Digital Commons Network^™

Race, Colonialism, Gender And The Rwandan Genocide, Jessica Patrice Braccio

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

In 1994 Rwanda erupted in a genocide, which targeted primarily the Tutsi and any of their sympathizers. At the end of the conflict an estimated 800,000 Rwandans were dead and some Hutu offenders still face prosecution today. Proponents of the genocide justified their violence by asserting that the Tutsi had privileged lot in life, compared with the Hutu. These ideas can be seen as a reaction against ideas of Tutsi racial superiority over the Hutu which originated in European, specifically German and Belgian, colonial thought about race and gender. Even though very little is known about Rwanda prior to European …

Adrift In The Wake Of Modernism: Music, Mind, And Meaning In The Works Of James Joyce, April E. Cook

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Since Joyce's rise to critical prominence over the course of the twentieth century, a diverse corpus of scholarship has emerged around the Joyce canon that is nearly as vast and as multifaceted as the works themselves. While many have explored Joyce's affinity for music and his unprecedented synthesis of musical and literary modes, relatively few have examined his works' musical properties in the context of the contemporaneous musical developments of the early avant-garde and jazz movements. This study explores the trajectory of Joyce's engagement with musical forms and techniques, ranging from the primarily allusive relations of his early works to …

Obscenity And Pornography: A Historical Look At The American Library Association, The Commission On Obscenity And Pornography, And The Supreme Court, Gretchen Brooke Gould

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

There was a time when accessing pornographic and obscene materials was much more difficult than it is today. Prosecuted in 1868, Regina v. Hicklin was the first known obscenity case tried under the Obscene Publications Act in Great Britain. The United States Supreme Court first addressed obscenity in the 1957 case of Roth v. United States and grappled with setting standards or creating criteria by which obscenity could be defined. In the 1960s, multiple proposals for federal legislation to crack down on obscenity were offered. The American Library Association (ALA) stepped in to voice its concern and provide professional input …

Time-Domain Field Responses Of The Thin, High-Contrast, Finely Layered Structure In Ic Packagings, Adrianus T. De Hoop, Lijun Jiang

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The thin, high-contrast, fine layers with dielectric and conductive properties, such as ground planes, are feature structures in IC packagings. Their responses to the pulsed electromagnetic field is important both theoretically and practically. In this paper, a new semi-analytical method is proposed to model the interaction of the layer with an incident electromagnetic field via a boundary condition that expresses the in-plane conduction and contrast electric polarization currents in terms of the exciting incident field by relating the jump in the tangential component of the magnetic field strength across the layer in terms of the (continuous) tangential component of the …

A Higher-Order Spectro-Temporal Integration Model For Predicting Signal Audibility, Qing Yang, John G. Harris

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A higher-order model to determine audibility of audio signals is presented. Previous models have been energy based (second order) and adequate only for stationary, narrow-band signals. Music, speech and other audio signals are nonstationary and wideband so traditional energy models poorly predict the audibility of these sounds. The predictions from the higher-order model are compared to actual subjective listening tests to show that the higher order, wide-band technique outperforms previous models. ©2010 IEEE.

Design And Characterization Of An Integrate-And-Fire Neural Recording System, Sheng Feng Yen, John G. Harris

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A neuronal recording system for brain-machine interfaces (BMI) based on asynchronous biphasic pulse coding is described. A recording experiment comparing, in parallel, a commercial recording system (Tucker-Davis Technology) and the UF's custom solution (FWIRE) is set up to compare performance. The novel aspect of the UF system is that the analog signal is represented by an asynchronous pulse train, which provides a low-power, low-bandwidth, noise-resistant means for coding and transmission. Based on different front-end hardware settings, recording bandwidth and corresponding reconstruction accuracy can be varied. Taking advantage of neural firing features, the pulse-based approach requires less than 3K pulses/second to …

Turning To Community In Times Of Crisis: Globally Derived Insights On Local Community Formation, Glen Kuecker, Martin Mulligan, Yaso Nadarajah

History Faculty publications

No abstract provided.

