Digital Commons Network^™

Automated Basketball Return System, Victor Mendoza, Chris Chamberlain

Electrical Engineering

The project is meant to assist a basketball player in their practicing. The project hangs directly on the basketball rim and automatically rotates to find the player on the court. Once the player is detected, the automated basketball return system (ABRS) stays focused in the direction of the player so that any baskets successfully made will be funneled back to the player. When the player moves from center, IR motion detectors find which direction you moved to and rotates accordingly, until the player is focused in front of the funnel again. If at any time the player is absent from …

Lab-Scale Thyristor Rectifier And Static Var Compensator Circuits, Haroun Idris, Ibrahim Idris

Electrical Engineering

The purpose of this project is to design thyristor circuits by using single-phase FCRO 4100 firing board donated by ENERPRO. These circuits in conjunction with a thyristor module will be used for future lab experiments in power electronics courses.

The first part of this project is to study the full effect of a firing angle on a controlled single phase full bridge thyristor rectifier circuit. Furthermore, the resulting circuit setup will be implemented as part of future lab experiments in Power Electronics I course. The next purpose of this project is to design a small-scale Static VAR Compensator (SVC) lab …

Dc-Dc Converter For Harvesting Energy From An Exercise Bike, Henry Ureh, Chris Henry

Electrical Engineering

Create an efficient buck-boost converter that adapts to input voltage range from ~3.8V to 70V, and outputs 13.7V DC, the voltage required by a charge controller to charge a battery. The energy stored in the battery will be supplied back to the grid.

The cost of energy saved by the converter should eventually cover the initial price of the converter. The converter should help reduce the net power consumption of the exercise machines used in the Cal Poly gym

Dr. Skateboard’S Action Science: Teaching Physics In Context, William Robertson

Departmental Papers (TE)

Dr. Skateboard’s Action Science, a curriculum supplement which consists of video instruction and classroom activities is an example that focuses on the physical science concepts found in the areas of forces, motion, Newton’s Laws of Motion, and simple machines. The use of familiar activities, situations and objects, such as skateboarding and bicycle motocross (BMX), around which students can explore and explain scientific concepts can be defined as action science. Dr. Skateboard’s Action Science is an example of transformative education, a student-centered curriculum supplement built around interesting content linked to specific physic knowledge and skills in science. The videos and classroom …

Radical Theatricality: Jongleuresque Performance On The Early Spanish Stage, Christopher B. Swift

Publications and Research

Radical Theatricality describes medieval and early modern oral traditions through the culture of “jongleuresque” performers: juglares, trovadores, and other itinerant players, who have been relegated to the fringes of theatre history.

Effects On Digital Image Quality When Photographing Through A Transparent Material Used To Hold Or Flatten An Original Object, Paul E. Howell

Masters Theses

An increasing number of libraries and archives are initiating projects where new and updated technologies make it practical to digitize materials containing color and fine detail. Many of the imaging systems and methods used for this process require that some type of glass or plastic be placed over the original to hold it flat and in the correct position during image capture. The physical properties of a material placed between an original object and the capture system or camera, during digitization, could possibly affect the accuracy of image color and quality being reproduced by the system. This investigation provides an …

A Christian Apologetic To A Buddhist Christ, David James Forbes

Masters Theses

This is a paper that expands on the concept that Jesus may have been a Buddhist "bodhisattva". It then gives a Christian apologetic as to why this cannot be true. This is accomplished by referencing the historical origins of Christianity and the differences between the lives of a bodhisattva and Jesus Christ.

The Daily Gamecock, Tuesday, December 1, 2009, University Of South Carolina, Office Of Student Media

December

No abstract provided.

Emotional Branding: Obama’S Bottom-Up Campaign, Genevieve Ann Munoz

Communication Studies

No abstract provided.

