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Hd R&D Field Evaluation: Rapid Area Preparation Tool (Raptor), U.S. Humanitarian Demining Research And Development

Global CWD Repository

In October 2007 and May 2008, the U.S. Humanitarian Demining Research and Development Program (HD), located at Ft. Belvoir, VA., undertook the testing of the Rapid Area Preparation Tool (RAPTOR). RAPTOR is the latest of a series of area preparation systems on tractor platforms that HD has developed in the last decade. Systems, including the Severe Duty Tractor and Tools (SDTT) and Mantis, have undergone operational evaluations in Thailand, Nicaragua, and Afghanistan. The RAPTOR was developed by the HD program to handle all area-preparation tasks from vegetation cutting and removal (up to Category 3), to antipersonnel mine rolling, plowing, and …

Evaluation Of Regional Evaluation Of The Ec-Funded Mine Action In The Middle East, 2002-2008, Steinar Essen, Ralf Otto

Global CWD Repository

In 2001 the Council of Ministers and the European Parliament adopted two Regulations on the reinforcement of the EU response against Antipersonnel Landmines (APL). These (referred to collectively as “the Regulation”) laid the foundation of an integrated and focused European policy. The Regulation states the need to regularly assess operations financed by the Community
and that the European Commission (EC) shall submit to the European Parliament an overall assessment of all Community mine action. To implement these provisions, the EC commissioned a global assessment of EC mine policy and actions over the period 2002-2004 and entered into an agreement with …

Climate-Driven Shifts In Quantity And Seasonality Of River Discharge Over The Past 1000 Years From The Hydrographic Apex Of North America, Brent B. Wolfe, Roland I. Hall, Thomas W.D. Edwards, Suzanne R. Jarvis, R. Niloshini Sinnatamby, Yi Yi, John W. Johnston

Geography and Environmental Studies Faculty Publications

Runoff generated from high elevations is the primary source of freshwater for western North America, yet this critical resource is managed on the basis of short instrumental records that capture an insufficient range of climatic conditions. Here we probe the effects of climate change over the past ~1000 years on river discharge in the upper Mackenzie River system based on paleoenvironmental information from the Peace-Athabasca Delta. The delta landscape responds to hydroclimatic changes with marked variability, while Lake Athabasca level appears to directly monitor overall water availability. The latter fluctuated systematically over the past millennium, with the highest levels occurring …

A Special-Purpose Architecture For Solving The Breakpoint Median Problem, Jason D. Bakos, Panormitis E. Elenis

Faculty Publications

In this paper, we describe the design for a co-processor for whole-genome phylogenetic reconstruction. Our current design performs a parallelized breakpoint median computation, which is an expensive component of the overall application. When implemented on a field-programmable gate array (FPGA), our hardware breakpoint median achieves a maximum speedup of 1005times over software. When the coprocessor is used to accelerate the entire reconstruction procedure, we achieve a maximum application speedup of 417times. The results in this paper suggest that FPGA-based acceleration is a promising approach for computationally expensive phylogenetic problems, in spite of the fact that the involved algorithms are based …

Culture Clash - How Socio-Technical Factors Contribute To Enterprise Information Systems Interoperability, Alan Fisk

Student Scholarship

Despite increasing need for interoperable enterprise-level information systems, achieving interoperability is persistently problematical. Our work highlights social factors as a major contributor to good design, development, and operating practices. The research was conducted at a technologically sophisticated Fortune 50 company where design artifacts suggested by the literature were found to be in place yet good interoperability between systems was not consistently achieved. The data suggest boundary spanners can facilitate interoperability by promoting shared meanings and mindsets that advance acculturation among cross-functional groups. Findings contrast with enterprise systems interoperability literature, which has focused mainly on technological factors to ensure good design …

Employee Volunteerism: Social Benefits Trump Altruism, Donna E. Teeague

Student Scholarship

With over 153 million U.S. citizens in the labor force but only about a quarter of them engaged in community volunteer work (Bureau of Labor Statistics of the US Department of Labor, 2006), the workplace is clearly an under-tapped source of volunteer labor. As the need for volunteers accelerates and supply remains stagnant, it becomes imperative to understand how to recruit volunteers from the workplace. Interviews with twenty seven employees of six US corporations were conducted to probe how beliefs about outcomes and consequences of volunteerism, the influence of important social referent groups and self perceptions of relevant skills and …

Environmentally Benign Technologies And Financial Performance: Evidence From The Pulp And Paper Industry In Nigeria, Joseph Akinkugbe Adelegan