Optimal Control Of Affine Nonlinear Continuous-Time Systems Using An Online Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs Formulation, T. Dierks, Sarangapani Jagannathan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Solving the Hamilton-Jacobi-Isaacs (HJI) equation, commonly used in ℋ∞ optimal control, is often referred to as a two-player differential game where one player tries to minimize the cost function while the other tries to maximize it. in this paper, the HJI equation is formulated online and forward-in-time using a novel single online approximator (SOLA)-Based scheme to achieve optimal regulation and tracking control of affine nonlinear continuous-time systems. the SOLA-Based adaptive approach is designed to learn the infinite horizon HJI equation, the corresponding optimal control input, and the worst-case disturbance. a novel parameter tuning algorithm is derived which not only achieves …

Optimal Control Of Affine Nonlinear Continuous-Time Systems, T. Dierks, Sarangapani Jagannathan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, the optimal regulation and tracking control of affine nonlinear continuous-time systems with known dynamics is undertaken using a novel single online approximator (SOL)-Based scheme. the SOLA-Based adaptive approach is designed to learn the infinite horizon continuous time Hamilton-Jacobi-Bellman (HJB) equation and its corresponding optimal control input. a novel parameter tuning algorithm is derived which not only ensures the optimal cost (HJB) function and control input are achieved, but also ensures the system states remain bounded during the online learning process. Lyapunov techniques show that all signals are uniformly ultimately bounded (UUB) and the approximated control signal approaches …

A Novel Emulator For Discrete-Time Mimo Triply Selective Fading Channels, Fei Ren, Yahong Rosa Zheng

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

Hardware implementation of discrete-time triply selective Rayleigh fading channel emulators is proposed for multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) communications. the proposed work differs from existing ones in that it incorporates temporal correlation, intertap correlation, and spatial correlation matrices into multiple uncorrelated frequency-flat fading waveforms to obtain a triply selective fading channel. the flat fading waveforms with temporal correlation or Doppler spectrum are generated using a sum-of-sinusoid method. the intertap correlation matrix associated with multipath delay spread is computed according to the channel power delay profile and transmit/receive filters. the spatial correlation matrices are predefined inputs associated with transmit and receive antenna arrangements. …

Direct Numerical Simulation Of Hypersonic Turbulent Boundary Layers. Part 2. Effect Of Wall Temperature, L. (Lian) Duan, I. Beekman, M. P. Martín

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, we perform direct numerical simulation (DNS) of turbulent boundary layers at Mach 5 with the ratio of wall-to-edge temperature T w/T ℘ from 1.0 to 5.4 (Cases M5T1 to M5T5). The influence of wall cooling on Morkovin's scaling, Walz's equation, the standard and modified strong Reynolds analogies, turbulent kinetic energy budgets, compressibility effects and near-wall coherent structures is assessed. We find that many of the scaling relations used to express adiabatic compressible boundary-layer statistics in terms of incompressible boundary layers also hold for non-adiabatic cases. Compressibility effects are enhanced by wall cooling but remain insignificant, and the …

Influence Of Interactions Between Turbulence And Radiation On Transmissivities In Hypersonic Turbulent Boundary Layers, A. M. Feldick, L. (Lian) Duan, M. F. Modest, M. P. Martín, D. A. Levin

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In the current paper, a high-fidelity large eddy simulation solver is coupled to our modified line-by-line radiative transport equation solver to study the effects of absorption turbulence-radiation interations in a hypersonic turbulent boundary layer, representative of the Orion CEV entering Earth's atmosphere, at peak heating condition. The turbulent and radiation fields represent extreme conditions typical of Orion, as the simulated boundary layer represents the region of high turbulence coupled to region of highest incident radiation. A simplification in the calculation of molecular spectra with a single temperature property database in allows for tractable calculation of spectral properties. A comparison of …

Output Feedback Control Of A Quadrotor Uav Using Neural Networks, Travis Dierks, Sarangapani Jagannathan