Fuzzy Logic In Neurosurgery: Predicting Poor Outcomes After Lumbar Disk Surgery In 501 Consecutive Patients, Muhammad Shahzad Shamim, Ather Enam, Uvais Qidwai

Section of Neurosurgery

Background: Despite a lot of research into Patient selection, a significant number of Patients fail to benefit from surgery for symptomatic lumbar disk herniation. We have used Fuzzy Logic-based fuzzy inference system (FIS) for identifying Patients unlikely to improve after disk surgery and explored FIS as a tool for surgical outcome prediction.
Methods: Data of 501 Patients were retrospectively reviewed for 54 independent variables. Sixteen variables were short-listed based on heuristics and were further classified into memberships with degrees of membership within each. A set of 11 rules was formed, and the rule base used individual membership degrees and their …

Sustained Release Of Multiple Growth Factors From Injectable Polymeric System As A Novel Therapeutic Approach Towards Angiogenesis, Qinghua Sun, Eduardo A. Silva, Aixia Wang, James C. Fritton, David J. Mooney, Mitchell B. Schaffler, Paul M. Grossman, Sanjay Rajagopalan

Publications and Research

Purpose The aim was to investigate that a bio-degradable alginate and poly lactide-co-glycolide (PLG) system capable of delivering growth factors sequentially would be superior to single growth factor delivery in promoting neovascularization and improving perfusion. Methods Three groups of apoE null mice underwent unilateral hindlimb ischemia surgery and received ischemic limb intramuscular injections of alginate (Blank), alginate containing VEGF165 (VEGF), or alginate containing VEGF165 combined with PLG microspheres containing PDGF-BB (VEGF/PDGF). Vascularity in the ischemic hindlimb was assessed by morphologic and immunohistochemical end-points, while changes in blood flow were assessed by Laser Doppler Perfusion Index. Muscle VEGF and PDGF content …

Supreme Court Section 1983 Decisions - October 2008 Term, Martin A. Schwartz

Tulsa Law Review

No abstract provided.

Showcase (Concerns Of The Southern Man: From Gatlinburg To Kaohsiung City), Samuel Davis

All Theses

ABSTRACT
One's daily life consists of collecting objects, images, ideas, fears and dreams. These items and concepts do not conjure themselves, but are selected like so many berries in a basket. I question what objects people choose to showcase in their homes, their trophies and shrines. These types of objects serve to validate their owner's beliefs and through their collection, elevate that person's status. In what items does one subconsciously invest their identity?
My work speaks to the value of the collected once transformed. In my practice I juxtapose ideals held separately and simultaneously about the value and import of …

Linkage Among U.S. Interest Rates And East Asian Purchases Of U.S. Treasury Securities, Dene T. Hurley Dr.

Publications and Research

Recent increases in East Asian purchases of US treasury securities has led to growing concern over its impact on the US economy, particularly on the US long-term and shortterm interest rates. The vector error-correction model results revealed the presence of long-run causal relations among the federal funds rate, the 10-year Treasury rate and the East Asian demand in addition to a unidirectional short-run causal relation from the 10-year rate to the Federal funds rate. The variance decomposition and impulse response findings indicated that the Asian demand for US assets has a limited but negative impact on the 10-year US Treasury …

The Politics Of Patriarchal Bargaining In A Chinese Village, Siu-Keung Cheung

Global Asia Journal

This paper focuses on the changing status of women in a village community in the colonial and post-colonial New Territories of Hong Kong SAR, China. It argues that village women are active agents in reclaiming their personal autonomy and play a proactive role in influencing the sociopolitical order of rural society. In particular, this study demonstrates how village women individually and collectively engaged the patriarchal rule in dealing with the Chinese lineage organizations in the New Territories. It asserts that women’s domestic existence is never a wholly domesticated one but instead it contains significant elements of self-articulation and selfempowerment. The …

Board Level Strategic Decision-Making: Process Characteristics And Context, Bernard C. Bailey

Student Scholarship

How do boards make strategic decisions? Semi-structured interviews with twenty eight directors of small to medium size publicly traded U.S. companies in the high technology sector were conducted in order to gain insights into strategic decision-making at the board level. We identified six characteristics that distinguish two divergent views about strategic decision-making. These characteristics include the role of the board chair, the boardroom climate, the board's shared vision and goals, the board's agency primacy, the board's process for decision closure and the board's level of involvement in the strategic planning process.

