programs, infrastructure expansions, and operational allocations under variable water availability. We present a detailed application for 12 governorates in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan. It considers targeted installations of water-efficient appliances, leak reduction in the distribution system, surface and groundwater development, seawater desalination, conveyance, and wastewater treatment projects. Results show that (1) water conservation by urban users generates substantial regional benefits and can delay infrastructure …

Estimating The Dynamics Of Mutual Fund Alphas And Betas, Harry Mamaysky, Matthew Spiegel, Hong Zhang

Research Collection Lee Kong Chian School Of Business

This article develops a Kalman filter model to track dynamic mutual fund factor loadings. It then uses the estimates to analyze whether managers with market-timing ability can be identified ex ante. The primary findings are as follows: (i) Ordinary least squares (OLS) timing models produce false positives (nonzero alphas) at too high a rate with either daily or monthly data. In contrast, the Kalman filter model produces them at approximately the correct rate with monthly data; (ii) In monthly data, though the OLS models fail to detect any timing among fund managers, the Kalman filter does; (iii) The alpha and …

Teaching Business Calculus: Methodologies, Techniques, Issues, And Prospects, Frederick A. Halcon

DLSU Business & Economics Review

Calculus, as a subject matter, is an area in mathematics that deals with limits, rates of change, derivatives and integrals. University education often incorporates calculus in the curriculum with emphasis given to its applications in real-life situations. It is a common notion that calculus, as a course or subject, is intricate and complex. However, treating business calculus in the most elementary manner and making abstract concepts more concrete can prove to be effective teaching strategies inside the classroom. This study attempts to review certain literature so as to equip instructors of business calculus with the necessary teaching pedagogy intended to …

The Nahom Maps, James Gee

Journal of Book of Mormon Studies

Several maps from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries support details of Lehi’s journey as recorded in the Book of Mormon. In 1751, the renowned cartographer Jean Baptiste Bourguignon D’Anville became the first to include Nahom (or Nehem), Ishmael’s burial place in the Book of Mormon, in his map of Asia. This map and a 1771 map of Yemen are the basis for most accurate maps of Arabia from 1751 to 1814. The spelling varies among the subsequent maps, with most using either D’Anville’s Nehem or Niebuhr’s Nehhm, but the location of Nahom does not differ between those maps that include …

An Overview And Tutorial Of The Repertory Grid Technique In Information Systems Research, Aaron Mosiah Curtis, Taylor Michael Wells, Paul Benjamin Lowry, Trevor Higbee

Faculty Publications

Interest in the repertory grid technique has been growing in the IS field. This article seeks to inform the reader on the proper use and application of the technique in IS research. The methodology has unique advantages that make it suitable for many research settings. In this tutorial, we describe the technique, its theoretical underpinnings, and how it may be used by IS researchers. We conclude by detailing many IS research opportunities that exist in respect to the repertory grid technique.

Efficient Mining Of Heterogeneous Star-Structured Data, Manjeet Rege, Qi Yu

Articles

Many of the real world clustering problems arising in data mining applications are heterogeneous in nature. Heterogeneous co-clustering involves simultaneous clustering of objects of two or more data types. While pairwise co-clustering of two data types has been well studied in the literature, research on high-order heterogeneous co-clustering is still limited. In this paper, we propose a graph theoretical framework for addressing star- structured co-clustering problems in which a central data type is connected to all the other data types. Partitioning this graph leads to co-clustering of all the data types under the constraints of the star-structure. Although, graph partitioning …

Synthesis, Electronic Properties, And X-Ray Structural Characterization Of Tetrarylbenzo[1,2-B:4,5-B′]Difuran Cation Radicals, Ruchi Shukla, Shriya Wadumethrige, Sergey V. Lindeman, Rajendra Rathore

Chemistry Faculty Research and Publications

Electroactive tetraarylbenzo[1,2-b:4,5-b′]difuran (BDF) and model diarylbenzofuran derivatives are synthesized and their structures are established by X-ray crystallography. Isolation and X-ray crystallographic characterization of the robust cation-radical salts of BDF derivatives confirm that a single charge in the BDFs is stabilized largely by the benzodifuran and coplanar α-aryl groups lying on the longitudinal axis. These findings suggest that the linear arrays of BDFs may allow the construction of molecular wires suitable for long-range electron transport.

Biomedical Circuits And Systems Dedicated For Sensing And Neurostimulation: Case Study On Urinary Bladder Dysfunctions, Mohamad Sawan, Aguibou Ba, Faycal Mounaim, Jacques Corcos, Mostafa Elhilali

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

This paper covers circuits and systems techniques for the construction of high reliability biosensing and neurostimulation smart medical devices. Such microsystems are dedicated for interconnections through the peripheral neural systems. Case study related to applications such as bladder control is discussed. Available electrical neurostimulation techniques for the rehabilitation of urinary bladder functions do not allow an adequate voiding due to dyssynergia between the bladder and the sphincter. A new implantable stimulator, built with commercially available electronic components, was designed to overcome these difficulties. The proposed system performs two types of stimulations: Selective Stimulation for bladder voiding and Permanent Stimulation to …