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a new nonlinear controller for a quadrotor unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) is proposed using neural networks (NNs) and output feedback. the assumption on the availability of UAV dynamics is not always practical, especially in an outdoor environment. Therefore, in this work, an NN is introduced to learn the complete dynamics of the UAV online, including uncertain nonlinear terms like aerodynamic friction and blade flapping. Although a quadrotor UAV is underactuated, a novel NN virtual control input scheme is proposed which allows all six degrees of freedom (DOF) of the UAV to be controlled using only four control …

Direct Detection Of No Produced By High-Temperature Surface-Catalyzed Atom Recombination, Dušan A. Pejaković, Jochen Marschall, Lian Duan, Maria P. Martin

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

The surface-catalytic recombination of oxygen and nitrogen atoms to form nitric oxide was confirmed by the direct detection of product NO molecules, using single-photon laser-induced fluorescence spectroscopy. Experiments were performed from room temperature to 1200 K in a quartz diffusion-tube sidearm reactor enclosed in a high temperature tube furnace. Atomic nitrogen was generated using a microwave discharge, and atomic oxygen was produced via the rapid gas-phase titration reaction N + NO → O + N2. The use of isotopically labeled titration gases 15N16O and 15N18O allowed for the unambiguous identification of nitric oxide produced by the O + N surface …

Direct Numerical Simulation Of Hypersonic Turbulent Boundary Layers With Varying Freestream Mach Number, L. (Lian) Duan, I. Beekman, M. P. Mart́In

Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, the effects of freestream Mach number on the statistics and large-scale structures in compressible turbulent boundary layers are investigated using direct numerical simulations (DNS). DNS of turbulent boundary layers with nominal freestream Mach number ranging from 3 to 8 are performed. The validity of Morkovin's scaling, strong Reynolds analogy, and Walz's equation are assessed. We find that many of the scaling relations used to express compressible boundary layer statistics in terms of incompressible boundary layers still hold for the range of freestream Mach number considered. Compressibility effects are enhanced with increasing freestream Mach number but remain insignificant, …

Mahalanobis Taguchi System (Mts) As A Prognostics Tool For Rolling Element Bearing Failures, Ahmet Soylemezoglu, Sarangapani Jagannathan, Can Saygin

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

In this paper, a novel Mahalanobis-Taguchi system (MTS)-Based fault detection, isolation, and prognostics scheme is presented. the proposed data-driven scheme utilizes the Mahalanobis distance (MD)-Based fault clustering and the progression of MD values over time. MD thresholds derived from the clustering analysis are used for fault detection and isolation. When a fault is detected, the prognostics scheme, which monitors the progression of the MD values, is initiated. Then, using a linear approximation, time to failure is estimated. the performance of the scheme has been validated via experiments performed on rolling element bearings inside the spindle headstock of a microcomputer numerical …

A Variable Step-Size Normalized Sign Algorithm For Acoustic Echo Cancelation, Tiange Shao, Yahong Rosa Zheng, Jacob Benesty

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A variable step size normalized sign algorithm (VSS-NSA) is proposed, for acoustic echo cancelation, which adjusts its step size automatically by matching the L1 norm of the a posteriori error to that of the background noise plus near-end signal. Simulation results show that the new algorithm combined with double-talk detection outperforms the dual sign algorithm (DSA) and the normalized triple-state sign algorithm (NTSSA) in terms of convergence rate and stability. ©2010 IEEE.