A Comparison Of Recreation Therapy Intervention Using Nintendo Wiitm Bowling With Participation In A Tai Chi Program On Balance, Enjoyment, And Leisure Competence Of Older Adults In A Community Based Setting, Hollie Summey

All Theses

Many older adults experience a decrease in physical activity, which often leads to decreases in functioning. Older adults have been shown to have the lowest levels of physical activity for all age groups. This lack of physical activity has been shown to lead to decreases in performance of activities of daily living (ADLs), independence, quality of life, and increases in number of falls, chance of institutionalization, morbidity, and mortality. Physical activity programs in community settings help to restore or maintain physical function and lessen the level of dependence so that individuals will be able to reach the highest level of …

The Constitutional Canon As Argumentative Metonymy, Ian Bartrum

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

No abstract provided.

A Promise The Nation Cannot Keep: What Prevents The Application Of The Thirteenth Amendment In Prison?, Raja Raghunath

William & Mary Bill of Rights Journal

The walls of the prison are not solely physical. The doctrine of judicial deference to prison officials, which compels courts to defer to the discretion of those officials in almost all instances, obstructs the effective scrutiny of modern practices of punishment. Since its ratification, the Thirteenth Amendment—which prohibits slavery or involuntary servitude anywhere within the United States or its jurisdiction, except where imposed “as a punishment for crime whereof the party shall have been duly convicted”1—has been seen by courts as one brick in this wall. This Article makes the novel argument that, properly read, the amendment should function instead …

2009 (21st) Report Of The Nou Records Committee, Mark A. Brogie

Nebraska Bird Review

The functions and methods of the Nebraska Ornithologists' Union (NOU) Records Committee are described in its bylaws (NOU Records Committee 1986). The committee's purpose is to provide a procedure for documenting unusual bird sightings and to establish a list of all documented birds for Nebraska. All records mentioned here are available to interested persons at the NOU archives at the University of Nebraska State Museum (UNSM), Lincoln, NE. Interested parties should contact the current NOU Librarian, whose address can be found in the latest issue of The Nebraska Bird Review (NBR).

The "Official List of the Birds of Nebraska'" was …

Fall Field Report, August-November 2009, W. Ross Silcock

Nebraska Bird Review

This was probably the most "normal" fall season in a while, as measured by the small number of late departure dates among summer residents and migrants, early arrival dates among winter residents and migrants, high counts, and rarities. In other words, very little of significance happened. Indeed, in order to provide a spark, I'll even mention three exotics that were reported: a Swan Goose at Fremont 26 November (JRo), a Common Peafowl in Dodge Co 5 August (JWe), and a White-faced Cockatiel caught in a Dixon Co yard 24 August (JJ). None is likely to be a threat to our …

Rattle: A Data Mining Gui For R, Graham J. Williams

The R Journal

Data mining delivers insights, pat terns, and descriptive and predictive models from the large amounts of data available today in many organisations. The data miner draws heavily on methodologies, techniques and algorithms from statistics, machine learning, and computer science. R increasingly provides a powerful platform for data mining. However, scripting and programming is sometimes a challenge for data analysts moving into data mining. The Rattle package provides a graphical user interface specifically for data mining using R. It also provides a stepping stone toward using R as a programming language for data analysis.

Copas: An R Package For Fitting The Copas Selection Model, J. Carpenter, G. Rücker, G. Schhwarzer

The R Journal

This article describes the R package copas which is an add-on package to the R pack age meta. The R package copas can be used to f it the Copas selection model to adjust for bias in meta-analysis. A clinical example is used to illustrate fitting and interpreting the Copas selection model.

