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Environmental Health In The Latin American And Caribbean Region: Use Of Water Storage Containers, Water Quality, And Community Perception, Erlande Omisca

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

Water quality and availability are important issues in many developing countries where portions of populations still lack access to potable water. Throughout the English-speaking Caribbean and parts of Latin America, households and businesses invest in water supply systems even when they are connected to and pay for water services from a private or state owned provider. Inconsistent supplies of water from the water companies have led many people to invest in storage tanks which, if operated correctly, can provide water throughout the day even when the supply from the main is low or zero. While these individual systems help to …

A Comparison Of Ecological Conditions And Relationships In An Altered Wetland And An Unaltered Wetland, Mark Kiyoshi Hurst

USF Tampa Graduate Theses and Dissertations

The purpose of the study is to identify and quantify the hydrologic and ecologic differences between two adjacent sections of Colt Creek; one section unaltered and one section altered by clearing and drainage. These differences were measured by monitoring water levels, groundcover vegetation in each of the two areas, and monitoring numbers and species of birds utilizing the two areas. Surface water levels were measured in three locations: in the historic Colt Creek flow way, in the ditch draining the creek, and in an adjacent wetland strand. In addition, a shallow monitor well in the creek was used to measure …

Iron Oxide And Calcite Associated With Leptothrix Sp. Biofilms Within An Estavelle In The Upper Floridan Aquifer, Lee J. Florea, Chasity L. Stinson, Josh Brewer, Rick Fowler, B Joe Kearns, Anthony M. Greco

International Journal of Speleology

In Thornton’s Cave, an estavelle in west-central Florida, SEM, EDS, and XRD data reveal biofilms that are predominantly comprised of FeOOH-encrusted hollow sheaths that are overgrown and intercalated with calcite. Fragments of this crystalline biofilm adhere to the walls and ceiling as water levels vary within the cave. Those on the wall have a ‘cornflake’ appearance and those affixed to the ceiling hang as fibrous membranes. PCR of DNA in the active biofilm, combined with morphologic data from the tubes in SEM micrographs, point to Leptothrix sp., a common Fe-oxidizing bacteria, as the primary organism in the biofilm. Recent discoveries …

Modeling The Fractional Integration In Volatility Between The Greater China Financial Markets, K. Ho, Zhaoyong Zhang

Research outputs 2011

The dynamics of the interrelationships among the financial markets in the Greater China area including Mainland China, Taiwan, and Hong Kong, is a noteworthy issue of economic research. This is not only because the financial markets in this region have grown rapidly over the past decade, but also because of the arguably asymmetric integration of the emerging Chinese economy with advanced countries in the real side of the economy and tight control over financial market. Since its establishment in the early 1990s, the Mainland Chinese stock market has expanded rapidly in terms of capitalization, turnover, and the new listings. Even …

Class Music Learning Activities: Do Students Find Them Important, Interesting And Useful?, Geoffrey Lowe

Research outputs 2011

Retaining students in elective class music programmes is an issue in many secondary schools. Retention is particularly problematic among lower secondary students. Eccles (2005) states that the subjective task values students attach to learning activities in any elective subject are key indicators of future enrolment decisions. Accordingly, this article reports on a study which utilized subjective task values as a theoretical foundation for investigating why many students drop out of elective class music programmes at this early stage. Specifically, the article reports on a study into students’ valuing of class music learning activities in Western Australia. Participating students were in …

Jumping Through 'Loops': A Reflective Study On Preparing Generalist Pre-Service Teachers To Teach Music, John Heyworth

Research outputs 2011

Generalist classroom teachers are being given more responsibility for music education in their schools. How confident and competent are they to do this? I find myself in a position where I am expected to train pre-service generalist teachers to be able to facilitate music in their future classrooms within one unit of music study over a four year general bachelor of education course. This paper is a self study on how I reflect on and describe the methods and the tools that I have used to try to both encourage and empower pre-service teachers to facilitate musical activities in their …

Modelling Exchange Rate Pass-Through In Australia, China And India, Shrabani Saha, Zhaoyong Zhang

Research outputs 2011

Exchange rate pass-through (ERPT) has attracted a ttention of many researchers in the last three decades due to the adoption of flexible exchange rate system by many countries. The objectives of this study are to make a comparative study by exploring the literature relating pass-through for import prices and domestic prices in Australia, China and India. In particular, we test whether the exchange rate pass-through to import prices is complete, estimate the pass-through to CPI to investigate whether there is any association between the pass-through and the average inflation rate across these countries. Using a structural VAR model we test …