Student Scholarship

Addressing a paucity of research about industrial adoption of environmentally benign technologies in Africa and, more generally, in tropical developing countries, we examined the Nigerian pulp and paper industry as a case study. Qualitative interviews with twenty upper echelon executives representing five Nigerian firms challenge conventional expectations that energy intensive industries in developing markets operate amid highly pollution-intensive conditions, within weak or non-existent formal environmental regulatory frameworks, and with limited institutional capacity. Our findings suggest a strong positive relationship between cleaner technology use and corporate financial performance of African industrial firms. Our study also suggests the adoption of classical 'win-win' …

National Security Vs. Whales: The Navy And The Natural Resources Defense Counsel Battle Their Way To The Supreme Court, Alicia Schaffner

Sea Grant Law Fellow Publications

T

Circumnavigation, Vincent Reusch

Dissertations

This creative work, a novel, set in the late 1980s, tells the story of twenty-seven-year-old Davison Johnson (Davi), as she sails around the world in a solo race. For Davi, sailing is more than a challenge, however; it is an escape. On her previous year-long sail, she sailed away from the guilt of her non-action as her Cambodian student, Chanthavy, was abducted from a market in Siem Reap, where Davi was working as an English teacher. Now, she is sailing away from the uncomfortable reality of her older brother's slow death to AIDS. Her brother, Peter, does not disappear as …

Evaluation Of Electron Donor Materials Used To Create Subsurface Permeable Reactive Barriers For Enhanced Reductive Dechlorination Of Chlorinated Ethenes, Elizabeth S. Semkiw

Dissertations

Chlorinated ethenes (CEs) are widespread ground water contaminants, apparently due to their extensive migration from numerous contamination source points. In this study, a long-term field investigation and aquifer microcosm experiments were combined to evaluate the effectiveness of electron donor materials used to create and maintain subsurface permeable reactive barriers (PRBs) for the enhanced in-situ biodegradation of CEs. The laboratory component includes the first side-by-side comparison of electron donor materials dairy whey, lactate syrup, and Hydrogen Release Compound® (HRC), in which dechlorination rates, fermentation product distributions, and H₂ production were monitored as measures of substrate efficiency. Field study allowed the …

Switch On And Switch Off Nanosensors For The Detection Of Nerve Gas Agents, Shankar Varaganti

Dissertations

The central hypothesis of this research is the development of novel nanosensors by a bottom-up approach for the detection of nerve gas agents. The nanosensor assembly consists of four main parts; nanoparticles (N), Monomer (M), Complex (C) and Receptor (R). Two novel Ru (II)-bipyridyl and zinc complexes with tryptophan receptors either in 4,4' or 5,5' position of the bipyridyl ring have been synthesized and characterized by using ¹H NMR, ¹³C NMR, mass spectrometry and absorption spectroscopy. Silica nanoparticles or quantum dots are used as a platform for the nanosensors. Highly conjugated stilbene type compounds are used as monomers. …

Xftsp: A Tool For Time Series Prediction By Means Of Fuzzy Inference Systems, Federico Montesino, Amaury Lendasse, Ángel Barriga

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A New Software Tool for Time Series Prediction by Means of Fuzzy Inference Systems is Reported. This Tool, Named XFTSP, implements a Novel Methodology for Time Series Prediction based on Methods for Automatic Fuzzy Systems Identification and Supervised Learning Combined with Statistical Methods for Nonparametric Residual Variance Estimation. XFTSP is Designed as a Tool Integrated in the Xfuzzy Development Environment for Fuzzy Systems. Experiments Carried Out on a Number of Time Series Benchmarks Show the Advantages of XFTSP in Terms of Both Accuracy and Computational Requirements as Compared Against Least-Squared Support Vector Machines, an Established Technique in the Field of …

On Nonparametric Residual Variance Estimation, Elia Liitiäinen, Francesco Corona, Amaury Lendasse

Engineering Management and Systems Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In This Paper, the Problem of Residual Variance Estimation is Examined. the Problem is Analyzed in a General Setting Which Covers Non-Additive Heteroscedastic Noise under Non-Iid Sampling. to Address the Estimation Problem, We Suggest a Method based on Nearest Neighbor Graphs and We Discuss its Convergence Properties under the Assumption of a Hölder Continuous Regression Function. the Universality of the Estimator Makes It an Ideal Tool in Problems with Only Little Prior Knowledge Available. © 2008 Springer Science business Media, LLC.

