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As The Creek Trickles: Land Use Debates In The Rock Creek Drainage, Carly Christine Phillips

Graduate Student Theses, Dissertations, & Professional Papers

Rural areas in Montana are increasing in population as more and more people move to or buy second homes in these areas in search of scenic amenities and a better quality of life. Academics, policy makers, and the general public are concerned that such development pressure may have negative consequences for important habitat, ecosystems, rural communities, people’s livelihoods, and social networks. Rock Creek, Montana is a small, rural area that has seen a large increase in population in the last twenty years. Population increase and development pressure in the area has led to many debates about proper land use on …

Design Of An Integrated Starter-Alternator For A Series Hybrid Electric Vehicle: A Case Study In Axial Flux Permanent Magnet Machine Design, Jessica L. Colton

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

This thesis details the design of an electric machine to perform as both a starter and alternator in a series hybrid electric vehicle. The focus of the work is on practical design aspects specific to single-sided axial flux permanent magnet machines with non-overlapped windings. First, a characterization of the rotor losses in these machine types is presented through experimental validation of finite element analysis estimates. The approaches taken to model the axial flux geometry, especially in two-dimensions, are detailed, and the difficult issue of validating the finite element analysis estimates with experimental data is addressed with a prototype 24-slot, 20-pole …

Modeling Biological Structures Via Abstract Grammars To Solve Common Problems In Computational Biology, David J. Russell

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Grammars are generally understood to be the set of rules that define the relationships between elements of a language. However, grammars can also be used to elucidate structural relationships within sequences constructed from any finite alphabet. In this work abstract grammars are used to model the primary and secondary structures present in biological data. These grammar models are inferred and applied to efficiently solve various sequence analysis problems in computational biology, including multiple sequence alignment, fragment assembly, database redundancy removal, and structural prediction.

The primary structures, or sequential ordering of symbols, of biological data are first modeled with Lempel-Ziv (LZ) …

Growth And Characterization Of Silicon Carbide Thin Films Using A Nontraditional Hollow Cathode Sputtering Technique, James Huguenin-Love

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Silicon carbide (SiC) is considered a suitable candidate for high-power, high-frequency devices due to its wide bandgap, high breakdown field, and high electron mobility. It also has the unique ability to synthesize graphene on its surface by subliming Si during an annealing stage. The deposition of SiC is most often carried out using chemical vapor deposition (CVD) techniques, but little research has been explored with respect to the sputtering of SiC.

Investigations of the thin film depositions of SiC from pulse sputtering a hollow cathode SiC target are presented. Although there are many different polytypes of SiC, techniques are discussed …

Experimental Investigation Of Dielectric Barrier Impact On Breakdown Voltage Enhancement Of Copper Wire-Plane Electrode Systems, Elham Foruzan, M. Ziaee-Nezhad, A. A. Shayegani-Akmal, K. Niayesh

Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering: Dissertations, Theses, and Student Research

Non-pressurized air is extensively used as basic insulation media in medium / high voltage equipments. An inherent property of air-insulated designs is that the systems tend to become physically large. Application of Dielectric barrier can increase the breakdown voltage and therefore decrease the size of the equipments.

In this paper, the impact of dielectric barrier on breakdown voltage enhancement of a copper wire-plane system is investigated. For this purpose, the copper wire is covered with different dielectric materials. Depending on the air gap and dielectric strength of the barrier the breakdown can be initiated in the solid or gas dielectric. …

Building A Community Of Shalom: What The Bible Says About Multicultural Education, Heekap Lee

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Multicultural education is a highly controversial topic in which it has been the center of contentions and conflicts as it has evolved for the last couple of decades. Several concerns and problems existed in the field of multicultural education will be addressed in this article. In addition, a new framework of multicultural education, called the shalom model, which is drawn from the Bible is presented, along with the characteristics of the model. The goal of multicultural education, according to this model, is to build a community of shalom, an image that is clearly described in Isaiah 11:6. In order to …

Special Education And Spiritual Formation, David W. Anderson

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Faith-learning integration is a complex and sometimes challenging issue for university faculty, and something which our students have not likely engaged in. Rather than “integration,” emphasis will be on how Christian thought informs educational practice, and contributes to our spiritual formation, igniting flames of faith-learning and helping prepare caring and competent teachers.