Dynamic System Eigenvalue Extraction Using A Linear Echo State Network For Small-Signal Stability Analysis - A Novel Application, Jiaqi Liang, Jing Dai, Ganesh K. Venayagamoorthy, Ronald G. Harley

Electrical and Computer Engineering Faculty Research & Creative Works

A large nonlinear dynamic system usually has complex dynamic modes corresponding to the system's eigenvalues. These eigenvalues govern the system's local behavior and thus are critical information for designing system operation and control strategies. Without the availability of the system's analytical model, which is often the case for large nonlinear systems, the system's eigenvalues need to be estimated. a linear echo state network (ESN) based method for extracting observable eigenvalues of a dynamic system together with the participation factors of these eigenvalues in the accessible system states is presented in this paper. a linear ESN is first trained to track …

City Innovation Systems: The Metro Manila Experience, Aida L. Velasco

Angelo King Institute for Economic and Business Studies (AKI)

City innovations, as defined by leading Southeast Asian researchers in urban and innovation studies, refer to new or improved solutions that contribute to enhanced liveability, prosperity, and equity of the city. These may be technological products, service or processes; institutional or organizational developments; administrative or legislative policies; or socio-cultural practices that create a more liveable environment, promote better economic conditions, and produce a more equitable social structure. City innovations cover both social and commercial innovation.

Wikipedia2onto: Building Concept Ontology Automatically, Experimenting With Web Image Retrieval, Huan Wang, Xing Jiang, Liang-Tien Chia, Ah-Hwee Tan

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Given its effectiveness to better understand data, ontology has been used in various domains including artificial intelligence, biomedical informatics and library science. What we have tried to promote is the use of ontology to better understand media (in particular, images) on the World Wide Web. This paper describes our preliminary attempt to construct a large-scale multi-modality ontology, called AutoMMOnto, for web image classification. Particularly, to enable the automation of text ontology construction, we take advantage of both structural and content features of Wikipedia and formalize real world objects in terms of concepts and relationships. For visual part, we train classifiers …

Language Exclusionary Behavior And Attitudes Toward Immigrants, Christine L. Bennett

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Immigrants often speak languages that natives do not understand, leading to intentional or inadvertent ostracism, which in turn may increase perceptions of threat. For example, English language participants excluded from a conversation in Spanish report more negative reactions than participants excluded in English (Hitlan, Kelly, & Zarate, 2010). Integrated threat theory (ITT) suggests that there are four threats that lead to prejudice toward outgroups such as immigrants: realistic threat, symbolic threat, intergroup anxiety, and negative stereotypes (Stephan, Ybarra, & Bachman, 1999). The current study expanded upon prior research by ostracizing participants in English, Spanish, or Arabic and then measuring participants' …

A Case Study Of The Perceptions Of Stakeholders From A School District In Iowa On The Impact Of No Child Left Behind On The Comprehensive High School, Brian Coppess

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The American comprehensive high school was designed for a diverse society (Wraga, 1998, p. 1 ). The concept originated in the 1920s as a result of a report entitled The Cardinal Principles of Secondary Education (Commission on the Reorganization of Secondary Education [CRSE], 1918). Since the adoption of The Cardinal Principles, the institution of the comprehensive high school has withstood years of continued review and reform efforts. Despite the many attempts to change it, the comprehensive high school has remained a constant of secondary education in America. The nation's most recent educational reform effort-the No Child Left Behind Act (NCLB, …

Service Learning : A Vehicle To Reflective Thinking, Janelle Lynn Hawk

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Education reform is a topic that has been around for a long time. With the passage of No Child Left Behind in 2002, states set out to set high standards for students. While setting high standards is a worthwhile goal, the method to reach those high standards has not been mandated. This research study sought to determine if exposing students to a service-learning project would increase reflective thinking, communication, and social interaction skills.

The questions that guided this study were:

1. Does engagement in a service-learning project impact the individual's development of reflective thinking? If so, what is that impact? …

Locating Henry In The “Un-”: Proto-Postmodern Negation Of Character, Allusion, Narrative And Structure In John Berryman’S The Dream Songs, Joseph Russell Hendryx

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

John Berryman's The Dream Songs encompasses an extensive and complex negation of characterization and structure, offering a method of interpretation that focuses on the negations and the absences expressed in and presented by the song cycle. Through his nonlinear account of his life and through the historical and literary allusions he uses to express himself, Henry obscures any effort for readers to discover a stable, absolute identity. Like Henry himself, his unnamed companion unsuccessfully fulfills a variety of roles that critics have attempted to prescribe for him; he fails to perform any notable thematic or structural purpose for the poem, …