The Evaluation Of Sharper Future: A Community-Based Sex Offender Treatment Program, Lindsay M. Cunningham

Loma Linda University Electronic Theses, Dissertations & Projects

A program evaluation of Sharper Future’s Substance Abuse Services Coordinating Agency (SASCA) sex offender treatment program was conducted in order to ascertain whether the program is meeting its treatment goals as outlined by the SASCA contract and Sharper Future program goals. The participants of this evaluation were 248 past male Sharper Future clients who had been mandated to treatment at the Sharper Future facilities and were funded by the SASCA program. The data used in this program evaluation was archival, as it existed in the clients’ file as supplied by the Sharper Future clinics that run a SASCA treatment program. …

Keynote Address At The Seminar On: "Financial Sector Developments: Challenges For Risk Based Supervision And Effective Monetary Policy Implementation, Sarah O. Alade

Economic and Financial Review

This is the sixteenth in the series (Executive Seminar) jointly organized by the Research and Human Resources Departments of the Bank. The forum represents one in which the Executives of the Bank brainstorm on contemporary economic issues to stir the banking and financial sector in particular and, the economy at large, on the path of sustainable growth and development. The forum also provides an avenue for capacity building and human resource improvement through intense dialogue with economic and financial experts on current developments.

Remarks On The Stability Of Some Size-Structured Population Models Iii: The Case Of Constant Inflow Of Newborns, Mohammed El-Doma

Applications and Applied Mathematics: An International Journal (AAM)

The stability of some size-structured population dynamics models are investigated. We determine the steady states and study their stability. We also give examples that illustrate the stability results. The results in this paper generalize previous results, for example, see Calsina, et al. (2003), El- Doma (2006) and El-Doma (2008).

A Membrane-Type Humidifier For Fuel Cell Applications: Controller Design, Analysis And Implementation, Denise A. Mckay, Anna G. Stefanopoulou, Jeffrey Cook

Engineering: Faculty Publications

A membrane-based gas humidification apparatus was employed to actively manage the water vapor entrained in the reactant gas supplied to a fuel cell stack. The humidification system utilizes a gas bypass and a series of heaters to achieve accurate and fast humidity and temperature control. A change in fuel cell load induces a reactant mass flow rate disturbance to this humidification system. If not well regulated, this disturbance creates undesirable condensation and evaporation dynamics, both to the humidification system and the fuel cell stack. Therefore, controllers were devised, tuned and employed for temperature reference tracking and disturbance rejection. The coordination …

Affairs Of State: The Interagency And National Security, Gabriel Marcella Dr.

Books, Monographs & Collaborative Studies

The United States has a large and complex interagency process to deal with national security on a global basis. It is imperative that civilian and military professionals understand that process. The chapters in this volume deal with various dimensions and institutions, from the National Security Council, the Department of State, and other agencies. It also contains case studies of interagency coordination and integration.

A Cell Biology Laboratory Exercise To Study Sub-Cellular Organelles In Drosophila, Meghana Tare, Amit Singh

Biology Faculty Publications

The fast-changing scenario of undergraduate education puts emphasis on introducing students to hands-on techniques as part of their laboratory courses. In order to cater to large numbers of students and the time constraints involved with undergraduate level laboratory courses, there is a need for development of experiments that are cost effective and can be completed in a defined time frame. We have devised a laboratory exercise for teaching cell biology using the Drosophila melanogaster model. Drosophila can be reared in a short period of time in a cost effective manner. We used Drosophila tissue to study the sub-cellular organization of …

Evaluation Of Methods For Establishing Vegetation In Created Wetland Mitigation Sites In Eastern Nebraska, Andrew A. Miller

Student Work

Seventeen wetland mitigation sites in eastern Nebraska were evaluated, by vegetative zone, to assess the relative success of active and passive wetland vegetation establishment techniques. For sites with available records of species introduced, 46% of the seeded species and 31% of the transplanted species were successfully established suggesting that the intentional introduction of species (i.e. active methods) provides some degree of success in wetland creation. No significant differences were observed within or among active or passive methods for Species Richness (S), Shannon-Wiener diversity (H′), or the Floristic Quality Index (FQI) (Kruskall-Wallis test P < 0.05). However, while not statistically significant, general trends showed that, in the temporarily flooded zones, seeding resulted in both the highest overall plant diversity and highest FQI (S = 20.2, H′ = 1.74, FQI = 8.99) and, among species with cover values > 0.5%, the lowest percent non-native species (6.2%). …

Separation Anxiety: Uniting The Families Of Lawful Permanent Residents., Arshil Kabani

The Scholar: St. Mary's Law Review on Race and Social Justice

Abstract Forthcoming.

Organizational Agility, James D. Sterling

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

No abstract provided.