The Role Of Controversial Issues In Moral Education: Approaches And Attitudes Of Christian School Educators, Samuel J. Smith

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

This study investigated the approaches and attitudes of Christian school teachers as they addressed controversial issues in moral education. Thirteen teachers from four schools were interviewed extensively. A hermeneutic phenomenological methodology was implemented. Participants conveyed that they attempted to remain pedagogically neutral in matters relating to denominational differences among Christian churches. While acknowledging that indoctrinative techniques may alienate students, teachers chose to indoctrinate selectively, especially in matters critical to the Christian faith. Issues impacting the classrooms included abortion, sex, doctrine, homosexuality, evolution, etc. Teachers rarely chose to remain neutral on controversial issues unless by doing so they sensed that they …

Teacher Vital Signs: A Two-Country Study Of Teacher Vitality, Delta Cavner Ed.D.

International Christian Community of Teacher Educators Journal

Defining teacher vitality as the vigor, energy, passion, and joy teachers bring to their classroom, students and colleagues; this article describes an international, comparative, qualitative, phenomenological study of teachers’ lived experiences to determine the elements influencing teacher vitality. This is a two-country, multiple-case study of twenty-one middle and high school teachers who had taught ten to twenty years. In order to serve as a confirmation of the universality of the elements of teacher vitality, the study was not only conducted in two different schools in Idaho, but also was replicated in two different schools in Austria. In each of the …

Prevalence, Nature, Context And Impact Of Alcohol Use In India: Recommendations For Practice And Research, S. Prabhu, David A. Patterson Silver Wolf (Adelv Unegv Waya) Phd, Catherine N. Dulmus Phd, K. S. Ratheeshkumar

Brown School Faculty Publications

Presently alcohol policy in India takes a moral stand rather than a scientific approach towards understanding and dealing with the problem of alcoholism. To effectively address this social problem in India, public policy must take into account the nature, extent of the problem and the context in which it occurs. This literature review examines the nature, prevalence and impact of alcohol use and misuse in India, within its historical and cultural contexts, as a beginning step to inform policy. Recommendations for practice and future research directions are suggested.

Vulnerability And Disability In Darfur, Maria Kett, Jean-Francois Trani

Brown School Faculty Publications

The difficulties faced by persons with disabilities throughout the displacement process contribute to their increased vulnerability.

Faculty Governance, Volume 1, Issue 4, Unm Faculty Senate

Faculty Senate Documents

No abstract provided.

Hslic Annual Report Fy2009-10, Health Sciences Library And Informatics Center

HSLIC Annual Reports

No abstract provided.

Personnel File Of Fr. John Candido Rodriguez, Catholic Church. Archdiocese Of Santa Fe (N.M.)

Personnel Files

No abstract provided.

Resource Nationalism And Energy Security In Latin America: Implication For Global Oil Supplies, David R. Mares

Latin American Energy Dialogue, White Papers and Reports

Energy policy is usefully characterized by the degree to which resource nationalism and energy security are pursued. The balance achieved between these two key concepts dramatically affects global energy supplies. Over the past century, both of these ideas have played particularly significant roles in Latin America, where the oil industry first developed outside the US, and an area that continues to draw the attention of the world market. Because Latin America is a growing source of hydrocarbons for the world market, its energy policies are of increasing importance. The challenge is to understand why a country works with or against …

Fusion Of Imprecise Qualitative Information, Florentin Smarandache, Xinde Li, Xianzhong Dai, Jean Dezert

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

In this paper, we present a new 2-tuple linguistic representation model, i.e. Distribution Function Model (DFM), for combining imprecise qualitative information using fusion rules drawn from Dezert-Smarandache Theory (DSmT) framework. Such new approach allows to preserve the precision and efficiency of the combination of linguistic information in the case of either equidistant or unbalanced label model. Some basic operators on imprecise 2-tuple labels are presented together with their extensions for imprecise 2-tuple labels. We also give simple examples to show how precise and imprecise qualitative information can be combined for reasoning under uncertainty. It is concluded that DSmT can deal …

Fusion Of Sources Of Evidence With Different Importances And Reliabilities, Florentin Smarandache, Jean Dezert, J.M. Tacnet

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

This paper presents a new approach for combining sources of evidences with different importances and reliabilities. Usually, the combination of sources of evidences with different reliabilities is done by the classical Shafer’s discounting approach. Therefore, to consider unequal importances of sources, if any, a similar reliability discounting process is generally used, making no difference between the notion of importance and reliability. In fact, in multicriteria decision context, these notions should be clearly distinguished. This paper shows how this can be done and we provide simple examples to show the differences between both solutions for managing importances and reliabilities of sources. …