A Pedagogical Rich Interactive On-Line Learning Platform For Network Technology Students In Thailand, Woratat Makasiranondh, Stanislaw Maj, David Veal

Research outputs 2011

Internetworking enables communication between networks and forms the foundation of the Internet. Internetworking teaching is typically conducted in a traditional face-to-face classroom, but nowadays it can be conducted online. Online learning environments have many advantages that include allowing remote students’ access to not only curriculum but also lecturers and other enrolled students. However, unlike some other disciplines, teaching internetworking courses online is problematic because students need to be given access to internetworking equipment. It is technically possible to provide remote access to online students in order to compensate for the lack of direct physical equipment access, which normally is offered …

Supporting International Students To Meet Assessment Expectations, W. Gornisiewicz, O. Bass

Research outputs 2011

This paper offers practical suggestions for teaching strategies that will assist international students. A case study is presented involving the delivery of an introductory engineering unit at the Perth Institute of Business and Technology. The approach detailed allowed the academic staff to identify areas of concern in students’ learning early in the semester. Detecting and addressing these issues led to a signifi cant improvement in preparing these students to meet the exam requirements.

A Pre & Post Analysis Of The Impact Of Carbon Regulation & Ratification Of The Kyoto Protocol: An Australian Perspective, Maya Purushothaman, Ross Taplin

Research outputs 2011

This study examines emission and energy disclosures of 400 randomly selected Australian listed companies in 2005, 2007 and 2009 using a disclosure index derived from the Global Reporting Initiative. The longitudinal nature of this study provides a more comprehensive view of the online emissions and energy disclosures of Australian companies and highlights the impact of the ratification of the Kyoto Protocol and the introduction of carbon regulations, National Greenhouse and Energy Reporting (NGER) and Energy Efficiency Opportunities (EEO).The results were compared between the two periods, it was noted that rate of increase was lower during the latter (2007 to 2009) …

Modeling Time-Varying Currency Betas: New Evidence From The Selected Markets, P. Jayasinghe, A. Tsui, Zhaoyong Zhang

Research outputs 2011

In the past decade, studies of exchange rate exposure have mainly focused on three approaches. The first approach uses conventional methods such as sub-sampling, dummy variables, and overlapping moving window regression to capture exchange rate exposure. The second approach uses pre-specified determinants of exposure coefficients to analyze the time-variation of exchange rate exposure. For example, Allayannis (1997) suggests that currency beta is determined by export and import shares, and finds support for time-variation of exposure in some 4-digit level SIC industries. The third approach employs time-varying second moments to derive time-varying exchange rate exposure (see, for instance, Hunter, 2005; Lim, …

Retention In Instrumental Programs In Lower Secondary School: The Student Perspective, Geoffrey Lowe

Research outputs 2011

The National Review of School Music (2005) listed retention in elective instrumental music programs as a key area to be addressed. For example, around 10,000 students commence learning an instrument each year in Western Australia, but only around 3% annually complete the examinable post compulsory music course which contains a large instrumental component. Research from other subject areas suggests that the largest drop-out from any elective program occurs in the first year of secondary school. This paper reports on a study into the impact of the instrument lesson upon the motivation of Year 8 students to continue their elective instrument …

Japanese Banks: Tail Risk And Capital Buffers, David E. Allen, Akhmad R. Kramadibrata, Robert Powell, Abhay Singh

Research outputs 2011

This paper applies quantile regression to a structural credit model to investigate the impact of extreme bank asset value fluctuations on capital adequacy and default probabilities (PD) of Japanese Banks. Quantile regression allows modelling of the extreme quantiles of a distribution which allows measurement of capital and PDs at the most extreme points of an economic downturn, when banks are most likely to fail. Outcomes are compared to traditional structural measures. We find highly significant variances in capital adequacy and default probabilities between quantiles, and show how these variances can assist banks and regulators in calculating capital buffers to sustain …

Extreme Market Risk - An Extreme Value Theory Approach, David E. Allen, Abhay K. Singh, Robert J. Powell

Research outputs 2011

The phenomenon of the occurrence of rare yet extreme events, “Black Swans” in Taleb’s terminology, seems to be more apparent in financial markets around the globe. This means there is not only a need to design proper risk modelling techniques which can predict the probability of risky events in normal market conditions but also a requirement for tools which can assess the probabilities of rare financial events; like the recent Global Financial Crisis (2007-2008). An obvious candidate, when dealing with extreme financial events and the quantification of extreme market risk is Extreme Value Theory (EVT). This proves to be a …

