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Applied Climate-Change Analysis: The Climate Wizard Tool, Evan H. Girvetz, Chris Zganjar, George T. Raber, Edwin P. Maurer, Peter Kareiva, Joshua J. Lawler

Civil, Environmental and Sustainable Engineering

Background: Although the message of ‘‘global climate change’’ is catalyzing international action, it is local and regional changes that directly affect people and ecosystems and are of immediate concern to scientists, managers, and policy makers. A major barrier preventing informed climate-change adaptation planning is the difficulty accessing, analyzing, and interpreting climate-change information. To address this problem, we developed a powerful, yet easy to use, web-based tool called Climate Wizard (http://ClimateWizard.org) that provides non-climate specialists with simple analyses and innovative graphical depictions for conveying how climate has and is projected to change within specific geographic areas throughout the world. Methodology/Principal Findings: …

Reevaluating The Cosmological Origin Of Dark Matter, Scott Watson

Physics - All Scholarship

The origin of dark matter as a thermal relic offers a compelling way in which the early universe was initially populated by dark matter. Alternative explanations typically appear exotic compared to the simplicity of thermal production. However, recent observations and progress from theory suggest that it may be necessary to be more critical. This is important because ongoing searches probing the microscopic properties of dark matter typically rely on the assumption of dark matter as a single, unique, thermal relic. On general grounds I will argue that non-thermal production of dark matter seems to be a robust prediction of physics …

Aerosol Optical Depth Retrieval For Spot Hrv Images, Chien-Hui Liu, Gin-Rong Liu

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

Atmospheric aerosol is an important factor of the Earth’s radiation budget. The aerosol optical depth (AOD) is also the key parameter in generating surface products from remotely sensed data. An image-based retrieval algorithm of aerosol characteristics and surface reflectance is used to retrieve the AOD from SPOT satellite images in this paper. The accuracy of retrieved AOD is assessed using sunphotometer measurements. SPOT satellite images in Jhongli , Taoyuan county are used to testify the algorithm. The results show that the rootmean-square error (RMSE) of the retrieved AOD at 0.55 µm is 0.10. Over the range of measured AOD 0.08~0.34, …

Service Life Prediction Of Pier For The Existing Reinforced Concete Bridges In Chloride-Laden Environment, Ming-Te Liang, Ran Huang, Shen-An Feng, Chi-Jang Yeh

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The prediction method of service life for bridge structures is played an important role of bridge management system. In this paper, the mathematical modeling was to study the servise life prediction of pier for existing reinforced concrete (RC) bridge exposed to chloride environment. The corrosion process has three stages, the initiation time (tc), the depassivation time (tp), and the corrosion (propagation) time (tcorr). The total service life of pier for the existing RC bridge can be expressed as t = tc + tp + tcorr. Many mathematical models were applied to predicting each value of the tc, tp, and tcorr. …

Mean Survival Time From Right Censored Data, Ming Zhong, Kenneth R. Hess

COBRA Preprint Series

A nonparametric estimate of the mean survival time can be obtained as the area under the Kaplan-Meier estimate of the survival curve. A common modification is to change the largest observation to a death time if it is censored. We conducted a simulation study to assess the behavior of this estimator of the mean survival time in the presence of right censoring.

We simulated data from seven distributions: exponential, normal, uniform, lognormal, gamma, log-logistic, and Weibull. This allowed us to compare the results of the estimates to the known true values and to quantify the bias and the variance. Our …

Applied Climate-Change Analysis: The Climate Wizard Tool, Evan H. Girvetz, Chris Zganjar, George T. Raber, Edwin P. Maurer, Peter Kareiva, Joshua J. Lawler

Faculty Publications

Background: Although the message of "global climate change'' is catalyzing international action, it is local and regional changes that directly affect people and ecosystems and are of immediate concern to scientists, managers, and policy makers. A major barrier preventing informed climate-change adaptation planning is the difficulty accessing, analyzing, and interpreting climate-change information. To address this problem, we developed a powerful, yet easy to use, web-based tool called Climate Wizard (http://ClimateWizard.org) that provides non-climate specialists with simple analyses and innovative graphical depictions for conveying how climate has and is projected to change within specific geographic areas throughout the world. Methodology/Principal Findings: …