Link Rate Allocation Under Bandwidth And Energy Constraints In Sensor Networks, Maggie Cheng, Xuan Gong, Lin Cai

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

In sensor networks, both energy and band width are scarce resources. in the past, the energy efficient routing problem has been vastly studied in order to maximize network lifetime, but link bandwidth has been optimistically assumed to be abundant. as energy con straint affects how data should be routed, link bandwidth also affects not just the routing topology but also the allowed data rate on each link, which in turn affects lifetime. Previous works that focus on energy efficient operations in sensor networks with the sole objective of maximizing network lifetime only consider the energy constraint and ignore the bandwidth …

Pas: Predicate-Based Authentication Services Against Powerful Passive Adversaries, Sriram Chellappan, Xiaole Bai, Wenjun Gu, Xun Wang, Dong Xuan, Bin Ma

Computer Science Faculty Research & Creative Works

Securely authenticating a human user without assistance from any auxiliary device in the presence of powerful passive adversaries is an important and challenging problem. Passive adversaries are those that can passively monitor, intercept, and analyze every part of the authentication procedure, except for an initial secret shared between the user and the server. In this paper, we propose a new secure authentication scheme called predicate-based authentication service (PAS). In this scheme, for the first time, the concept of a predicate is introduced for authentication. We conduct analysis on the proposed scheme and implement its prototype system. Our analytical data and …

Innovation In The Programmable Web: Characterizing The Mashup Ecosystem, C. Jason Woodard, Shuli Yu

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper investigates the structure and dynamics of the Web 2.0 software ecosystem by analyzing empirical data on web service APIs and mashups. Using network analysis tools to visualize the growth of the ecosystem from December 2005 to 2007, we find that the APIs are organized into three tiers, and that mashups are often formed by combining APIs across tiers. Plotting the cumulative distribution of mashups to APIs reveals a power-law relationship, although the tail is short compared to previously reported distributions of book and movie sales. While this finding highlights the dominant role played by the most popular APIs …

Planning With Ifalcon: Towards A Neural-Network-Based Bdi Agent Architecture, Budhitama Subagdja, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

This paper presents iFALCON, a model of BDI (beliefdesire-intention) agents that is fully realized as a selforganizing neural network architecture. Based on multichannel network model called fusion ART, iFALCON is developed to bridge the gap between a self-organizing neural network that autonomously adapts its knowledge and the BDI agent model that follows explicit descriptions. Novel techniques called gradient encoding are introduced for representing sequences and hierarchical structures to realize plans and the intention structure. This paper shows that a simplified plan representation can be encoded as weighted connections in the neural network through a process of supervised learning. A case …

Viscoelastic Properties Of Pediatric Blood, Neema Nair 1983-

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

The performance of pediatric circulatory support devices depends on the properties of pediatric blood. This study reports the measurement of the viscoelastic properties of pediatric blood at 37°C [body temperature]. The results were compared with adult viscoelastic properties at the same temperature and also to pediatric viscoelastic properties analyzed at 22°C [room temperature]. The measurements were made using a viscoelasticity analyzer Vilastic-3 on the blood at the hematocrit at which it was drawn. Each test produced results for viscoelastic parameters versus shear rate [stretch test] at a frequency of 2 Hz. Samples were obtained with informed consent from 11 pediatric …

Content Analysis Of University Alcohol Policies: "Party Schools" Compared To Non-Party Schools, Sarah E. Pernie

Dissertations

Universities across the United States are dealing with an alarming number of underage students drinking on or near campus. One prevention tool is having a comprehensive alcohol usage policy for students, which includes content as recommended by a number of national organizations focused on decreasing underage drinking on campuses. Yet little is known about the content actually contained in current university alcohol policies.

To this end, my research involved a content analysis of the alcohol policies from 71 purposefully selected universities across the country. These included institutions identified as "party schools" by the Princeton Review , and a similar sample …

A Novel Method For Characterization Of Peripheral Nerve Fiber Size Distributions By Group Delay, Robert B. Szlavik

Biomedical Engineering

The ability to determine the characteristics of peripheral nerve fiber size distributions would provide additional information to clinicians for the diagnosis of specific pathologies of the peripheral nervous system. Investigation of these conditions, using electrodiagnostic techniques, is advantageous in the sense that such techniques tend to be minimally invasive yet provide valuable diagnostic information. One of the principal electrodiagnostic tools available to the clinician is the nerve conduction velocity test. While the peripheral nerve conduction velocity test can provide useful information to the clinician regarding the viability of the nerve under study, it is a single-parameter test that yields no …

Evaluation Of Skin Factor From Single-Rate Gas Well Test, Fahad M. Al Mutairi

Graduate Theses, Dissertations, and Problem Reports (ETD)

Skin factor is generally used as an indicator for well flow efficiency and the criterion for performing stimulation treatment to improve well productivity. This skin factor is a composite factor and should be divided into its different components in order to evaluate near-wellbore damage. Therefore, the total skin factor obtained from a gas well pressure transient test has two primary components, rate-independent and rate-dependent skins. Both of these skin factors can be determined directly from the interpretation of pressure transient well tests if several transient tests are performed at different rates. However, the multi-rate tests are time consuming and expensive. …