Single Valued Neutrosophic Sets, Haibin Wang, Florentin Smarandache, Yanqing Zhang, Rajshekhar Sunderraman

Branch Mathematics and Statistics Faculty and Staff Publications

Neutrosophic set is a part of neutrosophy which studies the origin, nature, and scope of neutralities, as well as their interactions with different ideational spectra. Neutrosophic set is a powerful general formal framework that has been recently proposed. However, neutrosophic set needs to be specified from a technical point of view. To this effect, we define the settheoretic operators on an instance of neutrosophic set, we call it single valued neutrosophic set (SVNS). We provide various properties of SVNS, which are connected to the operations and relations over SVNS.

Between Return And Resettlement: The Formation Of Iraqi Refugee "Communities" In Cairo And Amman, Emilie K. B. Minnick

Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of this thesis is to investigate whether or not there is community formation among Iraqi refugees living in Amman, Jordan and Cairo, Egypt. These two countries were chosen as case studies because they offer an opportunity to analyze how different host country conditions in the Global South have an impact on the process of community formation. While Egypt is a signatory to the 1951 Refugee Convention and Jordan is not, access to rights in both countries is similarly restrictive. Furthermore, whereas there has been a long history of forced migration from Iraq to Jordan and Iraqi social networks …

Do Online Reviews Reflect A Product's True Perceived Quality? An Investigation Of Online Movie Reviews Across Cultures, Noi Sian Koh, Nan Hu, Eric K. Clemons

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

When does the reported average of online ratings match perceived average assessment? We apply behavioral theory to capture intentions in rating online movie reviews in two dissimilar countries - China and the United States. We argue that consumers' rating behaviors are affected by cultural influences. Based on data collected from imdb.com and douban.com, we found significant differences across raters from these two different cultures. Additionally, we examined how cultural elements influence rating behavior for a hybrid culture - Singapore. Under-reporting bias occurs when consumers with extreme opinions are more likely to report their opinions than consumers with moderate reviews, resulting …

Dual Phase Learning For Large Scale Video Gait Recognition, Jialie Shen, Hwee Hwa Pang, Dacheng Tao, Xuelong Li

Research Collection School Of Computing and Information Systems

Accurate gait recognition from video is a complex process involving heterogenous features, and is still being developed actively. This article introduces a novel framework, called GC2F, for effective and efficient gait recognition and classification. Adopting a ”refinement-and-classification” principle, the framework comprises two components: 1) a classifier to generate advanced probabilistic features from low level gait parameters; and 2) a hidden classifier layer (based on multilayer perceptron neural network) to model the statistical properties of different subject classes. To validate our framework, we have conducted comprehensive experiments with a large test collection, and observed significant improvements in identification accuracy relative to …

Evaluation Of Variable Speed Limits Using A Genetic Algorithm Approach To Calibrate A Vissim Model, Brian Joseph Schaefer

Masters Theses

"The variable speed limit (VSL) system has been adopted on more and more roadways across the globe as an engineering tool for controlling traffic flow, particularly during congestion situations. An important and fundamental question raised among traffic engineers is: Are the costs of installing and operating variable speed limits really justified? In order to answer this question, this thesis measures the effectiveness of the VSL system applying the VISSIM microscopic simulation model to a non-recurrent congestion situation. For the analysis, a section of interstate was modeled in VISSIM and calibrated so that the simulated results closely reproduce the observed data …

Target Detection And Feature Evaluation Of Airborne Mine Target Images, Deepika Kamakshi Timmavajjula

Masters Theses

"Target segmentation and detection problem is one of the preliminary approaches in analyzing an image. Many edge, region and texture based techniques have been proposed in literature. These techniques often have limitations based on types of image data, kind of segmentation of interest and the problem domain. Mine detection problem dealt with for this thesis has mine target images which have a center target consisting of false alarm or mine patch which has to be detected and features evaluated to evaluate various parameter performances. Thus, segmenting the mine patch becomes the first step of analyzing these images. This thesis is …

Design And Critical Performance Evaluation Of Horizontal Axis Hydrokinetic Turbines, Suchi Subhra Mukherji

Masters Theses

"The current work discusses the hydrodynamic performance of horizontal axis hydrokinetic turbines (HAHkT) under different turbine geometries and flow conditions. Hydrokinetic turbines are a class of zero-head hydropower systems which utilize kinetic energy of flowing water to drive a generator. However, such turbines often suffer from low-efficiency. A detailed computational fluid dynamics study was performed using a low-order k-[omega] SST (Shear Stress Transport) turbulence model to examine the effect of each of tip-speed ratio, solidity, angle of attack and number of blades on the performance of small HAHkTs with a power capacity of 10 kW. The numerical models (both two-dimensional …