Performance Of Dmt-Based Liquefaction Evaluation Methods On Case Histories Of Chi-Chi Earthquake, Gordon Tung-Chin Kung, Der-Her Lee, Pai-Hsiang Tsai

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

This study examines two recently-developed DMT-based methods, one CRR7.5-KD boundary curve and one CRR7.5-ED boundary curve, for evaluating the liquefaction resistance of soils using in-situ test data. The collected data consist of a number of liquefied and non-liquefied case histories, which were performed shortly after the disastrous Chi-Chi earthquake in 1999. The results of examining the CRR7.5-KD and CRR7.5-ED boundary curves showed that both curves are capable of accurately estimating the liquefaction resistance of soils and thus the liquefaction potential of soils. The developed DMT-based methods therefore have the potential to be an alternative to the existing procedure of liquefaction …

Family-Based Genome-Wide Association Study For Simulated Data Of Framingham Heart Study, Hongyan Xu, George Mathew, Varghese George

College of Natural and Applied Sciences

Genome-wide association studies (GWAS) have quickly become the norm in dissecting the genetic basis of complex diseases. Family-based association approaches have the advantages of being robust to possible hidden population structure in samples. Most of these methods were developed with limited markers. Their applicability and performance for GWAS need to be examined. In this report, we evaluated the properties of the family-based association method implemented by ASSOC in the S.A.G.E package using the simulated data sets for the Framingham Heart Study, and found that ASSOC is a highly useful tool for GWAS.

Unsteady Motions Of Separated Shear Layer In Wake Flow Due To Upstream Disturbance, Chin-Tsan Wang, Jun-Ji Miau, Cheng Kuang Shaw

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

The phenomenon of physical wake flow is complex and remains relatively unknown, especially for the relationship between the span-wise motions of separated shear layers and low frequency variations embedded in the vortex shedding process of upstream disturbances. In this study experiments were executed by situating a mesh grid and controlling cylinder upstream. Results showed that the integral time scale of the span-wise motions for a separated shear layer was close to that of the low frequency variations for an upstream disturbance. This evidence supports the idea that span-wise motions of a separated shear layer and the low frequency variations should …

A Novel Stability Condition And Its Application To Ga-Based Fuzzy Control For Nonlinear Systems With Uncertainty, Po-Chen Chen, Cheng-Wu Chen, Wei-Ling Chiang, Ken Yeh

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

In this study, we strive to combine the advantages of fuzzy logic control (FLC), genetic algorithms (GA), H∞ tracking control schemes, smooth control and adaptive laws to design an adaptive fuzzy sliding model controller for the rapid and efficient stabilization of complex and nonlinear systems. First, we utilize a reference model and a fuzzy model (both involving FLC rules) to describe and well-approximate an uncertain, nonlinear plant. The FLC rules and the consequent parameter are decided on via GA. A boundary-layer function is introduced into these updated laws to cover modeling errors and to guarantee that the state errors converge …

Spectroscopicellipsometer And Polarmeter Systemis, John A. Woollam, Blaine D. Johs, Craig M. Herzinger, Ping He, Martin M. Liphardt, Galen L. Pfeiffer

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Faculty Publications

A rotating compensator spectroscopic ellipsometer or polarimeter system having a source of a polychromatic beam of electromagnetic radiation, a polarizer, a stage for Supporting a material system, an analyzer, a dispersive optics and a detector system which comprises a multiplicity of detector elements, the system being functionally present in an environmental control chamber and therefore suitable for application in wide spectral range, (for example, 130-1700 nm). Preferred compensator design involves a Substantially achromatic multiple element compensator systems wherein multiple total internal reflections enter retardance into an entered beam of electromagnetic radiation, and the elements thereof are oriented to minimize changes …

The 2009-2010 El Nino: Hydrologic Relief To U.S. Regions, Glenn A. Tootle, Thomas C. Piechota, Oubeidillah Aziz, William Paul Miller, Venkat Lakshmi, John A. Dracup, Carly Jerla

Civil and Environmental Engineering and Construction Faculty Research

Current forecasts by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) are that the Pacific Ocean will experience El Niño conditions in late 2009 and into 2010. These forecasts are similar to past El Niño events in 1972–1973, 1982–1983, 1986–1987, and 2002–2003.