Guidelines For Policy Modellers - 30 Years On: New Tricks Or Old Dogs?, Geoffrey J. Syme, David Bennett, Duncan K. Macpherson, Jonathan F. Thomas

Research outputs 2011

Systems thinking and the use of modelling to assist in natural resources decision making started in the early 1960’s (Forrester, 1961). In the early 1970’s a multidisciplinary program was established in CSIRO’s Division of Land Resources Management to, among other issues, research and develop models to assist in the resolution of persistent and multi-faceted environmental issues. The authors of this paper were members of that group. We recently decided to look at what has been learned about these reasonably intractable problems over the more than 30 years period since. If it is true that the half life of modelling papers …

Analysis Of Key Installation Protection Using Computerized Red Teaming, Tirtha Ranjeet, Philip Hingston, Chiou Peng Lam, Martin Masek

Research outputs 2011

This paper describes the use of genetic algorithms (GAs) for computerized red teaming applications, to explore options for military plans in specific scenarios. A tool called Optimized Red Teaming (ORT) is developed and we illustrate how it may be utilized to assist the red teaming process in security organizations, such as military forces. The developed technique incorporates a genetic algorithm in conjunction with an agent-based simulation system (ABS) called MANA (Map Aware Non-uniform Automata). Both enemy forces (the red team) and friendly forces (the blue team) are modelled as intelligent agents in a multi-agent system and many computer simulations of …

One Pot Synthesis Of Metal, Carbides And Polymeric Aerogels, Naveen K. Chandrasekaran

Doctoral Dissertations

"Ultra-low density, three-dimensional assemblies of nanoparticles are referred to as aerogels, and typically are derived from supercritical fluid (SCF) drying of wet-gels. Aerogels are generally fragile materials, but that issue has been addressed successfully by X-aerogels, in which the inorganic nanoparticle framework plays the role of the template for the accumulation of polymer that connects covalently and crosslinks the nanoparticles. The resulting materials can be 300x stronger than the native network, for a nominal increase in density by a factor of 3x. Since the exceptional mechanical properties of X-aerogels are traced to the conformal polymer coating, it was reasonable to …

Two New Spline-Based Methods And Real Data Applications: High-Resolution Receiver Function Calculations From Teleseismic Broadband Waveforms And High-Accuracy Practical Potential-Field Integral Transformations, Bingzhu Wang

Doctoral Dissertations

"While receiver function (RF) calculation is fundamentally important and widely used, it is not well solved due to unstable deconvolution. A spline-based RF calculation method was proposed and it is demonstrated that both individual RFs and the stacked RF calculated with the spline method have sharper peaks than those with the water-level spectral division method and the iterative deconvolution method. At the common peaks on the stacked RFs, there are close similarities for all three RF calculation methods. The better calculated RFs with the spline method lead to improved H - K analysis and improved determination of the optimal Moho …

Hardware Emulation Of Wireless Communication Fading Channels, Fei Ren

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation investigates several main challenges to implementing hardware-based wireless fading channel emulators with emphasis on incorporating accurate correlation properties. Multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) fading channels are usually triply-selective with three types of correlation: temporal correlation, inter-tap correlation, and spatial correlation. The proposed emulators implement the triply-selective fading Channel Impulse Response (CIR) by incorporating the three types of correlation into multiple uncorrelated frequency-flat Rayleigh fading waveforms while meeting real-time requirements for high data-rate, large-sized MIMO, and/or long CIR channels. Specifically, mixed parallel-serial computational structures are implemented for Kronecker products of the correlation matrices, which makes the best tradeoff between computational speed …

Architecture Value Mapping: Using Fuzzy Cognitive Maps As A Reasoning Mechanism For Multi-Criteria Conceptual Design Evaluation, Atmika Singh

Doctoral Dissertations

"The conceptual design phase is the most critical phase in the systems engineering life cycle. The design concept chosen during this phase determines the structure and behavior of the system, and consequently, its ability to fulfill its intended function. A good conceptual design is the first step in the development of a successful artifact. However, decision-making during conceptual design is inherently challenging and often unreliable. The conceptual design phase is marked by an ambiguous and imprecise set of requirements, and ill-defined system boundaries. A lack of usable data for design evaluation makes the problem worse. In order to assess a …