Pattern Synthesis With Uniform Circular Arrays For The Reduction Of Wcdma Intercell Interference, Mohammed Al-Husseini, Elias Yaacoub, Karim Y. Kabalan, Ali El-Hajj

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

The deployment of advanced antenna arrays at the base stations of cellular systems is a key technique in reducing intercell interference, and thus increasing the number of served users. Uniform circular arrays (UCAs) provide 360 degrees of coverage, their patterns are steering-invariant and their sidelobe levels are controllable. This paper investigates the use of UCAs having specially synthesized patterns at the base stations of WCDMA cellular systems. The decrease in the ratio of intercell interference to intracell power resulting from the use of these arrays in a beam-steering scheme will be assessed, and the advantages and disadvantages of each pattern …

Distance Relaying Algorithm For Double-Circuit Transmission Line With Compensation For Reactance Effect Under Standard Availability Of Measurements, Jan Izykowski, Marcin Bozek

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

This paper deals with non-pilot distance protection of a double-circuit transmission line. Negative impact of the reactance effect, appearing in measuring a fault loop impedance, on operation of the relay is discussed. An adaptive algorithm allowing one to prevent the relay from mis- or mal-operation caused by the reactance effect is introduced. The algorithm is designed for a standard availability of measurements from one end of the double-circuit line, i.e. when three-phase voltage and current from the faulted line circuit, and additionally zero-sequence current from the healthy line circuit, are provided as the relay input signals. The algorithm is based …

Cover And Contents

Turkish Journal of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences

No abstract provided.

Spatial Variability In Forest Fuels: Simulation Modeling And Effects On Fire Behavior, Russell Andrew Parsons

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Forests in the western United States and elsewhere face a growing crisis arising from global warming, changes in fuel beds and an increasing human population. Fire management policy emphasizes fuel treatments, such as thinning and prescribed burning, to remedy this situation because fuels are the one component of the problem that we can directly affect through management action. At present, however, the tools we have for the evaluation of fuel treatments are inadequate because they do not describe the fuel bed, or effects of modifications to the fuel bed on fire behavior in sufficient detail. The work described here presents …

Spectral Preserver Problems In Uniform Algebras, Scott Alan Lambert

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

There has been much interest in characterizing maps between Banach algebras that preserve a certain equation or family of elements. There is a rich history in such problems that assume the map to be linear, so called linear preserver problems. More recently, there has been an interest in not assuming the map is linear a priori and instead to assume it preserves some equation involving the spectrum, a portion of the spectrum, or the norm.

After a brief introduction to uniform algebras, we give a rigorous development of the theory of boundaries. This includes a new alternative proof of the …

Objectivity And Subjectivity In Contract Law: A Copernican Response To Professor Shiffrin, Jeffrey M. Lipshaw

Suffolk University Law School Faculty Works

This is a response to Seana Shiffrin's recent and important contribution to the continuing debate whether there is a universal moral or economic truth at the heart of contract law. Her most significant advance toward a general theory of promise and contract is not, however, her analysis of the divergence of morality and contract, but instead her identification of the critical moment at which the interposition of the public in a private matter occurs or is contemplated. This essay carries that theme forward, suggesting that a universal justification for contract law is not possible because the law, by its very …

Topos-Like Properties In Two Categories Of Graphs And Graph-Like Features In An Abstract Category, Demitri Joel Plessas

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

In the study of the Category of Graphs, the usual notion of a graph is that of a simple graph with at most one loop on any vertex, and the usual notion of a graph homomorphism is a mapping of graphs that sends vertices to vertices, edges to edges, and preserves incidence of the mapped vertices and edges. A more general view is to create a category of graphs that allows graphs to have multiple edges between two vertices and multiple loops at a vertex, coupled with a more general graph homomorphism that allows edges to be mapped to vertices …

Using 3-D Geometric Morphometric Techniques To Further Understand The Relationship Between Neanderthals And Homo Sapiens, Jolen Anya Minetz

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

The relationship between hominids in the middle and late Pleistocene has been a heated subject of debate since Neanderthals were first recognized. Neanderthals are either a distinctly separate species from Homo sapiens that were replaced by Homo sapiens without any genetic interaction, which supports the taxonomical title for Neanderthals as Homo neanderthalensis, or there was at least a minimal genetic interaction between contemporaneous Neanderthals and early humans, designating Neanderthals as a subspecies with a taxonomic title of Homo sapiens neanderthalensis. The purpose of this research was to further explore this issue by conducting a quantitative analysis on several aspects of …

Probing Structural Differences Of Recombinant Prion Isoforms Using Fluorescence Spectroscopy, Jessica Louise Gilbert

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Conversion of prion protein (PrP) from its normal, cellular isoform, PrPC, to an infectious, misfolded, fibrillar isoform, PrPSc, is responsible for various neurodegenerative diseases in a variety of mammalian hosts. Although the structure of PrPC is well studied, the structure of PrPSc is not known. Obtaining structural information on the misfolded isoform of prion may lead to preventative therapies and treatments of prion diseases. In this study, six single-tryptophan mutants of recombinant PrP were expressed, purified, and refolded into PrPC or two misfolded isoforms of prion, PrPb and PrPF. Solvent accessibilities of the six tryptophan residues were probed among the …