Evaluating the hydrologic conditions for these past El Niño events reveals that during these times, surface water supply conditions improved in many parts of the United States, including the Southeast, Midwest, and Southwest. At the same time, the Pacific Northwest and other specific regions of the United States experienced below-average water supply conditions. This is consistent with the …

A Representation Of Gm-Variation In Waves By The Volterra System, Jianbo Hua, Wei-Hui Wang, Jiang-Ren Chang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

As known, the variation of the metacentric height of a ship in irregular waves is not a pure linear process, particular when a ship has large beam to draught ratio and large flare near the waterline at bow and stern. This kind of unconventional hull form is usually adopted for modern RoRo-ship, cruise-ship etc. which allows large cargo space and high service speed. In this paper, the GM-variation is derived into a function series with respect to the variation order and represented by the Volterra system. The transfer functions for the different orders are integrated numerically or analytically through expressing …

Non-Darcy Flow And Heat Transfer In A Porous Insulation With Infiltration, Hwa-Chong Tien, Kwang-Sheng Chiang

Journal of Marine Science and Technology–Taiwan

This work analyzes non-Darcy flow and heat transfer in a vertical slot filled with a porous matrix. The left and right vertical boundaries of the porous system are maintained at higher and lower temperatures, respectively. The horizontal boundaries are assumed to be impermeable and insulated. The vertical boundaries are either completely impermeable, where free convection is induced, or partially permeable in a way to simulate the wall leakage in the building materials, where both air infiltration and free convection exist. The non-Darcy model, which includes the Brinkman and Forchheimer extensions along with the convection terms, is employed to describe the …

Measured Optical Constants Of Copper From 10 Nm To 35 Nm, David D. Allred, Nicole Brimhall, Nicholas Herrick, Justin Peatross, R. Steven Turley, Michael Ware

Faculty Publications

We use laser high-order harmonics and a polarization-ratioreflectance technique to determine the optical constants of copper and oxidized copper in the wavelength range 10-35 nm. This measurement resolves previously conflicting data sets, where disagreement on optical constants of copper in the extreme ultraviolet most likely arises from inadvertent oxidation of samples before measurement.

Mathematical Sciences News, Georgia Southern University

Mathematical Sciences News (2007-2021)

• Prestigious Putnam Exam

Simulation Model To Investigate Flexible Workload Management For Healthcare And Servicescape Environment, Michael Thorwarth, Paul Harper, Amr Arisha

Conference papers

High demand and poor staffing conditions cause avoidable pressure and stress among healthcare personnel which results in burnout symptoms and unplanned absenteeism which are hidden cost drivers. The work environment within an emergency department is commonly arranged in a flexible workload which is highly dynamic and complex for the outside observer. Using detailed simulation modeling within structured modeling methods, a comprehensive model to characterize the nurses' time utilization in such flexible dynamic workload environment was investigated. The results have been used to derive a generalized analytic expression that describes certain settings that lead to an instable queuing system with serious …

Analysis Of Transient Growth In Iterative Learning Control Using Pseudospectra, Douglas A. Bristow, John R. Singler

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper we examine the problem of transient growth in Iterative Learning Co ntrol (ILC). Transient growth is generally avoided in design by using robust monotonic convergence (RMC) criteria. However, RMC leads to fundamental performance limitations. We consider the possibility of allowing safe transient growth in ILC algorithms as a means to circumvent these limitations. Here the pseudospectra is used for the first time to study transient growth in ILC. Basic properties of the pseudospectra that are relevant to the ILC problem are presented. Two ILC design problems are considered and examined using pseduospectra. The pseudospectra provides new results …

The Acs Survey Of Galactic Globular Clusters. Ix. Horizontal Branch Morphology And The Second Parameter Phenomenon, Aaron Dotter, Ata Sarajedini, Jay Anderson, Antonio Aparicio, Luigi R. Bedin, Brian Chaboyer

Dartmouth Scholarship

The horizontal branch (HB) morphology of globular clusters (GCs) is most strongly influenced by metallicity. The second parameter phenomenon, first described in the 1960s, acknowledges that metallicity alone is not enough to describe the HB morphology of all GCs. In particular, astronomers noticed that the outer Galactic halo contains GCs with redder HBs at a given metallicity than are found inside the solar circle. Thus, at least a second parameter was required to characterize HB morphology. While the term "second parameter" has since come to be used in a broader context, its identity with respect to the original problem has …

Minutes December 14, 2009

Minutes

No abstract provided.