Robust Adaptive Filtering Algorithms For System Identification And Array Signal Processing In Non-Gaussian Environment, Tiange Shao

Doctoral Dissertations

"This dissertation proposes four new algorithms based on fractionally lower order statistics for adaptive filtering in a non-Gaussian interference environment. One is the affine projection sign algorithm (APSA) based on L₁ norm minimization, which combines the ability of decorrelating colored input and suppressing divergence when an outlier occurs. The second one is the variable-step-size normalized sign algorithm (VSS-NSA), which adjusts its step size automatically by matching the L₁ norm of the a posteriori error to that of noise. The third one adopts the same variable-step-size scheme but extends L₁ minimization to Lp minimization and the variable step-size normalized fractionally lower-order …

Pressed Powdered Titanium And Aluminum Conical Shaped Charge Penetration Of Geological Targets, Dominique John Nolan

Masters Theses

"Conical Shaped Charge penetration into rock is dependent on the physical characteristics of the rock itself and the design and composition of the shaped charge conducting the work. This study looks at the effects of a non-typical conical shaped charge and its penetration into four different rock targets. The shaped charge is made of a liner, which is not a typical solid but instead is a pressed powdered metallic compound of Titanium (Ti) and Aluminum (AI).

The study presents the raw data from testing against rock targets that range in density, uniaxial compressive strength (UCS), tensile strength, hardness scales, and …

Design, Analysis, And Optimization Of Composite Structures For Aerospace Applications, Tyler Jason Keil

Masters Theses

"This thesis contains three papers that focus on composites that pertain to a variety of structures commonly found in the aerospace industry. The first paper presents an investigation of the stowage and deployment strength of a thin carbon fiber-reinforced polymer shell capable of being rolled and stowed in a tight rolled configuration. The intent of this structure is for use as a segment of a larger deployable reflective aperture. This study involved finite element analysis of several laminates, coupon-level and full-scale prototype testing, which provided a much needed insight and benchmark of composite shells used in this manner.

The second …

Cover, Ornitología Neotropical

Ornitología Neotropical

No abstract provided.

Cover, Ornitología Neotropical

Ornitología Neotropical

No abstract provided.

Fengcong, Fenglin, Cone Karst And Tower Karst, Tony Waltham

KIP Articles

engcong and fenglin are the two major types of karst terrain as defined in Chinese literature. They correlate only loosely with the Western terms of cone and tower karst respectively. With its isolated towers rising from a karst plain, fenglin is the most extreme form of karst landscape, and much of it may evolve from fengcong where tectonic uplift is critically slow, but overall it appears to be polygenetic. It is suggested that fengcong and fenglin are more useful karst terms with genetic implications and should take precedence, while cones and towers should be used purely as descriptive terms.

Sizing Of An Ammonia Discharge Tank, Tuliagenda Beckfords

Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two

Phosphate companies use well-stirred tanks to regulate the concentration of ammonia they discharge via their wastewater, preventing ammonia spikes from exceeding the cap set by the Environmental Protection Agency. This report discusses the methods used to determine the minimum possible volume of the tank required to regulate wastewater discharge. With this information, it was determined that the use of a stirring tank is an efficient and cost effective way to regulate ammonia discharge. Based on these results many other companies may use this method to decrease the negative effects of ammonia on the environment.

Design Of A Rainwater Catchment System, Neil Cammardella

Undergraduate Journal of Mathematical Modeling: One + Two

Certain dimensions of a rainwater catchment and storage system were optimized using climatological and sociological data. Using only daily demand and average daily rain fall data, the following dimensions were optimized: 1) The horizontal roof area needed to collect the daily demand of water, 2) The tank size needed to store all the water collected during a heavy rain event, 3) When full, how long the tank will be able to provide water without rain, and 4) The diameter of the outlet flow orifice. With these calculations, we can design a rainwater catchment system that can capture the daily demand …

Cover, Ornitología Neotropical

Ornitología Neotropical

No abstract provided.

Eyes Don't Lie: Understanding Users' First Impressions On Website Design Using Eye Tracking, Sirjana Dahal

Masters Theses

"Websites are becoming more prevalent these days. They need to create a favorable first impression on the users during initial exposure. After allocating their attention to stimuli, users form a cognitive representation of the visual information leading to first impression. Hence, first impression is important to evaluate the effectiveness of a website. This research tries to examine the amount of exposure time needed to form first impression; identify the web design factors that influence the formation of users' first impression; study the emotional responses of users on website design; and finally understand the relationship between first impression and eye movement. …