The New Childbirth : An Analysis Of Planned Cesarean Sections, Loren Wilbers

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

This study examines the experience of planned cesarean section delivery as told by six mothers who have given birth utilizing this method. The rate of planned cesarean deliveries being performed in the United States has been increasing over the past two decades. The existing literature attributes this phenomenon to mothers' fear of the pain associated with vaginal birth, desires to imitate celebrities and maintain vaginal tone, and the greed of obstetricians who push for cesarean deliveries for both convenience and financial gain. The voices of mothers themselves is lacking in the existing literature. Thus, this study draws upon a qualitative, …

A Study Of Japanese Women Today: Changing Gender Roles And Attitudes Toward Marriage, Shiho Hosokawa

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

Japanese women and men are getting married later in life than before and the number of Japanese choosing to live a single person's lifestyle has increased since the 1980's. In the 1970's, the number of women working outside the home was lower than now and most of those who did work, did so only to supplement their husband's income. Today, many Japanese women obtain college degrees and have a paid job, the same as men do. Yet, based on my personal experience and those of others I know, Japanese women often remain the primary caretakers in the home. They are …

Conception And Other Stories: A Collection Of Short Fiction, Samuel Nicholas Edsill

Dissertations and Theses @ UNI

The following is a collection of short stories I have written or revised over the past two years. These stories explore love, fear, life, death, friendship, hope, uncertainty, the creation and dissolution of families, and the Midwestern Diaspora. They are stories about characters coming to grips with a life that does not meet their expectations.

Evaluation Of A Web-Based Learning Tool For Teaching Gis Within The Context Of Transportation Engineering, Ashley Banaszek, Hong Sheng, Richard H. Hall, Ronaldo Luna, Ghulam Bham

Business and Information Technology Faculty Research & Creative Works

An Exploratory Study Was Conducted to Evaluate a Web-Based Learning Module for Teaching Geographic Information Systems to Civil Engineering Students within the Context of a Problem Related to Crash Data Analysis. This Module is One Part of a National Science Foundation Course, Curricula, and Laboratory Improvement Project in Which GIS Modules Are Being Developed for Several Areas of Civil Engineering. the Module Was Used as a Laboratory Assignment in a Transportation Engineering Course. Two Days Later Students Completed Both an Objective Multiple-Choice Quiz over the Material Covered in the Lab and a Subjective Questionnaire. Quantitative Analysis Was Carried Out on …

Buccal Granulocytic Sarcoma (Chloroma), Chieh-Yuan Cheng, Chi-Yuan Tzen, Chung-Ji Liu

Journal of Dental Sciences

A granulocytic sarcoma (GS) is an extramedullary myeloid tumor which can occur in multiple sites around the body. GS rarely occurs in the oral cavity, and most cases are found in pediatric patients. In this report, we describe the case of a 56-year-old male who suffered from right buccal swelling for 1 week. Facial computed tomography revealed a low-density mass over the right buccal area. He was also a victim of acute myeloid leukemia; he had received chemotherapy and experienced remission 6 months later. An intraoral biopsy was performed and proved the mass to be a GS. He was referred …

The Effects Of Splinting Periodontally Compromised Removable Partial Denture Abutments On Bone Stresses: A Three-Dimensional Finite Element Study, Allahyar Geramy, Mehdi Adibrad, Mahasti Sahabi

Journal of Dental Sciences

Background/Purpose Periodontally compromised abutments complicate the treatment plan of distal extension removable partial dentures. The objectives of this study were: (1) to determine if splinting a tooth with reduced bone height to a healthy one is beneficial to the weak one; (2) to investigate fixed splinting of two teeth (the first and second premolars) with various alveolar support levels on bone stress around the periodontal construction according to different crown to root ratios of the periodontally compromised abutment; and (3) to assess the efficiency of splinting in the presence of non-axial loads. Materials and methods Thirteen three-dimensional finite element models …