Party On!, Carolin Strobl, Torsten Hothorn, Achim Zeileis

The R Journal

Random forests are one of the most popular statistical learning algorithms, and a variety of methods for fitting random forests and related recursive partitioning approaches is available in R. This paper points out two important features of the random forest implementation cforest available in the party package: The resulting forests are unbiased and thus prefer able to the randomForest implementation avail able in randomForest if predictor variables are of different types. Moreover, a conditional per mutation importance measure has recently been added to the party package, which can help evaluate the importance of correlated predictor variables. The rationale of this …

Asymptest: A Simple R Package For Classical Parametric Statistical Tests And Confidence Intervals In Large Samples, J.-F. Coeurjolly, R. Drouilhet, P. Lafaye De Micheaux, J.-F. Robineau

The R Journal

asympTest is an R package implementing large sample tests and confidence intervals. One and two sample mean and variance tests (differences and ratios) are considered. The test statistics are all expressed in the same form as the Student t-test, which facilitates their presentation in the classroom. This contribution also fills the gap of a robust (to non-normality) alternative to the chi-square single variance test for large samples, since no such procedure is implemented in standard statistical software.

Stochastic Analysis Of Electrostatic Mems Subjected To Parameter Variations, Nitin Agarwal, Narayana R. Aluru

PRISM: NNSA Center for Prediction of Reliability, Integrity and Survivability of Microsystems

This paper presents an efficient stochastic framework for quantifying the effect of stochastic variations in various design parameters such as material properties, geometrical features, and/or operating conditions on the performance of electrostatic microelectromechanical systems (MEMS) devices. The stochastic framework treats uncertainty as a separate dimension, in addition to space and time, and seeks to approximate the stochastic dependent variables using sparse grid interpolation in the multidimensional random space. This approach can be effectively used to compute important information, such as moments (mean and variance), failure probabilities, and sensitivities with respect to design variables, regarding relevant quantities of interest. The approach …

Understanding Unconscious Plagiarism: The Effects Of Idea Elaboration And Perceived Idea Quality On Later Recall And Recognition Of Ideas, Rachel Elliman

The Plymouth Student Scientist

Previous research has shown that idea improvement and perceived idea quality have differential effects on recall-own and generate-new plagiarism. Participants completed a generative task in pairs and read some ideas perceived to be of high quality before elaborating on a selection of the ideas. It was expected that other-generated ideas that had been improved or read out loud would be more susceptible to unconscious plagiarism. Participants returned a week later to complete recall-own generated, recall-own read, generate-new and source monitoring tasks. Partner-generated ideas were significantly more likely to be plagiarised following improvement only. Participants were significantly more likely to plagiarise …

Does Culture In The Darkness Effect Retina Morphology Of Sepia Officinalis?, Rachael Warrington

The Plymouth Student Scientist

In Sepia officinalis there was no significant difference (P = 0.241) for the eye diameter in terms of body length. The body length was significantly longer in cuttlefish reared in the dark treatment (P = 0.029). This could be due to photoperiod regulating the release of growth hormones. The outer segment is similar in both treatments containing small compacted rhabdomeres elongating towards the inner segment. The dark retina has a thicker outer segment than the light, which could be an adaptation increasing the probability for photon capture by the rhabdomeres. Rhabdomeres vary little between treatments in comparison to vesicle cells …

Frequency-Domain Simulations Of A Negative-Index Material With Embedded Gain, Yonatan Sivan, Shumin Xiao, Uday K. Chettiar, Alexander V. Kildishev, V. M. Shalaev

Birck and NCN Publications

We solve the equations governing light propagation in a negative-index material with embedded nonlinearly saturable gain material using a frequency-domain model. We show that available gain materials can lead to complete loss compensation only if they are located in the regions where the field enhancement is maximal. We study the increased enhancement of the fields in the gain composite as well as in the metal inclusions and show analytically that the effective gain is determined by the average near-field enhancement.

Nebraska Bird Review (December 2009) 77(4), Whole Issue

Nebraska Bird Review

Fall Field Report, August–November 2009 ... 138

The Fish Crow (Corvus ossifragus) Reaches Nebraska ... 155

2009 (21st) Report of the NOU Records Committee ... 160

Fall Field Days at Valentine ... 169

Index to Volume 77 ... 173

Subscription and Organization Information ... 183