The Effectiveness Of The Natural Resource Conservation Service (Nrcs) And Huff Rainfall Distribution Methods For Use In Detention Basin Design, Todd Wayne Dablemont

Masters Theses

"This thesis focuses on the effectiveness of the NRCS and Huff rainfall distribution methods for use in detention basin design. This study required the use of HEC-HMS, hydrologic modeling software, in order to analyze the distribution methods. Three separate detention basins and their watersheds were modeled for this study. The watersheds were analyzed for both undeveloped and developed conditions. The parameters analyzed include detention basin inflow, detention basin outflow, watershed peak discharge, and detention basin storage capacity. The determination of detention basin effectiveness was based upon these parameters. The NRCS distribution method is widely used; however, many who use it …

Etherannotate: A Transparent Malware Analysis Tool For Integrating Dynamic And Static Examination, Joshua Michael Eads

Masters Theses

"Software security researchers commonly reverse engineer and analyze current malicious software (malware) to determine what the latest techniques malicious attackers are utilizing and how to protect computer systems from attack. The most common analysis methods involve examining how the program behaves during execution and interpreting its machine-level instructions. However, modern malicious applications use advanced anti-debugger, anti-virtualization, and code packing techniques to obfuscate the malware's true activities and divert security analysts. Malware analysts currently do not have a simple method for tracing malicious code activity at the instruction-level in a highly undetectable environment. There also lacks a simple method for combining …

Laryngeal Apparatus And Call Structure In North American Hylids, Barbara Ann Catherine Fears

Masters Theses

"Although the ecological implications and structure of frog calls have been the subject of much study, little is known about the association between the laryngeal apparatus morphology and call structure in North American hylids. In this study linear measurements of the laryngeal apparatus were captured and compared to the call structures of thirteen species of North American hylids. Species examined included: Pseudacris crucifer, P. triseriata, P. ocularis, Acris crepitans blanchardi, Hyla avivoca, H. cinerea, H. gratiosa, H. chrysoscelis, H. versicolor, H. squirella, H. femoralis, H. arenicolor, and H. eximia. Six homologous landmark points were identified, and the lengths between them …

Minimize End-To-End Delay Through Cross-Layer Optimization In Multi-Hop Wireless Sensor Networks, Yibo Xu

Masters Theses

"End-to-end delay plays a very important role in wireless sensor networks. It refers to the total time taken for a single packet to be transmitted across a network from source to destination. There are many factors could affect the end-to-end delay, among them the routing path and the interference level along the path are the two basic elements that could have significant influence on the result of the end-to-end delay. This thesis presents a transmission scheduling scheme that minimizes the end-to-end delay when the node topology is given. The transmission scheduling scheme is designed based on integer linear programming and …

Computational Intelligence Methods In Wireless Sensor Networks, Raghavendra V. Kulkarni

Doctoral Dissertations

"Wireless sensor networks (WSNs) are networks of autonomous nodes that sense, compute and communicate in order to monitor an environment collectively. Ad hoc deployment, dynamic environment and resource constraints in nodes need to be considered while addressing WSN challenges such as deployment, localization, routing and scheduling. Adaptive mechanisms that exhibit intelligent behavior in complex and dynamic environments are desirable to address these challenges. The potential of computational intelligence ( CI) based approaches for addressing WSN challenges is investigated in this study. Contributions of this dissertation are in the following three areas: critical literature analysis, new architectures and approaches, and new …

Prediction Of Soft Error Response Of Integrated Circuits To Electrostatic Discharge Injection Via Simulation Field; Package Interaction For Electrostatic Discharge Soft Error Prediction; Full Wave Model For Simulating Noise Ken Electrostatic Discharge Generator, Argha Nandy

Masters Theses

"In the first section, a concept for analyzing soft error response in ICs to ESD via coupling through flex cable structures is presented. Its novelty lies in accounting for the transient electromagnetic fields radiated by the ESD generator that couples to the flex cable PCB thereby causing disturbance on the IC under test. This is accomplished in three stages; first by developing a full wave model of the DUT which includes modeling the PCB and flex cable geometry and validating it in frequency domain with regard to the transfer impedance. This followed by combining the ESD generator with the DUT …