Sr-09-10-(17) 63 Cc, Marshall University

Recommendations

No abstract provided.

Realizing The Technical Advantages Of Star Transformation, Karen L. Darling

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Data warehousing and business intelligence go hand in hand, each gives the other purpose for development, maintenance and improvement. Both have evolved over a few decades and build upon initial development. Management initiatives further drive the need and complexity of business intelligence, while in turn expanding the end user community so that business change, results and strategy are affected at the business unit level. The literature, including a recent business intelligence user survey, demonstrates that query performance is the most significant issue encountered. Oracle's data warehouse 10g.2 is examined with improvements to query optimization via "best practice" through Star Transformation. …

An Investigation Into Rewriting A Security Policy For Loreto College, Paul M. Mwai

Regis University Student Publications (comprehensive collection)

Computers as well as the networking environments in which they operate have evolved into highly sophisticated and complex systems. The intricacy of these systems and especially the relationship between them forms the greatest area of vulnerabilities for organizations. (Whitman and Mattord, 2004) Information needs to be transmitted to and from the organization, and thus may be vulnerable within certain stages along the communications line. If at any stage of the process, the information is compromised, it could have a negative impact on the entire organization. Protective measures such as disaster recover plans, encryption/ decryption, and information system security controls, can …

Math In The Middle Report To Nebraska December 2009

Math in the Middle Program Materials

Table of Contents:

An overview of Math in the Middle

Gordon-Rushville reaps benefits of Math in the Middle

Nebraska Math & Science Summer Institutes: Courses enhance teaching abilities

Math in the Middle graduates excel as teacher leaders

Math in the Middle graduate achievements: Exemplary leaders in math education

Dan Schaben, former NATM president, reflects on Math in the Middle

Math Teachers’ Circle: The drive to learn continues

Action Research Papers

Math Expository Papers

Doctoral Students and Math in the Middle

Selected Publications

Contributors: Jim Lewis, Ruth Heaton, Michelle Homp, Wendy Smith, Shannon Parry and Lindsay Augustyn

Design/Layout: Lindsay Augustyn

University Of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate Meeting Agenda, December 14, 2009, University Of Northern Iowa. Faculty Senate.

Documents - Faculty Senate

Meeting agenda from the Faculty Senate of the University of Northern Iowa.

University Of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes, December 14, 2009, University Of Northern Iowa. Faculty Senate.

Documents - Faculty Senate

Meeting minutes from the Faculty Senate of the University of Northern Iowa.

University Of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate Meeting Minutes, December 14, 2009, University Of Northern Iowa. Faculty Senate.

Documents - Faculty Senate

Meeting minutes from the Faculty Senate of the University of Northern Iowa.

University Of Northern Iowa Faculty Senate Meeting Agenda, December 14, 2009, University Of Northern Iowa. Faculty Senate.

Documents - Faculty Senate

Meeting agenda from the Faculty Senate of the University of Northern Iowa.

The Effect Of Consumerism And Regulation On Household Solid Waste Management In The United States And Germany: A Comparative Study, Amir Vafa

School of Natural Resources: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Private household recycling is a significant aspect of consumerism in economically developed countries and the inevitable question of household waste management has gained more importance among municipalities in recent years. The present study examined the effect of regulation on household solid waste management. Within a comparative, qualitative framework, the study explored and evaluated the pro-regulatory effects in Germany and the anti-regulatory policies in the United States by means of comparing two similar communities, Lincoln, Nebraska and Augsburg, Germany. By examining the present legislations, official documents, legal and operational procedures, and other relevant artifacts, laws, regulations and the degree of their …

Board Of Directors Meeting Minutes (December 14, 2009), Dmacc

Board of Directors Meeting Minutes

This file contains the minutes from the Des Moines Area Community College Board meeting held on December 14, 2009.